Author: Dad

KidZui browser

dad, technology

I’ve just discovered the KidZui browser. It looks pretty cool, you create a unique account and can login to access games, videos, and lots of other “kid friendly” stuff. I’d like you to both check it out and let me know what you think and find by writing a blog post about it here. I’ve created an account for you both, ask me and I’ll tell you your login credentials. (Hint: Your userids are the same ones you’re using for our blog. Rachel’s is the same as she’s using for Club Penguin. Everyone’s password is the same as Rachel’s Club Penguin password.) I’ve downloaded the program already on my laptop, we’ll need to download and install it on other computers too.

Have fun!

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Get Ready for Tech Summer Camp at FreshBrain

brother, sister, technology

Alexander and Sarah: Get ready (if you want) for a technology summer camp at Fresh Brain. It’s free to signup and participate, here are the options for things you can do:

  • Create a 3D Video Game
  • Build Applications for the G1 Mobile Phone
  • Building Flashy Websites
  • Java Development
  • Create a Facebook Application
  • Make Amazing Videos
  • Learn Graphic Design
  • Animation
  • Music Production
  • Photo Editing Techniques

Let me know if you want to sign up, and which “learning path” option sounds most exciting to you! We can talk about the differences in these, you can do more than one if you want too!

Free Technology Summer Camp Opportunities at Fresh Brain

My friend Chris Walsh is one of the organizers for Fresh Brain. He’s an amazingly fun and creative guy, so we can be guaranteed it’s going to be high quality and super-cool. I got to know Chris through our work on the Google Education Blog, “The Infinite Thinking Machine.” He was the producer for most of the ITM videos like this one, produced after the MacWorld 2007 conference:

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Documenting our zoo trip with AudioBoo

littlesister, travel

Today Rachel and I spent a couple hours in the morning at the Oklahoma City Zoo for the “READ ACROSS OKLAHOMA 2009: READING ROUND-UP” event. We used my iPhone and the free application/web service AudioBoo to share some observations from the field! This is live-blogging at its best when you’re just five years old!

The Chilean Pudu At The OKC Zoo
Listen!

Galapagos Tortoises At The OKC Zoo (For this AudioBoo, we were also able to add a photo of the tortoises, which you can see if you click the previous link.)
Listen!

We love AudioBoo! AudioBoo rocks!

For more on AudioBoo and other similar tools, see my ISTEconnects post from last week, “Publishing Audio at Will.”

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Watch out for people who want you to email them like this

technology

Brother and Sister:

I am updating our blogs with some new software today, and ran across the following comment on brother’s String and Me blog:

Inappropriate solicitation for email contact

Let’s talk about this together.

Why do you think this “comment” is suspicious?

Why do you think I deleted this comment, rather than approving it so it would show up as a public comment on brother’s blog?

Why do you think someone would write a comment like this, asking for you to email them?

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Videos from the Medieval Festival in Norman

littlesister, sister, socialstudies, travel

This is absolutely too cute not to share. I think we can title this “Camel Ride Promo Spot.”

Yes, the annual Medieval Festival in Norman, Oklahoma, IS a good time for all. Except, of course, if you’re a teenager who gets into a child’s swing and gets so stuck the Norman Fire Department has to come cut your swing down so you can get out of it!

We did some in-the-field documentation of Rachel and Sarah’s perceptions of our evening in Norman using AudioBoo on my iPhone. These were the first AudioBoos we’ve recorded and uploaded over the EDGE network connection, rather than WiFi. It took a lot longer for the upload, but they DID work! Here are more of Rachel’s thoughts about her camel ride:

Listen!

Here is Sarah’s recap of the evening’s highlights:

Listen!

Sarah did pretty well learning from the “sphere play” instructor!

This was, by far, my favorite photo of the day!

DSC03841

We’re heading back tomorrow for more fun and food! 🙂

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Great ideas for blog posts

writing

Thanks to Mrs. Reagan for sharing the wonderful list, “Starting a blog? 12 ideas for blog posts” via her school’s blog tutorial wiki.

Alexander and Sarah: If you’re having trouble coming up with an idea for a new blog post, this post she recommends is a great one to use for ideas!

You might also check out the “Families who blog together, learn together” team blog, which involves families from Michigan and Taiwan. Very cool!

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Spring snow in central Oklahoma

weather

There’s reportedly two feet of snow right now in parts of southwest Kansas. here in central Oklahoma, we just received a dusting of snow overnight as the rain turned to snow. This afternoon, it’s lightly snowing and looks just beautiful, making for a perfect Saturday to enjoy coffee by the fire and watch our kids roam out in the neighborhood bundled up like Michelin men and women!

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Audience Assignment: Watch Drew’s Book Reviews

books

Alexander and Sarah: I have a homework assignment for you. I want you to watch, listen, and think about Oklahoma student Drew’s two book reviews that he has posted on Ustream. Here are the two links you’ll need to use:

Drew’s First Book Review V-Cast

Drew’s Second Book Review V-Cast

After you watch each one, I want you to write a thoughtful and specific comment which gives Drew some feedback about the ideas he’s discussed in each book review.

I’d like you to also copy and paste your comments for Drew here, on this blog post.

Let me know if you have questions. I’d like you to complete this over the weekend. Good luck, and have fun!

Love, Dad

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Videos of the Rangitata Valley and Mt Sunday

dad, travel

Yesterday I visited Mt Sunday in New Zealand, which was the set for Edoras in the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings.” This is one video in a series I took yesterday and uploaded to Flickr.

Read more about this on my main blog post “Erewhon, Mt Sunday (Edoras) and the Rangitata Valley.” More photos are available on my Flickr set “Edoras and Erewhon.” I have ten more videos from yesterday to still upload and will add them to my New Zealand video Flickr set soon. In all I had over 400 MB of videos to upload last night (which I left going as I slept) and I think that really taxed Shirley’s ADSL connection! 🙂

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NZ Travel Update: LAX

dad, travel

I recorded another short archived webcast via Qik this evening in the LAX airport enroute to the 2009 Learning at School conference in Rotorua, New Zealand. I posted my first “in airport” video update over on my main blog, but since updates like this one may bore readers to that blog looking for educational technology related posts I thought I’d post here on Learning Signs instead.

Our flight for Auckland boards in just a few minutes. In another 10 or so hours, I should be in New Zealand!

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Character Map of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

sister, socialstudies

Sarah brainstormed the following character map for her biography book report on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis this evening with her mother. I put her concept map into Webspiration tonight and printed it for her to turn in Monday in class. The embeddable version of this Webspiration map uses the “iFrame” tag. Here is a Skitch screenshot posted to Flickr.

Webspiration - [Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis]

Nice work Sarah! We may record a VoiceThread using this character map as an outline tomorrow morning.

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Arrow of Light Ceremony

brother, scouts

Tonight Alexander bridged up from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, and received the highest award in Cub Scouting: The Arrow of Light.

I used the free iTalk application on my iPhone to record most of the ceremony, and later used Audacity to amplify the recording so it is much louder. This is the recorded, edited ceremony, which is just over 29 minutes long.

More information about the process of using the iTalk application and the free iTalk iSync program is available.

I also used my iPhone to snap photos during the ceremony.

We are so proud of you and your accomplishments, Alexander!

Alexander’s Indian name, which Shelly and I gave him together, is “Purple Shirt.” He is always wearing purple KSU shirts and sweatshirts, so this is a very appropriate name for him. Alexander also received his God and Family award tonight, which he has worked hard to complete.

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