Patrick Crispen's PowerPoint Files: Internet Tools

The following PowerPoint presentations are licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license.

For information on how to unzip and view these presentations, please take a look at my how-to article on How to Unzip a File.

Accessibility 101: Cutting through the FUD

Topic(s): General Technology, Internet Tools, Multimedia
Last Updated: November 2008
Download: PowerPoint presentation (3.58 MB)

The next big thing in educational technology isn’t podcasts, wikis, or e-portfolios. Nope. The next big thing is accessibility--making sure that the content that you and your students create and post to the web can be accessed by people with disabilities. Some states even have policies or laws that mandate accessibility. In this fast-paced, one-hour session, we’ll cut through the FUD [fear, uncertainty, and doubt] and introduce you to the concept of accessibility and universal design, explain what the law does and does not say about the classroom content you post online, and introduce you to a bunch of accessibility resources you and your students can start using today.

Active Learning with Instant Messaging—Threat or Menace?

Topic(s): Internet Tools, Pedagogy
Last Updated: February 2003
Download: PowerPoint presentation (1.11 MB)

A recent study shows that almost 75% of all online teens use instant messaging. So we should all rush out and find ways to incorporate instant messaging into our classrooms, right? In a word, NO! This workshop introduces you to the world of instant messaging and helps you separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to instant messaging's possible role both in active learning and the classroom.

Behind the Spinning Hourglass: The Deepest, Darkest Secrets of Your PC's Internet Applications

Topic(s): General Technology, Internet Tools
Last Updated: February 2004
Download: PowerPoint presentation (3.39 MB)

Everyone has a copy of Internet Explorer, Real Player, Adobe Acrobat, and countless other Internet applications. But do you really know how to tame these beasties and make them do EXACTLY what you want them to do? In this one hour workshop we'll take a peek behind the scenes of your favorite Internet applications and show you some of the best kept tips, tricks, and secrets from bookmarklets to the joy of IE's links bar to stealing text from Acrobat files. We'll even show you how to tweak AOL Instant Messenger so that it no longer scares the living heck out of you when you get a new message.

Blogging 101: Digital Journaling and Group Projects

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: June 2007
Download: PowerPoint presentation (1.83 MB) | Flash presentation (924 KB)

One of the promises of classroom technology was that it would enable students to express themselves online. Neat idea, but not really practical. That's where Blogging 101 comes in. In this presentation you'll learn about online journaling tools called "blogs," tools that are rapidly approaching critical mass in higher education and are already appearing in classrooms across the country. You'll even learn how to make your own blog for free.

Creating Simple and Secure Group Projects Websites for Free with Google Sites

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: November 2008
Download: Handout (84.7 KB) (requires Adobe Reader)

In this fast-paced, one-hour session, you’ll learn how you can use the free Google Sites tool to gather a variety of your classroom content in one place--videos, calendars, presentations, file attachments, and even text--and easily share that content for viewing or editing with a small group of students or educators, your entire school or district, or even the world. You’ll also learn how to share embedded spreadsheets, use Google Analytics to assess your students’ participation in your online group projects, and even how to use Google Sites on your own school domain using your own URL.

Designing Online Communities... on a Shoestring Budget

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: November 2006
Download: PowerPoint presentation (1.10 MB) | Flash presentation (1.00 MB)

Creating an online community of learners is pretty simple. Creating a GOOD online community, however, takes a little work. This presentation introduces you to existing online communities, teaches you how to create communities of your own, and shows you the rules and guidelines that will help you make great online learning communities.

Engaging Your Students with Free, Internet-Enabled Tech

Topic(s): Internet Tools, Pedagogy
Last Updated: November 2007
Download: Handout (requires Adobe Reader) (105 KB) | Flash handout (92 KB)

With budgets being stretched to the breaking point, and with your precious time being sapped by more and more externalities each day [*cough* NCLB *cough*], how can you engage your students without breaking the bank or requiring you to spend years learning how to be a specific academic topic guru? Well, as silly as this sounds, the Internet may (and I said may) hold the key. In this one-hour presentation, we'll visit over a dozen free Internet sites and resources that you can use immediately to engage your students.

