I'm In Love!.............with collaboration tools.

Yes, I love my wife and all that, but my most recent loves are:

1.) Google Docs and
2.) Yugma.com

Google Docs just added this new feature to spreadsheets whereby I can share a survey with a group of people, and as they answer the questions it POPULATES MY SPREADSHEET WITH THEIR ANSWERS!

I am screaming for joy about this because I am a teacher and I could easily have students take tests this way, have teachers do surveys this way, and all sorts of other cool applications.

Now, Yugma.com is also really cool because it allows a group session with digital whiteboards, chat, screen sharing, and file sharing. Very cool! Eh! Love it.

Oh, and Happy Valentines Day.

Open Source Audio Resources

One of my goals this year is to put together a good unit on podcasting. I've run into quite a few great resources that have helped me get my act together. They can be visited below:

Audacity (free sound editor):http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Open source music: http://freeplaymusic.com/

Open souce music: http://ccmixter.org/

Great Multimedia Resource

I found this great resource on the web from a high school technology teacher named Dave Jakes. He really has done his homework and puts his material out there for everyone to use. I've got a great deal of use out of his units on digital story telling by using photo story. Go take a look.

his website: http://www.jakesonline.org/storytelling.htm
and his blog called The Strength of Weak Ties : http://strengthofweakties.org

We're off to the Races!

So classes are on again at a full gallop. I love it, but I've had way too many things falling off my house, cars, and family members to have time to deal with. Why, I ask, can't my roof leak before classes start? And why does the "idle control valve" have to stumble in my van while I am supposed to be working, reading, making a blog, creating iGoogle pages, and making an analysis report? Hmmmmm????

Oh, I guess I should stop complaining. I've fixed the roof in record time, replaced the "idle control valve" with the help of a Haynes auto manual, and my wife and children no longer have eyes and lungs dissengaging from their bodies.