learningIT

I am wondering how many posts I can make on Google in a week? First it was this, then this and now this. Some busy people.

I found the video below through Free Technology For Teachers. It reminded me of a humorous previous post I made regarding the same topic, which is above. A perfect introduction.

You may (or may not) have noticed a lot of hoopla recently surrounding Google Wave. It’s only open by invite now. Earlier in the year, they released a l-o-n-g-demo video. The video below explains it a little faster and in simpler English.

(video link here)

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What are some of your favourite widgets? I haven’t rummaged through newer widgets in a while now and probably should. My…uh…widgets, are pictured below.

I labeled a few that may not be so clear. Some are self-explanatory and come equipped with a Mac. Yes, I use two clocks. One for Japan and the other for Canada. Some of the others I use are:

• Adobe Creative Studio Help – provides a collection of hints and tips for Adobe’s Creative Suite.
• BPM Counter – count the beats per minute for songs to enter them into iTunes
• Guitar Chords – Just pick a note and type of chord. Then watch as the widget displays how to fret that chord on the guitar. Scroll up the neck and see alternate ways of playing that same chord.
• Hula Girl – Dancing Hula Girl, Boy, Jesus or Homer to sit atop your Dashboard and provide literally decades of hilarity…seriously. Jiggles to your iTunes as well.
• Leopard Tricks – The Leopard Tricks widget displays an RSS feed of the popular leopardtricks.com website. Leopard Tricks prives tips, tricks and news on Apple’s latest operating system, Leopard.
• Oblique -
• Pianochords 2.1 – shows and plays all the musical chords you can think of. Just press a key on the keyboard to set the root of the chord and click the display to select the derived chord. It’s as simple as that!
• Plasmatube – The PlasmaTube dashboard widget leaves your Dad’s old Motion Light in the 60’s where it belongs!
• Sphere – Helps you design your website, redecorate your home, or perhaps even choose your outfit in the morning. It can even simulates various forms of color blindness! Sphere uses basic color theory in order to automatically provide you with visually appealing colors.
• Tabit – Tabit Widget searches Ultimate-Guitar.com for guitar tabs and chords based on song title.
• Youpi – helps calculate your body mass index. I couldn’t seem to find this widget when I did a search. But, try this one instead. It’s more attractive. Or this one too.
• Not pictured, but I also use Catalyst TuneUp for GarageBand. They offer over 150 helpful and sometimes quirky ideas to solve that creative block. If the first idea doesn’t help, spin the widget again.

It is also worth checking subject specific widgets. I have used some before and installed them onto our class computer where students could simply go and check the item for themselves. Browse through available widgets here. Any other recommendations from readers?

If you are a musician (or wish to be one) who learns by playing along with a CD or mp3,  Capo may be for you. It lets you slow down your favorite songs, so you can hear the notes and learn how they are played (49USD).

The same company also has TapeDeck, which “…is a powerful and fun new audio recorder for Mac OS X Leopard. It’s just like your old analog tape recorder, only better. A lot better.” (25USD)

Next, you have searched for your Creative Commons photos on Flickr for your presentation or video. Why not go all the way and use creative commons music for the soundtrack? “ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.” You may view a list of other ccMusic sites here.

School Drama Production? 55 Great Websites To Download Free Sound Effects (via Hongkiat)

Create some music on the go: The best music-making apps on the iPhone (via Music Radar)

Numerology is a modular sequencing environment designed for performing musicians. It works by giving the user an organized workspace within which they can quickly create and connect together a variety of highly functional sequencing and MIDI event generating modules. As a fully modular environment, the user can construct sequencing instruments that fit their own unique and twisted requirements. Download a 14 day trial (119USD to buy).

Finally, have a look at this article to get inspired for all the above: 7 Places to Find Inspiration for Songs (via AudioTuts)

UPDATE: also check out 25 Free Digital Audio Editors You Should Know

It’s quite amazing what apps are available for the iPhone now. Check this out from Cinemek and view some of their other tutorial videos for it via their Vimeo link below:

“Hitchcock is the first of our suite of iphone apps. It is currently available in the iTunes app store (itunes.com/apps/hitchcock). In case you are curious, this is how it works.”

Hitchcock Mobile Storyboard Composer from cinemek / Hitchcock on Vimeo.

Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? Welcome to the World of Socialnomics.

(video link here)

I have also archived this video under the “ICT Theories & Info” tab above and have added new TED talks from Daniel Pink and Tom Wujec under “Arts, Learning & Talks.”

This is neat.

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person – to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

Read full here.

Try it here.

It’s a New School Year!

For the best professional development this year, start twittering and get a strangle hold of your RSS feed/Reader. I find Google Reader the easiest. If you already have a gmail account, you are pretty much set.

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Everyone asks me for good blogs to follow in order to get information, tools and ideas etc. Some of my choices are:

Art Education Blogs:

• The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet
• The Carrot Revolution
• The Teaching Palette
• Modern Art for Kids

Art/Design/Culture Related Blogs:

• Art Threat: a web magazine about politics and the arts. They write about political art of all genres, discuss policy as it pertains to culture, and showcase artists whose work inspires social change.
• Better Posters: a resource for improving poster presentations.
• Drawn!: an illustration and cartoon blog.
• Hongkiat: tips for tech users, designers and bloggers.
• IllustrationClass.com: provides info on the illustrative design process.
• Jilian Tamaki Sketchbook: An online collection of doodles, sketchbook work, and occasional process sketches.
• Just Creative Design: offers tips on graphic, web and logo design.
• Presentation Zen: Garr Reynolds giving tips on design for better presentations.
• Slide:ology: Design blog
• Smashing Magazine: Offers advice, tutorials and inspiration on design and technology.
• Toxel: Offers great thematic pictures on culture, graphic design, art and lifestyle.
• WebUrbanist: Offers pics on urban design, culture, travel, architecture and alternative art.

IT/Educational Blogs:

• 2 Cents Worth: David Warlick
• Always Learning: Kim Cofino’s blog
• CogDogBlog: Alan Levine’s blog

• Digital Ethnography: a Kansas State University working group led by Dr. Michael Wesch dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography.

• eLeaning Infusion: some good information here especially if your considering using digital portfolios.
• Free Technology for Teachers: (the title should say it all)
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity: Wes Fryer’s blog

• Remote Access: Clarence Fisher’s blog

• The Thinking Stick: Jeff Utecht’s blog

Other Great Websites/Blogs/Nings I follow/belong to: Tuts, Art21, Flowing Data, Art Education 2.0, Daniel H. Pink,

I hope this helps and you find what you are looking for. I’d love to hear any other recommendations you might have as well.