Filters 101—How Internet Filters Work, How They Don't Work, and How Students Bypass Them

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: November 2007
Download: PowerPoint presentation (3.45 MB) | Flash presentation (3.83 MB) | Additional information/Old PowerPoint presentation (985 KB)

Internet filters—those little programs that keep the students from looking at alt.sex.beastiality.hampsters.duct-tape or www.whitehouse.com—are all the rage. But how do they work, are they as "perfect" as we have been led to believe, and how can your students get around them? This session takes you into the deep underworld of Internet filters.

Going Mobile in a Stationary Classroom: Incorporating ALL Student-Owned Mobile Devices into your Curriculum

Topics: General Technology, Internet Tools, Pedagogy
Last updated: March 2012
Download: PowerPoint presentation (4.5 MB)

n the midst of a sea of iPods, iPads, Droids, and more, it is easy to forget that the 'mobile' in 'mobile learning' refers to the learner, not to the learner's device. In this one hour session we'll look at effective ways that you can stay in your classroom and use mobile device-agnostic tools and techniques for student digital storytelling, citizen journalism, service learning, and more.

Google 101: Stop Searching and Start FINDING

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: December 2003
Download: PowerPoint presentation (1.57 MB) | Flash presentation (613 KB)

Sick and tired of looking for information about the Civil War and ending up with 1,247,672,286 hits for stuff like sheet metal fasteners or naked pictures of Ernest Borgnine? This presentation is for you! In this one hour presentation you'll learn the advanced searching tips and techniques that will help you actually FIND what you are looking for on Google.

Google 201: Advanced Googology

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: March 2011
Download: PowerPoint presentation (4.5 MB)

Ready to take your Googling to the next level? Beyond the world of plusses, minuses, and quotes lies a whole universe of secret Google tips, techniques, and tools. This quick, one-hour workshop introduces you to little known Google features like pipes, stop-word workarounds, full-word wildcards, and query modifiers—features that will instantly make you the envy of your friends and the center of attention at cocktail parties.

Google 301: Über Google

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: March 2006
Download: PowerPoint presentation (3.85 MB) | Flash presentation (4.58 MB)

Want to know what the evil Google scientists have been working on the past couple of months? In this fast-paced, one-hour workshop you’ll see some of Google’s latest creations—Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Print, Google Scholar, Google Video, and more—and even get a sneak peak at some new Google tools that will soon be released upon an unsuspecting world.

Google 70-20-10: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Everyone's Favorite Search Engine

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: February 2009
Download: PowerPoint presentation (12.3 MB)

Ready to take your Google-ing to a whole other level? In this three-hour, hands-on workshop [which is a combination of Google 201 and Keeping up with the Googlebots] you'll get a behind-the-scenes look at how Google really works, learn little-known Google tools and tricks that will change the way you search, and even see what Google has up its sleeve in the not-too-distant future. You'll even learn Google's 70-20-10 philosophy and see not only how Google Maps, Google News, Google Book Search, Google Scholar, and more work but also how they fit into Google's overall search strategy.

Guidelines for GOOD Web Design

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: December 2003
Download: PowerPoint presentation (1.81 MB) | Flash presentation (518 KB)

The good news is that anyone can create a Web page or a Web site. The bad news is that anyone can create a Web page or a Web site. Regardless of whether you use Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage, or simply code by hand, there are some guiding principles you need to remember whenever you design anything for the web. This one-hour workshop introduces those principles, showing you how to take your Web pages or Web site to the next level.

The Internet TOURBUS Guide to the Most Useful Sites in the World

Topics: Internet Tools
Last Updated: September 2005
Download: Handout (requires Adobe Reader) (188 KB) | Flash handout (71 KB)

This free, Adobe Acrobat-based PDF file introduces you to some of the greatest websites in the world. If you are looking for information you can start using TODAY—and, more importantly, if you are looking for information you can easily steal and share with your friends and colleagues—DON'T MISS THIS!

