Google has a new offering – Google a Day. Google asks a question and you attempt to find the answer. Google even includes a feature that allows you to search the Internet as it existed before they answered the question (folks are fond of demonstrating they have found the answer). Perhaps this is an interesting activity for developing search skills.
I think this is the answer – I could not find it by examining images, but I found this by searching Coubre, print , Che & inscription. If this is the answer, I assume by now it appears online in many places before you see it here.
My interest in music led me to investigate the Amazon Cloud Player and I ended up purchasing 20 gigabytes of storage (5 is free) so that I could upload part of my music collection (the digitized music that is not protected). The initial goal was to use the cloud player to access this music from my various computers and some devices (not including those that use Flash).
The 20 gigabytes for $20 a year seemed reasonable and the storage could be used for whatever I wanted to store off site. As I collect more content – images, video, pictures and the documents I write, off site storage becomes more and more important.
I decided to investigate some online storage options in order to compare price and features. I decided I needed to narrow the field so I am excluding personal off site backup options such as pogoplug or one computer backup plans such as Carbonite. I am focusing on online storage capacity I can use from multiple machines.
Amazon – so the Amazon site I have already describes is pretty much a buck a gigabyte deal. However, the Amazon option is about more than pure storage as it is both a cloud drive and a cloud player for your music.
DropBox – Dropbox is a great product that allows both local access and online access. I pretty much think of it as a universal harddrive connected simultaneously to all of my machines (I have DropBox installed on multiple machines). You can purchase storage beyond the free basic level, but as much as I use the product and would pay to continue to use it, the pure cost for storage is too high.
SugarSync – another product I use to backup files among multiple machines that I own, but somewhat like DropBox more expensive than alternatives for pure storage.
Google – good old Google. You may not think of Google as an online storage option, but Google docs was expanded to accept pretty much any digital format and the rate for gigabytes past the free level makes it the most cost effective option.
So, each option has unique features and it is important to consider what value you might place on a given feature. For pure storage, Google would be my present choice.
I am doing much more of my “professional” reading on the iPad. In most cases, this means reading books using the Kindle app. Perhaps the most difficult thing in transitioning from paper to the iPad was finding a suitable substitute for the margin notes and highlighting I do with the paper version of a book. I am gradually becoming better at the highlight feature within the Kindle app – I seem to have trouble getting the iPad to designate the text I want to highlight.
What I really like about the Kindle is the way in which I can download my notes and highlights. I am not certain how many people do this even if they take notes and highlight. The process works great, but in a little different way than most might expect. The content is actually located online (go to https://kindle.amazon.com/ and login using your Amazon account). Select the “Your Book” link near the top of the page and you should be able to view the highlights associated with each book you have read or are reading. You can copy and paste the notes from this site if you want.
I happened to remember that the Savvy Technologist discussed this process from back in the day when I read books on a Kindle rather than a Kindle app. I did locate his post and discovered that it explained how to export highlights from the Amazon web site to Evernote. Sure enough it works. The digital nature of this content offers possibilities my highlights in a book cannot – I can now conveniently separate, store and search these notes.
The AERA conference offers us the opportunity to meet with our editor and to discuss issues related to our next book edition. Because we write about the use of technology in learning, we feel the need to push for a different kind of instructional content. We intend to generate a hybrid product that combines a scaled down book – we prefer to call it a Primer – and online resources. There are challenges in doing this. We are exploring what we think is the best way to offer content for our topic – the uses of technology in teaching and learning. However, separating content between a book and online can be tricky as it may appear the intent is to prevent resale of books. We certainly understand this issue as it applies to book resale, but what is the strategy when the online content is separated because some content really is not best experienced on the page.
The other issue we constantly encounter and we guess few consumers understand involves permissions. We all constantly encounter and may personally generate online instructional resources that involve screen captures or screencasts. YouTube, blogs, and web pages offer many resources containing such useful resources. The reality is that the screen captures and screencasts appearing within these resources are almost always used without permission and are a violation of copyright. When you purchase a commercial product the authors and developers cannot operate in this fashion. They must make the effort to secure permission to use the imagery. In our experience, payments have seldom been required, but the legal requirement requires time commitments from company personnel. Once you must involve lawyers, costs go up. So, to explain the situation in a simple way – it costs more to offer a resource that meets legal requirements. We intend to heavily focus our online resources on classroom examples and tutorials and so to offer what we believe to be most helpful we have the added burden of dealing with the issue of cost and permissions.
Paper Cranes for Japan is a project that provides students a way to make a contribution to the people of Japan. The Bezos Foundation has agreed to donate $2 to Japan for each origami crane students submit.
Cindy learned of this project through Twitter and contacted Pam Carlson who teaches 4th grade at Wilder School in Grand Forks. Cindy has spent time working in Japan and keeps in touch with several teachers and her interpreter. All were fine following the quake. Cindy was able to connect with Miyako who was her interpreter and arrange a Skype call with Pam’s class.
Folding cranes is no small feat and the students found the video on the Bezos site of greatest value in learning how to create the paper birds.
At last count, the class had created more than 100 cranes with more to come.
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