Random

Quiet around here...

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I haven't been adding much to my weblog lately. Mainly I've been busy at work getting ready for the new school year. One project I've been working on is a redesign of our staff bulletin weblog. I'm moving it to Wordpress from Drupal mainly because it really is more of a weblog site than a school wide CMS, and because of the wide variety of plugins and 3rd party tools available for Wordpress. Our public web site remains a Drupal site.

I've also been using Zoho Creator to make several web based databases that I plan to use with my staff and community this year. These will be databases to track staff requests (custodial, technology, supplies...) and also databases to keep track student data. Zoho has a very intuative form creation tool that makes it easy to create these databases and share them with staff.

We are also using Netvibes to create student and staff resource pages that will serve as home pages when students and staff log into the web. I'm also using Netvibes to create a dashboard page for myself where I will be able to easily track much of the information that is generated by the Zoho forms.

Teachers officially report next week and students begin school on September 5. Lots to do before then. In the meantime, see ya on Twitter.

Lewis Staff Bulletin

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Web Forms with Zoho

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Zoho Creator - LearningWalk

I've been spending some time becoming more familiar with Zoho Creator. Zoho Creator is a web based data tool that allows you to create web forms to capture data. I am in the process of editing our staff bulletin web intranet and as part of the redesign, am using Zoho Creator to create several online forms for staff to use to make requests. These requests will range from things like a custodial work request form, all the way to a student support form. Zoho Creator has several features that I am finding very interesting. For example when a form is submitted you have the option of designating automatic email notification. For example when a staff member submits a custodial request, Zoho will generate an email alerting the custodian of the request, in addition to logging the request in the Zoho database. An RSS file is also created which I plan to use with NetVibes to create a dashboard that will help me track and keep up with the various types of requests being submitted.

In the case of the student support form, teachers will use this form to request support and suggestions from fellow staff members as they work to differentiate instruction and support their students. For example a student may be having some difficulty in a curricular area. A classroom teacher can use this form to generate request ideas and suggestions for instructional interventions. The workflow for these types of requests will generate email that will be routed to support staff to alert them of the request. To keep everyone in the loop, the RSS feed for these types of student support requests will be published in a sidebar on our private staff bulletin page. The idea is that the more staff are aware of student needs, they more they can contribute and support each other as they work to support all of our students.

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Enhancing Conversations with Jing...

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screenshot_01Jing is a tool that allows you to capture still and video images of your desktop. One way of looking at this tool is as a screencasting tool, but it also incorporates a feature that allows you to share your capture instantly via a link. This can be useful say in a chat session with a friend. Maybe you want to explain or demo a tool you are discussing. Using Jing you can quickly invoke the tool, capture some video along with your narration. When Jing is finished capturing and processing the video, it also places a URL to the video on your clipboard that you can paste into your chat client (or Twitter, or email...) and share with the person you are talking to. The other day Steve Burt and I were on iChat and I used it to illustrate how it works. It was much easier just to show him. EXAMPLE Screencast... I can see using this quite a bit with my staff. Especially when one of the printers goes down and they need to select another one... :-) The ability to easily capture, post, and then send the URL is pretty slick.

The Jing web site explains it this way...

“Think of Jing as a supplement to all your chat discussions, email threads, forum posts and blog entries. It sits nicely on your desktop, ready to capture and share your stuff at a moment’s notice. Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share. Jing conveniently places a URL to your content on your clipboard ready for you to paste the URL into any of your conversations.”

By way of Tony Vincent via Twitter...

New Cameras

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Cob Bench PanoramaRecently we received the last of our equipment from a digital storytelling grant. The grant provided us with 15 MacBooks, and assorted video and still cameras. The last items we received are the Canon HV20 High Definition camcorder and a Canon Powershot TX1. The HV-20 is charging as I write this and I plan play with it soon.

The Canon Powershot TX-1 is a hybrid 7.1 mega-pixel still and HD video camera with a 10x zoom. It can shoot at 30 fps in 720p high definition widescreen (16:9 aspect) and is about the size of a deck a cards. I've been playing with it for a few days and am finding it to be quite impressive. Some of the reviews have mentioned that the layout of buttons and controls are a bit cumbersome, but I'm not finding any problems with it. It has a component jack so it can be plugged into a HDTV for playback, and comparing it to the HV20. For editing I just download the stills and video to iPhoto and then use iMovie to grab and edit the video. Now that things have slowed down a bit at school, maybe I'll throw together a short video.