Keeping up with the Googlebots, Spring 2012 edition: What have the evil Google scientists been up to over the last year?

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: March 2012
Download: PowerPoint presentation (7.1 MB)

Completely new for spring 2012, this one-hour presentation introduces you to the latest Google tools and tricks that will make both you and your students more productive, taller, and better looking. Or not. Seriously, though, in this one-hour presentation we’ll attempt the impossible: We’re going to try to catch up with all of—or at least most of—Google’s latest inventions.

Mashups: Creating New Classroom Content Using Freely-Available Digital Media

Topics: General Technology, Internet Tools
Last updated: March 2012
Download: PowerPoint presentation (5.8 MB)

For centuries, educators have strived to teach students how to take existing scholarly materials and reuse those materials -- with proper credit, of course -- to create something new. In this one-hour session you'll learn how you and your students can go beyond the world of text to create new, derivative works from freely-available graphics, audio, video, and animation files.

Patrick Crispen’s Complete and Total Waste of Time

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: November 2006
Download: Handout (requires Adobe Reader) (138 KB) | Flash handout (88 KB)

Yeah, yeah. The internet is a great tool for education, radically altering the … blah blah blah. What about the FUN stuff? In this humorous, fast-paced, one-hour presentation you’ll get a first person tour of dozens of web sites and tools that have no redeeming social value whatsoever … other than the fact that they’re just darned fun.

A Random Walk through Cyberspace: Patrick Crispen’s Completely Updated Collection of Truly Useful–and Not So Useful—Websites and Web 2.0 Tools

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: March 2012
Download: Handout (requires Adobe Reader) (89 KB)

One of Patrick Crispen’s most popular presentations is back, completely updated for 2011! Join Patrick as he introduces you to a collection of spectacularly useful and horribly useless web sites and tools.

Social Media 101: Classroom Collaboration after the Bell

Topics: General Technology, Internet Tools
Last updated: March 2012
Download: PowerPoint presentation (5.7 MB)

Confused by all the talk about Twitter, Google+, Yelp, Reddit, and the like? This session is for you! Join Patrick Crispen as he helps demystify the world of social media, tours some of the most popular social media sites and tools, and gives you some field-tested tips and tricks to use web-enabled and mobile technologies to extend your classroom discussions beyond the end of the school day.

Using Free Online Tools from Adobe to Encourage Student Content Creation and Collaboration

Topic(s): Internet Tools, Pedagogy
Last Updated: November 2008
Download: Handout (116 KB) (requires Adobe Reader)

In this fast-paced, one-hour session you’ll learn how to use Adobe’s free Buzzword and Photoshop Express in your classroom. Particular attention will be paid to showing you how to incorporate these tools into your lesson plans and how to encourage your students to use these free online tools to create new content and collaborate more effectively.

Web Page Design, Part One: People Actually Get PAID To Do This?

Topic(s): Internet Tools
Last Updated: November 2002
Download: PowerPoint presentation (607 KB)

The biggest secret about Web pages is that they are EASY to create. After all, if this was hard, do you think there would be 2 BILLION Web pages out there? This one hour presentation introduces you to some of the fundamentals of Web page design, shows you how Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) actually works, and even introduces you to the most popular Web editor used by professionals (and it ISN'T Frontpage!)

Web Page Design, Part Two: Internet Graphics for the Artistically Challenged

Topic(s): Internet Tools, Multimedia
Last Updated: November 2002
Download: PowerPoint presentation (2.59 MB)

Can't draw a straight line to save your life? Don't worry! This one hour program introduces you to the world of GIFs and JPEGs—you'll even learn the correct way to pronounce "GIF"—and shows you how you can create professional-looking Web page graphics in no time at all. If you are looking for a way to spice up your Web pages, don't miss this!