Jing and Soungle

I haven't been idle since my last post. I've been reading and viewing various blogs and links to sessions presented at NECC and ALA. I did find a couple of sessions on copyright (a topic I have an interest in) and I revised and updated the copyright section of the WEMTA website by adding a separate link for resources that can be used with students.

I decided it was time to go thru all those posts from my RSS reader, Bloglines, that I marked to review again or read later...of which there were MANY. I discovered several posts about Web 2.0 sites/apps that I'm already using, many that I'm no longer interested in, and a few which I del.icio.us'd. A Demo Girl post about Soungle interested me.

The Personal Learning Environment (PLE 2.0) online course is still on my agenda as well. I had one more app from module 1, The Jing Project, to explore. I finally forced myself to download the application. I think I procrastinated because I have had difficulty using a couple of other screen capture apps and was afraid to try another. I've watched the how-to video and read several of the how-to blogs. Here's an image from Jing's blog that I captured using Jing. I was able to highlight, use an arrow and frame, but wasn't able to get the text tool to work. I'll have to play around some more.



Well, I'm going to leave the image above. It's too large for the space in the blog. Did I capture too large of an image? Why doesn't the image shrink to fit the space? All issues I'll have to explore later. Anyway, here's the link to see the full image.

I also created a video with sound using Jing Project to demonstrate how to use Soungle. Soungle provides royalty free instrumental sound and sound effects. I thought this site might be useful for podcasting. I have been trying to embed the video, but it doesn't seem to be working. I can see a play button in the preview, but not when I publish the post. It appears that the embedded video is extremely huge and you can't see the entire video, but you can hear the sound. Was finally able to get a link for the video. Soungle Video

I used a microphone with a usb connection. When I preview the video I am able to hear my recording without any difficulty, although, I was disappointed when the sounds I could hear while previewing a Soungle sample were not automatically recorded. Maybe I have to change some settings on my computer to enable that function and also set the volume so it can be heard.

The Jing Project is easier to use than the other apps I've tried. (Though sharing and/or embedding is not, yet.)

I didn't have NET 3.0 framework from Microsoft which is required for Jing. It was included during the install process, but I recommend downloading it directly from Microsoft prior to downloading Jing because I had a few errors during the install process.

More to come later as I use Jing.

Jing
Soungle
Copyright
Turbo Tagger

Secondhand Learning from NECC

Since my last post I have been observing/reading the twitterverse and blogosphere about NECC2008. The NECC conferences are so huge and include such a great variety of content and speakers.

Here's just a summary of a few of the great blogs, links, etc. that I found interesting and helpful.

First, one of my favorite blogs, A Library By Any Other Name, was voted the "best library" EduBlog Awards 2007. This blogger has several great posts about speakers and presentations she attended while at NECC and also EduBloggerCon. Her commentary is very down to earth and easy to understand. She includes some great links. My favorite is the Web 2.0 Smackdown that took place during EduBloggerCon.

Secondly, another of my favorite blogs, Cool Cat Teacher Blog, by Vicki Davis, has many posts about NECC and her presentations at NECC. Her post entitled, NECC to me: Ten of my takeaways, is a simple and thoughtful summary and includes her pic.

A third blog that I read on a regular basis is NeverEndingSearch by Joyce Valenza. Experiencing NECC from home (and again and again) is a post with a summary of her experiences at NECC and includes great links.

NECC 2008 Wrapup and Review is located on the Classroom 2.0 wiki and includes links to all kinds of resources: general, twitter, blog and web search links, photos, ustream and other video links, and podcasts.

Nuggets from NECC 2008 (1) is a post by Wesley Fryer with great notes from one of the panel discussions that took place at NECC. (I think I got to this via Vicki Davis)

TheWallsCameDown wiki has to be from Vicki Davis. The wiki contains a NECC presentation by "a group of panelists who discussed how they channeled their "viral" connections to create a collaborative presentation about the then-emerging web application, Google Presentations".

necc 2008

NECC 2008

Is it just NECC that does such a great job of including those of us not in attendance? WOW!!!

Already have been able to participate, second-hand, in one session of Edubloggercon and NECC's first keynote.

We2.0 Smackdown created a wiki to share all the great info presented in this one session. You can view a video, "listen to" the conversation taking place (Cover it Live), and find out about some Web 2.0 tools.

Here's the CoveritLive blogging session for James Suroweicki's Wisdom of Crowds opening keynote.

I'd also recommend checking out the podcasts that will be available. There's a Cover It Live session and one on copyright that I'm looking forward to.

Checkout twitter... lots of links there too.

necc2008

Searchme UPDATE

WOW!!! I just went to Searchme and have discovered that now the creators have short demo videos available on the home page about new features. Take time to view them. It's worth it. Great feature have been added! Now this visual search engine includes images and videos in addition to the web. And what's even more exciting is the ability to create stacks. Your own set of webpages, images, and videos for a specific topic of your choosing. Stacks can be shared in a variety of ways, though they have a message that pops up that says stacks can only be saved on your machine. So I'm not sure how long or even if the stack below will appear here.

The only problem I have is with videos. Sometimes they begin playing automatically within Searchme so be prepared for that in the stack below.

(Well, I'm having trouble embedding the code given by Searchme. The stack shows up beautifully when I preview, but when I want to publish I get an html error which I don't know how to fix.)

I'm going to try to add the url instead, K12OnlineConference


Searchme

Searchme

I'm still planning to work on the PLE2 modules. In fact I have one other site to explore from module 1, Jing Project, "an always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere."

I get sidetracked so easily. I saw a tweet about a new way to search called Searchme. I just had to try it out myself. Searchme is still in public beta after being released in March 2008, so it may not find everything you want/need.

There are a few simple settings on the first search screen. The first allows you to filter out adult content. That feature makes the search engine safe for "school use". The second allows you to select from two background colors (black or very light blue, which are named Night and Day). The last setting allows you the option of opening links in the current window/tab or in a new window/tab. I choose new tab and the link opened so quickly that I had several tabs open cause I clicked more than once.

As you enter a search term, categories will appear to help narrow the focus of your search. Instead of a textual list of websites, Searchme displays images of the websites it finds. A scrollbar below the central image allows you to move forward and/or backward to view website images before clicking the link. If you still need text there is an arrow below the scrollbar that will display a smaller image and the text we are all used to seeing.

Here's a short video(3 min)demonstrating the use of Searchme.



I think that this search engine will be useful for those students who are visual learners. It should make a search easier for them. It's not as boring as using a traditional search engine.

Searchme
Turbo Tagger