Monday, May 26, 2014

53+ Free Image Sources For Your Blog and Social Media Posts

Check out this great article about free image sources. Particularly worthwhile if you are an instructional designer.

53+ Free Image Sources For Your Blog and Social Media Posts


Friday, May 16, 2014

Using TouchCast in the Classroom

Came across this great tool from Scoop.it. If you aren't using Scoop.it, you need to look it. But that's a separate blog for later.

Touchcast gives you the ability to record video and add vApps as you are speaking. When you go to the website, they have very little writing on the site, and mostly little video vignettes explaining how the tool works. I spent about 20 minutes going through a number of the short video tutorials and then sat down and made my first video with it. However, I want you to see what Steven Levy did with it.



They have multiple vApps that you link into your video, such as Twitter, where you can do a search on a topic in Twitter and embed that into your video. Or, go to Instagram, and grab a photo to add into the video. Even more important, you can add Google searchs, websites that you can interact with live during the recording.

Currently, the tool works only with PC, iPads, or iPods. A Mac and Android version is coming soon.

Imagine then using this as a tool for students in a classroom doing their research and laying out all the links and vApps they want to insert and making a great presentation for the rest of the class and the world if they want to. There a teleprompt embedded so students can write out what they are going to say in advance and read it off during the videotaping.

I've also added a link on Touchcast that a couple of students posted. They used the green screen feature, and were able to add photos of places they are reporting on into the background. Very cool.

Great tool. Check it out and have some fun with it.