I can (seemingly) find anything I want to on YouTube! I find myself searching YouTube for things that come up in general conversation the same way I do with the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). Having "primary source" information when having a discussion about old television shows, segments on Sesame Street that one remembers, or old footage of a favorite rock band is great! (And this is in addition to the huge number of educational videos to be found there, too.)Here is today's sequence of events that led to YouTube and continued to amaze me as to its breadth....1. Talking about the NCAA Final Four championship game with two colleagues.2. Continued the discussion about the women's Final Four game tonight.(My son is a UConn student and a rabid fan and is in St. Louis for the game.)3. He had told me, if UConn men had made the Final Four, that Dale, the "blue and white" guy, was going to try to get back and forth between the women's and the men's games.4. My colleagues and I then moved on to conversations about other famous "painted" people, most notably the Tin Man and Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.5. We discussed how scared we were when Margaret Hamilton would come out as the witch, and one colleague remembered watching an interview with her on Mr. Rogers. She remembered how kind and gentle Ms. Hamilton was during the interview, and how she tried to humanize the witch to make the character less scary for children.6. One quick search, and I had the clip to show her.YouTube rocks! (And why is it blocked in so many schools?)Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I just download a new application from the iPhone app store called Coupon Sherpa which defines itself as an "in-store coupon application for the iPhone."You simply browse for a store or restaurant by category or check the alphabetical list for your favorites. Most coupons show up with barcodes that can be scanned in at the register when checking out. (Others lead you to the offer on the vendor's Web site.) As of this posting, there are 178 coupons in 111 stores in Coupon Sherpa, including many major retailers.The app is only $1.99, but, in celebration of Earth Day, and to highlight one of Coupon Sherpa's goals "to reduce the amount of paper that is wasted by printing coupons", the application is free until this Friday, April 29. (But well-worth the cost of the app anytime!)I cannot wait to try it out later today when I go shopping. It will be interesting to see how handing the iPhone to the cashier will go over, but I think they had better get used to it!Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

During the past month or so, I have realized people are beginning to use Twitter as their main form of communication. I am a regular Twitter user and follower, but do not keep it open on my desktop all day. I use it how it is intended to be used-- to post quick items of interest or respond with a short message to someone seeking help on a topic. And I think carefully before I answer, to determine whether the response is only useful for the questioner (and DM the answer) or if others might also benefit from the answer (and reply with the @questioner). I try not to clutter up the list with responses that are meaningless to most others. That is part of the Twetiquette (Twitter etiquette).(Addendum: I was not implying above that people should not post "meaningless" (read "fun") items to Twitter. What I was referring to is the practice of replying to a post via an @username on the list when the actual answer only makes sense to the person who asked the question. It often does not make sense when one sees only an answer.)I am starting to receive some of the reference questions I receive regularly from educators via Twitter. The direct messages from Twitter show up in my email inbox, and I then have to go open my Twitter client, locate the DM, and respond to the questioner.It is easy to ask a question in 140 characters, but not so easy to answer with anything meaningful in that number of characters. So, I wind up DM'ing three or four separate messages to the questioner, including having to shorten a URL or two in the Twitter messages.Twitter is not the place for that kind of communication, in my opinion. If you have a question that you want answered which you know will require me to search the Web and do some research, please don't send it via Twitter.I am easy enough to find on the Web, and, if you don't have it, here is my email address: kathy@kathyschrock.netI am always glad to help, but not always in 140-character bursts!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I have spent quite a bit of time with Wolfram Alpha today. It is going to be interesting to introduce this to teachers and students. The user really needs to think about the appropriate time to choose this tool for information.I suggest you spend a bit of time on the examples page. As you click through the examples, there is a description of the type of search that can be conducted in the search box based on the topic you have chosen. This is a great way to help users to learn the most appropriate use of the tool and the proper syntax for searches.I have discovered a couple of really cool features about Wolfram Alpha. First, at least on the Mac side, in both Firefox and Safari, a student can simply drag any of the information boxes off of the WA site and the item winds up as a GIF on their computer desktop. It can easily be inserted in a project. (Even all the tables wind up being GIFS!) The student can then add the citation information needed for the GIF they are using.Secondly, all of the source information (both Web-based and print) consulted for that topic is included as a link at the bottom of the results page to both allow for further research and for determining the reliability and credibility of the results. I so love this!!!Images source:http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=icosahedron  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

