Category: Tech20 Notes

Organize Your Browser with Symbaloo

Given that more than half of our computing time is spent on Internet sites, organization of our bookmarks, feeds, and tools is vital.  www.symbaloo.com is a great way to organize and customize your browser desktop, a desktop that is available to you on any computer you use.

Here is the Prezi from the session, though there isn’t much detail here

Here is a short video I created illustration the basic setup and navigation of the Symbaloo page.

Symbaloo, Your Power Pack to Internet Efficiency from Greg Dhuyvetter on Vimeo.

Nothing Up My Sleeve, Prezi!

Prezi is an exciting alternative to PowerPoint, using the power of the web and flash animation to group ideas as a mind map for use as a support for lecture or as a presentation of ideas.

Today’s Prezi

The Lost Episode

Well, the video of this session didn’t work at all, and the PowerPoint Slides didn’t make much sense with out the narration, so I guess I’ll have to make this session the Lost Session

Windows 7, A First Look: How Could You Go Wrong with an Operating System Made by Microsoft?
There is a great deal of interest in the new Microsoft Operating System.  Based on my experience with the Release Candidate, I believe that this is a real improvement over any previous version of Windows.

In this session I gave a bit of history about its evolution, outlined and demonstrated a few new features, and discuss upgrade options.

Additional notes for this sessions can be found at www.delicious.com/gdhuyvetter/windows7

Note: I just found another article by Ed Bott at ZDnet about alternative legitimate ways to get Windows 7 inexpensively:

Seven perfectly legal ways to get Windows 7 cheap (or even free)

Video of this Presentation

I had a little difficulty this week with the video and had to finish with a screencast.

Windows 7 Overview from Greg Dhuyvetter on Vimeo.

PowerPoint Slides

Recording, Posting, and Distributing Screencasts: Becoming a Multimedia Superstar!

Screencasts are remarkably simple and inexpensive to produce.  With some practice, anyone can make a professional looking instructional video.

Further notes on this presentation can be found at

www.delicious.com/gdhuyvetter/screencasts

New Website/Podcast

“Changing Platforms/Changing Paradigms”

www.PlatformsandParadigms.com

Video of this presentation

Tech 20 Season 2 Session 2 from Greg Dhuyvetter on Vimeo.

PowerPoint Slides of This PresentationScreencasts

An Introduction to Social Networking Sites: I Don’t Have Space in My Life for Myspace, and I Can’t Face Facebook

May 15, 2009

Like them or hate them, social network pages like Facebook and Myspace have become a widespread method of meeting and communicating for students and for adults.  As teachers we don’t have to have our own Facebook pages, but it is important that we understnd this phenomenon so we can separate the hype and the hysteria from the reality and so we can give students and parents appropriate adbvice and direction direction.

Video of This Presentation

Tech 20 Session 13 from Greg Dhuyvetter on Vimeo.

PowerPoint Slides from This Presentation

 

Further Links May Be Found at:  www.delicious.com/gdhuyvetter/socialnetwork

Online Notebooks:  Now Where Did I See That?

May 7, 2009

This week we’re tying things together.  Taking the example of term paper preparation, I tried to show how search, social bookmarking, and social notbooking tooks are the essential building blocks of information management.  We looked at three tools: Ubernote, a relatively simple and plain vanilla system, Evernote, a very robust commercial product, and Zoho notebook, a full featured product with a weak clipping system.

PowerPoint Slides

Video

Tech 20 Session 12 from Greg Dhuyvetter on Vimeo.

Notebook from Greg Dhuyvetter on Vimeo.

Additional resources can be found at: www.delicious.com/gdhuyvetter/notebooks

Not a full presenttation, but I  heard a great podcast yesterday from Cnet’s The Real Deal discussing multiple-location computing.  

Listen to it here

Many of the tools we have discussed at the Tech 20 sessions (including some from the coming week’s session) are mentioned here.
It’s a great way to continue thinking about anytime/anywhere computing.

Enjoy!

Google Earth:  Take the Picture Again, My Eyes Were Closed!

April 30, 2009

Google Earth is a desktop/web application that is incredible now, and will be the canvas on which teachers will build amazing new functions and capabilities.  Like many tools, it’s easy to be intimidated by the huge number of tools available, so it is worthwhile to play with the program using tools one by one to find out what is useful and what is not.

Coupled with the built in functions is the huge and growing library of free downloadable layers that plug in to the program.  Searching Google or using one of the sites listed on the Delicious page can yield a library of options.

To take this even further, there are great projects that students or you can do with the tools of Google Earth, again a Google search and some of the pages I’ve listed will allow you to see what other teachers in all subject areas are doing with Google earth.

PowerPoint Slides

Tech 20 Session 11 from Greg Dhuyvetter on Vimeo.

Additional Resources may be found at www.delicious.com/gdhuyvetter/googleearth

Alternate Browsers: Why You Would and Wouldn’t Want to Use Them

April 23, 2009

I almost always pick my topics before I think I want to say about them (actually I write the titles first). It seemed that computer literate  people should know about different browser options, but I had to think a long time to figure out why this was important to me and to others.  

We are moving from an OS-centric world to a browser-centric one.  More and more of our work is done online.  Therefore the choice of browser is as key or more than the choice of a computer.  The browser is where we work, where we read and where we connect with others…it should be a comfortable fit,

This session discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the big three operating systems.

PowerPoint Slides