A Paintbrush that works on the iPad

The iPad has one of the sharpest, most responsive touch screens on the planet, and its art apps are incredible. They’re like blank canvases with Photoshop powering the backend. Mistakes can be made and fixed. Experimentations are a filter away. Art is malleable at a whole new tactile level.

“All this magic and still we are expected to finger paint,” writes the team from Artist Hardware. They’re a long-standing art company responsible for some of the most popular paint brushes on the market today. And they recently fundraised a new project on Kickstarter. It’s called the Sensu, and it’s a “paintbrush” that works on the iPad’s capacitive screen. It goes on sale this May for $40.

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AudioExpert - Free & Simple online audio editor

AudioExpert is a free and simple online audio editor, file converter and sound recorder. All the standard functionality of an audio editor provides you with an easy way to create a ringtone for your cell phone. You will find AudioExpert useful also as a powerful audio file converter which will allow you to modify the file format of your files, their bit rate, frequency, etc. If your computer is equipped with a camera and microphone, you can use AudioExpert to record your sounds.

Main Features:

• Make use of it to analyse audio files and extract detailed information about the format.
  
  
• Cut or crop audio files in just a few clicks.
  
  
• Merge multiple files into a single audio track.
  
  
• Convert files between all of the popular audio formats (WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR, WMA, MKA).
  
  
• Record audio off a microphone or another sound device and save it directly to WAV, MP3, WMA, OGG, etc.
  
  
• Convert multiple files at once by means of batch processing.

SCREENSHOTS :

Thoughts on using Prezi as a Teaching Tool

Thoughts on using Prezi as a teaching tool on Prezi

Prezi has been around for a couple of years now and is a really promising presentation tool because of it's unique content navigation method.  Students will genuinely be impressed by it and teachers who are familiar with PowerPoint shouldn't find it too hard to construct presentations on.  Paul Hill has put together a great presentation to showcase the potential of Prezi as a teaching tool.  Take a look at the presentation above and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

My number one Web Tool for Teachers

It amazes me how many teachers I see who lose data, carry around thumb drives have multiple versions of the same files spread over laptops, servers and home desktops.  Get with the program guys.  Dropbox is 100 percent free takes 2 minutes to install on your computer and synchronises all of your files between any number of computers and even your iPhone.  Even if you get on a computer that doesn't have Dropbox installed you can access all of your files through their web portal in seconds.  Photos's, music, documents links it doesn't matter and there is no file size or type restriction.

I have all of my teaching docs on dropbox and if I change something at home or school within seconds it is altered on all the computers whether they are on or off. If you put stuff up in your public folder your kids can access it straight from the web.  Great for Homework.

can I just say that I do not get a cent for using or promoting dropbox but it is still my number one webtool to the point I don't even carry a computer with me from home to work anymore.  I have used it for 3 years without a hiccup.  Get it here.

Online Mind Mapping Tool Comparison

Mind Mapping tools such as Inspiration and Freemind have been available for a while as standalone mind mapping, thought collaboration tool, what ever you want to call it software packages and I must say that having used both Inspiration is the clear leader in the market due to it's ease of use visual styling and flexibility, but it must be remembered that Inspiration is a paid product and Freemind is quite obviously free and offers a similar experience. 

Today I am going to look at 3 free web based products that allow you to create mind maps online and more importantly embed them in a blog or webspace of your choice.

 MindMeister:  Offers collaborative mind mapping and it has a good visual appeal for a web based product.  It is reasonably simple to use and dead easy to embed into your web space.  It does require an annoying  sign up process and has both free and paid options.

myWebspiration:  Is made by the creators of Inspiration and is a beta version of their excellent software based package.  It works fine on their site  and is relatively easy to navigate but the final embedded project does not work as it should with links becoming broken.  Needs a little more polish but shows a great deal of polish.  If embedding is not important then this is my pick.

Wisemapping didn't excite me too much.  It is a simple and effective product that actually works but lacks depth and visual appeal.  I would recommend either of the above depending on what you want to achieve.

So all told for an embeddable mind mapping tool that looks reasonable and has some depth to it I would recommend Mindmeister but I will keep an eye in webspiration as it looks a little more engaging but is currently let down by it's ability to embed effectively.

Love to hear your thoughts.