After my presentation on Tuesday, ISTE asked to interview me about a few things for the home audience who were watching via Ustream. That video is below. After watching it, I have adopted a couple of new rules for myself.Don't give an interview directly after presenting to 1500 people. The adrenalin is still flowing and I seem a tad frenetic!Don't give an interview in a referee's uniform (or any costume for that matter!)Learn to control my hand movements, thought this will probably be unlikely.I know I slow down my speech when I present, but, boy, I was whipping through this interview!Go get lunch first, then do the interview...However, I don't think I did too bad with the content, so I am happy with that, anyhow!   Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I have been noticing something more and more lately. When I chaperoned the recent 8th grade trip to New York City, I observed that students in every pair of seats were sharing a single set of earbuds attached to one music or DVD player; one student was using the left one and one was using the right. I wondered how it sounded, since one student was listening to the right channel and one to the left. Was one hearing just the melody and one hearing just the bass line?I also noticed this was not happening because every other student did not have some type of a device. Every student on the bus seemed to have a music player of some sort.I would never think of sharing music this way. I guess this has become a common practice because, first, many of the popular audio players do not have a speaker, so the use of a headphone is the only way to listen to the music, and, second, the dramatic rise in the use of the earbud style of headphone lends itself well to this practice.Interestingly enough, I noticed a few laptops at the local computer store that now have two audio-out jacks built-in. Well, at least if students are sharing a movie on this brand of computer, they will each have access to the full stereo experience via their own set of earbuds!Have you noticed any other "interesting" cultural practices lately due to technology advances?Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogpool/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Okay...this is pretty cool. Using Splash Data's File Magic desktop and iPhone app, I am typing this blog post in the email component of the File Magic desktop app. Once I am done, since I have no data connection from my laptop, I simply hit "send" and the email moves over to the open File Magic app on the iPhone, and then I can simply use the iPhone's cellular data connection to send this post! (Now, I know I could have typed this message directly on the iPhone, but it is quite long, and it is easier to use the full-size keyboard for this purpose!)However, that email component is secondary to the main strengths of File Magic. This app allows you to easily move files, with both the iPhone/Touch app and the desktop app (Mac/Windows) open, from your desktop to your iPhone, or just via the iPhone app from iPhone to iPhone. These both work as long as both devices are on the same wireless network or accessing a WAP on the same network. You could just use the File Magic app on the iPhone/Touch as a data transfer-and-storage app if you wanted to.But, the File Magic app on the iPhone/Touch also allows you view several different file types, some of which are not native to the iPhone or iPod Touch. If you move a Word doc, a MS Powerpoint presentation, an Excel spreadsheet, or an Adobe PDF file to the iPhone/Touch, you can view it through the File Magic app on the device. Pretty sweet!You can find out more about the $4.99 app here if you are interested:http://www.splashdata.com/filemagic/ or in the App Store in iTunes.  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Blog URL: http://kathyschrock.net/blog/ I decided to run a Wordle query on this blog to get a sense for what I am really writing about. If you have never tried Wordle, the site defines Wordle as "a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text."I feel it is much more than a toy. Imagine students running Wordle queries on blogs they follow to see the author's most written about topics? Or creating a Wordle from the text in their own essay to see what topics they cover in depth?Tom Barrett has a great slide show with many suggestions for using Wordle in the classroom.The Wordle from this blog is below. It provides me with useful information and reminds me that I should probably branch out a bit in my areas of discussion!Give Wordle a try for yourself!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I am preparing an introductory Twitter presentation and am using information from a blog post by Charlene Kingston dealing with setting goals for your own use of Twitter.I asked my Twitter PLN to answer a short survey on this topic. I sent the tweet out to my 4625 followers, and some of my followers re-tweeted the request to 4019 of their followers (who may or may not overlap with my followers.) I received 196 responses, many in the first few hours of posting the request on Twitter.The yes/no questions were as follows:I am a K-16 educator or pre-service educator.I use Twitter to talk to friends and family I use Twitter to find business customers. I use Twitter to form a professional networkI use Twitter to send out and share information. I use Twitter to receive information. I have more than one Twitter account so I can keep my personal and professional tweets separate.Results:7% of the respondents were not K-16 educators93% of the respondents were K-16 educators8% of the non-K16 educators had separate Twitter accounts for personal and professional use.24% of the K16 educators had separate Twitter accounts for personal and professional useThe goals for the use of Twitter by the non-K16 educators are illustrated in the graph below.The goals for the use of Twitter by the K-16 educators are illustrated in the graph below.The graphs were created using the NCES Create-A- Graph site.A big thank-you to all who responded!