OpenDNS

I had a wonderful conversation with some of my middle school parents this morning.  The conversation was geared around technology use and our students.  We discussed many issues from the the use of personal technology in school, appropriate access to social media, and our push as a school to use cloud based applications.  The conversation was very dynamic and important.  Communication education about the use of technology in schools is so valuable. 

One question led to a discussion about how to monitor and block specific sites at home.  There are many desktop software products such as NetNanny that are very powerful.  This is software that would need to be installed on specific computers (or now devices) to monitor content.  Now that most households have a network of technology, it is sometimes better to monitor content from the network level.  This used to require expensive software of hardware, but there is a great service called OpenDNS that is free and easy to setup.

OpenDNS is a web based tool that allows you to use special defined DNS servers to monitor content on your network.  You simply change your DNS servers on your WiFi and wired router to the servers addresses OpenDNS provides and your network will essentially flow through the Open DNS database.  You can still manage how secure you would like the content to be, and you can also block specific sites that may not be blocked.  The beauty of OpenDNS is you can monitor all of this via a simple web browser, and it is very easy to setup via instructions on the website.  If you are looking for a low cost (Free) monitoring tool, take a look at OpenDNS.

Thank you once again to my parents that hosted and attended the discussion this morning!

Sold on 3D Movies?

I took my two munchkins to see our first 3D movie this afternoon.  We saw Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which was re-released in 3D this past weekend.  This was not only their first 3D movie, it was mine as well.  I was not quite sold on the hype or excitement of watching in 3D.  I am excited to say, that today's showing totally sold me on 3D movies...at least animated movies.  I have always been a big fan of Disney movies, and one of my favorite parts of movies since the original release of Beauty and the Beast and movies after such as Aladdin and The Lion King was the amazing detail of the animation.  The detail of every background image made you truly feel like you were part of the world.  Now add 3D to that!  WOW!  The characters jumped off the screen, and the scenery was amazing.  It truly was like seeing the movie for the first time again.  I found myself saying wow many times during the show.  My kids also found it fun, and they also have seen the movie many times before.  It was fun to watch them try to reach out and grab something that they thought was in front of them.  In addition to the movie we watched, there were several previews for upcoming 3D movies including the re-release of Star Wars, The Phantom Menace in February and the new Disney summer movie "Brave".  I think you can count me in for another 3D showing very soon!  I would love to hear some thoughts and feelings you have towards the 3D phenomenon! 

I Have a Dream!

Here is a video of Martin Luther King Jr. famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  This is so powerful.  I can listen to this over and over!  Enjoy!

Downloading YouTube Videos

Happy Friday!

YouTube can be a great resource, but we all have run into a bad connection where YouTube videos stop and buffer in the middle of playback. A simple solution to this issue is to save a copy of the video to your computer. There are several ways to do this. The easiest ways are to use websites that will download the video directly to your computer by copying the link from the YouTube site. The three sites below will do this. Each site will download the videos from your computer, but each uses a different file format. Each site has easy to use instructions.

KeepVid

Keep Tube

Save You Tube

Please feel free to share other options!

How do you share and learn?

With today's social web, it is so easy to share and connect with so many great resources.  I have spent the past year building a decent network with whom I have learned so much.  Here are a few places I have used to build this network...

Twitter - No, its not just a place to let everyone know what you had for breakfast.  There are so many wonderful educators using this tool to discuss the future of education.  I love it!

Diigo - I have used Diigo for years as an online bookmarking site, but it has been built into a nice social site as well.  It is a great way to share sites with many friends!

Symbaloo - I have used this to share sites with students.  Its a great way to setup a page of bookmarks.  It also is a great way to find groups of specific sites shared from others.

Scoop.it - I blogged about Scoop.it a couple weeks ago.  I love this site.  You can create a page full of sites centered around a specific topic.  People can follow your topic, comment, and suggest more sites.

Facebook - I tend to use Facebook to connect with friends and family, but it can also be used for professional resources as well.  Facebook has truly pushed the boom of social networking!

These are a few sites that I use.  There are so many great places to share and network, and I would love to hear what you all use.  Please comment with suggestions!

Weebly

Weebly is a free online website builder. I use Weebly in my web design class. It is a great way to allow students the ability to design polished focused websites with truly rich and dynamic content. The Weebly tools include basic functions to higher level multimedia design. They also have features to add custom HTML, and each site can have a blog page as well. Weebly is also geared towards education. Teachers can sign up for an educator account so they can create student usernames and control privacy settings on each student website. It truly is a safe alternative to teach the process of web design, and my students love it. All content is hosted on Weebly servers as well, do there is no overhead for the technology staff. Give it a try!

Mind Mapping with Bubbl

There are a lot of brainstorming tools on the web.  I like the ease of use of Bubbl.  Bubbl is a great way to organize your thoughts for a project, paper, discussion, or any other brainstorming activity.  One feature I truly like is students or teachers can go directly to the site and begin using the tool immediately.  You do not have to create an account.  If you would like to save your work, you will need to sign up via an email address.  Its easy to get started, and fun to use!  Give it a try!

Here is a snapshot of a quick brainstorm I created using Bubbl...