I'm a Beta Tester!--and Free Invite

I'm so psyched! For the first time ever, I'm a beta tester. Does that mean I'm an official techno-geek now?? The wonderful Ewan McIntosh of edu.blogs.com offered free invites to the first five to comment on his site--just about the time I actually logged in. As lucky #4, I spent some time this evening playing around with Skitch, a Mac-only screen capture program that is oh-so-much-more.

It syncs with iPhoto and iSight, then allows you to draw, scribble or type over the image. Here's a sample I did for a photography class, showing the rule of thirds and leading lines. Skitch allowed me to highlight the areas I wanted noticed and grey out the rest.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Once you've played to your hearts' content, you can share via email, web, blog or through the online mySkitch. Very fun, with a great little video tutorial to quickly teach the basics.

This could be useful in all kinds of ways:

• Marking up web pages to share with students (great info lit tool, pointing out what to analyze. In fact, highlight areas of the site and have students describe what it tells about the site's level of authority.
  
• Labelling photos to share in a blog or wiki for student discussion (especially for Art and Science)
• Students could photograph the stages of a project (or dissection), with commentary
• Visual Vocabulary--photograph the "meaning" of a word and write the word on the picture
• Demonstrating PE skills
• Geometry students could take pictures of real life objects that demonstrate, say, acute angles, label them and upload to a wiki.
  
• Classroom displays for Back to School Night.

I'm sure there are myriad other uses I'll need to think about!

Anyway, two invitations came with MY invitation; one I'll use as a giveaway during my workshop, but I'll offer the other one here for the first person to comment. (grin--this should test whether anyone is actually reading this blog yet!)