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Based on a post last Thursday by a user who was able to find the new Wacom Bamboo Touch Tablet (Model: CTT-460) at his local Best Buy, I took a chance and visited my local store. There was no sign of it with the other Wacom tablets, but I asked a friendly salesperson who looked it up on the computer, and said they seemed to have one in stock. He went to the storeroom, but came out and said it was on the "new items" end-cap, which, in my store, was kind of out of the way. In any case, the one was there, and I scored! (I guess I might have given him the only hug he will get all day!) It is not yet on the Wacom site or the Best Buy site, but it is really out!The Wacom Bamboo Touch Tablet is a USB tablet that can act as a mouse, a multitouch trackpad, and a small drawing tablet. I installed it on both a Macintosh (Snow Leopard on an iMac) and a Windows machine (Toshiba laptop with Vista Home Basic).The Bamboo touch is 8" x 5.5" in size and the input area is 5.5" x 3.25", with the four "ExpressKey" buttons located outside of the input area. These ExpressKeys are configurable for various functions as most input device buttons are.You simply start the software install, pick right- or left-hand orientation, and then plug in the Bamboo Touch to complete the installation. It shows up, after the install, in the System Preferences and Control Panel panes as "Bamboo" and you can set the pointer speed, double-tap speed, etc.There is a nice tutorial on the CD which illustrates and explains all the multi-touch features. The full user guide is also downloaded to your computer in PDF format.Here are a few screenshots from the manual, illustrating the capabilities of the Bamboo. (Click on the thumbnail to enlarge it.How well does it work?Let me start out by saying I am not a mouse user-- I use a trackball on my desktops and the built-in trackpad on the laptops. I also do not take advantage of all the whiz-bang features of the MacbookPro multitouch trackpad on a regular basis.However, I did put the Wacom Bamboo Touch Tablet through its paces on both the Apple and the Windows machines, and all of the multitouch features worked great! I also opened Adobe Photoshop and used the Bamboo touch both as a mouse and as a drawing tool. I could navigate and "fingerpaint" with no problem, but I would still choose to use my Wacom Graphire for serious drawing. My finger is not half as steady as my hand with a drawing pen is.I am going to replace my trackball on my iMac at work with the Wacom Bamboo Touch Tablet, locate it in front of the keyboard, and use it as my mouse. As well as adhering to the sound ergonomic principle of having the input device as close as possible to the middle of your body, so there is no stretching going on, I now also will have the multitouch features available on the Mac and Windows side of my desktop! I plan to take advantage of those swiping, panning, rotating, and the other whiz-bang features!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I am still trying to figure out how best to send information to support my Personal Learning Network. There are a few hundred people subscribed via RSS to this blog (although that is no real indication of how many others are reading it). On the other hand, I have almost 5000 people following me on Twitter. Even if only 10% of my followers use Twitter on a regular basis, it means that my Twitter posts are getting out to many more educators than the blog posts.Can Twitter, the micro-blogging tool, replace blogging? I don't think so. Since it is hard to say much in the 140 characters Twitter allows, some people's tweets wind up just being links to their longer blog posts. And Twitter will not replace email, either. If someone asks me a 140 character question in Twitter, I don't even try to fit my response into 140 characters. I just send them a note and tell them to email me so I can share some good information with them.However, is Twitter convenient for both posting items of interest and asking questions to tap my own Personal Learning Network? Absolutely! It is all about choosing the right tool for the job. For me, I think about it this way...-- Blogging: I have not used blogging much to express my opinions. I use it as a place to publish information that I feel other educators might benefit from. I often ask users to contribute their thoughts, ideas, and to add to the conversation, which enriches the blog posts. However, when a reader has a follow-up question, I wind up commenting along with the readers in the comments area of my own blog. I am not sure how useful that is when someone is trying to re-construct the information in the blog post.-- Email: I receive lots of questions from teachers who would like my help, opinion, and/or pearls of wisdom. These lengthy discussions do, and should, take place via email. The conversation is often personalized to the sender. At times, if I get the same question from lots of educators, I wind up creating a blog post about it so I can easily point others to the information.-- Twitter: I use Twitter every day, all day. I follow about 125 very smart and tech-savvy educators, and the power of this group to find super resources to support teaching and learning is unmatched. I am a big believer in "pay it forward", so I try to do my part and post items that I feel my followers would find interesting. In the past few days, I have posted about my first foray with Google Wave, Aviary's new audio-editing tool, a well-done Time article about Google Wave, the fact my son won a programming contest, the new version of Tweetie for iPhone, Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, and the Hotmail phishing scam. I follow a lot of blogs, and, in the US, I am in the time zone that gets up first and I get up early, so I am often able to "announce" things before most educators are out of bed.-- Web pages: I continue to update Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators daily. I add new sites, send out a site of the week to tens of thousands of educators, and add content that supports my presentations and workshops. I check all 3000+ links by hand each month to make sure they are still working and valid. Is this "old skool"? In this time of collaborative tools, it seems like it might be. However, I truly believe there will continue to be a place for experts to offer information that is useful without the comments, critiques, and collaboration of others. That place would be the Web page. The great thing about some of the new online tools is the creation and housing of Web pages has become a non-issue for teachers. With Google Docs and Sites, all educators can easily create an online resource to share with their students and colleagues.