Virginia

Boolify was created because parents, librarians and teachers felt that it was too difficult for children to understand web searching.

Boolify makes it easier for students to understand their web search by illustrating the logic of their search, and by showing them how each change to their search instantly changes their results.

It’s simple, immediate and easy to use with your class or in your library.

Search results are presented through Google’s “Safe Search STRICT” technology. There are two important caveats: a) no filtering technology is 100% secure and 2) we are unable to control or modify the results that we provide, beyond the filtering settings available through Google.

What makes this tool great is that it is visually appealing, easy to modify, searches can be saved and the results are all kept on one page. Check out the overview below and take a look at this blog post that shows students using Boolify in the classroom.

I found Font Capture through Kathy Shrock’s Site of the Day email. The site looked interesting so I thought I would give it a try. All I can say is “Way Cool!” Font Caputre’s description is:

At fontcapture.com you can create a font from your very own handwriting. There’s no software to download and install, all you need is a printer and a scanner. Simply fill in the font template, scan and upload it to our website, and download your completed font. The fonts you create using fontcapture.com can be used on both Windows and Mac computers.

It was super easy and will be a great way to experiment with fun and different fonts. Below is an example of “Heather’s Font”

Why not send those end of the year party invitations in style. We are all familiar with Evite, but below are a few other options guaranteed to make your party planning go smoothly.

http://www.doodle.com/main.html

Doodle is a great online date decider. It eliminates all of those back and forth emails when you are trying to pick a date. I used it with my staff when we were trying to choose a date for our staff retreat. There are two things you can do with Doodle. Schedule an event or make a choice. You can visually see what dates work for people.

http://www.mypunchbowl.com/

Features:

• Date decider
• invites and save the date available
• Create a food list and keep track of what people are bringing
• Lots of great designs

http://purpletrail.com/pt2/cons/mkt/home

Features:

• Similar to Evite - no advertisements
• Invites can be sent over email, SMS and Facebook
• Modules can be added
  • -Polls
  • -Collect money
  • -What to bring and more

http://www.pingg.com/

Features:

• Invitations
• eCards with a designer series that includes design from Martha Stewart
• You can create and then have them print and mail invites. Cost is $1.50 + postage
• “Surround Send” post to email, the web, SMS, Facebook and Twitter
• Lots of great designs

One of the things I love about Web 2.0 tools is how creative the names can be. I often wonder about all of the extremely creative folks behind the scenes who think up these fun names. Timetoast is another great tool with a fun name.
I found Timetoast in my Web 2.0 Diigo group. Timetoast allows people to create interactive timelines, which they can share anywhere on the web. Anyone can join Timetoast and start creating and sharing their own timelines, all they need is a valid email address. It’s completely free! As with most Web 2.0 tools you may embed the provided code on any blog or webpage. When you click on an event it expands so you can view the picture and text. This is a great space saver. Creating a timeline is simple:

1. Sign up
2. Create new timeline
3. Name it
4. Add your events and photos
5. Publish it
6. Embed or Link to it

Below is a short timeline I created using information from Fact Monster. Click on the + sign to expand the event. If you use this with your students please let us know how it went.

I learned about this handy tool from a fellow STAR DEN member Fred Delventhal aka Riptide Furse.  iSpeech allows you to “read with your ears”. iSpeech will convert text to speech with a click of a mouse for free and it doesn’t use one of those bad computer voices. There’s no software to download and the results can be embedded on a blog or webpage.  iSpeech supports the following file and webpage formats: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, Rich Text File, Blogs, RSS news feeds, hypertext markup language (DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, PDF, RTF, HTML). If you do put in a blog address it will convert everything including headings and items in the sidebars. I would suggest that you copy and past only the text you want converted. This isn’t just a tool for teachers, think how this could simplify research for struggling readers. I’m even going to put a link to iSpeech on my blog. Check out iSpeech and let us know how it works for you.

This application sums up what I love about Web 2.0, simple, useful and oh so cute. How can you not want to use an application called Shrink O’Matic. This program has solved a major dilemma for me. If you’re like me you probably have uploaded lots of avatar pictures. It seems that every site wants a different dimension. Usually I open up some photo editing software and start playing (Manipulating graphics is not my area of expertise). Shrink O’Matic has solved this problem for me.

Shrink O’Matic is an Adobe AIR application to easily (batch) resize (shrink) images. It handles JPGs, GIFs and PNGs. Adobe Air is a plug in that allow internet applications to deploy and run on the desktop across operating systems.

Simply drag and drop images and they’ll be resized as you wish! Options allow you to choose the output sizes, names and formats. It really is as simple as the screen shot below indicates. Try and it out and let us know what you think.

Find More Web 2.0 Resources?

I thought for this week’s posting I would provide you with several places where you can find some great Web 2.0 resources. They change every day and it’s always helpful to have sites to refer to. If you find a particular tool helpful, would like to share a success story or know of other Web 2.0 sites please let us know in the comments section.

