Everything (Almost) You Want to Know About Multimedia Tools

For educators and their students, part of teaching and learning in today’s world is knowing how to present information.

To discover a comprehensive list of media creation and editing tools, look no further and check out Software Tools I Like for Multimedia Production by Barbara Schroeder, Ed,D., an associate professor in the Department of Educational Technology at Boise State University.

It’s an amazing blog post with links to all sorts of multimedia tools that can help educators and their students create good-looking presentations. I discovered a new tool — Screenr a web-based screen casting site that I intend to explore. Most importantly most of Schroeder’s recommendations are easy to master, thereby enabling our 21st Century learners to concentrate on the topics and the content they are studying rather than on the “how-to’s” of presenting.

A Partial List of Schroeder’s Categories                   

Lots More Fonts for Google Drive!

Until a few days ago, even as I was increasing my daily use of Google Drive, I assumed that font choices were limited.  Then I read a blog post about fonts over at the Education Technology and Mobile Learning blog (a great resource to follow).

Guess what?  We can use hundreds of fonts with our Google documents.

You can follow of the steps, with pictures, at the blog.  I’ve followed them on my laptop. They’re easy, and I and noted the steps here.

Point your mouse to the font list at the top of the page.  Click and hold and your font list opens.  Mouse down to the bottom of the fonts list where it says Add Fonts. (See image at left.)

Another window opens. (See image at right.)

In this window,  all of the fonts you can add-on are to the left-hand side  and the list of what is actually on your Google drive on the right side.

Peruse the list on the left and click on the fonts you want to add. At the top right you can filter the fonts in all sorts of different ways.

Click OK when you have selected the fonts that you want to use.  Once you choose them for one document, they seem to remain in the list for other documents. More on this later, if updates are required.

Users can go back again and again.

One way to filter the fonts is by Date added, so it may be that more new fonts will be uploaded occasionally.

Still to discover is whether fonts will show up no matter what computer you use.

Several Google Drive tutorials are listed in right-hand column of this blog.

iPad Apps that Support 21st Century Learning

Do you wish you could visit one place to learn a lot about iPad apps?

Check out the cool post, 100 Top Educational iPad Apps Every Teacher and Student Should Know About, at the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog.

The post includes an awesome image (small copy at right) with live links to each of the apps. The image, designed by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, is a terrific aid for exploring apps. It’s organized by each type of 21st Century literacy including:

Teacher’s Guide to YouTube in the Classroom

Want to learn a lot more about YouTube?  Need to become familiar with a few video classroom strategies to get started.  Check out the Teacher’s Guide to YouTube in the Classroom over at the Edudemic blog.

Lots of good ideas here, and not just on YouTube.  Check out some of the other posts on Google, Apple, teacher tools, iPads, ed tech, and more.