-- Facebook: I would be remiss if I did not include this social networking tool. I have lots of friends in Facebook, and it is really where I get to learn more about them. Educators are careful to include enough information to interest you, but not too much information, so it is fun to both share in personal events (like weddings and such) and also share their successes in the classroom. I don't really like getting reference questions via Facebook, since I then have to log-in and answer the question there. My email address is prominently on my profile, and I hope that most people just email me vs. me having to go to yet another place to answer questions. However, the use of a social networking tool is a powerful thing for schools, and I see the use of similar platforms, such as Ning.com, becoming more and more used in schools by teachers and their students.This blog post started out to explain why I tweet more than I blog, but has turned into more of an explanation as to how I use the Web-based information-sharing tools. I am sure many of you have quite different opinions, so feel free to share!Credit: Phone image courtesy of Dan Brady.  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I just downloaded the 30-day trial of Camtasia for Mac and am quite excited! Of course, most people think of Camtasia as a screen-capture tool for creating tutorials and such, which it does very well in this version, too. (It only captures full-screen, but it is very easy to crop to the selection you want later.) Here is a chart of the comparisons between this first version of Camtasia for Mac 1.0 and the Camtasia Studio for Windows 6.x product.Only having spent a little time with it, my first impression is that, as well as an easy tool to create tutorials and screen captures (including video and sounds), Camtasia for Mac is a fairly full-featured video editing program that is also quite intuitive! You can import images and layer videos on top of them, layer videos on top of videos, easily separate audio and video lines, apply effects such as one similar to the Ken Burn's effect to videos after the fact, and much more!The share menu item allows you to share to Screencast, YouTube, or iTunes, and the advanced export function allows exporting to AVI, QT, MPEG-4, and more, with the ability to pick your codec and quality options.The TechSmith Web site has a great set of tutorials located here if you want to get a feel for the options it offers.I might have found an easy-to-use tool that allows me to both create tutorials and access to a simple, but effective, video editing program! If you try it out, leave me a comment and let me know what you think!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I wanted to gather some information from our grade 6-12 students to help me better support them in their use of technology both at school and at home. I sent the 1500 middle and high school students the survey as a Google Form in their Google Apps email account. The survey was open for two weeks and I received 98 responses. I did not do anything additional to convince students to complete the survey, so I was happy with the number of responses I received. I appreciate the students taking the time to respond!Here are the results from the first 8 questions: (Link to full-size online version.)The last question gave the students the chance to comment when I asked "Anything you would like to tell me about your personal use of technology?" Here are some of the responses."I think it would be great to have WiFi all over the school for students to use. I often find myself at school and needing WiFi, especially being part of the theatre program and having long rehearsals when the library is closed. It would make doing online research and such during these times much easier.""In school I do school related stuff on the school computers. Also at home I use my computer to IM (AIM) friends, update my MySpace, or check homework and grades daily.""I use technology for mostly browsing, typing papers and research. Other than that, I use it only for Facebook and playing music. :)""I am a frequent Facebook user and if the high school were to go wireless with an assumption of the student body having access to it, Facebook wouldn't be as important to us since Nauset students are at school with you and non-Nauset students don't have access to the Web during the day."Your comments or thoughts on the collected information?  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I just received my Chumby One yesterday and all that you hear is true-- you cannot help but love the little information device! After setting up Chumby on your wireless (or wired) network, you simply visit the Chumby site to both activate your device and to choose from the list of applications to install.The adding of applications to the Chumby takes place via your Chumby's personal page on the Web site. Here you add and customize (if necessary) the widgets. It could not be any simpler! The applications cycle through, each staying on the screen for the time you have determined in the set-up. There is also a large button to push that both allows you to pick a certain widget to show, but also allows it to stay on-screen if you wish. Some of the widgets are interactive, like the Twitter widget which allows you to tweet using an on-screen keyboard and the sticky-note app which allows you to leave notes to yourself. You select items from the screen using the tip of your finger or your fingernail (or a stylus), and it works easily.In addition to the 1500+ widgets you can install, the Chumby also allows you to choose from a list of streaming radio stations and podcasts that can even play in the background as your widgets cycle by. Of course, there are lots of clocks to select from, and there is a nighttime setting that dims the screen or even shuts it completely off if you want.If you want to see how to set it up and how it all works, simply visit their FAQ page.Here are the specs from the Chumby One page:3.5 inch LCD color touchscreenAccess to free chumby contentUses rechargeable lithium ion battery (not included)USB 2.0 high-speed portStereo headphone output2W mono speakerVolume knobFM radio tunerAccelerometer (motion sensor)Wi-Fi connectivity (802.11 b/g)USB Ethernet compatibleOver-the-air software updatesDimmable backlight454 MHz ARM processor64 MB DDR SDRAM2 GB internal microSD cardAC adapter included3.5" wide x 4" tall x 3.5" deep$119.95 with free US shipping  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I just returned from a technology conference that was chock full of presentations dealing with the effective use of Web 2.0 tools. I have presented a lot, and know the pitfalls of presenting in a venue that is unfamiliar to you. Will the bandwidth be sufficient? Will the projector work with my laptop? Will the sound be loud enough? Will the site I am about to demo be available? Will the site I am about to demo be accessible through the content filter at the conference