[eMINTS] Free Programs for Teachers

Thu Jun 12 08:35:08 CDT 2008

Thanks so much for sharing.  This discussion is giving me so many fresh ideas to try with students.
Julie

Julie Fessenden
5th Grade
Oakwood Elementary

>>> Sharon Sumner <sumners at eagles.k12.mo.us> 06/11/08 7:56 PM >>>
Forgive my long email, but I'm full of ideas tonight.  This, too, is an excellent discussion thread!

Info on Bubbleshare, Animoto, and a way to get free music for your projects that you can post online through a "grant" from royaltyfreemusic.com

I ran into some things on Bubbleshare that students shouldn't be seeing, but you can always create what you need at home.  Here's how I did it.

I wanted to send my senior citizen computer user group an email postponing our meeting from one week to the next.  I went to Bubbleshare and inserted a picture of some of the group.  Then I had a speech balloon coming out of our host's mouth explaining the postponement.  I then added another balloon coming out of another one's mouth announcing that he'd be there!

I didn't even set up an account with Bubbleshare.  You have to set up an account to share your creation but I didn't want to do that, especially if I was going to be using it in the classroom.  I didn't want students clicking and going to the Bubbleshare site to see my creations.  So, I just did a print screen and copied it into my email and cropped out all the unwanted parts.  (You could also paste it into another program like PowerPoint, crop it, then save it as a jpg.)  I then sent the email explaining the postponement to the whole group and told them I'd show them how to do this at the meeting.  They thought this was so neat!  I love working with these people.  They love learning new things like this.  The average age of this group is 80 years young.  They call me their teacher and bring me apples.  :)

Here's an animoto "infomercial" I made promoting our group meetings that will be showing on our local TV channel next fall.  It looks like it is really difficult, but all you do is insert pictures, choose music, and animoto does the rest.  The pictures move to the beat of the music.

Click on the full screen icon in the lower right-hand side of the video box.

http://animoto.com/play/f7CPdPPezNhE99ab2rb07A 

Our D.A.R.E. officer saw the potential of animoto in getting kids excited about the program so he came to a workshop on it and here's what he created.  He downloaded and now has it as a video he can embed into a PowerPoint or use in other ways.  Looks pretty professional, doesn't it?

Don't forget to view it in full screen mode.

http://animoto.com/play/RfiLlc6K1GOweKqKSwdBTg 

I've been telling teachers at my school (if we get to keep our free subscription that long) that they and their students could take pictures all year long and keep them in a shared folder.  At the end of the year, students could create their own individual digital yearbooks, choosing the pictures and music they want, then download the movies they create.  The teacher could then insert all the movie clips into Movie Maker then burn it as DVDs the students could take home and play on a DVD player.  What an awesome way to preserve memories of their year!

Speaking of animoto..... http://animoto.com 

You can sign up for a beta version of animoto free.  I'm working with a lady named Rebecca Brooks and she just extended our free subscription through the fall.  She just asks that we keep her up to date on how we are using it.  They are open to suggestions, too! I mentioned to her that one of the movie titles listed on the side panel had a bad word in it and they immediately removed it.  You are given a code for educational access.  You can create made up email addresses for students if you'd like them to have their own access that you can control.  What is nice is that you can create full length videos that will allow you to download your completed movies to your computer.  With a regular subscription, these are $3 each.

Here's the link to learn more.  Be sure to click on the F.A.Q. to learn how to get your own free account.

http://biz.animoto.com/education/overview.html 

One more thing.......the music I used on my computer user group infomercial came from a "grant" I received for our school from royaltyfreemusic.com.

All I had to do was fill out a form and tell them why our school needed royalty free music.  They accepted my proposal and gave me a code for our whole school to use.  You don't get access to all of their music, but you do get a good amount.  This is the first site I've ever seen that will allow you to post projects on the Internet with their music.  You just need to give them credit. I had to put a link to their site on our website somewhere with a blurb that says, "Award Winning Library of Stock Music from Royaltyfreemusic.com"

Here's the link to the form I filled out.  I heard back from them right away.

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/free-music-program/application.html 

That's it for tonight.  :)

Sharon Sumner
Technology Coordinator
1073 East Vine Street
Sullivan, MO  63080
573-468-5181
sumners at eagles.k12.mo.us 
________________________________________
From: emints-bounces at lists.emints.org [emints-bounces at lists.emints.org] On Behalf Of Wm Chamberlain [wmchamberlain at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 12:02 PM
To: General discussion for eMINTS program participants
Subject: Re: [eMINTS] Free Programs for Teachers

Sorry about your IT blocking flickr, but I can understand that. Why would
they block bubbleshare?

http://www.slide.com/ 
http://scrapblog.com/default.aspx 

Bill

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Julie Fessenden <
JFessenden at hannibal.k12.mo.us> wrote:

> Hey, only Bubbleshare and Flickr are blocked here at school.  I couldn't
> find Slide and Scrapblog.  Do you have a link?
>
> Julie Fessenden
> 5th Grade
> Oakwood Elementary
>
> >>> "Wm Chamberlain" <wmchamberlain at gmail.com> 06/11/08 10:00 AM >>>
> Don't forget Voicethread, Smilebox, Animoto, Bubbleshare, Slide and
> Scrapblog. You can also make badges using flickr. I have all sorts of
> plugins, badges, etc on my blog Mr. C's Class Blog <http://noeltigers.com 
> >.
> I also made a blog for my students to refer to for their blogs at
> http://mrcstechtips.blogspot.com/ 
> but I don't update it regularly.
>
> Wm. Chamberlain
> Noel Elementary
>
> On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 3:58 PM, James Hoskins <HOSKINSJ at troy.k12.mo.us>
> wrote:
>
> > Just wondering if anyone has any cool new programs or "application" sites
> > that they are looking at using for next year.
> >
> > I am going to be putting out picasa, google earth, photo story 3,
> > moviemaker and some free plugins etc...
> > Maybe worldwide telescope - similar to google earth only for space -made
> by
> > microsoft.,
> >
> > Has anyone ever tried tuxpaint? or tried the student/teacher tools from
> > Microsoft called Learning Essentials?
> >
> > Always welcome new ideas!
> >
> > JJH
> >
> > James Hoskins
> > Technology Specialist
> > Lincoln County R-III Schools
> > 951 West College
> > Troy, MO 63379
> > 636-462-6098  - 212
> >
> >
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> > eMINTS at lists.emints.org 
> >
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