Looking for sound effects for video or podcats?
Posted by: bulljohn on: December 3, 2008
Description from their website – “The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, … released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to
- browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a “sounds-like” type of browsing and more
- up and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license
- interact with fellow sound-artists!
We also aim to create an open database of sounds that can also be used for scientific research. Many audio research institutions have trouble finding correctly licensed audio to test their algorithms. Many have voiced this problem, but so far there hasn’t been a solution.”
This website does require users to register for a free acount before being able to contribute or download sound effects.
Use google to create Custom Maps
Posted by: bulljohn on: November 6, 2008
- In: Apps| ELA| Science| Social Studies| Websites
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Google custom maps allow you to design and share maps with others. You may make a map of historical events such as the battles of the American Revolution, or chart the path of a novel. To begin customizing a map go to maps.google.com – login, if you aren’t already. Click the My Maps link below the logo, then click create a new map.
Type in a title and description for the map. Click in the search box to type in a location you would like to add to your map. When you correctly find the location you want click on the balloon and save to my maps, and select the correct custom map. While you are developing your map you can even collaborate with other and share the work load for completing a map.
Custon Map of American Revolutionary events
You can now type additional information about the site, including web links, pictures and even embed video clips. Once you are done with your map and you want to share it with others, click the link button above the map and copy and paste the email url link. Send it whomever needs to use the map.
Check out my map of the American Revolution at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=101552795040951093249.00045aca2da3338130e5a&z=7
You could also have student create maps to correspond with different novels or historical events as teams or individually. (Students would need only be invited as collaborators and may not even need a google account -although this hasn’t been tested.)
-JB
G-Casting
Posted by: adriengleason on: September 18, 2008
G-Cast is a podcast host with a number of cool features worthy of checking out. Not only does it host your podcasts and provide you with the rss feed so that your students can subscribe, it has a feature which allows you to use your mobile phone to record a simple podcast without even needing to use your computer! If you are interested in undertaking podcasting you should give it a look!
Microsoft WorldWide Telescope Software
Posted by: bulljohn on: May 28, 2008
The following text lifted liberally from an email I received from hubblesite, it does require a download and install to use.
“Bring the power of the Hubble Space Telescope to your computer screen, browsing the universe for astronomical phenomena in striking detail. Hubble images in full resolution are now available through Microsoft Research’s free WorldWide Telescope (WWT) software. Pan across the constellations to find objects of interest and zoom in for close-ups, or zoom out for context. Hear professional Hubble astronomers explain the stories, science and significance of the objects in guided tours, or make your own tours to share with the public. WorldWide Telescope includes not only Hubble images, but a rich collection of visuals from both ground and space telescopes in visible light, infrared, x-ray, radio and other wavelengths. The universe in its full glory is yours to explore. “
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/
This software is like a planetarium on your computer but the level of detail way exceeds anything I’ve ever seen at a museum as it uses the Hubble space telescope. Users can develop their own tours of celestial objects or view those created by other with quick downloads, including audio. This program is a must look at for teachers of astronomy and those of us who dream of the stars.
JB
Google is Great!
Posted by: bulljohn on: May 28, 2008
Here is just another feature of Google to make you obsession with all things online complete. Google Alerts are searches delivered on a regular basis to your email. Basically you tell Google to constantly scour the web for new pages, blogs, wiki entries, etc that meet you search parameters and then as it finds them, each day, week, or live it will send you an email with the results.
You can manage your alerts by deleting them or adding new ones, by changing what types of websites are searched by each alerts and soon probably more as this currently is a beta project (in testing stage not ready for wide release).
JB
Educational Technology Research
Posted by: bulljohn on: May 15, 2008
Just wanted to capture a couple websites into my “Digital Memory” as I read interesting articles about each this week.
Multimodal learning through Media – This was a study commissioned by Cisco where it was determined that kids learn best when simultaneously exposed to the same information via different modes.(Audio, Visual, etc)
Survey on Students view of Technology in Education – This survey/research shows a large gap between students expectations and how schools teach with technology. Shen should participate in this research in the future as the data is aggregated and keep individual.
John B
Photoshop express BETA!
Posted by: bulljohn on: May 14, 2008
- In: Art| Websites
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This is a beta which means the company is in the beginning stages of testing this product and little or no support is available. This is similar to the idea of Picnik in that you can upload photos and edit them online without the need for specialized software.
You may need to update or install a newer version of Adobe Flash to use this website, but it will prompt you to do so if necessary.
You can store upto 2gb of pictures on Photoshop Express or connect to your Flickr account.
Editing of pictures is pretty straight forward but Adobe is way behing Picnik in terms of the options available. At this point I’m going to stick with Picnik but this is worth putting in your del.icio.us bookmarks because as they develop the product it will ineviatbly see added features.
http://www.photoshop.com/express
John B
Free Music for Use in your creative projects.
Posted by: adriengleason on: April 24, 2008
- In: Music| Websites
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Creative Commons licensing has been established so that unsigned artists can distribute their music. An added feature of this type of licensing is that these artists allow others to put their original work in their own projects. http://www.podsafeaudio.com/ is a great repository of this kind of music. It is neatly categorized and grouped, to make looking for just the right sound, that much easier.
Feel free to use this music in your podcasts and video projects.
AMG
