Workshops by Dean

A Wiki at its simplest, is an editable webpage.

Today we will consider 3 wiki tools. There are a gazillion services but here are three I'm familiar with that we'll take a look at. We'll examine how we might set them up and more importantly, how we can use these in the classroom and beyond.

Let's start with a demonstration of:

What is a wiki?

This is the most famous use of a wiki

Wikipedia


Wiki tools

Wikispaces

• My wikispace
• This is a free site with unlimited pages and uploads...not a bad deal!
  

Writely

• My writely page
• Works much like a word processor
• Also has the ability to upload documents and create multiple pages
  

Jotspot

• Assessment Site
  
• Free for 5 users and 20 pages. Nice place for uploading documents as well.
  

Additional Links

Good morning. With coffee in hand we'll have a relaxing morning together trying to make the most of our images.







Downloading and Storing

Once we've downloaded our images, storing and sorted is always an issue. Let's begin by creating folders for various categories of our pictures. This Microsoft tutorial may be helpful.

Google's Picasa, is a free program that sorts and organizes your photos as well. After we download, we'll look at some of its features.

Photo Editing

You may find this is all you need for basic editing. If you want a bit more powerful tool, let's try IrfanView

The best lower end image editing product is Adobe Photoshop Elements which is a more user friendly version of the industry standard Adobe Photoshop.

Online Sharing and Storage

Emailing photos can be an issue for storage and download time. A more effective tool is online storage. Flickr is the most versatile web service available. Learn more.


Printing

Printing photos on your computer is convenient but is somewhat costly and challenging to do correctly. Walmart offers online photo printing for 25cents a picture. Windows makes it very easy to send pictures to Walmart. Download and install their client. And the rest is very straightforward. Don't pay till you pick them up. They are usually ready the next day.

Qoop will print your Flickr photos in a book or poster form.

Englaze will archive all your photos to DVD and even do a slideshow for you.

Here are the links we'll explore at our workshop.

Google Earth

• Google Earthing...a weblog of various unknown satellite images. Find the where the image is and email the writer
• Globetrotting...postings of kml files for direct access to points of interest. Often based on current events
• Google Earth Hacks...downloads of current satellite images to use as overlays.
  
• Google Earth Blog....updates and news on Google Earth
• Earth Contest...the biggest game in the world
• Educators Forum...discussion board for educators using google earth
  

Google Maps

• Planimeter....calculates area
• Sightseeing...go to various landmarks in the world. Canada has 261.
• Housing Search...Craigslist, a realty service has its listings tied to Google maps. Pictures included.
• Scavenger Hunt
• Global Spy Hunt game...based on the "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego" game
• Panoramio... a photo sharing site based on google maps
• Google API...Application Program Interface of google maps allows you to embed and customize google maps in your webpage.

There are many more links. If you find other links you think are useful, post them here as well.