venue?Of course, I am always over-prepared for any emergency. I have the presentation on my computer, on a Flash drive, on a CD-R, in the cloud, in SlideShare, in Adobe Connect and even on paper. This works for a static presentation, but would not work well for an online application presentation.My suggestion, for demonstration of Web 2.0 tools, to create a screencast of the things you want to show ahead of time and carry that along with you. It is better than simply static screenshots, and can get you through the time when the tech support team is frantically trying to get the Internet back up! Screencasts that you can carry with you can be created with Adobe Captivate or Techsmith's Jing Pro.Screencasts work great except for those that incorporate video. At the conference this week, I watched a team of teachers successfully showcase their interdisciplinary Glogster project. I was contemplating what they would have done to show the multimedia Glogs if the Internet had not been available. (Don't forget, if you want to use Glogster with your students, sign up for a Glogster EDU account!)I wanted to share the way I would prepare if I were planning a presentation about a site such as Glogster. I would first screencast myself creating the Glog, step-by-step, so the audience would understand how it works. And, if it were simply a Glog with images and text, I would screenshot the final product to show. A Glog shows up rather large on the computer screen, so you probably would have to make two screenshots and then stitch them together in an image-editing program such as Adobe Photoshop Elements. The other alternative, to avoid the stitching component, is to chose to embed the Glog on a blog or Google Doc, and change the dimensions in the embed code so you can see the entire Glog on your screen and simply create a single scereenshot.However, if you create a Glogster project that includes videos, there is another easy solution I have discovered that will give your audience as close to a real-live experience as possible.Adobe Premiere Elements, as opposed to Windows MovieMaker or Apple iMovie, includes three timelines of video and audio. By putting items on separate lines of video, one can layer and re-size one video on top of another. This is really easy to do, and it can help you simulate a multimedia Glogster page, with a limit of two videos. (Premiere Elements is a Windows-only program, but I use it on the Bootcamp side of my Mac.)Here is a link to my original Glog and the one I am going to create a local copy of.http://kathyschrock.glogster.com/orchestra/Steps1. Create the screenshot of your Glog and have it saved as an image on your local hard drive.2. Gather two original video files you uploaded to Glogster and have them available on your local hard drive, too.3. Open Adobe Premiere Elements.4. Place the screenshot JPEG on the Video 1 timeline. The default length will be 5 seconds, but you can stretch it wider.5. Place one video on the Video 2 timeline and one on the Video 3 Timeline.6. Drag the video on the Video 3 timeline to the right so it begins at the end of video on the Video 2 timeline.7. Stretch the JPEG on the Video 1 timeline to match the end of the video on the Video 3 timeline. It will now stretch from the beginning to the end of the project.8. When you move the playbar over each clip, the clip shows up large on top of the background JPEG in the preview window. Simply grab the handles of the clip, resize it, and place it on top of its static counterpart on the background JPEG. 9. Once you are done with placing both videos onto the background, export your project as a movie and show this movie when demonstrating your Glog. The videos will start automatically in your movie, but your audience will get a real flavor for your multimedia Glog! Here is the finished product that can live on your hard drive. There are other options for creating "back-up" versions of your Glog, too, working on the same principle of placing the multimedia elements over the static background image. One can do this in a single slide in PowerPoint by rotating the slide to the portrait mode, putting the screenshot Glog as the background, and placing your local copy of the videos over this background and re-sizing and rotating them as needed. The advantage of using PowerPoint for your demo version is that you would be able to start and stop both the audio and video when you wanted to. Don't forget you would have to make sure your local videos traveled with the PowerPoint slide, since they are not embedded, but just referenced.However, I love the multiple lines of video feature in Adobe Premiere Elements. I use it a lot for things like having videos show up in the background graphic of a vintage television set or having a moving image in a picture frame within another video.  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Thanks to Tom Barrett for publicizing, on Twitter, the TeachMeet09 Ed Tech Roundup. I happened to catch one tweet and watched a two-minute tutorial about greenscreening and iMovie 2009 by Kevin McLaughlin. It was so easy, once the advanced tools were turned on!I started thinking about the use of this in our technology classes, and suddenly realized that one could put a green background (#00FF00) as one of the user-created backgrounds in PhotoBooth on the Mac, record the greenscreen video, and then use Kevin's tip for using that in iMovie. This way, each student has their own green screen!Steps1. Import a 500x500 green (color #00FF00) solid color JPEG as the background in one of the effects boxes in PhotoBooth.2. Record the video in front of this green background.3. Save the MOV file.4. Import the PhotoBooth MOV file into iMovie.5. Import the background video into iMovie.6. Use Kevin's tips.(I realize you can import the background video into PhotoBooth and record yourself on top of it, but keeping the two videos separate gives you the option of applying additional effects and options to them in iMovie.)Here is my feeble attempt to show you a quick finished product following the above steps.   Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

