Month: July 2007

Make some noise with SlideShare

Dale

Just a day after I posted my article about sharing presentations, SlideShare added what we’ve all been waiting for— audio.

SlideShare, a site that allows you to upload and easily share your presentations, has created Slidecasts. Take any mp3 file from the web and synchronize it with your SlideShare presentation. They have an easy-to-use synchronization tool that makes the process a snap. (Watch their screencast for instructions on how to use the tool.)

SlideCast

Here is my first Slidecast:




It should be noted that SlideShare doesn’t support presentations with animations, so this isn’t the best tool if you are looking to demonstrate software. Another shortcoming is that SlideShare doesn’t let you upload your audio to their site. You’ll need to post the mp3 file somewhere else.

All in all, Slideshare is a free and simple tool that just got better.

Bot or Not: Are you human?

Dale

Okay, here’s the problem— bots. Bots are little programs created to crawl all over the Internet looking for ways to cause trouble. Often they’re made to help spammers do their dirty work. Bots will create accounts and pretend that they are real people. They might signup for online email accounts or leave comments on a blog.

Because of bots, websites need a way to verify that only humans are signing up for their services. They need to ask a question that humans can answer but computers cannot. Enter the CAPTCHA. CAPTCHAs are those squiggly letters you’re asked to enter when you signup for things online. Here is an example:

CAPTCHA

A recent estimate suggests that 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved by humans each day— that’s a lot of reading and typing! The folks at reCAPTCHA have decided to put all that human power to work. Using their service, you enter words taken from books that have been scanned in but couldn’t be converted by a computer. The system turns both words into CAPTCHAs for you to solve. It knows the answer for one of the words but not the other. Since humans can read better than computers, you’re actually helping to digitize books and preventing spam.

reCAPTCHA

You can help the book digitizing effort by adding reCAPTCHA to your site. You can use it to protect your email or your blog’s comments section; reCAPTCHA makes implementation easy.

Hear more about reCAPTCHA on a podcast from the Museum of Science in Boston.

Hear an in-depth discussion about CAPTCHAs on Security Now—a podcast by security expert Steve Gibson. (Episode 101- the discussion starts at 33:47)

Statetris: Geography meet Tetris

Dale

StatetrisWhen I was in grade school I loved learning about the state and I loved Tetris.  Statetris rolls them up into hours of fun with a flashed-based Tetris game that uses states as blocks.  BoingBoing explains the game best when they write, “Get ’em into the right spot or the US will overflow into Canada and everyone gets socialized medicine!”

I’m definitely saving this one for when my own kids get a little older.

More than one way to share your presentations

Dale

Last week Brian Bartel and I presented at NSTA’s National Congress on Science Education. We discussed the basics of online communication. There were about 25 people at the session but I love the fact that I can still share the information through a variety of ways online.

  1. plain old html outline
  2. video of the presentation at Google Video
  3. presentation slides at SlideShare
  4. video synchronized with slides at Zentation

Zentation appears to be the best tool. Synchronizing was a little quirky at times but the final product was worth the effort. They provide a variety of ways to embed your presentation on your own site. I choose their small Flash-based version below.

Those who stutter start calls with Audacity

Dale

AudacityA few days ago I saw a woman on television that has cerebral palsy which causes her to have a serious stutter. One thing the program showed was the difficultly those who stutter experience when they are making phone calls. On the show, the woman was trying to call tech support. Unfortunately, the people on the other line kept hanging up on her because they thought her stutter was either a joke or they just didn’t want to take the extra time necessary.

If only she could get an initial introduction out to explain the stutter, maybe the call would be completed. I think Audacity could help here.  With this free and easy audio editing program, callers could record a brief introductory message that would ask the listener for their patience. Using Audacity, the caller can snip out the pauses and then play the message that would start the call.

Carpool with Google’s My Maps feature

Dale

mymap2.jpgI took some time to play around with Google’s new My Maps feature. Now you can create personalized maps for just about anything. Last month I created a map for me and my wife before we set off on vacation to celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary. It really helped me plan for the trip. The map gave me a perspective of several unfamiliar locations.

Google also lets you open your map in Google Earth. If you have Google Earth installed, simply click the view_as_kml.png KML icon at the top of your map and you’re off. If you’re not familiar with Google Earth, this is an easy way to get started.

That was for fun. Now let’s put the map to work. I created a map for our science teacher organization’s upcoming board meeting. I put a pin for each person invited to the meeting with a pop-up bubble containing their role in our organization, picture and contact information (that’s why I’m not sharing this one).

With a tool like this (and current gas prices), I suspect several meeting-goers will be inspired to carpool.