The Web 2.0 Guru Wiki -  A wiki to assist teachers and other professionals with the tools and strategies to effectively and meaningfully implement them into current practices.

Go 2 Web 2.0 - A comprehensive index of logos of the latest web 2.0 sites, applications and services.

Kathy Schrock’s Web 2.0 Resource Page -  A  list of no-cost Web 2.0 sites that are available for teachers to evaluate.

Web 2.0 Diigo Group - A group that discusses everything Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 Tools That Work Wiki -  This wiki is an information resource as well as an interactive space where readers can add their own insights and strategies.

Web 2.0 Tools for Effective Teaching Slide Space - A that explores the use of web 2.0 applications in teaching and learning in secondary education.

I was browsing resources that I found on TeachersFirst and came across this cool bookmaking tool.  Tikatok “is where kids transform their imaginations into stories – and publish those stories into books.” Kid’s can write a story, illustrate it and order actually hard copies of the book. There’s no cost to join the site and if parents want a printed copy, it can be purchased in hardcover or paperback for about $20.00.

Parents can register for an account and then create accounts for their children, but Tikatok also has an educator section that explains the value of storytelling. To register as a teacher visit the login page and use the teacher registration form. When you register as a teacher you can create accounts for the class that will use Tikatok. If you are planning to use Tikatok in multiple classes, you can create separate sections for each class from your Teacher’s Dashboard. There does seem to be a slight glitch when you register. After submitting it goes to a blank page. If you reload the page it says that your username is taken. Don’t redo the form. Go to your email and find the confirmation email. I kept redoing the form and I had 10 confirmation emails in my inbox. Once your confirm your registration then you can give your students the temporary username and password you set up and have them create an account.

With Tikatok students can write their story and upload their illustrations. What I like is that students can draw pictures and then scan them in. When the book is complete, you can share it by email, linking to it or embedding it in your blog or website. Check out the book I created using images from the DEN LC Institute. One note about embedding. If you want the codes to be active longer than 30 days, then you must make the books viewable by anyone.

Have you ever wanted a giant poster of a great photo? If you answered yes to this question, then you are probably familiar with how expensive it is. For example at Snapfish a 16×20 poster will cost you $14.99, that’s a lot of money. As an educator I am always looking for ways to find free resources that can help me in my job.

I came across Block Posters while browsing thorough Stephanie Affield’s Diigo links. Stephanie is the MO DEN LC Chair.

Block Posters tag line is: create any size wall posters from any size images
Totally Free To Use! 

You can create posters in three easy steps. 1. Choose a photo 2. Decide on the size 3. Download and print the PDF. Check out this Jing to see how easy it really is. Be sure to check out the gallery to see what people have done.

Enjoy!

I am posting early because I will be out of town tomorrow. I am very excited about this week’s Web 2.0 tool. Posterous’s tag line is: The place to post everything. Just email it. So what is Posterous?

Posterous lets you post things online fast using email. You email us at post@posterous.com and we reply instantly with your new posterous blog.

If you can use email, you can have your own website to share thoughts and media with friends, family and the world.

What I love about Posterous is that you can attach any type of document to your email and they will post it for you in blog format. The blog is fully editable and you can choose your own blog name. You can attach documents, photos and even videos. At first glance this product doesn’t seem that special, boy was I wrong! Posterous doesn’t just post your information, it does something special with it.

Images:
If you attach one photo (of any size, even direct from your camera!), They will  resize it to a web-friendly size and post it. If you attach more than one photo in the same message, They will automatically create an image gallery.

Audio:
If you attach a sound file, they will drop the music into a web MP3 player so that your readers can listen to it right there in their web browsers.

Video:
Video will be transcoded so you can see it in a flash player right there in your browser. They will even host the file too.

URL’s:
They will also turn any URLs into links. But they will do smarter things with certain links. If you past a link from a site like You Tube, they will automatically turn it into an embeddle You Tube video player. They currently automatically embed players for the following sites: YouTube, Google Video, Hulu, Omnisio, MixWit, Justin.TV, Fliggo, Vimeo, TED Talks, Viddler, Dailymotion, and Brightcove.

Big News, Pay Attention - I noticed that Teacher Tube was not supported. So I emailed them and asked them to support it and this was their response.:

5:01 pm
Hi Heather,

Thank for the email. We’ll add support for teachertube in the next
couple of days for you. We have a lot of teachers using posterous and we
really appreciate that.

Thanks for the email!
Sachin

2:34 am
done! it’s now supported

This is what I love about Web 2.0 tools. I don’t think I would have gotten that service from a commercial vendor. So I gave it a whirl and it totally works. Thanks to Posterous and Sachin Agarwa for their quick response.

Posterous also offers autoposting to Flickr and Twitter and your RSS feed doubles as an iTunes ready podcast feed. So give Posterous a try. I think it has many possibilities. To see what it looks like in action check out my test Posterous. I uploaded video, images, audio and a SMART Board file.

Enjoy!