Storytelling to Data Visualization to Persuasion Using PowToon

Suppose you a single tool could create exciting classroom or business presentations, enable students to tell a story (or create a visual book report) or transform data into an animated infographic? In this session, we’ll explore PowToon and how this easy to use graphic tool can generate data visualizations, presentations, animations and publish direct to YouTube or MP4 format

Creating Comics and Powtoons for Instruction

This session will focus on several iPad and Mac apps for creating single/multiple panel comics and animations with ease. Instructional projects that can be easily accomplished by the instructor or students will be demonstrated using tools such as Bubble, Captions, Comic Life, ToonToolkit, Strip Design and PowToon. All participants in the session will be able to sign up for a free EDU license for PowToon plus 100 extra licenses for their colleagues at their institution. During the session, participants will participate in a brainstorming session to explore practical ideas for integrating comics and animation into online and classroom instruction. Attendees will also receive access to a cross-reference chart describing features and costs for each app and whether an Android version is also available

Building a Blog from Scratch

The presenter takes the audience step-by-step through the creation of a Weblog, a tool which can be used for distance education

iPhone Tips and Shortcuts You Wish You Already Knew

Phones are amazing devices that serve as phone, personal assistant, entertainment center, camera, content source and more. Instructors and tech specialists are often under pressure to learn new tools on a need to know basis. In this 50-minute session, we\u27ll cram in tips, tricks and shortcuts you may have missed in your rush to quickly start using your iPhone

We Want It All (for Free)!

Budgets are tight, no one can afford to buy what you can get free. As educators, we want the best, most innovative tools but we want it all for free! This session is an exporation of Rich Internet Applications (Web 2.0/RIA) tools that are free (or low cost) and enable you to store research notes, store and edit images, set-up social networks and more. Bring your favorite tool to share during the concluding 15 minutes of the session

Copyright, Clickers, and Consensus

A discussion about classroom copyright issues and integrating technology

Beginner’s Guide to the iPad and iPhone

This roundtable discussion will begin with basic tips and tricks for new iPad and iPhone users (offered by the presenter) and then “open the floor” for participants to share their tips and ask questions. Both new and intermediate iPad and iPhone users are invited to participate. All participants are encouraged to bring their mobile device to the session

App-lause (Special Interest Group)

This special interest group provides an opportunity to share a brief description and comment on any mobile app (iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Mobile) the attendee has found useful for educational, personal or tech support purposes. The moderators will kick-off the session by discussing a couple of apps and then open the floor for app mentions

Your Digital Toolkit: Lesser Known Web 2.0 & Desktop Apps

The presenter uses his blog to educate audience about useful Web 2.0 tools which may be under-utilized

Transcriptional control of behaviour: engrailed knockout changes cockroach escape trajectories

The cerci of the cockroach are covered with identified sensory hairs that detect air movements. The sensory neurons that innervate these hairs synapse with giant interneurons in the terminal ganglion that in turn synapse with interneurons and leg motor neurons in thoracic ganglia. This neural circuit mediates the animal's escape behavior. The transcription factor Engrailed (En) is expressed only in the medially born sensory neurons, which suggested that it could work as a positional determinant of sensory neuron identity. Previously, we used double-stranded RNA interference to abolish En expression and found that the axonal arborization and synaptic outputs of an identified En-positive sensory neuron changed so that it came to resemble a nearby En-negative cell, which was itself unaffected. We thus demonstrated directly that En controls synaptic choice, as well as axon projections. Is escape behavior affected as a result of this miswiring? We showed recently that adult cockroaches keep each escape unpredictable by running along one of a set of preferred escape trajectories (ETs) at fixed angles from the direction of the threatening stimulus. The probability of selecting a particular ET is influenced by wind direction. In this present study, we show that early instar juvenile cockroaches also use those same ETs. En knock-out significantly perturbs the animals' perception of posterior wind, altering the choice of ETs to one more appropriate for anterior wind. This is the first time that it has been shown that knock-out of a transcription factor controlling synaptic connectivity can alter the perception of a directional stimulus