Google Presentation

Google has added to their online suite of products , a presentation software program that function in much the same way that Google Documents and Spreadsheets. All information is located online and no software is added to your computer. You can work in a collaborative mode and can work from any location in which you have an internet connection. While the program is not at the level of PowerPoint, it has lots of positive such as no software to purchase, collaborative online editing and available on any computer that has an internet connection. To get started you must have a Google Account. To locate the programs, click on the more hyperlink and then on the documents link. To start a new presentation click on the new link and select presentation. You can upload existing powerpoints in formats other than Office 2007.

Mini-Y2K

Are you ready for daylight savings time?

You may or may not be aware that the dates that daylight savings time begins and ends have been changed for 2007. Daylight savings time will begin on March 11^th which is three weeks earlier than in the past and ends one week later in the fall. On initially thinking about this change, you may realize that the clock on your computer will be off or your electronic calendar will be wrong. But the bigger issue is with scheduled tasks of back-ups, batch processes, etc. Companies have been working to solve these issues before the time change occurs on the 11^th. Patches for the Windows XP operating system can be found on the Microsoft website, if you have upgraded to Vista it is included.

Virtual Blogs and Other Web Applications

A new virtual workshop on Blogs and Other Web Applications has been posted for users. While the workshop is not full finished, most of the content has been placed in a virtual format, there is no charge for the workshop as it is part of the Kentucky Information Technology Center (KITCenter) offerings. The complete sequence is finished, additional video files will be posted showing the actual steps being preformed, as well as audio podcasting.

For information on how to access the workshop material please contact Tammy.mccollum@kctcs.edu. If you would like to see other virtual workshops produced as part of the KITCenter project, Tammy can assist you with these. Currently workshops are completed in the areas of educational technologies and GIS.

The content of this workshop includes, Accumulators/Aggregators, Blogs, Picture Storage, Mashup, Groups, and Open Applications. The content is presented in multiple formats and shows examples on how to create what is being discussed. The formats include Web, Producer Video, pdf slides to download, streaming video and podcasts (iPod and Zune formats).

The virtual workshop is planned to have Camtasia video available in the near future, in which you can watch the instructor actually creating all of the content. In addition audio only podcasts are planned, but you will need to have slides downloaded or be viewing the website.

Blogging Workshop

In late December a workshop was done on blogging and other Internet resource at Jefferson Community and Technical College Southwest Campus. This workshop will be virtualized in posted by early February. The information can be found at: http://vince.jcc.kctcs.edu.

Microsoft Producer Virtual Workshops

As part of the Kentucky Information Technology Center (KITCenter) initiative a virtual workshop on Microsoft producer has been produced. It can be accessed from the following website. http://vince.jcc.kctcs.edu/virtual/ initially the workshop will not have a password, but if you use the information in the virtual workshop please inform Tammy McCollum(tammy.mccollum@kctcs.edu) so that we can record the activity. If you try to access the workshop and it asks for a password please contact Tammy for access to the workshop (future development).

Microsoft Producer use PowerPoint 2003 slides and video to create a dynamic web page. The slides and the video are synchronized together and each slide is linked to the discussion of that slide. A step by step process is outlined for the workshop participant. The slides and other helpful material are also located at the workshop site including files that can be used to practice with before creating your own video and PowerPoints also include are pdf copies of the slides.

New Technologies for Education

At the recent NSF ATE conference Michael Qaissaunee, Gordon Snyder, and I (Vince DiNoto) presented a round table about new technologies for education. The topics included podcasting (audio and video), using blogs and accumulators, mashups, Wikis, RSS, etc. The PowerPoint slides can be found at ftp://kitcenter.org/presentations/ate/. The slides are presented both in PowerPoint format and pdf.

Virtual GIS Workshop

I am in the process of creating a series of virtual workshops. These virtual workshops include a website, video (WMV format), downloadable manual (publisher document) and a video podcast.

One of the topics of these virtual workshops will be in the area of Geospatial Information Technology. The first series of workshop topics have been completed and are available for use. Topics of the first series includes, Downloading Census Data, Downloading Shapefiles and Joining Shapefiles to Data. The second series of topics are being created and as they are completed they will be posted. Two topics are completed on Merging Shapefiles and Querying for Information. Additional topics will be posted during the next week.

The virtual workshop series will soon also have a topic on how to create audio podcasting.

The GIS virtual workshop series is posted at http://vince.jcc.kctcs.edu/gis.