Audio Tools sandbox

I tried vocaroo first and had to fiddle for a few minutes before I figured out how to make my laptop microphone work.  This site was very easy to use.

I spent too much time playing with voki.  I couldn't figure out how to "embed" the avatar so that it showed up on this blog....I had to google things  like, "how to use voki with blogger" and I finally came across something that enabled me to figure it out.  It makes the page take a while to load.  I used the text to speech option on the second avatar I made (and subsequently ended up using) because I'm not fond of my own voice.  I love that text to speech thing.

Trying to use the voki avatar as my profile photo didn't work, which led me to going to yet another avatar site and making a new avatar and using that.  I play way too much.

 My latest avatar.

Odiogo wasn't working today.  I tried to sign up but I got this message: "We do not accept new signups at this time."  I filled in the "blogger" info so I could have my blog "audiofied" but it doesn't appear to be working either.

I know many school libraries use Follett and their Destiny catalog has options so that students (and teachers) can leave comments about books they've read.  Audio might be a fun option for elementary students who can't type very quickly, to do mini book talks.  It might even encourage all students (even high school) to be willing to leave and listen to feedback about reading.

Norfolk visit

After finding the Education Building on Monday and seeing classmates and the professors for the first time, I met Bill and we worked together on the video project.  We finished sooner than expected and it went off with very few do-overs.

On Tuesday, we worked on iPads in teams of two and looked at apps.  Since I don't have an iPad or a Mac, these two days gave me great exposure to iPads.  My partner was Rebecca Dalton from 678 and we got along great.  We had lunch together and talked about our families and our jobs.  She is an elementary school teacher who wants to teach Kindergarten and eventually be a librarian.  I was an Elementary Librarian last year, and I decided I don't want to do that again - so that was fun to talk about.

I enjoyed all of the sessions.  I learned a lot more about ebooks and their role in libraries from the Mackin representative and the doctoral student who talked about her elementary library at Quantico. The panel discussion about ebooks gave me a lot to think about.  I had never seen Adobe Connect in action, so that was informative. I enjoyed hearing how other librarians use ebooks in their libraries, school and public.  I learned about the problems that can come up - like the story about the library being sued because they loaned out ereaders that didn't read the text.  

I found out what "assistive technology" means.  Most of the "gadgets and gizmos" were new to me and I would love the opportunity to play around with them further. It seems that having technology that will read books aloud is a big deal, and not just for the blind.  That technology is also useful for people with many other issues.

It was very interesting to put faces and names together during these two days. I was surprised initially that an "online class" would have a required campus visit, and many people had to drive a long way to get there.  It took me 3 1/2 hours.  But I enjoyed seeing Norfolk and the beautiful ODU campus.  I feel that I finally figured out exactly how to get where I needed to go on campus...and it was time to go home.

Using Videolicious

Bill Fazzini and I spent two days chatting and emailing back and forth to make our storyboard and hash out ideas.  I think we did a great job on campus because we were able to use the storyboard as it was, so we didn't waste any time doing the "think work" on Monday.  We just got right to taking our pictures and videos. 

Bill was organized and well-prepared. He had already worked on a title shot and an ending with the credits.  His voice was perfect for the voice-over.  I did notice that Videolicious cut off some of our pictures and videos. We were timing everything and getting in exactly what we wanted, but a little bit of the end of the videos didn't show up and I think the pictures were more cropped than I expected. 

I was glad for the exposure to iPads and apps as I don't have any Apple items to play with right now.  I definitely need to get an iPad and play around with it. 

Here is a link to the video Bill and I created:


https://www.dropbox.com/s/g2pigjdge4w6sq0/Video%20Jun%2024%2C%202%2029%2026%20PM.mov

Digital Storytelling

Of the five digital storytelling sites that I reviewed, I think I would start with yodio if I were a teacher in a high school.  The others all have possibilities, as well, but right up front I like the yodio site for a high school project because it uses the most-important-of-all-devices (to students), the cell phone, to record the narratives.  It is free and easy to use, and doesn't seem too cartoonish for high school students.