This blog, Kathy Schrock's Kaffeeklatsch, was recently nominated for an Edublog Award for 2009 in the category of "Best Individual EduBlog." I was so excited and honored, since this was the first time my blog has been nominated in this competition!I just finished looking through all of the other blogs nominated in the same category, and found some gems that I did not know about! I will be adding some of them to my blog page where many teachers start when trying to find some good stuff.Every blog I looked at deserved to win, so please cast your vote for your favorite by December 16th!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Thank you to all who supported me and voted in the Edublog Awards "Best Individual Blog" category! I came in second, which is amazing, and I am so honored and feel so lucky! Apparently it was a close race among the top three and the tallied numbers will be posted on their site soon.Here is a screenshot from the awards show:Thanks muchly to Steve Hargadon and Sue Waters who work so hard on this yearly program of bringing exciting new edubloggers to the attention of educators. And, of course, with social networking tools, you can follow some of the nominees, and then follow the blogs they follow, and on, and on, and on!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Following Tony Vincent's lead, I decided to share my most interesting purchases of 2009.Here they are, in as chronological order as I can get them. (The links sometimes link to the exact model I purchased or, if it is no longer available, to the most current version.)MSI Wind U100 netbookThis netbook was one of the first to have n networking, a 6-cell battery, and Bluetooth. I purchased the pink Valentine's edition with Windows XPH, and, later in the year, turned it into a netbook running another popular operating system!Samsung HZ10W 10 megapixel digital cameraThis digital camera has a great lens, a 24-240mm optical zoom lens, and was very reasonably priced as the HZ15W was released. Oftentimes, I wait until new models that are not so very different to come out, and pick up the current model at a substantial savings.Kindle 2I loved my first Kindle, and really love the new Kindle 2! Electronic books are wonderful, and the Kindle is easy on the eyes, easy to operate, and fun to use!Mac Case Flight Jacket Laptop CaseThis leather laptop case is pricey, but I managed to find one in the vintage brown on eBay for very cheaply. I only take it out when the weather is nice, but it is beautiful!Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station Dual BandSince we basically have the house o'Macs now, and n networking on everything, I opted to get the AirPort Extreme for the head of the network. However, our weather station server only has g networking and it co-exists quite nicely because of the dual band. It has worked flawlessly and has the added bonus of letting me access items stored on the data side when I am on the road.Apple AirPort ExpressI purchased three of these over the course of the year. The first two were purchased to extend the AirPort Extreme network to various areas of the house, which allowed me to roam far into the yard to work this past summer! The third one was purchased to carry with me on the road to allow, in some conference situations and hotel rooms, the ability to both be wireless and also allow others to share the connection.Slingbox SoloThe Slingbox is one very cool invention. It attaches between your DVR and your wireless network to allow you to access, via a client on a computer or the iPhone, your DVR at home from wherever you are! You can watch live TV or your saved Days of Our Lives recordings (or any recording on the DVR). There is no monthly subscription charge or anything and it works like a charm!Altec Lansing Orbit Portable SpeakerThis little speaker is small and light, but produces a large sound. It works well in a classroom setting or a presentation room with about 75 chairs. The audio cable is rather short, so it has to sit next to your computer, but it is a great addition to your tech toolbox!Scosche passPort Charging AdapterThis little adapter allows most Firewire iPod accessories to work with the newer USB-based devices like the iPod nano 4G, iPod touch 2G, and the iPhone 3G/3GS. This little adapter was the lifesaver to allow the Firewire iPod connection in my new Nissan Cube to work with my iPhone 3GS. The iPod part of the phone is controllable directly from the radio now! I know that others have had luck with older iHome radios and such working with their new devices with the addtion of the passPort charging adapter.EyeFi Share Video Wi-Fi SD cardThis SD card automatically uploads, while the card is still in your camera or camcorder, your photos or videos to your favorite photo-sharing, social networking, or blog site when you are in a wireless environment. I found it a bit disconcerting to automatically send everything as it is taken, so now chose to manually send only the things I want to be shown online.iPhone 3GsWhat can I say? Best. Piece. of. Hardware. Ever.MacbookPro 13.3"I love the backlit keyboard, the SD slot, and everything about this laptop. I received it before Snow Leopard and Windows 7 were out, but upgraded immediately to both new operating systems and iLife 09 as soon as the all became available. I run Windows under Bootcamp, since I need to have access to all the processing power and RAM for some of the graphics and video-intensive apps I run on the Windows side.Western Digital MyBook External 1TB Firewire Hard DriveThe link leads to the newer model of the one that I have, but this drive is rock solid for backup use on the Mac in conjunction with Time Machine.Kodak Zi6 Pocket CamcorderI purchased this at Radio Shack as they were getting ready to put the newer model on the shelf. It has an SD card slot and shoots in 720p HD. This camera has a following, as does the Flip Mino HD, and both groups are vocal on the best features of each. You can decide for yourself. (I have the Zi6 HD and the Flip Ultra 2, so I cannot compare the capabilities of each since one is HD and one is not.)Wacom Bamboo TouchI was very excited when the Wacom Bamboo Touch was released. I purchased it right away to see if I could replace my trackballs with it, and use it as an external touchpad on my computers. I also wanted to experiment with some of the neat features it added on both the Mac and Windows sides of my machine. It was not as smooth to use as I hoped it would be, so I wound up returning it. Soon after, the Bamboo Pen and Touch Tablet was released, and, since I already had a Wacom pen tablet, I did not purchase that one. I cannot speak to how well it works, but, it is really useful to have a small pen-based tablet available and, with the added bonus of touch, it