Holy Paninis!

Using Tablets in the Classroom

Angel — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 21:08:34 +0000

I recently gave a talk about using tablets in the classroom. If you want to view the slideshow, you can check it out below. The video will be posted here: https://blogs.princeton.edu/etc/2012/12/03/lunch-and-learn-brady-johnston-and-temos-tablets-in-the-classroom/

I also wrote up an App Summary of the apps I demo-ed and tested here:

https://blogs.princeton.edu/etc/2012/12/06/using-your-tablet-in-the-classroom-an-app-summary/

EasyCap and a VGA Conversion Box

Angel — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:46:14 +0000

I recently worked with getting an EasyCap device to capture and record from a projector on another input to the output of the computer with the EasyCap attached. The results were not great, but if you needed a small size video with not so great resolution, it was good for the money (EasyCaps are around $6). The one thing with working with the EasyCap was that I found the drivers/apps that work with the EasyCap are easier to use on the Mac side. I used free app called EasyCap Viewer. To find a driver that worked with my Easycap for the Windows side was very hit and miss and time consuming. There are sites out there for drivers but make sure you know your make and model of EasyCap before downloading it. I used a VGA converter box (very similar to this one) to take the second input and output it to the Easy Cap to capture on the computer. This converter box did cut the resolution down. Also a big tip with the VGA Converter Box, make sure you take a look at the system adjustor. It may be set to PAL (so you won’t get any picture) or one switch to NTSC and the other set to PAL (so you result in a black and white video output). I had to have one switch (it’s white on the side) up and one down to get color. All in all the EasyCap worked with the VGA converter box (we were using S video with EasyCap) but we found the quality and resolution to be less than desirable.
I hope this helps!

Alternatives to Physical Clickers in the Classroom-List

Angel — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:05:05 +0000

I am currently generating a list of alternatives to physical clickers in the classroom. I am testing a few out. One I liked that was free is Pinnion. I also want to explore using Google Docs Forms as a polling/survey tool in the classroom (it has a lot of potential) . Here’s my list (feel free to try them out as well, each has their own style and features):

PollDaddy: http://polldaddy.com
Socrative: http://www.socrative.com/
Piazza: https://piazza.com/
LectureTools: http://www.lecturetools.com/
QuestionPress: http://www.questionpress.com/
Learning Catalytics: https://learningcatalytics.com/
polleverywhere: http://www.polleverywhere.com/highered-student-response-system
mentimeter: http://mentimeter.com/
Celly: http://cel.ly/
eClickers: http://www.eclicker.com/
TurningTechnologies ResponseWare: http://www.turningtechnologies.com/studentresponsesystems/mobiledistancelearning/higheredresponseware/
Socrative: http://socrative.com/#
Google Forms: docs.google.com
Top Hat Monocle: http://www.tophatmonocle.com/
GoSoapBox: http://gosoapbox.com/tour
iClicker Web Clicker: http://www.iclicker.com/products/webclicker/
ClickerSchool Virtual Clicker by Eduware: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clickerschool-virtual-clicker/id444020820?mt=8
SodaHead Polls-WP plug-in: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sodahead-polls/
Pinnion: http://www.pinnion.com/

Augmented Reality (AR) for Education

Angel — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:55:33 +0000

I gave this presentation back in Feb. Sorry for the sporadic posts on here, most of my blogging is happening here:

http://blogs.princeton.edu/etc/

How to OCR a PDF With Dimensions Larger Than 45 Inches

Angel — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:06:17 +0000

This is a post I wrote for our work blog. The original post can be found here: http://etcpanel.princeton.edu/blog/blog/2011/12/14/how-to-ocr-a-pdf-that-is-larger-than-45-inches/

Adobe Acrobat has a size limit on PDFs you can OCR. If you try to OCR a file that has dimensions larger than 45 inches, you will receive an error. We recently did a work around using Acrobat and Photoshop. This work around is fine if you have 10 pages, but for larger documents, this work around may be time consuming. Here are the steps:

Open the PDF in Acrobat.
Save as an EPS file (Encapsulated Post Script)
Open the EPS file in Photoshop, when prompted, change the largest dimension to 45 inches.
Save the file as a TIFF file in Photoshop.
Open the TIFF file in Acrobat (you can drag and drop the file into Acrobat).
When prompted, say you would like the TIFF image OCRed by Acrobat.
You will have a PDF that is OCRed in Acrobat. Save your new PDF.