Domo Animate

This site can be a time-sink.  It was very, very easy to use, but the options are just limitless.  I spent a while just randomly making a cartoon with the gingerbread man and a cat and a bear.  I spent a long time on the site but there are more embellishments I could play with - like the FX features.  I lost the gingerbread man when I created an account, but then I made another "cartoon" with a ninja (only 8 seconds long).   I think this site would be fascinating for middle or high school and it would be a fun way to present information on a topic or present research for a project.  It might take time teaching some of the features but it would be very easy to use after that. 

http://domo.goanimate.com/movie/0KSqf2GRIkgE/1

In addition to these cartoons or videos, domo.goanimate also has a slideshow feature. 


















The link below ("Nick") is to a 30 second Animoto "video" I made using some very hastily uploaded pictures of Nicholas.  I would love to have played around with the free educator version and make longer videos, but I do not have a valid school email address right now and it wouldn't let me sign up.

Nick   http://animoto.com/play/6031ufYrvhcKSBLo6nGeYA


I hope one of those links will work.


Yodio - I had not heard of "yodios" before.  So, you upload a pictures....or a series of pictures...and then you call yodio on the phone and record yourself saying things.  This creates a video with your voice narrating.  I need to actually do one to see how the voice lines up with the pictures.  The main problem here is that I absolutely hate my voice. 



Storybird - I already had a storybird account from 2010.  Unfortunately, my account was inactive and I could find a way to reactivate it so I had to use the "contact us" feature to try to figure out what was wrong. They wrote back and said they activated my account again and I made this "storybook":

http://storybird.com/books/gnf5ve5c88/edit/

I think this site would be best suited for elementary school, because the results look like "picture books" or "easy books".

The 50-Word Stories site is a big example of flash fiction.  This could be used as examples of 50-Word stories if you wanted to make an assignment where students would write their own 50-word stories with exactly 50 words, no more and no less.

Piktochart.com

Trying to learn how to use software for the first time is not exactly fun. I like piktochart but there is a definite learning curve.  I had to keep the faq open so I could figure out how to group things together, delete uploaded images, and so on.  Other than having to use piktochart for the first time, I guess my main issue is that I don't have a clear idea of what to make the infographic about.

Because this infographic's purpose is to teach seventh graders how to use piktochart to make an infographic, I am sticking with the free version.  In order to be relevant to seventh graders, I chose the topic of video games and thought I could do a quick infographic on the most popular ones.  It has turned into a long project.  I think trying to find the information while I'm designing is the first hurdle.  At least these students will already have their topic and research done when they are making their infographics.

Some of the questions and problems I've run into:

1.  I had to watch demos and read up before I could use piktograph.  Apparently, the first version that comes up (Magic?) doesn't work on my computer, so I was trying to learn how to do something that wasn't even there.  I reverted to the older version and finally got what I was supposed to see.

2.  About the licenses:  I used wikimedia commons to find common logos for XBox and PS3 and Nintendo and so on, but I can't find most of the game covers to show on the infographic. Do I need to find game covers with "free to use" licenses?  Wouldn't the game creators be happy to have the free publicity?

3.  Do you have to cite information on everything you use?  I don't notice that on other infographics and posting long URL's would be breaking one of the design principles.   

4.  The free version of piktochart only allows five uploaded images.  I blew that allowance with the game system logos, so I am left with using text alone to do the rest of it.  And the graphics offered with the free version are specific to the one of five themes you chose.  I chose one that was about recycling so none of those graphics are relevant.

5.  There is no definite place to find "the most popular video games."  There is a "top 100" list on gamesradar.com, but I discovered that most of the games listed are older than the 7th grade students. I eventually realized that I had better narrow my search to "the most popular video games of 2013" but, again, who is a credible source for this?  Amazon.com and IMDb have their opinions and they are recognizable sites, so will they do?

