This video post will give you an overview of Twitter and explain the hash tag symbol (#) that is used to group discussions by topic.

Soluto runs in the background and looks at your boot process on your PC. Once that has been done, the program begins to offer suggestions on ways to speed up your process. What I really like about the program is that you do not have to be an expert to understand it. It offers suggestions in a “no brainer”, “advanced” and “you can not remove that” type of approach to help you tweek your boot process. Point and click to what you want to tweek and its done.

The program is for Windows only.

Check out the video to learn more:

Soluto – Anti Frustration Software from Soluto on Vimeo.

I had been pricing different video recorders and wondered if Flip had responded to the educational market by offering and educational discount. I am happy to report that they have!!

Flip has an offer to allow 2 for 1 offers to classroom teachers. (maximum of 4 units) You can find the details to the offer here: http://www.theflip.com/en-us/buy/educators.aspx

Using Flip Video cameras you can add a lot of varations to online presentations. Discussions in the Podcast Academy include the use of video in podcasts to assist students with learning content. Students are expressing to me that it helps them learn the content and they enjoy it more than using just a text based presentation alone.

I have enclosed one example of a learning station I created several years ago for introductions of students to content and also incorporations of review materials all into one presentation. Perhaps this may give you some ideas on using video in your own classroom.

65776 ]]> http://markquinn.net/blog5/2010/05/15/flip-video-educational-discounts/feed/ 0 http://markquinn.net/blog5/2010/05/14/ipod-apps-for-education/ http://markquinn.net/blog5/2010/05/14/ipod-apps-for-education/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 19:15:15 +0000 Mark Quinn http://markquinn.net/blog5/?p=94 The Excondido Union School District has compiled a list of some of the apps to be considered for education for the IPOD. This list is done in Google Docs and is searchable and can be filtered by subject, grade level and price.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/lv?key=tenru11ELMGfma9kDka2moQ&type=view&gid=0&f=true&sortcolid=4&sortasc=true&rowsperpage=250

I have always felt that Itunes was a very soundly designed software package for what it was designed to do. I generally recommended that people might wish to consider staying with that product for ease of use. Once you learn how you can capture other RSS feeds for podcasts that are not carried by Itunes, I really do not see the need to go searching for another program. The interface between the library and device is really nearly fool proof.

I happen to see a posting on Lifehacker that polled readers on what the best podcast manager software might be. They reviewed the features of: gPodder, Zune, Miro, Itunes, and Juice.

I was happy to see that many others also feel that Itunes is a quality software package to work with podcasts. See the results of the survey below:

Results from Lifehacker Survey

As a side note… if you are not following Lifehacker’s RSS Feed or checking out their site, I highly recommend doing so. The quality of the writing and the ideas to save time or create really unusual things to be more efficient is very good.

Mindy Bedrossian and I met when she took the Podcasting Academy workshop at WVIZ Ideastream in Cleveland, Ohio. Soon after taking the workshop, she contacted me concerning an idea for a grant she had called Generation to Generation and was working to secure the funding through The Toyota Tapestry Foundation.

The grant involved recording the oral history of local senior citizens about what life was like before the scientific revolution. The recording and interviews were all to be done by the students in Mindy’s classroom. The project description read:

The years from 1900 to 1999 saw the most dramatic changes in the history of mankind in science, technology, warfare, transportation, and health. From horses to the space shuttle, slide rules to computers, leeches to chemotherapy, and from libraries to the Internet, the advances of this past century has changed society forever. Students will visit the elderly and record their stories about what life was like before antibiotics, refrigeration, chemotherapy, and computers. These very important primary sources will soon be gone, and their testimonies of how life drastically changed for them will soon disappear forever. Students will then create pod casts of these interviews, developing a permanent audio collection of primary sources for future generations.

It was a lot of fun to see the skills Mindy learned in the Podcast Academy workshop put to use with students. The edited versions of the podcast were very nicely done and the amount of primary source information that the students collected and will be retained was amazing. It was very interesting to hear all the details of how things were done before we have the modren tools we take for granted today.

The project has caught the attention of many people in the community. It has been featured on WKYC TV-3 with Romona’s Kids and Mindy was recently accepted to travel to a conference in Calf. to speak about her experience with Generatiion to Generation.

I had looked at Mind’s website this morning and saw that she was featured on NPR recently. She has already clued me in that there is another production in the works for next year. I don’t know what is involved yet’ but this was so much fun, I can’t wait to get started!

Check out the Generation to Generation Podcasts at this link.

I will be running the first of 2010′s series of podcast workshops at WVIZ starting on 1/6/09 at 4:30 PM. Its not too late to sign up.

Call Eric Siler today at WVIZ – 216-916-6358 for more information and registration.

There is a serious market for people who are seeking larger storage devices and the solid state memory at 4, 8, 16, and 32 GB just wont meet the need. I personally do not wish to re-sync my device with what I want to listen to at the moment. I prefer to have the materials on hand when the need arises. Apple has choosen to focus on production of devices that won’t meet my needs…what to do?

Today I found a company that will install a larger hard drive into your IPOD for about $300. It does void the warranty, however it will answer the need for space.

Rapid Repair is the name of the company. Learn more at this website: http://www.rapidrepair.com/shop/ipod-video-hard-drives.html

Mr. Bishop – http://wgphotography.podbean.com/
Ms. McManamon – http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/27561/mrsmnm/recent
Mr. Obrien – http://timothyjob.podbean.com/

Digital Enterprise – an open educational resource that surveys the opportunities and challenges mangers face in an increasingly digital world
Educational Podcast Netwok - The Education Podcast Network is an effort to bring together into one place, the wide range of podcast programming that may be helpful to teachers looking for content to teach with and about, and to explore issues of teaching and learning.
Karen’s Mashups – Compilations fo digital content for K-12 educators

What podcasts and feeds are on my IPOD? Glad you asked, check out the RSS feed below to find out.