Zoho Show Unleashed…The Zoho folks, creator of web-based productivity tools that mimic desktop applications have release Zoho Show. An online alternative to PowerPoint/Keynote… I can see using this to make quick and dirty presentations. I like the ability to grab images from Flickr…

Features include…

• Create your presentations online
• Import your presentations from MS PowerPoint & Open Office
• Invite people by email & control your presentations from remote
• Pull-in public images from your Flickr account in your presentation
• Upload images from your desktop
• Publish your presentations & have others view it
• Drag-and-drop text, components within a slide & in between slides
• 

Technorati Tags: Zoho, Zoho Show

School is out for the summer at Lewis Elementary and I’m looking forward to a bit of time for planning and housekeeping (such as imaging 70 computers…) over the summer weeks. This spring a principal colleague from a neighboring school and I wrote a grant proposal to fund the purchase of iMacs and digital video cameras for incorporation into our technology/literacy programs. We recently learned that the proposal was funded and we should have the equipment arrive in August. I’m looking forward to getting the machines in place over the summer so that we can hit the ground running in September.

I am very happy that Tony Jamesbarry, our music/technlogy arts teacher, will be working full time at Lewis this coming school year. Tony is a fantastic teacher. In addition to teaching music to all of our students, he also offers instrumental music instruction, a recorder club, and an orff ensemble we call the Boomin’ Beats. We would also like to add for our 2nd grade students a music keyboarding class. We are looking to raise about $2000 to purchase hardware and software to implement this program. We are also gladly taking dontations…

In addition to teaching music, this past year Tony worked in the mornings with 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students in the technology lab. During this time Tony had students working on projects that utilized tools such as iMovie, GarageBand, Google Earth, and Comic Life. In addition, he helped students with writing assignments utilizing our wiki installations. With the addition of the grant machines, and having him full time in our building, I’m anticipating a great year of student growth and creativity…

Speaking of fundraising… Lewis Elementary is selling engraved bricks as a fundraiser to help us finish our outdoor classroom structure. These bricks will become part of a pathway to be installed in the outdoor center over the summer. If interested in having your name in brick on the Lewis Elementary school grounds, please consider purchasing a brick to support this effort.

Technorati Tags: lewis elementary, bricks, Tony Jamesbarry

NECC is just around the corner and I’m looking forward to catching up with old and new friends. This year I’m involved with a BoF, a workshop and a panel. My schedule is listed below:

Ed Tech Coast to Coast [California Gold]

Steve Burt, Clarity Innovations, Inc. with Tim Lauer, Will S. Richardson and Tim Wilson

Wednesday, 7/5/2006, 5:00pm– 6:00pm; SDCC 31B

This “live from NECC” podcast focuses on emerging Web technologies and their potential to change the teaching and learning environment. Hosted by CUE-CA.

Advanced Teaching and Collaborating with Weblogs, Wikis, RSS, and Podcasts [Workshop] HAP330

Steve Burt, Clarity Innovations, Inc. with Tim Lauer

Thursday, 7/6/2006, 8:30am– 3:30pm; Rindone 202A

Participants will explore and understand how schools are using emerging technologies, including the strategies, solutions, and implications created by their adoption.

Web 2.0: Effects and Potential [Birds-of-a-Feather]

Steve Burt, Clarity Innovations, Inc. with Tim Lauer and Thor Prichard

Thursday, 7/6/2006, 4:45pm– 5:45pm; SDCC 25A/B

Focuses on how the latest, interactive Web 2.0 technologies such as drupal, writely, and many others can and will affect education.

Technorati Tags: necc, necc2006, San Diego

I spent some time this morning playing with Google SketchUp, Google’s 3D drawing program that integrates with Google Earth. I had played a bit with the program a few months ago, but this time I went through the 3 online tutorials that are available under the help menu. They offer step by step instructions that have you creating structures in no time. In just a few minutes I had a good understanding of the tools and how to manipulate them to create a drawing.

The image to the left is a rendering of the outdoor classroom that we are currently building at Lewis Elementary in our Outdoor Center. I created the pilars and footings, but what I found really cool was that I was able to search the SketchUp 3D Warehouse for the vegitation and the for the trusses. I didn’t exactly replicate the real structure (note the trusses on the real structure extend over the beams), but then again it only took about an hour of playing around to get this far. I still have to roof the other side of the building…

Sketchup offers all kinds of tools for manipulating and visualizing your structure. The shadow tool is really pretty slick. You can interactively adjust the shadow cast for date and time. Want to see what kind of shadow your structure will cast on the shortest day of the year, just adjust the date and SketchUp casts the shadow in real time.

SketchUp also integrates with Google Earth. You can navigate to a place on the globe in Google Earth and then back in SketchUp, under the Google menu, you can inport the image as a template. From the template you can draw your structure exactly in the spot where you want it and then when finished export it back as a placemark in Google Earth. The example below is a quick and dirty rendering of my school along with our new outdoor classroom space.

SketchUp is an amazing free tool that I believe will have students and teachers doing many amazing things. Imagine students visioning the rebuilding of their neighborhoods, taking vacant and abandoned lots and creating structures that provide a vision of what their neighborhoods could become. Thanks Google!

Technorati Tags: Google Earth, SketchUp

Google Maps has added the ability to overlay information files created in the Google Earth format. You can now point Google Maps to .KML and .KMZ files on the web and the information will be displayed on Google Maps. The example on this page is of a map of Portland schools I created using Google Earth. I then posted the kmz file to my web server. Just paste the web address of any .kml or .kmz file into the search field of Google Maps and the associated data is displayed in Google Maps. Click on the screen grab to load the school location information into Google Maps.

Technorati Tags: Google Earth, google maps, Portland Schools

TechCrunch reports today about Imbee, a new social networking service designed for children.

…designed for kids from ages 8 to 14. imbee was created to provide a secure, dynamic environment where children can safely explore online social networking…

Their FAQ page lists some of the features and controls that they have implemented to provide a social networking environment for children… Cost is $40 a year. Looks interesting…

TechCrunch reports today about Imbee, a new social networking service designed for children. The service takes strong measures to keep kids safe.

…designed for kids from ages 8 to 14. imbee was created to provide a secure, dynamic environment where children can safely explore online social networking…

Their FAQ page lists some of the features and controls that they have implemented to provide a social networking environment for children… Cost is $40 a year. Looks interesting…