So much technology out there!

Just spent an amazing day at home using and reading about technology. I only wish my students were as excited about discovering new things on their own as I am. Today I started research on TextAloud, a software that converts text into audio. I am participating in a masters research project for a colleague at USQ. I'm very impressed with the way Jennifer has organized her project. Last week she emailed a welcome letter with my log-in instructions. She is using the EDNA website and I am Number 8 in the Technology Users group (reminds me of The Prisoner!). There are six exercises that focus on a different feature of TextAloud. Since I'm using the 14 day free trial version, I couldn't change the R2D2 default voice (his name is Sam) to a more sophisticated natural voice which can be downloaded with the fully- paid version. I can definitely see advantages to this software. It takes a complete article on the web and saves it into a sound clip at the click of a mouse! Also you can edit the parts of the web page by deleting the extra frames and navigational words before saving it. TextAloud will then only read the article, and none of the non-important text.

Later in the day I tackled Wiki markup/markdown as I've been curious as to why it's so different from xhtml . I've been wrestling with wiki language ever since Day 1 of the course when I tried to set up my userpage in Knowledge Garden. Armed with new knowledge about Wiki markup and the fact that Wiki language is not the same for all Wiki software (so anticipate another learning curve in the future) , I contributed to the Wiki for Dummies page in Knowledge Garden, which I need to do to get brownie points for Assignment 1. I wouldn't have imagined I could contribute anything to a wiki page last week, but now I just type in those symbols *(^_= !{] from memory, thanks to Peter and others who came to my rescue. I even made my own facilitated page which is about social networking software.

The last thing I want to write about is Twitter. Really - it grows on you. That's where I've learned so much about new stuff . Twitter is like a name dropper - like going to a cocktail party every night and mingling with the elite! I learned how to add twitter4me to my Skype contacts so that the next time I write a chat message to twitter4skype, the entry will appear on my account and hopefully I'll receive my friends’ twitters in Skype. But the last thing I did tonight is tweet my friends. I clicked the twit this button on the blog I was reading, and it transformed the URL into a tinyurl and miraculously pasted it into the Updates box on my twitter page which I've shared with all my followers. I have a new follower - Chris of Betchablog. I don't think he realizes I'm a newbie at all of this stuff! But as my friend Laurie would say: "It's all so wonderful!" Good night.

Adding a Userpage to Knowledge Garden

Tonight when I logged on to the Forum, a colleague had a question about adding a userpage to a Table of Contents in Knowledge Garden. It's only because I sat in front of this computer for hours a couple of nights ago that I know how to do this!! And it's not necessarily that easy to add a Userpage if you miss clicking the Edit button. Because I find Knowledge Garden very congested, I decided to use SnagIt8 to make screen captures to clarify my response. Unfortunately, the post only allows one attachment! So I've spent an hour or so (no, probably two!!), trying to put the frames together into a video using Windows Movie Maker. Here is my second attempt at making a video. I didn't realize that when I was creating the first video, the music from the gorgeous classical music station 96.3 out of Toronto that I so enjoy listening to was recording. We didn't have any radio stations to listen to in Al Ain and I've been starved for good classical music for seven years! However, I cropped too many frames using the timeline feature and had to begin again! Ah, the trials and tribulations of a movie director!! This one still has nice music - next time I'll try for clearer pictures! Janet