The Techno Cheetah

Can you type?  If so, then you can make a movie.  There’s a new website, xtranormal.com, that allows users to type in a script and the site will automatically generate a video from your script.  You also get to choose your setting, background music, and characters who will deliver your lines. Although the fine print implies the site may cost money in the future, for the time being, it’s free!  Students, please get permission from your parents before creating an account.

Here’s an example of what the videos look like.  I put this brief video together in about 10 minutes:

Last school year, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders all completed an activity using Google Earth.  Google Earth quickly became a favorite application among the students.  This upcoming year, the tech teacher laptops will have the newest version of Google Earth.  One of the upgrades that I really like in the new version is the date stamp.  When zooming in on an area the date the satellite photo was taken appears on the bottom right of the screen.  In the picture below you can see that the satellite photo of Bellows Spring was taken in February 2002.  This makes sense, as there’s a lot of brown around the school because although the outside of the school was built, it was still a construction zone.

If you don’t have Google Earth on your computer, you can download it free from the Google Earth website. (Students, please get assistance from your parents before doing this.)  To see the other cool upgrades in Google Earth 4.3 watch the video below.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I met Lester Holt, the co-anchor of Weekend Today and the weekend anchor of NBC Nightly News, at the NECC conference.  Mr. Holt moderated a Today Show style keynote discussion at the conference.  Here’s a picture:

The NECC conference has been very busy but I did have some time to walk around San Antonio and take some pictures. I could just post the pictures I’ve taken on this blog.  But, I wanted to do some a little more unique . . .

A few months ago I came across a website called Animoto.  Animoto will automatically create a montage video of pictures you upload to their website with music (either from your computer or Animoto’s selection).  The final product will look like a professional music video.  Here’s my Animoto video of sites around San Antonio:

For more information about some of the sites in the video, click on the links below.

The Alamo

The Riverwalk

The Torch of Friendship

Tower of the Americas

Students in all grade levels got to a chance to use Pixie on the new laptop computers this year. Pixie is a program where students can paint and manipulate pictures to design their own artwork. Over the summer, the latest version of Pixie, Pixie 2, will be installed on the tech teacher laptop computers.

Pixie 2 has some exciting new features including:

• the ability to export multiple Pixie slides as a movie or podcast
• take a picture using the built in iSight camera and drag it to your artwork
• more clip art pictures
• the ability to record narration on each slide

Below is an example of a video podcast I made with my 2 1/2 year old daughter, Morgan, using Pixie 2. This example demonstrates the ability to record narration on each slide and combine the slides together in a video. Morgan choose the pictures and recorded the audio (dad helped, of course).
Download

The One Laptop Per Child Foundation, whose mission is to distribute laptops for education into lesser-developed countries at a low cost, showed off it’s next generation laptop at a conference yesterday. The laptop, called the XO-2, can be used by two students at once and doubles as an eBook.

I hope it works as well as it looks as it really looks like a cool piece of technology. You can read more about the XO-2 here.

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