probably would meet the needs of most occasional users. And Wacom products are well-made and often come bundled with some very useful software.Dymo Label Writer 400 Duo This model is still available new, but is at a very nice price point right now. If you have never had a Dymo Label Writer, you would be impressed with the speed, the ease of use, and the ability to print stamps and labels effortlessly. This model takes two types of tapes, so is extra useful!Chumby OneWith the release of the new version of this "desktop appliance", I took the plunge and purchased it. With over 1500 widgets to install, the inclusion of a faster processor, FM radio, streaming radio, and a simple network set-up, this little device is fun to have around! I wrote a blog post about my first impressions.Cocoon Laptop CaseI was sold on the Cocoon Innovation products as soon as I saw their GRID-IT! organizers, which are sold separately and also come with the laptop cases. I purchased the hard-sided case, and, even though it is intended for a 15.4" laptop, the 13.3" MBP is held sturdily and the power cords fit nicely next to it. The GRID-IT! panel holds all the accessories for the laptop and is just so organized!Canon Vixia HD Camcoder HF20I did a lot of research before deciding what HD camcorder to purchase. I wanted one with flash internal memory (this one has 32gb) and it also has the ability to also hold up to a 32gb SD card, too. The features on this camera are varied, well-thought out, and it is fun to use. It is easy to get the video off of the camera and onto the computer for editing.NetflixWe are not huge movie-watchers in our house, but, with the ability to stream over 17,000 Netflix titles to one's computer, with the one-DVD at a time, unlimited account, I took the plunge. In addition, I am waiting patiently for my Samsung Blu-ray BD-P3600 player to arrive, since it streams Netflix right to the television! The Samsung comes with built-in wireless (and wired) access and also streams Pandora Radio and YouTube. Of course, it also plays DVDs and Blu-ray disks.Well, the year is almost over, so this list is probably complete. I am looking forward next year to the possibility of an Apple Tablet of some sort as an bridge device between the iPhone and the laptop. Time will tell! Please feel free to share your opinions on any of these devices or share your favorite purchases of 2009.Happy Holidays and New Year to all!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Being a latecomer to the Project365 meme of posting a photo a day, I decided yesterday to try it out this year. I figured I would use Flickr for hosting the photos and automatically send a quick tweet when I post a new one. As I started to do that today, the "email to flickr" with a copy to Twitter soon became a little problematic. I had to remember where to put what, and it just seemed like it was going to be too much work.So, I decided to use my MobileMe Gallery feature. I have never used this before, and it seems to be easy enough! Steps thus far:Create a new gallery in MobileMe.Copy the RSS feed that is generated.Sign up for an RSS2Twitter account for auto-posting of the new item each day.Here is a screenshot of the things I typed in to try to get the hashtag for Twitter to show up, too.We will see how it works out....Follow up:Well, it seems to work!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I have recently acquired two Ion Audio products and have been very impressed with them.The first, picked up on sale at my local Bed, Bath, and Beyond on sale for $45, is the Ion Profile Pro USB Turntable. I have been transferring lots of 33rpm albums into iTunes and the results are surprisingly good! The turntable also includes a line-in to attach another input peripheral if needed, the ability to transfer 45rmp records, and the connections to allow the turntable to act as part of a regular stereo component system.The software is provided for the both Windows and the Apple OS, and differs in one aspect. The Windows version of the software creates new tracks during recording in-between songs. One has to baby-sit the Mac version and manually hit a button to create the tracks as the album is being recorded.The results sound like real albums, with the hisses and scratches, but can easily be cleaned up in an audio-editing program if so desired. I have been recording on the Mac side, and the items run seamlessly into iTunes. So far, I have been recording "niche" albums that are not available for purchase on CD or digitally, such as my highly coveted Rutgers 1975-76 championship basketball season LP, "Run Rutgers, Run"! Am I a true audiophile? No. Do I want to transfer my albums while the technology is still around to do that? Yes. Do I want to finally get rid of some of them? Yes.The second Ion Audio item I have recently acquired for my parents, is Ion's new version of the Film2SD scanner. I wanted an item that would be easy to use, did not necessarily require a computer in the mix, and produced a good image.This item arrived yesterday and works like a charm! You simply load the appropriate carrier with four slides, a strip of negatives, or roll film, and manually slide the carrier into the device. You can then rotate or flip the image if you want, and press the button. In under 2 seconds, you can move on to the next one.There is an SD card inserted in the back of the device, and the scans are saved there. The results from slides that were from the early 1950's (and had not been stored archivally) were great! In addition, even without rotating or flipping, one can easily fix that and any color or contrast concerns in the post-processing time on the computer.This device can output its screen to a TV, which would allow the user to enjoy their slides as they are scanning (instead of huddling around the screen on the scanner as we were doing). The power cord is a USB-plug adapter, allowing the user to scan directly to a computer if so desired by using the USB cable alone. Here is a link to the user guide if you are interested.Ion Audio seems to have a whole host of new products on the horizon-- they have announced a fullish-size keyboard that you place your iPhone into and can easily type, a musical keyboard that does the same thing, and a variety of film and print scanners. This may become another of my favorite companies!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

