Sunday, March 29, 2009

Flowgram - interactive presentations

Flowgram combines the functionality of screencasts and slide presentations with an interactive experience for the user.

It allows users to mix video, audio, text, presentations, photos, and web pages and then to add voice recording and annotation. These views are presented in a similar way to a slideshow presentation except that viewers can interact with any of the pages by clicking on links, and playing and pausing videos.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Temporary Email Account

There are times when you may need to provide your email to access a site or recieve a link but do not want to continue to recieve further communications. Meltmail can provide you with a tempory email address for a set period of time (you decide how long for). During this period it will forward any emails recieved to your permanent email address. At the end of the designated period, the account is deleted and the record of your permanant address is also deleted.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Create your own Movies

If you have ever considered producing your own movies but do not have the equipment, have a look at xtranormal.com. This site provides an opportunity to produce a video: you can select the characters, setting, voices, movements, camera angles, sound effects and music.

Although this is quite intricate to do, with a little practice it is possible to produce a reasonable effort.It does highlight the problems with filming - selecting camera angles and some of the other things a producer needs to take into consideration.

Have a look at one I made earlier...

Monday, March 9, 2009

Snippy & Screen Prints

Copying the image from your screen can be done by using the Print Screen key on the keyboard and you can then paste the screen image into a document.

However if you just want a small part of the screen to be copied, you can use Snippy. Snippy is a small programme which youc an save to your computer. By clicking on the snippy icon in the toolbar you start the programme which enables you to draw with your mouse around the section of the screen you want to copy. This is copied to the clipboard and can be pasted into a document.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Statistics - Data Sources

A few days agao one of my colleagues asked if I knew of any websites containing data that would be useful for her teaching. Swivel seems to fit the bill.

The website creators, Dmitry Dimov and Brian Mulloysay say "Swivel is a place where curious people explore all kinds of data.... Swivel's mission is to make data useful so people share insights, make great decisions and improve lives".

This site provides access to a vast array of data sets on a wide range of topics which can be explored graphically. Data comes from both official and non-official sources. People can add their own data and make it public (for free) or keep it private (at a cost).

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Dynamic Pictures


Today, a fun site but I'm sure it can be used creatively to amuse and make useful points. Hetemeel.com provides 'dynamic images'. Pictures that you can add customised text or captions to You can save the pictures and then use them (like the one on this post).

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Task Management Tools Online

Remember the Milk is an online task management tool which helps you to manage and keep track of your tasks quickly and easily. I have come across this many times as a recommended site over the last few months and finally decided to add it to this blog. A free hosted service which offers fee based upgrades to additional services, Remember the Milk enables you to manage and organise tasks, recieve reminders to you email, SMS or Instant Messanger, locate tasks on a map, share to do lists and much more. If you do not have these facilities on your mobile phone or PDA, this is worth checking out.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Video Search Engine

Blinkx describes itself as "the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine". It uses "a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis software to efficiently, automatically and accurately find and qualify online video".

I have tried searching for appropriate videos for some of my teaching on many search engines but this really did find more than other search engines. If you are looking for a video and are not finding it easily, try Blinkx. You can search by category or use your own search terms.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Research Statistics

Onlinestatbook is a very useful site if you are seeking to understand statistics or if you needto teach statistics to students. Developed at Rice University, University of Houston, this site proides an online statistics book, simulations, case studies and links to other statistics resources on the web.