6.  The infographic needs to be minimal because the assignment is to teach 7th grade students to use piktochart via this infographic in about 20 minutes.  Too many bells and whistles will take too long to demonstrate. Maybe it is faster to demonstrate how piktochart works instead of figuring it out by yourself?

7.  Apparently there is no way to change colors of the text...or anything...unless you do a "mood change".  I wonder if this is different with the PRO version?

8.  I didn't do any charts or graphs....is this okay?

Image Editing (week 3, June 2-9)

 

I used BeFunky.com to make a sketch of a photograph I had.  This is a picture of me holidng two kittens (now they are two huge, long haired beasts).  I liked the effect - this was "Sketcher".  I found this image editor under "Image Editors" in the image editing folder.

I played with many of the tools shown, but I immediately recognized K-12 instruction ideas with these three:

Foldplay - all of the things you could make with pictures were fun here, but I really liked the foldbook.  Making books during library classes can be used to accomplish many things, like demonstrating that you know what information appears on the front and back cover of a book or making a "trailer" or synopsis of a book you've read, you could use the book as the final project of a research  assignment - you could post what you found out in the book.

Image Chef - I loved this site.  There were so many things to do - add frames to existing photographs or do things with words... here are two examples"

 I did this picture with "photo frames"  - it put the goldfish over my picture. (My picture is of my toes when I got a pedicure that involved putting your feet into a tank of fish. Yuck.)

I made this using "flower text" on Image Chef.  In order to actually put the picture here, though, I had to join the site and email it to myself.  I tried to just embed it in blogger, but that didn't work.

With Image Chef, you can make word mosaics (which would help reinforce vocabulary or other information), make signs and posters about anything, summarize and distill what you read or learned into a sign....

BigHugeLabs - this site could be used in K-12 instruction in countless ways.  You can create magazine covers to illustrate a time or event in History, a jigsaw puzzle to showcase a painting made in Art, a movie poster that advertises a novel or short story read in English...



I made a "badge" using my cat's picture.  This badge could be changed to represent anything - to give biographical information on a famous figure, perhaps, or a fictional character.

 

Bloom's New Taxonomy Questions

 



 

 

 

Koshyk. 250,000 Views. Digital image. Flickr. Yahoo!, 07 Feb. 2009. Web. 09 June 2013. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/97235261@N00/3258635135/in/photolist-5XXmGp-5YwFF7-61D1Eu-63tBfo-63CPtK-67Fbca-6bFaho-6bJqSn-6hdSjb-6mD49Y-6n37Nn-6nPzoU-6o3KKs-6y5h3e-6FbKmG-6FGXDN-6J6zSs-6RLajK-71SUUe-71WM9C-738LVi-73vJbq-7d4eYo-7ePbqX-7gfP6g-7h7vjR-7hbtXh-7jUWau-7jUWcd-7jUWdh-7m1rRc-7pXwjT-7qweek-7qHzE5-7sLQrx-7ur47h-7vS5GW-bbFPHc-cpyAbf-9Xg1gG-7SuYLh-dW7sjE-cPmyD7-8knpw1-8knoRo-8kno9J-8knks5-8kj8bV-8kj1KH-c4hQAo-dvPbG5>.

 

 

 

Remembering

 

1. What does this statue represent?

2. What is the name of this god?

 

 

Understanding

 

1. Why is this god represented with an elephant's head?

 

2. Can you list 3 body characteristics of this god and what it means about the god?

 

 

Applying

 

1. What title would you give this god that would accurately represent what he can do for his subjects?

2. What other gods have we studied that serve the same purpose as this one?

 

Analyzing

1. Can you list at least 3 characteristics of this god that you can pick out of the picture and tell what they represent?

 

2. How does this god compare to the Hindu god, Shiva?

 

Evaluating

1. Do you think this god should be valued highly among Hindu people? Why or why not?

2. If you wrote the story about finding a replacement head for this god, would you have chosen an elephant's head?

 

Creating

 

1. If you could create a god with animal attributes, what woud it look like? (Design a god with animal attributes.)

2. Write a description of your god and tell what traits about the animal you chose mean about your "god".



Tagxedo and Wordle

After playing with both "word cloud" creating sites, I like tagxedo better.  I like the shapes and it was much easier to save my cloud with tagxedo.  With wordle, I had to go looking for a tutorial on how to save it and the it was more steps than I cared to do.  I did find a 6 minutes video on youtube where someone was kind enough to walk me through the steps.

I used the same words on both tagxedo and wordle and created these:

tagxedo:

wordle (I needed to reopen this and crop it to get rid of the "print screen" look, but I decided to leave it to show how many extra steps were needed to save this):

I think the word clouds are pretty but I have to admit I was lacking in creativity when it came to imagining how I could use these for a library class.  I looked up "what is wordle good for" and found several slide shows and sites that gave ideas on how the word clouds could be used. 

Creative Commons' licenses

Creative commons.org is a website where creators (licensors) can get a "some rights reserved" copyright license for their creative work. Creators have automatic "all rights reserved" copyright licenses granted for their work, but sometimes the creator wants to share their work and allow some rights to it. CC helps these creators create this license and put their work on the web with this information so that others know what rights they can take with the work.

CC has six (6) types of licenses - all with different levels of restrictions. These licenses are listed below, with examples of a work found under each license. All photographs were found using the search term "library" through flickr.com and search.creativecommons.org.

Attribution CC license:

Chrisoph John SSF. Library, Hermitage of St Bernardine, Stroud, NSW. 2009. Photograph. Flickr. Web. 1 June 2013. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/25869855@N04/4609212148/in/photolist-82iqbY-7GybVd-ci8s7s-8J9dpB-7NLsZ5-a29Zpc-bFwGMK-82ipB5-9GjrkA-8sU778-9ombUH-a2Ji3Q-a2JicE-a2Ji2w-a2FqrH-a2Fqqi-a2Ji5E-a2Ji9m-a2Ji1m-a2Fqi4-a2FqtZ-8y9Z1Y-7TqiTv-8bTupW-dzexfd-7Gug3x-9KdZx1-dNaCkN-dz1rFS-91sfYx-91vnqw-9KdXMb-7RerPp-dWBfuK-dWBfA6-dWGTps-8hsLFp-8hsUNc-8hsC4v-8hsLFD-8hsC3p-8hsUNn-8hsUNt-8hsUMP-8hsC3c-8hsC3z-8hsC4F-8hsUN6-8hsC4i-8hsLFP-8hsLFV>.

An Attribution license allows others to use, adapt, and build on a work, even for commercial puposes. CC claims that this is "the most accomodating of licenses offered." A creator would choose this type of license if they want their work to be widely disseminatied and used.




Attribution-NoDerivs CC license:

Library of Knowledge. N.d. Photograph. Flickr. By ShironekoEuro. Yahoo!, 07 Nov. 2009. Web. 01 June 2013. http://www.flickr.com/photos/41893519@N07/4082793837/in/photolist-7dMonc-7m6YVQ-7wPkfq-7wPkD5-7wPm4q-7wPmqJ-9JT4Mc-95W8fR-dREqkt-dREqnp-axHXWW-dREqpK-efLA3m-8cUJYe-8cUJUk-8eRE6u-8gaQFX-boiVf3-9SgomZ-8fQ1KZ-7NQoFk-7KvGd1-9MWP4X-bAuCiT-aWYYon-9Hh1Lg-8emKkW-8z9keK-8BWuPW-9kjWxg-9kk2Bk-9knYyU-9kBksA-8BTqvr-8BTqUk-9kynaK-9kBHi7-9kymMH-8BTsgT-8BTrgZ-8BTt5r-dPN7ox-dPN7hp-8BTsGg-d5je5w-d5jeoN-d5jf6y-9bzDWA-9kyiQg-d6etMd-9kyj4X.


An Attribution-NoDerivs allows licensees to redistribute the work for commercial and non-commercial use, but the work has to stay unchanged and credit must be given to the creator.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC license:

Library. 2010. Photograph. Flickr. By Chanzi. Yahoo!, 16 May 2010. Web. 01 June 2013. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035641446@N01/4766096416/in/photolist-8gauq9-bmsAaa-bmsAdi-bmsA5k-bmsA34-bmszZi-bmszHP-bmszPZ-bmszSX-bmszVV-bmszLP-bmszzM-bmsA7D-bmszC6-bmsAjB-8NyGBS-8PUnXz-8PXoJQ-8PUmqF-b7kgZa-9Q5MFa-8PUucp-dqXXR8-9pKc1u-8Y7ayt-dbiiF4-9iz6kf-7JVb8W-7Gd3Uf-83g8KU-bDJprR-dke4aj-btMUqM-btMV14-btMUJk-btMUPp-btMUw4-btMUCP-btMV7e-btMUcr-btMUk2-btMU6p-9fR4QL-aYZT9v-dzjtfm>.


Without a proper title, it is hard to find out what library is being shown. I think this is at Cornell.

Some creators want others to be able to adapt and build on and change their work, but they restrict this to non-commercial use and any new creations from the work have to be licensed in the exact way as the original. This type of license is called an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Attribution-ShareAlike CC license:

Library. 2010. Photograph. Flickr. By AnAstray. Yahoo!, 11 June 2010. Web. 01 June 2013. http://www.flickr.com/photos/15975620@N00/4470824157/in/photolist-7P59g8-ehJHzE-cWVz83-8VX5LU-diwxvL-e3TfBB-bEdvdb-8TGvTy-8nY6jZ-8dyXza-cVBBSU-ae1iVR-7xLBot-efJHse-8kW6Uv-dsAYcC-brq1Yt-8TekAv-ehJJiw-8GSqC1-9uZ42g-9MAJya-9ZUs9z-8KgS3r-9dZ3FP-8dyWUv-8wGzqA-cV4aPU-ajxkqG-9hHfQV-7ZQz3g-9AWZ4N-dR8guv-d5hJV3-bSyHu2-cDPZvG-bs8XDo-9Zdw13-bYGd85-8rjjrC-dxo7BH-9kFRhh-9Zb97F-8UConj-8D8mwy-8K1zjP-8eAj7n-8eDz3h-8eDyGL.


An Attribution-ShareAlike license grants rights to others to use and adapt a creator's work - even for commercial purposes. The user (licensee) has to then credit the creator and license their work in the same way. Wikipedia uses this type of license.


Attribution-NonCommercial CC license:

Hearst Castle Library Interior. 2011. Photograph. Flickr. By Filosoph. Yahoo!, 25 Mar. 2011. Web. 01 June 2013. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/filosoph/5570568944/>.


Much like the Attribution-ShareAlike license, the Attribution-NonCommercial license allows others to adapt/change a work for non-commercial reasons and required acknowledgement of the creator, but the subsequent work does not have to be licenses in the same way as the original.


Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC license:

Brežice Library Entrance Hall, 2009. 2009. Photograph. Culture.SI. By Aleksander Lilik. 26 Nov. 2009. Web. 1 June 2013. <http://www.culture.si/en/File:Bre%C5%BEice_Library_2009_entrance.jpg>.


The most restrictive license is the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs. Allowing only non-commercial use, this license allows others to download and share a work, but the work can not be changed in any way and credit must be given to the creator.


I don't think that I found a great difference in the type and amount of images for "library" under the different license types. However, I did notice a great difference in the ease of finding a photograph under each of the six licenses. Using flickr.com directly was the best way to do this, as I discovered using search.creativecommons.org. It took some searching to be find out how to do the search with a particular license, as well.