I do not usually post information that is extremely timely in nature, but I cannot cover all of this in 140 characters in Twitter, so I figured a blog post was in order!I am a Bootcamp user for running Windows on the Mac, and have been since day 1. The types of applications I want to use really do need the "whole" machine, and, although I have tried all of the virtual machine choices, Bootcamp is the best solution for me. I run things like Adobe Premiere Pro and other graphic and RAM-intensive apps, and do not need to move back and forth between the two operating systems. (I am a recent Mac convert but the left-side of my brain still controls how I work!)I have been running Windows 7 Pro under Bootcamp since Win7 came out. Even though it was not officially supported, it worked fine. Of course, yesterday, Apple released Bootcamp 3.1 which provides official support for Windows 7 (32 bit and 64 bit) and the newer Apple peripherals under Windows. But I did not know that earlier yesterday.However, yesterday was also the day I received my new 27" iMac. I used the Time Machine back-up to migrate everything from my 24" iMac with only a few minor glitches.As suggested, I had de-authorized iTunes on the previous computer before I did the back-up. After migrating the back-up to the new machine, the new launch of iTunes complained it was corrupt and I needed to re-install. I did the re-install and did not have to do anything else. All music, movies, settings, etc. were still there and fine. I had a little trouble with Audible in iTunes, but, after authorizing a few audiobooks, all the others worked.When I launched an Adobe CS3 app, it brought me to the registration screen and the key was already showing. I had to re-activate the suite. I hope it did not register another licensed copy.When launching FileMaker Pro 9, I also received the activation screen with the product key already showing. However, the FileMaker activation server never accepted the activation. After a call to FileMaker, it seems as if they are activating in a different way now. I have to uninstall FMP, wait for them to send me a new product key, and reinstall the program. If you are a FileMaker user, make sure you can locate your install disks!All of these were minor inconveniences. I then used the Bootcamp Assistant to partition the drive and installed Windows 7 on the iMac. I have done this lots of times before, without any problem. This time, there were times when the screen would go black and nothing would progress. I would whack the partition, and try again (and again) but it happened each time. I was lucky enough to find this page (don't ask me how) and I followed the 14-step process that helped this along for the 27" iMac and all is well. (Apparently, the same process should be followed for the 21.5" machines, too.) Lucky for me that all of these components were released on the day I was setting up the machine!I have since upgraded all my Macs to Bootcamp 3.1 on the Windows 7 side of the machine so I can try out the new wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. That will have to wait until I get home!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

Note this blog now has a new address! Please change any direct links you have to the old URL of http://kathyschrock.net/blog to the new URL of http://blog.kathyschrock.net/ The RSS feed remains the same: http://feeds.feedburner.com/kathyschrock If you used the old regular URL to subscribe to the site in a newsreader, you may have to change that subscription address to http://blog.kathyschrock.net/  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators

The NCTIES Conference was awesome, and I was able to spend some quality time with Leslie Fisher and Gail Lovely. We were such geeks as Leslie introduced us to Gowalla, which we now describe as a cross between geo-caching, FourSquare, and Where's George? You get to add new places, check-in, and pick-up, drop, and trade items at these spots. In addition, you can see the history of where the item you have picked up has been, hence the "Where's George" similarity. Interestingly enough, although we were all at one dinner table, my iPhone GPS had my location as across the street, so I could not even check-in at the restaurant. Obviously the waitress got a big kick out of us learning and working while waiting for our food...we are so nerdy. The sessions at the conference I attended were full of great information from the presenters, with excitement and good questions from the participants. I was able to meet some tech people I virtually knew, like Kevin Honeycutt and see many of the other very tech-savvy crew! My session dealt with Twitter and was well-attended. Since the theme of the conference was safari and discovery, of course I dressed the part! The audience was primarily made up of those who could not figure out why they would ever want to use Twitter and those who were already heavy-duty tweeters. I tried not to overwhelm the "newbies" and I did get a bunch of new follower on Twitter the next day, so perhaps I did convince some of them! I even had a giveway at the session. My VariQuest rep here in MA, Cheryl Rowe, contacted the reps from Presentation Systems South, Arlene and Randy Hobart, who had the board delivered to their booth. It was put together at the home office in MN and shipped to the Hobarts and all I had to do was carry it to my presentation! (Thanks to those in MN who put it together for me!) It was a safari-themed wildlife adventure bulletin board made from their Cutout Maker, and the teacher who was able to bring it home was ecstatic!  (Our middle school just got the DesignCenter and the Cutout Maker and I am doing workshops on it for the next couple of weeks.) I chose to attend some sessions containing tips, tricks and successful practices about the items we already use in the district-- Google Apps for Education, Google Wave, and Discovery Education Streaming (given by Hall Davidson). I learned tons of new stuff that I can use the next time I am doing professional development in the district. In addition, the very vibrant Ron Clark was the luncheon keynote and he absolutely got everyone jazzed! The NCTIES conference wiki is filled with all types of links and information, so I suggest you check it out! In addition, all the links that were tweeted with the #ncties hashtag are linked from that wiki and are in delicious, all 569 of them!  Visit Kathy's Web pages: Kathy Schrock's Home Page Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators