How to draw a simple heart

This simple tutorial demonstrates how to create a simple heart using Inkscape (www.inkscape.org). It can be adapted to most any other vector based drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.

Moodle & Mahara and other updates at ASchool.us

System Update:
Moodle has been upgraded to verstion 2.1.

Mahara as been added to the list of programs available at ASchool.us/moodle. Mahara is an electronic portfolio system that can be connected to Moodle through SSO. I've outlined a few of the great features that can make students lives easier.

• Single sign-on (SSO):
  Allows users to login to moodle and then move straight into Mahara without having to sign in again.
• Export Activities to Mahara from Moodle:A teacher can specify which assignments may be exported to Mahara.
• Drag and drop design interface:
  In Mahara students can create their portfolio through dragging and dropping documents, images, rss feeds, journal entries, etc... and add descriptions and comments where needed.

Course Development:

Integrating Technology and Education is a four week course that will help teachers use technology more effectively. It will cover the following topics through discussion, assignments, and group activities:

• Presentations, projectors, and document cameras
• Tools for students
• Managing technology
• Online resources

Students will interact with each other through a variety of online systems. The tools that you learn to use in this class will be tools that you can take with you to the classroom not just tools that you wish you could have.

Gimp for Educators is a self-paced course designed to help you learn to quickly and easily use different features in Gimp (www.gimp.org) to manipulate images and photos. The course is presented through both written and video instruction with help available through class forums. 

Tablet Exploration

I just ordered three Archos 7" tablets for my classroom from woot.com for $75 each. Sure it is an older version of the Android OS but all I was wanting it for was basic web browsing and videos. I'll post more about them when I receive them, the are in the mail but I will not get them for a while since I have to double ship them to get them to Alaska. Over the past several years I have toyed with the idea of creating a web based student response system (SRS) but never had the time to create it. At my previous teaching assignment I enjoyed using Quizdom's Q5's but can't justify the expense in my current position. While searching for educational blogs for an Integrating Technology and Education class that I am developing I came across socrative.com which fits the bill of what I was wanting to create.At this point the website is free.

Review:
I spent a few minutes testing out the features of socrative they seem to be well thought out and worked just fine on my desktop and iPod.

Pros:
Cheap as in free
Easily add impromptu questions.
Easy for students to login and learn.
Both asynchronous and synchronous quizzes.
Visually simple design

Cons:
Not sure how long the website will be around.
You have to enter all of the questions.

Conclusion:
Great website that I am looking forward to using in my classroom.

Interactive Clock

Here is a resource that I just finished creating to help students explore how to read time on an analog clock. It allows the student to jump to a specific time or increment the time forward or backward by hours, minutes, or seconds.



You may integrate this into your website using the following html code:
<iframe frameborder="1" height="225" src="http://aschool.us/resources/clock.php?size=200" width="500"></iframe>

Please feel free to leave any questions, improvement suggestions, etc.. in the comments below.

For all your random needs

I just finished adding a new random feature to the list of programs that are available at aschool.us
For your convenience here is a description to each of the random programs that are currently available:

• Random Student Selector
  Given a list of names it will randomly select a name. You can continue to select names as long as you want. The program will attempt to favor names that haven't been picked but repeats can occur.
  
• Random Student Selector Flash
  This is a flash based version of the previous program. One advantage of this version is that names can be added while selecting names. This can be an advantage for students that come in late.
  
• Random Group Generator
  The random group generator can divide up students into a specific number of groups or specific sizes of groups. You have the option of either maximizing the group size or attempting to keep them balanced.
  
• Random Group Mixer
  The random group mixer takes two lists of names and pairs names in each group together. If one group is larger than the other then some pairs will include more than two names.

Free Software for the Classroom Compilation

I'm working on making a compilation on a DVD of educational software that can enhance student learning and productivity. Here is a list of the programs that I'm planning on putting on the disc. Please feel free to add your suggestions. Many of the programs are open source while others are simply free.

Office/Desktop Publishing:

• Open Office (Win, Mac, Lin) http://www.openoffice.org
  Create and edit office documents.
  
• Scribus (Win, Mac, Lin) http://scribus.net
  I've used this for creating yearbook, newsletters, brochures, and event programs.
  
• PDF Creator (Win) http://www.pdfforge.org
  Create a PDF file from any program that can print.

Graphics:

• Gimp (Win, Mac, Lin) http://www.gimp.org
  Photo editor. I've used this program extensively for editing images from simple crops to image creation.
  
• Picasa (Win, Mac, Lin) http://picasa.google.com
  Photo album. Can be used to create basic video clips or slide shows. I used this extensively to organize the files for the yearbook this past year and found the face recognize feature very useful.

Organizational:

• Xournal (Win, Lin) http://xournal.sourceforge.net
  Digital paper, can be use with a smart board or to annotate PDF files. For our daily grammar activities in class I would scan them to a PDF and then my students or myself would mark them up using a Wacom Bamboo pad as students called out corrections.
  
• FreeMind (Win, Lin, Mac) http://freemind.sourceforge.net
  Concept/Mind-mapping software. Students used this extensively to create study guides. Very quick and easy to use.
  
• Dia (Win, Mac, Lin) http://dia-installer.de
  Create diagrams and flow charts. I used this more in the past but it is still a good piece of software.

Audio/Music/Video:

• VLC (Win, Mac, Lin) http://www.videolan.org/vlc
  Plays most any audio or video file.
  
• Audacity (Win, Mac, Lin) http://audacity.sourceforge.net
  Sound file editor/recorder. I've used this program extensively when creating my online spelling tests. Both the Windows and the Linux versions.
  
• MuScore (Win, Mac, Lin) http://musescore.org
  Musical score editor. I have not used this very much yet but plan on using it in the classroom this next year.
  
• OpenShot (Lin) http://www.openshotvideo.com
  Video editor. I just started using this program this last spring and am very impress with its offerings.

Science:

• Celestia (Win, Mac, Lin) http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
  Allows you to explore space from your desktop
  
• West Point Bridge Building Software (Win, Mac) http://bridgecontest.usma.edu
  Bring the engineering lab to your classroom. This software allows you to build and test bridges within the confines of your classroom.
  
• Google Earth (Win, Mac, Lin) http://google.com/earth
  Explore the world. Note: Internet connection required.
  
• Online Interactive Science Simulations (Win, Mac, Lin) http://phet.colorado.edu
  Excellent science lab activities that can be done and manipulated on the computer.

Internet:

• Google Chrome (Win, Lin) http://google.com/chrome
  Alternate web browser.
  
• FireFox (Win, Mac, Lin) http://www.mozilla.org
  Alternate web browser
  
• Thunderbird (Win, Lin) http://www.mozilla.org
  Email client
  
• FileZilla (Win, Mac, Lin) http://filezilla-project.org
  Transfer files to a server using FTP, SFTP, or SCP.
  
• WinSCP (Win) http://winscp.net/eng/index.php
  WinSCP allows you to securely copy to a server Linux or other SSH/SFTP server .
  
• Putty (Win) http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty
  Allows secure communication and tunneling with an SSH server.

Misc:

• Word Search Creator (Win, Lin) http://wordsearchcreator.org
  Create word searches that can be printed.
  
• Hot Potatoes (Win, Mac, Lin) http://hotpot.uvic.ca
  Create a several different electronic activities such as word sorts, crossword puzzles, matching, and multiple choice activities.
  
• GnuCash (Win, Mac, Lin) http://www.gnucash.org
  Persona/Business accounting software. I have not yet integrated this into my classroom but I'm working on it and see that it has some great potential.

Computer Maintenance:

• CCleaner (Win, Mac) http://www.piriform.com/products

Word Fun

A classmate of mine shared this website with me that she uses to help her with an icebreaker activity. The website is Wordle.net. You can make interesting word designs patterns given a list of words. Here is a sample that I made using a list of prepositions. I'm sure that I will come up with some more creative uses for it as I later.