Before this year is officially out, I thought I'd share some of the things I've stumbled upon over the course of this year, and those things which have stuck in my mind as my favorite things. Hope you like 'em...
VoiceThread
VoiceThread allows users to upload images, and accompany them with comments - typed comments, or audio comments recorded live, uploaded as an audio file, or even called in over the phone. It takes visual presentations one step further by providing a sound component. Voicethreads can also be made public, allowing others to comment on photos. It's an interesting alternative to creating presentations with Google Docs or presentation software (such as PowerPoint or OpenOffice).
I made a VoiceThread a while back (albeit, without actual voice) about the Civilization project I was working on.
James Cameron's Avatar
I saw this movie yesterday - just squeaking in before the end of the year - and was taken completely away for almost three hours. I've always been intrigued by movie or television projects that engage in innovative methods of storytelling (I'm still a huge fan of 24), and I was very interesting in Avatar because of James Cameron's development of some incredible technology to film the picture - such as real-time CG actor enhancement using motion-capture techniques, and new 3D filming techniques and equipment. (See this article on the Guardian for a short run-down.)
Zoho Apps / Google Docs
I've always been a proponent of Google Docs, but a few years back ran into Zoho Apps - a web-based productivity suite with many more applications that Google Docs. My district has recently run into a lot of consternation over switching from Microsoft Office (which cost us seven figures in licensing) to Open Office (which, while free, realistically doesn't fully compete with MS Office - especially for users who are used to MS), and it's gotten me thinking about whether web-based apps will truly be where this type of work will move towards. No web office app that I've seen has even close to the number of features of desktop software, but how many of those features are needed by the average end-user?
In any case, at the end of this year, I started looking at using one or two of these apps for some school-related projects. I'm using Google Docs presentations much more for embedding PowerPoints from parent nights directly into our school website - it allows users to view the presentation without the need for uploading it in a variety of formats. I'm also working with our counseling department on using Zoho Creator - an extremely powerful online database application - to help manage the graduation information that comes through their office.
Brad Paisley's Welcome to the Future
I've always been a fan of Brad Paisley, and this song got in my head from the first time I heard it - I even went on to create a professional development session starting out with this video (on the topic of collaboration outside the classroom - "video chat...with Tokyo"). Several teachers came up to me afterwards and told me that 1) they really liked the song, and 2) it was interesting to hear it in the context of teaching and learning, and caused them to take a moment to think.
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