Friday, April 15, 2011

Aviary

Product image
Aviary
Aviary Design Suite (Free)
Free design tools and templates to create, modify and share images, logos, presentations, audio tracks, podcasts & more. Teams can collaborate on multimedia projects. Works directly in Google Docs.
-Create Logos, Slides, Business Cards & Letterhead
-Retouch photos, Make Web Templates & Banner Ads
-Develop Podcasts, Remix Audio & More

Should this suite of tools be added to the Jeffco Google Apps domain?
Click around. Try a few things. Set a few kids loose. Post some feedback below. Thanks!

9 comments:

  1. A few of our virtual academy kids finished their assignments early today so we played with Aviary for a while. In a seventh grade boy's analysis: IT'S COOL!

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  2. I am all for adding both Blogger and Aviary. I have to have log in all my students to use Blogger, it would be great to let them have their own blogs. Good for learning blogging and to help their writing skills. Good for Lang Arts teachers also. I love the set of tools Aviary give you. Mina would be good for those schools that don't have Garage Band. Go Dan! Alison

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  3. I whole-heartedly support adding Blogger & Aviary to Jeffco's Google Apps. Many teachers are using Blogger as it is, which requires students to use their personal gmail accounts. This also leads to confusion at times about which Google account to use. Since Blogger & other nifty tools are accessible in public Google, it sure makes it easier to have them available in ours as well whenever possible.

    I just tried out Aviary's audio editor & music creator. Both are very user friendly. The Aviary audio editor will be replacing our use of Audacity since Aviary is web-based (no download needed) & doesn't require the additional download of a LAME-encoder to save files as an mp3 (that step stumps many teachers). Overall, the audio editor is so much easier to access to & save with as compared with Audacity, which is what we've been using. This tool will make editing & mixing audio tracks much easier for projects.

    The screen capture add-on to Firefox is also super-slick. Teachers will LOVE that. I haven't had time to try out the image editor yet. I'll try to do that this week & post again. I love Photoshop, but I also love tools that are web-based so students can access them from home & have a toolbox of free-tools to use after they graduate.

    Jen Jonson - RVHS

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  4. I think we should definitely add both Blogger and Aviary to Jeffco Google Apps. Both of these tools will be great in all kinds of classroom situations!

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  5. Thanks for the comments, everyone. Great feedback for me to share. Jen's comment about free, web-based tools that kids (and teachers) can access 24/7 is one of the big reasons I am fired up about these tools, and all of Google Apps.

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  6. Go Blogger. We are really using our netbooks and just ordered 32 more... The web-based tools just give us more reason to go down that path.
    This is way off the subject but have you all seen the cool live eagles nest cam? There are 3 eaglets now. It is rainy and windy today, but check in on them now and again. Great for science students and journaling.
    To the eagle lovers out there -- you can watch a LIVE 24/7 broadcast of a female American eagle on her nest. Eaglets will be born around April 1. You can heard wind, birds, etc. . . FANTASTIC! Enjoy.

    http://raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/index.html

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  7. One more comment -- tried out the image editor today & was very impressed. As I said, love that it's web-based, so accessible everywhere without a download. Students can start an editing project at school & finish at home without transferring the file via USB or email. Design is very user friendly. I also appreciated that its tools are very similar to Photoshop in terminology & appearance. This makes it a nice bridge for everyday users who then can step up to Photoshop (if they need to) more easily. Photoshop can intimidate users who just want to edit & combine images but don't need all the bells & whistles Photoshop offers. At the same time, my computer class teachers will appreciate the similarity to Photoshop, which is often considered the professional standard. I guess use of Aviary would complement their use & instruction of Photoshop for advanced users but it would also give me a more accessible tool for the typical high school user.

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  8. Love Blogger and Aviary. Both are end-user friendly. Can't wait to see them (and more) on JeffCo Google!

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  9. We're trying! Met with Executive Directors last week. Meeting with "District Technology Steering Committee" tomorrow and the lawyer on Thursday!
    Instruction, Technology and Policy... Never a dull moment!

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