More Than Just Hype: Hypah

Sometimes, a useful resource pops up when an educator least expects it. There are a lot of tools that help teachers accentuate a concept. While casting about on the outer fringes of the internet it's quite possible to chance upon an entertaining way to add a little pizazz to instructional content. Suppose there's a Language Arts teacher who wants to enrich a vocabulary lesson. Instead of merely writing or speaking new vocabulary words, the instructor decides to display an image along with each new word. The teacher understands that her students will balk at a ho-hum PowerPoint slideshow. Therefore, she decides to use a few of the eye-catching effects at Hypah.

One of her vocabulary terms is the word hypnotic. To add meaning to the word, the teachers uses it in context.

The strange man caught my attention with his hypnotic gaze.

Next, the teacher uses morgueFile to locate and download a copyright free image that will help her convey the concept.

After some brief searching, she finds a graphic that evokes hypnotic eyes.

To increase the likelihood of capturing the attention of her students and make their interaction with the image more memorable, the teacher goes to Hypah where she can add a few special effects to the picture she's obtained from morgueFile.


Once at Hypah, the teacher clicks on an image and is prompted to choose an picture that she wants to enhance.

The teacher selects her image and it is uploaded to Hypah. The teachers has a number of tools at her disposal that will add animated effects to her static image.


The teachers chooses a starbusrt effect for each eye in the picture.


She can set the color, size, and point count on the star.


To apply the effect, the teacher clicks on the tool and then clicks on the eye in the picture.


After she's finished adding her chosen effects, the teacher clicks the DONE icon.

She's prompted as to where the image can be accessed. Hypah gives her with a link to where the image is stored online. The teacher can download the image and use it offline.


She can also post her image on a blog or wiki using the image code provided.


The finished image is appropriate for the word and phrase it accompanies:

The strange man caught my attention with his hypnotic gaze.

Is this useful? Could this resource be helpful in the work you do? Or, is it overkill? How might your students respond to this kind of technique? Better yet, should students be encouraged to use resources such as Hypah to illustrate their vocabulary words?

Related links:

• Check out other interesting effects at Flash-Gear.

Finding the Right Type of Resource

A few people have been asking me about resources that can help students hone typing skills. Here are a few suggestions that fit the bill:

Give younger pupils a chance to acquire and reinforce touch typing skills. Allow them to explore and use the BBC’s thoroughly engaging Dance Mat Typing website. It’s an addictive means of teaching the basics of touch typing. Pupils ranging in age from 7 to 11 years will benefit from using the site to hone typing ability and agility. The site also makes worksheets available for offline typing activities. Don’t be surprised if the site ensnares older students and adults who drop by to see what all the fuss is about.

Keybr.com also makes learning to type fun. In fact, it makes game of keyboarding! Users can choose from three lessons that progressively build skills. This free, online service instantly delivers graphs of users' mistakes and words-per-minute (wpm) scores.


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Related links:

• Imagine computer workstations where users do typing or desktop publishing without the use of a mouse or keyboard. It's an idea that’s been picking up steam in recent years. Check out the Dasher Project for details.

If You're Gonna Stay Up Late Anyway...

You might as well check out Nosleep Software. Why? For starters, the software is completely free. Free is good! Whether you're a student or teacher who has a task that was due yesterday, you'll find some helpful programs. For example, there's a helpful resources called QuizWiz that allows you to do self-learning on any topic using flashcards, multiple choice, or true/false questions. Also available is Idea Pad, a nifty application that lets users construct concept maps, flow chart, and/or diagrams that can be converted a text outline.


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There are None So Blind...

Yes, I know that my posts have been, at best, infrequent. I apologize. Though it's my desire to share ideas and resources on a daily basis, the last few weeks have been rather crazy for me. In addition to maintaining this blog--something I do when I'm not at work--I try to support the efforts of a number of different teachers at a number of different schools, in a number of different school districts. Some of the school districts are more progressive than others. Sadly, the bulk of the systems are regressing. They are losing ground because they have not decided to move into the 21st Century. It seems as if no matter how hard I try, these districts become even more mired in complacency or behaviors that are the complete antithesis of what 21st Century learning is about.

This state of affairs literally wears me out.

I'm working in schools where internet filtering has been carried to such extremes that web access is practically non-existent. It's safe to say that many of my readers won't or can't be able to get to my posts until they leave school and or get home. As if web-filtering didn't hobble them enough, many of the teachers in my schools also have to deal with other draconian ordeals that make using technology a pain in the backside. Prohibitions against right-mouse clicking (yes, right-mouse clicking!), USB drives, and shared folders on a network make it difficult if not virtually impossible for students or educators to do anything useful with technology let alone collaborate.

To mitigate these circumstances, I redouble my efforts and try, each day, to find workarounds. I end up working on work at home. This eats into the time I allocate for composing and posting content here. After recently slogging through some particularly maddening bureaucratic practices and administrative balderdash, a pal at work shared the following picture with me. I laughed that silly, yet frightening laugh that people who are too close to the edge laugh when they have an epiphany. You know, a kind of it's so obvious laugh that makes you worry about whether or not sanity is about to give way to complete madness.