How to Record Lecture Audio on iPad and Upload To Blackboard

Angel — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:57:00 +0000

I gave a talk that reviewed 8 apps for the iPad2 that allowed you to record audio and upload it to a WebDAV space and then post automatically into Blackboard. Here is the slideshow for that talk. The two apps I liked in the end (but are not free) were Dicatmus and AudioMemos 2. They both do, however, have a free version so you can see the layout of how the apps work and record. Check out all the apps reviewed in my slideshow below. Also a video of the talk will be posted here: http://etcpanel.princeton.edu/blog/blog/2011/10/07/the-productive-scholar-lecture-capture-on-the-fly-lecture-capture-apps-angel-brady/

Batch Download Photosets on Flickr

Angel — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:01:49 +0000

A website called Flick and Share (http://flickandshare.com/), allows for you to download all your photos in a Set and share the link with others.

You will need to have this website connect to your Flickr account (the same way other 3rd party apps for Flickr do-if you do not trust other parties accessing your account, then I would suggest to download each photo manually to save a backup).
Then you choose the set you want to share/download.
Click on the share button.
Click on the “Get Your Sharing Link” button. You can copy that link to an email to share with others, or if you want to download all your photos to back them up, click on the Open It button.
You can click on the Download the set button and use a Java Applet to download the images, or you can click on the Get List of Photos link. I did this and used the Firefox plugin DownThemAll! and asved them into a local folder on my computer.

After you are done, make sure you revoke the permissions for Flick and Share to access your Flickr account. Click on You –> Your Apps–> Apps You’re Using. This is a good site to use if you want to backup all your Flickr photos. I hope this helps!

Excel Formula to Match Lists for Duplicates and Insert Spaces for Non List Matches

Angel — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:00:33 +0000

I recently had to match a master list with another list to see what terms matched in both lists in Excel and keep them in order. Another thing I wanted to do was to make sure if there wasn’t a match in my second list with the master list of words, that a space was inserted in the column (representing no match). Here are the steps I took to make my list in Excel (I am working in Excel 2010).

Copy and paste your master list (the list with all the terms you are checking) into Column A.
Copy and paste the list of words you want to see a match for against the Master list into Column B.
To put the two list into alphabetical order, you can select the two columns and go to Sort–> A-Z.
We will use column C as the column to match our column B data and put spaces for none matches with Column A (Master list)
Select the first cell in Column C and type the following formula in the formula textbox: =IF(ISNA(MATCH(A1,B:B,0)),”",A1)
Copy that formula all the way down the column (stopping at the last master list word).
Now Column C will be a sorted matched list to Column A with spaces if there isn’t a word match.

I hope this helps!

Download and Save Streaming Videos With StreamTransport (Windows Only)

Angel — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:11:39 +0000

I recently discovered StreamTransport, this Window’s only tool can download Hulu videos, YouTube videos, and FLV files from websites. When all other Firefox add-ons have failed, this tool can detect video and help you download it to your computer. When using this tool, please be aware of copyright laws and if you are going to use the video, please contact the owner and go through the proper channels before using StreamTransport to download and save the video. Here’s how to get started.

1. Download and install StreamTransport.

2. Open StreamTransport

3. Enter the url that contains the video in the address bar of StreamTransport.

4. Click Start.

5. The webpage will appear under the url in StreamTransport.

6. Play the video. When you do, the url for the video appears under the webpage. Click on the url so it is highlighted.

7. Click the download button.

8. The video will download in a separate window.

9. When it is finished, use the Locate button to find the final video downloaded on your computer.

I hope this helps!

Fixing the One Page Print Firefox 3.6 Bug Error in Your Print CSS

Angel — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 17:32:18 +0000

I was recently working in a print cascading style sheet for a website for work. We made all the design changes in the print CSS we wanted. We tested the Print Preview function out in Firefox 3.6 and noticed that it only displayed the first page in the Print Preview. In the other browsers (IE and Safari), the multiple pages showed up in the print preview.

How did we get around it? I looked at all the Cascading Style Sheets the webpage was using and copied any (and ALL) divs that had a float element in it into the print CSS (you can use the find function (control + F or command + F) in your browsers and search for float). I then set all the float elements to none (replacing the right or left float). This worked out, but I had a lot of floats in different style sheets. If float doesn’t fix it, you may have to change the overflow, position, width, or height elements in your print CSS.

I also used this post as a reference by Jaffer Haider: http://jafferhaider.wordpress.com/2007/12/29/fix-for-the-firefoxcss-one-page-printing-bug/

I hope this helps!