Group items tagged

Solar System games

Excellent short article with essential IT management concerns and strategies for colleges and other non-profits, including  our synod, high schools, schools and, yes, churches. The same key questions and communication activities need to take place. The upfront costs of an IT system are only the beginning. The costs over the lifetime of the system (even a single computer with software) need to be included and budgeted. 

Web-based church management system from Concordia Technology Solutions - makers of Shepherd's Staff

Not so sure about the tablet or system, but I do like the resources available that discuss Android apps for schools.

Simple game written by MLC Systems Administrator Aaron Spike. Requires Python

Solar System Science site.

A good speaker selection guide for public address systems. A good place to start if you are in need of updating speakers in church and school?

ntroducing a Hangouts app for Virtual Classrooms If you use Hangouts on air (or consider using them) for education, and miss any of the features below: - A full featured registration module to manage attendees - An all-in-one Event Planner/Scheduling/Conferencing app - A comprehensive e-mailing system with fully custom automatic invitation emails, reminder emails and follow up emails - Allow non-plussers attend your classrooms signing in with their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles - Run private HOAs (directly generate unlisted YouTube recordings) - Give the mic to a viewer on-the-fly and make them participant, the time of a question - Get fixed URLs for your permanent virtual classrooms (with or without scheduling) - View a map with geolocated attendees - View your attendees as avatars in a 3D virtual classroom , create a sense of presence, see who's raising hand,... - A unified & moderated chat for participants and viewers engaging in the same chat then you should look into +Business Hangouts : Business Hangouts is an app built for Google Hangouts by Altadyn using the Google Hangouts API (not built by Google ).

Christian Computing magazine (PDF) for October 2013 - Church Management System overview, Accordance 10, E-Sword, Volunteers, The City, Bible Study App by Olive Tree

This new camera was released this summer. An all in one camera that does streaming (from what I can tell it would likely work with FinalWeb Streaming) and can be controlled all with the web interface. It also has the more tranditional pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) interface as well, if you already ahve that. Wire audio from a microphone or your sound system to it, connect it to your broadband and you would be up and going. Or, use the SDI video connection to go something something like Wirecast on your computer for more control. Refer to my presentation from WelsTechConf on video streaming, this new camera is one I am now reviewing to replace our first camera we installed this last year. We may shift then the camera that is our "primary front and center" off to the side more for the "B" roll view.

A recent interview with Getting Things Done productivity Author David Allen - If you are in need of organizing your "to-do" list, this is a great summary of his popular system

A desktop wiki like tool for keeping track of notes, phone numbers, and even has built in tools to use as your GTD system. It is cross platform running on Linux and Windows. With Dropbox you can keep your notes synced between all of your computers. You can even attach documents, files, and insert pictures too to keep all of your information in one place. Each note page is saved in plain text making it possible to edit the files with a normal text editor if you do not have Zim Wiki installed on a computer but have access to the files.

Another option for online Learning Management Systems. Seems geared more towards higher-ed/professional development. Lots of really great tools, though!

Has anyone ever used something like this in his classroom?  I have students that greatly enjoy having some music playing in the background (I limit it to classical piano, mostly).  Anyone know of a study that demonstrates if this helps students learn?

I've used Simply Noise in my classroom of 5th graders and I have had mixed results. Some kids really like it and some hate it. I tend to prefer the brown noise as opposed to white or pink noise. I think I might make less of a deal of it with my next class next year and just use it for a little longer period of time to get a better read on its effectiveness. I took my students to on a field trip to Environmental Systems Inc in Brookfield, WI and they use brown noise generators throughout their office/cubicle area to mask ambient noise. I found it very soothing. They used to have it timed to go off at 4pm and they found that their employees subconsciously sensed it was time to leave for the day. Not wanting to encourage them to leave early, they decided to gradually bring the volume of the noise down over the course of 30 minutes and that took care of their issue. Not necessarily applicable to what you were asking about, but kind of interesting.

I plan to recommend this to my confirmation classes and my congregation at large.

Teachers log in at t.socrative.com Students log in at m.socrative.com and input the teachers room number My room number is 69385 Works in any browser - desktop, laptop, netbook, mobile

another planet site. Looks simialr to NASA's but may have different resources.