You can find this powerful image and other rich content and ideas at a great blog called Dangerously Irrelevant. Check it out immediately. In the mean time, I'll get my act together and step away from the ledge.

What do you think? How can we address or help the people in charge?

Straight from the Art

Teach art? Want to integrate technology? If so, you'll want to make sure you check out Art Education 2.0.

Best in SHOW

If you teach Social Studies, be sure to take a gander at SHOW. This web-based service is a nifty online tool that appeared on the scene May of this year. Developed by Mapping Worlds, this site gives visitors a better perspective on world issues. SHOW re-sizes countries on a map of the world according to a series of global issues.

For example, if pupils are researching which countries rely upon coal for energy. They can swing over to SHOW, click on the PLANET tab, locate ENERGY, and choose COAL.


After selecting the parameters, the map on the screen changes, reflecting that the countries being displayed have been changed size so as to reflect the amount of each nation's coal reserves (the more tons of coal a nation has in its reserves, the bigger the nation appears).
This is how the map looks after the countries have been re-sized.

Note that the United States appears to be larger than China. Learners need only hover their mouse over the nation to discover why it is smaller in the graphic representation. China has 114.5 billion tons of coal reserves.


In contrast, after hovering over the United States, students can see that the United States has 242.6 billion tons of coal.

If pupils doubt the veracity of the information or merely wish to cite the source, they need only look over on the right-hand side of the map to see where the information originated. In this instance, there's a refernce to data contained in a 2005 document from the World Energy Council.

It's true that pupils could easily refer to a table of numerical information regarding coal reserves. However, by using SHOW, students have an opportunity to explore that same data in an engaging manner that activates higher order thinking.

Related resources:

• Do you know what a cartogram is or why it's useful? Check out Wikipedia's entry on cartogram for a little enlightenment.
  
• Check out Worldmapper. It's a collection of nearly 600 (static) world maps in which the territories represented are re-sized in relation to a subject of interest.
• While you're out and about make a detour to the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis where you'll find Cartogram Central.
  

Essential Questions that may be worth pursuing:

• Even if it is possible to map every inch of the surface of the earth, should we? What are some of the most disturbing unintended consequences of such a venture?
• What is the best way to (simultaneously) represent the geophysical, economic, and/or political aspects/boundaries of our world?
• What are other, novel ways that geographic information can be represented? For example, how could such information be successfully represented for or accessed by senses other than sight?
  

Blog Action Day: Free to Combat Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day. It's a day when bloggers, podcasters and other digital communicators come together to examine, discuss, and post on a single issue. By uniting, we hope to draw attention to an important topic and ultimately generate a global discussion. Last year, the blogosphere addressed the Environment.

This year the theme is Poverty. In an effort to heighten awareness of this issue within the context of education and instructional technology, I'd like to suggest that administrators, media specialists, teachers, paraprofessionals, pupils, parents, and community members use free resources to help the impoverished. Why?

First of all, free resources cost nothing. To struggling learners who have little or no money to invest in expensive software packages, free is a godsend. Not having to make choices between learning 21st Century skills and going hungry is a blessing. Being able to do word processing, use spreadsheets, and create digital presentations for the purpose of education without the necessity of parting with funds that can be allocated toward shelter, health care, and food is helpful to those in need. There are so many ways students can learn using free software.



Secondly, free resources promote liberty as much as they do financial freedom. Using free software allows everyone--not just the poor--to make political and ethical choices affirming one's right to learn. When users have that ability they are more able and apt to share what's being learned. The Free Software Foundation underscores this sentiment in its work.

Note: Free software--truly free software (according to Richard Stallman)--should give users the ability to:

• run an application for any purpose,
• study and modify a program,
• copy a program so one can help others and,
• improve a program, and release improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits from the enhancements.

Next, there are many, many free, high quality digital learning tools available. For school systems who want to help the poor, there are a number of excellent resources that can easily be made accessible to those who desperately need them. Rather than invest an inordinate amount of funding for commercial, machine-based, suite software, school districts can receive Google Apps Education Edition services without paying a penny. If access to the internet is a problem, Open Office can be used instead. Money that might have been spent on commercial products could be redirected to other, more powerful ways to assist pupils from impoverished homes. Rather than continually paying high fees for operating systems, schools can use resources like Edubuntu.


Finally, free resources extend the potential for learning. Schools can take computers that may have otherwise been surplussed or sent a landfill, wipe the harddrive, install a free Linux-based operating system like Ubuntu, Edubuntu, Puppy Linux, or the like and loan (or give) poor students hardware that can be used outside of school. Outdated laptops and desktops can find new life by way of free resources and help needy young men and women hone 21st Century skills in the bargain!

What are your ideas for alleviating poverty? Please post a comment here and share your insights with the world.

Related resources:

• Edubuntu
• Free graphics software resources include: Blender, GIMP, and Inkscape
  
• Free Software Foundation
• Google Apps Education Edition
• Ubuntu