Open Resource Centre

Video Tutorials – Not everyone learns by reading books!

Includes dreamweaver and photoshop – brilliant

From Teachict.com

via Kent teachers

To edit and join video clips together, use Microsoft Movie maker – you will find it in Start – Programmes – tutorial here

To add video to a powerpoint slide, click on menu

• Insert – Movies and sounds – Movie from file
• Then select your video file from location ie find it!
• You will then be asked if you want this to play automatically – click yes
• Resize the video frame to full screen as you would a photo

If you have any digital photos, use Photostory to create a zooming video slide show of your photos with music if wanted – tutorial here

To add a Photostory show to Powerpoint follow the instructions above

If you are using Canon Ixus camera to take your video, you will need to download and run a special file – called a codec
Having made up your slides, create the self-running slide show by setting up Powerpoint as follows:

In slide show menu – set up show

Browse at a kiosk – full screen

• Show all slides
• Loop continuously
• No show scroll bar
• Advance slides using timings if present

In slide show menu – slide transition

• Fade smoothly or fade through black or choose your own from the list
• Speed – slow
• Advance slide automatically after 2 sec
• Apply to all slides

Sounds hard but is quite simple – honest – even I can do it!

Thank goodness for this post.  Photostory is a tool I am promoting as one of my “beyond Powerpoint” strategies.  I was thinking of making a screencast, but it seems I’ve been relieved of this task -thanks again to the Fischbowl for doing this

Photo Story 3 Tutorial Screencast

If you wish to add that special effect, sometimes seen in advertising, where the black & white photo has just one colour object in it, here’s a tutorial from Lifehacker

Windows only: Synchronize Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook with gSyncit.

This Outlook plug-in supports one-way or two-way synchronization (you can go Google-to-Outlook, Outlook-to-Google or both) and works manually or automatically. After installing the program, look for a new two-button toolbar in Outlook; click the Settings button to access gSyncit’s surprisingly robust configuration options.

gSyncit limits you to syncing 365 days in the past and 365 days in the future, which might be a deal-breaker for some users. Even so, this is a really effective way to connect Outlook and Google Calendar

Via lifehacker

download from Dave’s website

Everyday I read a variety of information that I have pre-selected to come to me via my RSS reader account. The information from the fields of education, technology, health, and wellness that arrive is hot-off-the-press and up to the minute. Through these feeds I am able to keep up-to-date on my interest areas rather than reading about it in next month’s magazine, tomorrow’s newspaper or hearing about it on the morning news.  Much of the information I am able to pass on through this blog comes via my RSS feeds.

I strongly believe every teacher should know and utilize the power of RSS, but while powerful, RSS can be a difficult concept to comprehend. Then along come the folks from the CommonCraft blog and their video RSS in Plain English. This is a very low tech video, but its simplicity of design and presentation format take a complex topic and make it very understandable.

Do yourself a favor, watch the video, and learn about the most powerful personal professional development tool around … RSS!