A colleague of mine sent me this Wordle tip the other day. If you want a line of text to stay together when creating a word cloud, place the ~ symbol between the words. For example, if I were creating a Wordle based on my favorite musical groups, the text would look like this: Dave~Matthews~Band Matchbox~Twenty Soundgarden Audioslave Foo~Fighters The~Offspring Green~Day Here is the word cloud created by using the “~” to connect the titles [...]

I was working with a small group of teachers recently when the topic of F Keys came up. Since I like to play, I spent some time testing the F Keys in Firefox to see what they would do. Here is what I discovered… F1 – Will display the Firefox Help window. If you have a question or want to learn more about Firefox, this is a good place to start. F3 – Opens the [...]

Yes, it’s that time of year when most people spend some time reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the next. As I look back at this site, I am proud of what I have done but recognize that I have not posted as often as I would have liked. Therefore, I resolve this year to post more frequently to this site. There are a lot of good technology resources for teachers to [...]

There are times when I want to share information on a web page with my colleagues. I know their time is valuable so to get them to view the part I want them to see, I often use “kwout” to highlight the section. Tool: http://kwout.com What Is “kwout”? kwout allows you to quote all or part of a web page as an image. By adding a bookmarklet to your favorite browser, you can select portions [...]

I had a few minutes over lunch to check out a some news web sites related to election coverage when I came across these widgets on the front page of MSNBC. A widget is supposedly short for `window gadget’. Today, the term commonly refers to an application that displays information and can lead to even more information. Widgets, like the ones below, are easily embedded into web sites and blogs and can provide stock quotes, [...]

Tool: http://wordle.net Many of you may have already discovered this web site already, but for those who haven’t, check out Wordle! What Is “Wordle”? The Wordle web site generates “word clouds” from text. The more frequently the text appears, the larger the size of the text in the cloud. The site provides the opportunity to change fonts, layouts and color schemes to customize your “cloud”. When you are finished, you can save them, print them, [...]

I have always used multiple computers but only recently has the need to access my bookmarks from different computers become critical. Previously I would export my bookmarks from Firefox on one computer and transfer and upload the file to the next computer. Although it was not a complicated process for me, it was time consuming and I am all about efficiency. Also, the constant copying and uploading presented the danger of moving the wrong file [...]

I am fortunate to teach a few graduate technology-related workshops for Millersville University throughout the year, and I am always richer for the experience. During a workshop this past week I was introduced to Voki – a web site that allows individuals to create their own speaking avatar. According to the web site, the name “Voki” is a combination of the Latin word for voice, vox, and Loki, the Norse god of mischief. The first [...]

In February of 2008, I attended PETE&C (Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference) in Hershey, PA. One of the sessions that caught my attention was presented by Dr. Chris Penny. I had attended a few of his sessions in previous years and was sure that this one would be just as valuable as the previous ones. I was not disappointed. It was here that I was introduced to Flock, a new social web browser. According [...]

I was working on a project the other day when I stumbled across this tool. I think it has value for classroom teachers and hope that you investigate it further and consider how it can be applied for your situation. Tool: http://www.yackpack.com What Is “YackPack”? Yackpack is a Web 2.0 tool that allows for both asynchronous voice messaging and real time chat. Created by Dr. B.J. Fogg of Stanford University, this web tool provides the [...]