Easel.ly

Name of App: Easel.ly
Skill area: Creating and sharing powerful visuals
Grades appropriate: Ages 4+

Easel.ly is a great way to create visuals with your own creativity. No design experience is required!

        I feel like Easel.ly is a great tool that can be used to create visuals for the classroom. Over 4 million info graphics have been created. Easelly can be used to share lesson plans and presentations for free. The website offers templates and design objects that can be customized to create and share ideas online. It’s simple, intuitive and user friendly. What a great way to share a visual image in a professional and flashy style.

What's Behind the Great Podcast Renaissance?

        After Steve Jobs announced the original iPod in 2001, people have been able to carry their entire album of collections in their pockets. With this, podcasting became a thriving mini-industry, over the next few years. Eventually, the podcast scene withered away. People used online video and streaming music services.

        Nowadays, there are way too many podcasts to follow. Podcasts are much better now than they used to be and economics are compelling. Podcasts are easier to produce than a TV or radio show and the advertising rates are big enough to pay for the costs over and over. The cost to an advertiser per thousand impressions, a standard ad-industry unit (CPM) is cheaper as a podcast, than a radio CPM or network TV, or even a regular old web ad.
        44 percent of all radio listening takes place in the car where listeners are captive, tuned in for long stretches of time, and valuable to advertisers. An average of 91 percent of Americans over the age of 12 listen to the radio weekly. This has helped make it possible for people to make a living doing podcasts.

Podcasting: Hear What The Buzz Is About

        Audio files created to be distributed over the Internet, are known as podcasts. They are a free, audio-based blogging phenom. Most podcasts are usually encoded in MP3 format. The cool part is that they can downloaded automatically and you can hear what anyone with a mic, a computer, and an Internet connection has to say.

        Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is the key technology behind delivering podcasts. This format is used for delivering summaries (or feeds) of news stories, but you can also attach audio files to these feeds as well. MTV VJ Adam Curry is to thank for writing the first AppleScript to transfer audio files to an iPod. This is how to get your files to your portable player. There are applications such as iPodder, iPodderXLite, and Doppler that assist with the downloading and transferring of podcasts to your portable player.
        Podcasting is growing. It’s a great way to stay informed, whether it’s talk about technology, discussions of less-than-mainstream politics, or music.

A Job for Jenny Archer

It can also be found online at https://youtu.be/zj54poxmLB4. 

Storybook - Princess Hope

The Concept - Mapping Classroom

Students and teachers in more than 60 percent of the U.S. school districts use the Inspiration Software products Kidspiration and Inspiration. Inspiration, for students in 6 grade and above, and Kidspiration, the software’s K-5 version, allows the students to make organized visual-learning webs that can be used for projects and writing. Inspiration can be used to create diagrams and outlines and move between the two views as they work, making connection between topics, rearranging ideas, and virtually planning any assignment. Educators also use the software in all subject areas and for planning lessons, setting goals and creating assignments.
The programs offer tools for clarifying the thinking and thought processes of the students. The programs also help with organizing and prioritizing information. The tools offered accommodate students’ individual learning styles. Kindergarteners are able to write their own books with Kidspiration and high school students use Inspiration to prepare for state achievement tests.
Software is not simply a language arts tool, but also lends itself to every discipline by allowing the students to open a blank document and create their own activity. Kidspiration can help students map out independent learning projects, and for recording and organizing information as the students brainstorm together. The results can be printed immediately. Inspiration has the ability to insert ready-to-use or imported graphics, imbedded hotlinks to valuable Web sites, and the ability to revert to an outline form. Students are able to learn about the topic that they are working on, along with new computer skills. These programs help the students organize their thoughts and overcome their fear of the “blank page” as they tackle projects.

Concept Mapping

Concept mapping is known as a type of knowledge representation. Representing knowledge in the visual form of a concept map that allows one to gather an overview of the knowledge. Concept mapping is used for multiple purposes such as, brainstorming, designing complex structures, communicating complex ideas, integrating new and old knowledge, and assessing understanding or diagnosing misunderstanding.
The advantages of concept mapping consist of visual representation. Visual symbols can easily be recognized and can allow for development of an understanding that words alone cannot convey. Drawing a concept map is also used as a creative tool in helping to brainstorm.
The World Wide Web is moving from writing text in linear fashion to creating hypertext documents with links to other documents. This is making concept mapping a suitable tool for designing the conceptual structure of hypertext. A concept map placed on the Web in hypertext may serve as a Web navigational tool.
Designing hypertext is an activity with problems. In order for authors to write clearly structured hypertext, authors have to reflect upon the structure of their work. Concept mapping is a good transitional step for authors to reflect upon their work. Concept mapping is also being used to enhance the problem-solving phases of generating alternative solutions for education. Concept maps drawn by students express their conceptions/misconceptions and help the instructor diagnose the misconceptions that make instruction ineffective.