Google Earth Bringing the world to your classroom

Google earth is one of the most amazing tools for classroom instruction since PowerPoint. Many of the things we teach are better understood in context of where it takes place, with Google Earth you can take your students on a virtual tour of your neighborhood, state, country, or world. No place is too far to travel, although your ability to zoom into locations are sometimes limited. Google Earth is fairly easy to use and is easily learned. When changing from one location to another it takes you through a flight that helps students better understand where thing are in context. Google Earth is an amazing tool that belongs in every classroom.

I mentioned in a previous post the Google has teamed up with NASA to provide similar functionality with tours of the Moon and Mars. I am excited to see thee results of this, because it will make my solar system unit much more exciting.

Google Pack Screensaver

Perhaps I’m not the one to review a screensaver, because I have yet to find a reason to change the default screensaver that comes with XP. Well until now because I thought I should use it to review it. This screensaver is similar to other photo screensavers in that it’s primary function is to show a slide show of your photos. The Google Pack Screensaver goes a step beyond and generates collages of your photos which is pretty cool. It was easy to set up, and the instructions on Google’s website were very clear. I probably won’t even change back to the windows default, although I will need to delete a few poor photos of me if I leave it.

Gradebookwizard.com Online Grading Software

GradeBookWizard is a powerful online gradebook, attendance tracking, and class website solution for teachers, schools, and districts. Teachers can access their gradebook from any PC or Mac with Internet access. They can use their class website to post assignments, instructions, grades, announcements, and handouts for students and parents to access through individual, secure logins.

GradeBookWizard allows teachers to spend less time on administrative tasks, parents to stay more informed about their children's progress, and students to become more motivated. Click on any of the topic areas above to learn more about how GradeBookWizard can help you!

The interface of GradeBookWizard is clean and easy to follow I had no problems setting up the classes and getting grades going. It seems to be more robust than Engrade which I reviewed earlier, but it is a paid product at around $50 per year. Overall it is a good product if you need more than what engrade can do.

Consumer Alert: System Mechanic Professional 7

I recently purchased System Mechanic 7 Professional because I had some slowing of my machine and my Anti-Virus subscription ran out so I thought I would give it a shot. I made the mistake of purchasing the program without using the 30 day trial, and it turned out to be a big mistake. System Mechanic Professional is made up of 3 basic components, first there are the system tools, second an antivirus, and third a firewall. I will discuss the three basic components.

First the system tools are a set of utilities that help fix and optimize your PC. Many of the tools work very well, and do make a significant difference in PC performance. Purchasing the standard version includes all of these tools. I have had a little trouble with the disk defragmenter utility because it freezes halfway through the process. But with that exception it has worked well.

The Antivirus is the worst I have used. It hogs system resources and is very slow and tedious. The worst component is the email scanner. When it would start it would run for hours using %90 of the processor resources and when running would not allow us to send and receive email. I have since uninstalled the Iolo antivirus and loaded AVG Free and all of my problems disappeared. In fact the AVG antivirus found 2 viruses that iolo missed.

The firewall is very effective at blocking all traffic on the internet. It requires manual configuration for any interactive web sites, so for a blogger and techie like me it would have taken hours to get it set up so all of my web applications would run correctly. It was just to impractical to use.

If you need system tools to tune up your PC the standard version is capable and I reluctantly say may be worth the $39, however the Professional version that includes the antivirus and firewall should be avoided at all costs. Even with the system tools you should take advantage of the 30 free trial to make sure it works well for your system. Iolo will not issue refunds after the purchase for any reason, But that’s to be understood. I would have a hard time standing behind the product too.

Google Desktop

Google Desktop is a very nice little application that is on the verge of obsolescence for the PC. Google desktop has two very handy functions, first it indexes your hard drive to make your files, email, and visited web sites quick and easy to find, second it allows you to integrate widgets on your desktop. If you are using XP and you manage many files I feel the Google desktop is a must have. Simply start typing the title or keyword, and your options quickly appear. It is very fast and effective. Gadgets are fun little things that count down to the new year, show you the weather forecast or countless other things. Although they are handy they seem to clutter things up so I just use the search. But the great thing about it is that Google Desktop can be customized to work the way you like it.

Google's Picasa 2 Photo management Tool

Picasa was originally developed by a California based digital photography company named Picasa. At that time they offered the software for a very reasonable price considering the quality of the product. If my memory serves me correct it was near $29. in 2004 Google purchased Picasa and began offering this very capable software for my favorite price, free.

Picasa is a program that manages most aspects of your digital photos, and videos. It creates and index of all photos and videos stored on your pc and organizes them according to your existing file structure, you can quickly scroll through many photos and get a good idea of what you have. It also will import your images from most cameras. As a photo management tool it is the best that I have seen. It is quick and easy to find photos. When viewing individual photos you can quickly ad a caption that is searchable. The search feature is most effective when you take the time to add captions.

In addition to the powerful photo management tools Picasa also offers an array of editing tools that are really quite effective. You can crop, rotate, reduce redeye, enhance, add effects, and more. No, it’s not Photoshop, but it can handle many of the quick fixes that are needed for many applications.

Picasa is also tightly integrated with other Google apps, like Blogger, and Google Earth. You can actually geo-tag to the location they were taken on Google Earth. The applications of this in the classroom can be amazing. You could take or download pictures and integrate them into Google earth so students can not only see the picture, but see it in context of the geographic location it was taken.

Picasa is not the only maker of this type of software, but it is one of the easiest to use, and is very effective. For the price, I don’t even think there is a close second.

