Thursday, November 20, 2008

Microsoft PhotoSynth

Hi All just looking at Microsoft Synth today. It is a kind of 3d photo maker thing. You basically take a series of photos eg of your bedroom and photosynth reads them all and makes them into a 3d environment you can navigate around.
go to http://photosynth.net/ to download the program.
once you download it then you can view the examples.
Check out the demo below
http://photosynth.net/learn.aspx


Go to photosynth

Monday, November 10, 2008

Embedding Website into your Blog

If you want to embed a website into your Blog or wiki try using this code. Click here copy code.

Just replace the two HTTP:// address and paste into your Blog or wiki.
This is great if you want kids to embed information from a website with out copy and pasting or if you want to provide info without kids leaving your Blog or wiki.


Go to Wordle

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Marvin

Well this is not really freeware but is heavily subsidised by the mined. there is just a admin fee of $200 for 5years i think. you can install it on all teacher, classroom, personal computer and it can be sent come home with kids to install at home.
Marvin is a 3D presentation tool supported by Microsoft.
you have a variety of characters to choose from. People through to cartoon characters. in all about 100.
You can animate these characters with there preset animations. Have a look at my demo that i did for church.
It was introduced at Learning@schools as a kids friendly program. But it is actually more for year 6 up. It is not as easy as they make out.
one plus with this software is once you are done you can export it as a AVI file so it will run on any machine. One problem with this is that not all computers support the AI codec that it uses.

In all, a neat program to play with but I'm not convinced it is usable to a large extent in the classroom.
One of the niggles is that the character all have different animations. Some of the basic functions like walk, point, wave... are not included in each character.
the other is that it takes a grunty machine to publish it as a decent AVI. Even my teacher lap top struggled on the lowest quality setting.

If you want to know more go to Mavin's website http://www.marvin.com.au/ look for the education section.

Monday, October 13, 2008

SmartNotebook

One of my favorite bits of software is Smart notebook. This software is meant to be used with a Smart Board but can be used with just a projector. You just don't get the touch interactiveness. The new version (10) is not free but the older version (9) is. there is not much difference so is worth a download. It is a big file so be patient. Click here
basic tutorial.

Basics Click here 1
Gallery Basics Click Here


My own basic demo. comming soon


Welcome to Yaron's Blog - ICT in Education

On this blog you will find a spattering of my thoughts and ideas as I wade through the vast world of ICT in Education. Hope you enjoy.
computers in the classroom, ict, edublog,