Culpepper Online

Creating a Blog and RSS Feed — Using Edublogs, Feedburner, Archive.org, and Audacity to create fantastic media that can enrich students, teachers, and interested individuals opinions, knowledge and the like – for free is quite a feat.  This session will address how to set up a blog (using Edublogs), create a RSS Feed (using Feedburner) for iTunes, and setting up a podcast using Audacity, as well as setting up an account to archive our content with Archive.org.  Each of these entities are high quality free options for low budgets, or better yet, NO Budgets for educators.  This tutorial is set up as a “screen shot” video.  It shows specifics with imagery and detail to guide each reader/viewer successfully to set up an effecient website (blog), RSS Feed, how to upload content to a free resource server (Our Media.org/Archive.org), and including iTunes synchronization.  Creating a valid source for files that can be archived and subscribed to by students (and not just our own) around the world, as well as other educators to efficiently maximize student and/or teacher content.

How To Podcast with Windows – (download) (69mb – HQ), (.mp4)

 So many times, especially with all of “hype” or “push” for technology integration, many stumble with finding appropriate measures to use for classroom content.  Unfortunately, with all of the demands that teachers have on them, time is the most precious commodity.  This is a luxury that many do not have – and finding or creating resources with maximum effect with minimal investment is always something that is greatly needed for student reinforcement.  As PC’s are much more cheaper than Macs (although I am a HUGE Mac Fan), schools are typically forced to use Windows OS – just for cost effectiveness.  Yet, with PC’s, teachers have to jump through many hoops to accomplish their overall task.  Thus, offering a tutorial for converting their classroom presentations (PowerPoint), or lectures into another viable resource for their students; which can used for review, retention, and lesson follow-up seems valuable.  Here is a direct link that can be downloaded for investigation for teacher worthiness.

How To Convert PowerPoint To iTunes With Windows (41mb) (.mp4) (LINK)
Direct Download  – (mp4) (16:09) (41mb)

As podcasting continues to grow or some suggest its plateau….there will always be a need for tutorials, instruction, demonstrations, and how-to’s.  As Camtasia increasingly grows or offers greater flexibility in the marketplace (education included), there are some extremely adequate and intuitive FREE options that offer strong competition.  In this age of economic downturn, people continue to seek passionately the era of offering a helping hand to others.  This includes amazing programs that are viable, professional, and meets the needs of others.  The software I am addressing is one called – FREEZ (link) produced by Small Video Soft.  They offer six genres of free (high quality) software advantages for professionals which include: Ipod Converting Software (for any video file to iPod or iPhone/iTouch), DVD ripping, Screen Recording Software (Camtasia competitive), Flash file Conversion to iPod/iPhone compatible or even .wmv, .avi, and etcetera.  The best part is that it is High Quality and Free (with no Malware or Spyware).  I encourage you all to explore the software and the website – http://www.smallvideosoft.com

One of the great things that has been made public recently is an answer to many podcasters hopes – it is the thought and reality of FREE Storage, which allows actual files to be encoded, especially video and audio tracks – without them being converted to flash (which is great for size issues and embedding into another blog or website).  Yet, if you have an RSS feed that works for all podcatchers, and iTunes, unfortunately, flash content will not be downloaded to your iPod, mp3 player, or the like – except potentially phones or whatnot.  Yet the idea is to be able to carry content with you – and high quality content at that extent.  The most important issue is the fact that it gives you the direct link to the file (which all RSS feeds require) and not some random file extension.

Although you have create or generate yourself an account, it is relatively painless, and hassle free.  The best part is the flexibility that comes with Microsoft’s Skydrive, you can make specific content available to the public, or you can “hide” your files in your private folder – for those special documents that you would need to have for on the spot issues (presentations, classes, meetings, and etc.).  Excellent resource for all computer users – Microsoft’s Skydrive Live (link).

