Collaboration on a project amongst students in the class is easy with Google Docs. Google Docs consists of  a document (word processing), spreadsheet (like Excel) and presentation (like Powerpoint)

How Google Docs helps learning

Google Docs’ sharing features enable you and your students to decide exactly who can access and edit documents. You’ll find that Google Docs helps promote group work and peer editing skills, and encourages multiple revisions and peer editing.

This video explains the basics of Google presentations – how to create one, share it, publish it, embed it.

How I’m using Google Presentations
Students in my Year 11 Cisco class have just finished a chapter in their text which introduces some complex networking concepts. Before they do the chapter online text, they need to revise all the concepts. I have created a Google presentation where each student in the class will be responsible for completing one slide. As the students may not all have Google accounts, obtain a link from within the presentation to share this file with anyone. Students who have this link can access the presentation and make edits. The presentation can then be viewed by the entire class with speaker notes turned on. Additional information can be added into the speaker notes as you discuss the presentation.

What do you do with the presentation?

Presentations can be embedded into a wiki, web or blog, can be downloaded as a powerpoint or PDF file.

This is my chapter 3 Revision presentation which has been embedded into this blog. Any changes in the original presentation will also be reflected in the embedded version.
There were 20 students accessing and working on the file at the same time. No problems encountered. The actual file embedded below has all the changes the students worked on. Only thing I’d do differently next time is give students direction on how to format their slide – there are some inconsistencies in font size, use of bullets etc.

April 9

Keynote: Chris Betcher

April 9 Keynote: Gary Stager

Thursday, April 8

Keynote: Sylvia Martinez

Wednesday, April 7

Keynote: Michelle Selinger

Melbourne, Australia

Wednesday April 7: Keynote: Alan November

One way to use it:
Create a workspace for one of my senior classes and share it to each of the students in the class. Students will be making sumaries of each chapter in the course and submittimg them for assessment. Each student can sign up to Office Live, create yheir own workspace, store all their school files on it – how many times do they forget their work or don’t have a memory stick

Sign up at Microsoft Office Online

1. Set up a workspace
2. Organise your documents
3. Share your workspace

Screencast production requires some kind of video-capture software and a microphone. The software, which can be a desktop client or web-based service, captures and synchronizes the video and audio files and compresses the completed movie into a format that can be shared. 

Screencasts are an effective way of making  tutorial videos. These videos can be shared on a ning, wiki or blog, or uploaded to Youtube.  you could also upload your screencasts to a podcast hosting site like podbean.com or gcast.com to enable users to subscribe to any of your new content.

What do you need to make a screencast?

1. Screen capture software.  There are some free programs – these will be discussed in this post or if you are looking for commercial software, use Camtasia Studio.
2. A digital microphone and headphones.  Don’t use the computer’s built-in microphone as it gives poor soubd quality.

To produce free screencasts, here are three options.

Jing

With Jing, you can create screencast video,  take a screen capture, and share via email , url or embed code.

How Jing works

Start with Camtasia Studio
All in one Recorder, Editor, Publisher
Publish for web, CD, or DVD
Proven solution, mature product

Use a USB digital microphone

for clean, problem free audio

Affordable – prices start under $40
Plantronics USB500 or Samson CO1U

Position the microphone to prevent popping

Move microphone away from mouth to prevent popping and to avoid breathing sounds
Avoid contact with body or clothes to prevent unwanted noise

Use an enhanced cursor

Enhanced cursor helps viewers follow the action
Use enhanced cursor movement to pinpoint important information
Find enhanced cursors in Camtasia screen recorder under ‘effects’

Close Unneeded Programs

Clear the clutter from the screen
Free up system resources
Reduce problem of device or resource conflicts

Set the size the stage

Take into consideration destination (web, CD, DVD)
Reduce screen capture area to minimum size
Set capture region in Camtasia Screen Recorder
Size and place all components to fit capture region

Do a trial run

A trial run will help you compose presentation
A trial run will reveal missing elements
A trial run will help you condense your presentation

Plan to Make Mistakes

Know that mistakes are easily removed during editing
When you make a mistake, take a breath and then repeat the segment where the mistake was made

Edit ruthlessly

Editing audio and video is easy in Camtasia
Edit out mistakes
Edit out unneeded or confusing material
Edit to keep the presentation brief and interesting

Publish to flash

If primarily a screen capture, publish to .swf format
If contains video, publish to .flv format
To minimize file size, publish at 10fps, 11.025 mono

I am untidy and disorganised; I’m the first to admit it.  I have shortcuts all over the desktop just in case I want to use them quickly.  Fences is a program that creates virtual containers, or fences around specific groups of icons on your desktop.  It is drag and drop and you can move icons to any fence, rename the fence, change colours, resize, hide all your icons by doubleclicking an empty space on your desktop.

To create a fence, right click on the desktop and draw the  fence, then give it a name and drag icons into it.

The graphic below is what my desktop now looks like.

Watch the video tutorial