Online Professional Development @ Learner.org

http://www.learner.org is the site of the Annenberg Foundations teacher resource site. Annenberg describes there mission as follows:
Our mission is to advance excellent teaching in all disciplines throughout American K-12 schools. Former names of Annenberg Media are: Annenberg/CPB, The Annenberg/CPB Project, and The Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project.
We pursue this mission by funding and broadly distributing multimedia resources for teachers to help them improve their own teaching practice and understanding of their subject. Annenberg Media makes use of telecommunications technologies—the Internet, including broadband video streaming, and satellite television broadcast—as well as hard copy media to disseminate these multimedia resources, ensuring that they reach as many teachers as possible.
There are a wide variety of programs available through this program that covers a vast array of teaching skills and practice. They also provide a student section that is very helpful. This site is a great resource for those teachers willing to put in the time for professional development.

Google Earth plans Mission to Space

Google has teamed with NASA to use NASA data, and Google earth tools to create virtual fly threws of the Moon and Mars, as well as weather system data. The details are still coming in, but it is a very exciting prospect. We will have to wait. They expect it to take 6 months before we start to see the results of this agreement.

Google Tools

This week we will be reviewing many tools that are available from Google, through their Google Pack bundle. The Google Pack bundle is a valuable collection of software that is very helpful to any teacher. It includes the following:

• Google Earth- 3d earth browser (highly recommended for geography teachers)
• Picasa- Photo Organization and editing software (Very helpful for large amounts of photos)
• Google Pack Screen saver- Screen saver that uses your photos (Fun but not necessary)
• Google Desktop- search files and email on your PC (Very useful and fast, may not be necessary with new Windows-Vista)
• Google toolbar for IE (somewhat helpful but not necessary)

Additional Software

• Mozilla Firefox with Google tool bar (Great Browser for teachers, not necessary if you already use Firefox.
• Norton Anti virus (Remove from download unless you have no other anti virus, it is not good for system to run more than one anti virus, and chances are the one you have on your pc is better than this one.
• Ad-Aware- A good ad-ware removal program. (Keep this and run it)
• Adobe Reader 7 (If you don't have this version it is worth the time to upgrade)

Optional Software

The Google folks may disagree, but none of the optional tools are very helpful. I would especially avoid Real Player, if you need to play Real content I'll provide an alternative. in a later post.

Brain Pop

Brain Pop

My Primary job is as a Special Education teacher. I really enjoy working with the students I have despite the learning disabilities. The challenge is in scheduling. It is difficult to help students an individual level, addressing the individual needs of each students. Enter Brain Pop. Brainpop.com Brain Pop offers a vast series of flash movies that cover topics across the curriculum. the movies I have used are fun and entertaining while covering key facts and information. The movie is followed by a quiz that students can print out results to turn in. The movies and quiz take from five to ten minutes. This has become a valuable tool that I use daily in my instruction.

The downside is definitely price. It is somewhat reasonable for a whole school ($850) implementation as compared to other resources, yet the $150 price tag for English only and over $200 for bi-lingual versions put it a little bit out of reach for a single resource. Even with the price tag it may be worth looking at.

Engrade Free Online Grade Book

http://www.engrade.com

Engrade is a free online grade book that allows teachers to manage their classes online as well as post grades, assignments, attendance, and upcoming homework online for students and parents to see. Engrade is free and easy to use. It took me about 15 Minutes to register and set up my first real class. Adding classes or subjects are easy. The interface is simple and straight forward, and I had no problems entering grades. Because this program is online you can enter grades from home or at school. Parents also have access to their child’s grades, missing assignments, and calendar. This Free solution is definitely a blessing for teachers that do not have district or school based systems like Powerschool.

http://www.engrade.com

Hover Snap Screen Capture Utility

Have you ever wanted to take a picture of your computer screen so that you can show students how something should look, or just capture a window with important information. I am searching for programs that do just this. There are many commercial software vendors that do this, in fact I use a screen capture tool that makes movies of everything that happens on the screen called Camtasia Studio. Techsmith the maker also creates a program called Snagit that takes still images of your computer screen. But I have been introduced to a free program that has similar functionality.

Hoverdesk creates a free application called Hover Snap.
Hover Snap is a simple to use screen capture utility that allows you to take a snapshot a your entire screen, a specific window, or a user defined area. Unlike the commercial versions it lacks image editing capabilities, but that can easily be done in other applications. It has a very small file size, and is easily configured.

Circumvent Copy Protection on DVD Legal

The US Copyright office in conjunction with the Library of Congress has implemented a temporary measure that allows teacher to use software to circumvent copy protections to create educational material. This basically allows us to copy video from dvd's to use portions of the movie in our lessons. The material must meet fair use guidelines, and you must meet fair use guidelines. We will be releasing a guide to fair use for teachers shortly.

Quizdom Remote Audience Response System is Cool

When I first came across an ad for Quizdom products I was very intrigued. This system is great for getting instant feedback regarding just about anything. But the possibilities extend way beyond classroom polling. Quizdom is great for pinpointing students that may need additional help, and it can help us as teachers know when we need to review concepts long before the final test or even the pop quiz. We can now see the effectiveness of our instruction in real time and adjust and revise to ensure that students are learning key concepts.

The set up of the system is simple and we can easily move it from classroom to classroom, which will likely be necessary, as the $4000 price tag is typically more than what we can implement in individual classrooms; however is still reasonable for a school purchase.

I was a little disappointed to find the site store was unavailable and some of the links were broken, yet by clicking on the site map at the bottom of the page I was able to find the information I needed. They said that the store should be up soon, but they offer a phone number to contact sales for immediate help.