The Georgia Educational Technology Conference was amazing!!  I had the privilege of teaching two sessions at the conference (GICC – Georgia International Conference Center) which included (Session 238) Interactive Presentations in PowerPoint and was specifically focused on addressing issues to aid teachers with a truly more effective interactive experience in the classroom while using PowerPoint.  For those I promised extra handouts too, here is the Handout (1.81mb).  I also was able to teach (Session 56) Real World Blogging and Podcasting for the Classroom.  This focused completely on the Windows platform with FREE high quality options to help teachers and students work with a effective blogging environment through Edublogs, Archive.org, Feedburner, iTunes, and a few other principles in setting a site, content, RSS feed, and account with iTunes so that their content, ideas, and perspectives could be heard the world round.  For those who needed extra handouts, you can find them here:  Presentation File (3.55 mb) (DOWNLOAD), and the Handout (1.42 mb) (DOWNLOAD).  Thank you Georgia for a wonderful experience, kind remarks, and standing room only teaching environment!!

**On a last note, for those who are wanting the video segment with a completely visual “How To” for session 56 (Real World Blogging….), it will be listed in iTunes shortly.  Thanks Again!

I will be teaching at the Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) in November.  I have been looking forward to this for a while.  Coming in 2009, I have the privilege of working with the Tennessee State Department of Education, and the Mississippi State Department of Education.  As the desperation of effective technology integration continues to be expected, the tragedy is very few educators know how to seamlessly and effortly perform this task.  For several, technology integration is using PowerPoint, with their slides/notes for students to copy down.  This rhetoric is contradictory to parents, students, community, and educational expectations and desires.  Educational engagement into course work and instruction is the expection.  Teaching others (teacher, professionals, etcetera) to perform, understand, and complete this task is my forte.  Like the old chines proverb goes: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

For those of you who want to use “gaming” formats in a classroom setting, I have created and uploaded six for immediate (7th on its way) classroom use.  You can go to the GAMING TEMPLATES page to read more about each of these, and you can also download them there as well.  Each of the these templates are created on the “Trigger” concept, and all that anyone would need to do is to replace your text or content with what is already in the template.  If you are asked about “enabling macros”, you will have to do so.  There are two elements that are used in each of the templates that use the control toolbox in PowerPoint which makes that option pop up.  These have been tested and tried by many teachers, workshops, and training sessions to ensure they are error free.  I hope you enjoy them!  Also, be sure to give credit where credit is due.

**Right Click on the “Download” text and then choose “Save Target As” – to save the template to your CPU.

Game Templates Available:
Celebrity Square – Download
Chain Reaction – Download
Class Feud – Download
Classroom Jeopardy – Download
Millionaire – Download
Weakest Link – Download
Wheel of Knowledge – Coming Soon!

Have you ever wanted to know how to create a truly interactive spinner for a game with a class, a group of colleagues, or even for a different type of event.  It isn’t really all that difficult, and this tutorial can show you how simple it really is in PowerPoint.  It uses the platform of triggers, and a graph that has been changed to a pie chart.  This video tutorial will show you how simple it is in 10 minutes.  As you practice, you can literally do it in 3 minutes or less.

Here is a direct link to the video on Archive.org, or you can drag the Culpepper Online RSS feed into iTunes to download it to your iPod/Podcatcher.  I hope you enjoy it!  Also, dont forget to check out the AETC information posted below (link to site).

Direct Download (11:02 min.) (24mb) (.mp4)

Greetings Everyone.  It has been a long time in writing, but much has been transpiring personally.  I have been working on my Doctorate in Education over the last year and not much time has been allowed for tutorials or the like.  This coming summer (June 17-19), I will be teaching at the Alabama three workshops.  Two are three hour hands-on workshops, and the other is a one hour teaching session.  I will be teaching “Real World Educational Blogging and Podcasting” to an audience of 200+, and the two three hour teaching labs will be:  “Interactive Presentations in PowerPoint”, and “Real World Educational Blogging and Podcasting”.  This is always a highlight of my year where I get to meet and work with teachers from all over the state of Alabama. 

(POWERPOINT GAMING TUTORIAL) – 21.6mb – (Format: .m4v)