Saturday, March 24, 2007

Bits and Pieces for Educators


I have been collecting a few things around the Web in my hunt for good content to put into my Literature Alive! project in Second Life. These tools and resources have been so incredibly useful that it would be SUCH a crime not to pass them along to you!


The Open Shakespeare Project is an awesome tool for those of us still teaching the Bard. They use the Gutenberg Goodies, but are also looking for some free hands to volunteer. The package is housed by the Open Knowledge Foundation (woot woot for OKF!). Many thanks to Rufus Pollock for posting the message...that lead to the exploration...that lead to the post (the web...T'is a web of wonder :-) For those of you with a little skepticism about the TRUTH about Billy S. - take a look at Mark Anderson's Shakespeare” By Another Name: The Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, The Man Who Was Shakespeare.

My newest best friend is the lovely and free VIXY program. It converts anything movie-ish to a file like QT (which is the only thing that runs in SL..). A word to the ethically wise...it is against the TOS of both YouTube and Google Video to convert their encrypted movies...so be sure to email the content owner and get some lovin' first (and a permission slip).

If I were at all creative and good at graphics, I am sure I would LOVE the Gimp program. I have it; it looks like it is fun. But, alas, I am pathetic and don't know what to do with it. I do know that a lot of my SL friends use it and swear by it (and at me....har har), and they say it is just as lovely as Paint Shop Pro (and it is FREE).

The awesome site, Brainy Betty, is sooooooo worth another mention here at Stingy Scholar. It is a must have if you use PPT to create Jpegs for loading into SL.

Finally, if you are planning to use SL to teach or you want to lurk around and spy on those of us who do....grab yer horse and join SLED. Many of the good leads I get happen right there...and here...so, giddy up :-) You will also want to check out the SLEDucating Blog (handy scripts, lots of fun).

5 comments:

Bob Hawkins said...

I also have no artistic ability. But I still sometimes want to do something to a picture, like crop it to wallpaper size. I use Photofiltre ( http://www.photofiltre.com/ ) It's free, much simpler than GIMP, but can do quite a few things.

It's also small for a Windows program, and doesn't even need to be installed. I have it on an old thumb drive with some other utilities, and plug it in when I want to use it.

Beth Ritter-Guth said...

oh, thank you!!!! Gold star :0 I am going to try it out right this second; thanks for the tip!!!!

Anonymous said...

For those who like Macs GIMP and GIMPShop both run under X11 on the mac for free too.

I have to say I'm more of a photoshop girl myself, despite the hefty price tag, GIMP is nice.

Shane said...

I was using Gimp since 2 years ago, nice to have I agree. For PowerPoint templates, check this site FPPT http://www.free-power-point-templates.com with tutorials too :-)

bp claims said...

Glorious information here bp claims. This fascinating post made me smile bp claims. Maybe if you happen to throw in a few bp claims pictures it would make the whole bp claims more interesting. Anyway, in my language, bp claims there aren't a lot good source like this bp claims.