Google Drive for iOS

Google has been working at upgrading what was formerly known as Google Docs. Their new and improved product is Google Drive. Drive is Google's cloud storage solution, very similar to Dropbox. You get 5GB of storage and can sync and manage files across multiple computers with a desktop app. A huge benefit to Drive over other solutions is the ability to collaborate on work from your computer and the Drive viewer which supports viewing a variety of file types like Adobe's Illustrator or CAD files without needing the software installed. Click here for more Drive features. 

Google has just updated its app for iPads and iPhones.In Google Drive's first release on the iPad/iPhone, you were only be able to view items that you had in Google Drive/Docs and edit the document's permissions. With the newest version, you can now create and edit documents too!

If you are collaborating with someone on a document, the app will continue to refresh every couple of seconds so that you have a similar experience as you do when collaborating on documents from your computer.

The app also supports richer presentations with animations and speakers notes so it has a great potential to lighten your load. If you haven't started using Google Drive yet and would like some help visit during out office hours or email itshelp@colgate.edu  and some one will get back to you.

Make any web page printer friendly

Take a moment to relax, perhaps grab a cup of tea, and picture the following scenario.  You've stumbled upon a brilliant article, on the internet, containing some of the most relevant information on a particular subject of your choice, and your only wish is to share said information with your friend, who just happens to have no internet connection, or a computer.  What do you do?

Concept Maps with Google Drawing Tools

Cristian Opazo, a Senior Academic Computing Consultant at Vassar College, recently posted an interesting article on the blog, RAIL:  RECIPES FOR ADVANCING INFORMATION LITERACY.

Cristian's post is about how Google drawing tools can be used to create concept maps.  At Colgate, we have had several professors use the Webspiration Concept Mapping tool with their students with some success.

Because all faculty and students now have the full suite of Google Apps at their disposal, the idea of using the Google drawing tools is very powerful as students would be able to collaborate both in class and out of class on the same concept maps.

Below is an excerpt from Cristian's post.  Click here to see the entire post.

"The drawing tools provided by Google Docs are very intuitive (think of a simpler version of Illustrator) and they allow you to do most anything you need as far as creating 2-D illustrations: stroke-and-fill shapes, freehand lines, inserting external images, etc. The library of shapes is generous (it features, for instance, 26 different types of arrows), and objects can be arranged into layers and grouped, masked, reordered, etc. The beauty of it all is that since it is natively generates vector graphics, you can create illustrations of arbitrarily large sizes that could be printed out poster-sized in all their vector-based glory. As a consequence, not only you can export your drawings as raster graphics (JPEG, PNG), but also as vector-based PDFs or SVGs. One particularly useful feature is the ability to insert links on your illustration, which takes you to the next level: creating hyperlinked images. This way, for instance, you can associate a URL to every concept in the map, so that when you click on the "Newtonian Mechanics" label, you are taken, for instance, to the respective page on Wikipedia (so you can read it, learn from it, and improve it!) In the best Google Docs tradition, of course, you can review the files history, so you can revert to a previous version just like that, and share your drawing with your collaborators for viewing, commenting or editing. Simply publishing the image file to the web is also possible, and very easy. "

Germany: Facebook must destroy facial recognition database

by Jon Brodki

German data protection officials today accused Facebook of “illegally compiling a vast photo database of users without their consent” and demanded that the social network destroy its archive of files based on facial recognition technology, the New York Times reported. Facebook says that it uses face recognition software to match users’ photos to others and suggest friends to tag in those photos.

A user can prevent friends from seeing tag suggestions when they upload photos that look like that user. But this requires opting out through Facebook privacy settings, which Germany notes is a violation of European law.

iPad app: iMovie for iOS quick FAQs

Did you know you can create video narratives with even just a smartphone? iMovie is just one of the apps available for iOS devices that is being used in classrooms for videos.

iMovie is a simple video editing app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Just recently, Rebecca Ammerman used the iPad 2 and iMovie with her Extended Study Rome group to record and create video narratives on site. You can view her story at the CEL Website.  She brings a unique perspective, as the year previous she and many of her students had brought laptops and video cameras to Athens for a similar project.

Here's a few things you should know about iMovie for iPad.

iPad App: "SlideShark: PowerPoint Presentations on the iPad"

This is a free app, but you must sign up for the online service in order to use it. You get 100MB of storage for free.

The SlideShark app allows you to display PPT slides on the iPad, while maintaining all the fonts, graphics, colors, and animations you used in the original PowerPoint. It also does a good job of making sure it is filling the screen, and you can easily switch between slides.

Getting slides from your desktop onto SlideShark can go one of two ways: You can either upload it directly to the SlideShark.com site on your desktop/laptop computer, or you can save the file into a Dropbox account and open it in the SlideShark app.

I tend to use the Dropbox-to-SlideShark method, so that I don't have to log into another service. I create the PPTx files on my desktop computer, then upload them into my Dropbox account (through the awesome Dropbox for iMac app). Then I open the Dropbox app on my iPad, select the PPTx file I want to open, and open it in SlideShark.

With this method, first SlideShark uploads the files to the online SlideShark server. Then it will appear as an "available" file for you to download on the SlideShark app. You have to click the download button to get the ppt onto your iPad to display it. Once it downloads, you can play it offline from your iPad.

Technically, your files live in the cloud, so at some point you need to be connected to the net in order to upload or download the files.

I have QuickOffice on my iPad for creating/editing ppt files. I was disappointed that things didn't turn out very well when displaying a pptx file I created on the desktop in the QuickOffice app. You can see the screenshot below:

There is a border around the slide, and it also displays the time and battery settings at the top. I also noticed the missing heart in the "Do you ♥ JSTOR..."

In this screenshot you can see how it appears in SlideShark.

It looks much better, doesn't give a big border to the image, displays a more true-to-original color, and fills the entire screen. It also displayed the unicode ♥ just fine. SlideShark will also properly display text and images that you've manipulated in PPT, and overall gives you the same appearance as if you were displaying it on a desktop computer.

You cannot edit slides in SlideShark, but if you need to display a ppt quickly with only your iPad around, it's a great option. It is very responsive to taps, plus you can swipe forward and back (in case you accidentally skip a slide). You can also tap and hold to bring up a red laser dot to point out things.

It's a free service, and I'd recommend it for displaying PPTs.  Especially if you have a bunch of stock PPTs on your computer that you wouldn't mind being able to display whenever you want to. I've used this app in presentations with image-heavy PPTx and graphs, and I was very satisfied with the performance.

Nine Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom

In a blog post, Derek Bruff describes some potential uses of Twitter in the classroom that include:

1. Notetaking
2. Sharing Resources
3. Commenting
4. Amplifying
5. Asking Questions
6. Helping One Another
7. Offering Suggestions
8. Building Community
9. Opening the Classroom

To read the post go to http://derekbruff.org/?p=472