ARGH!! MOST frustrating!

You are SUPPOSED to be able to create a placemark in Google Earth and use the img src tag to link to images in the placemark. And you can. But, once again, when you save the placemark, the image doesn't get zipped in with the kmz file - and it's SUPPOSED TO!

Anyone have an answer to that?

UPDATE 8:27 PM

MANY thanks to Shawn Canady, for helping resolve this issue. It turns out that I had too much of a file path included in the img src tag. I had something like "file:///Users/jamesgates/desktop/gepic.jpg" Removing the file:// did it. Sheesh!!!

I've searched everywhere I can think of, and I've tweeted about it, and I've even been able to communicate with Frank over at the gearthblog (I point folks there frequently) but I have not been able to find the answer to this question about tours in Google Earth. Maybe a reader can help.

You've seen the Google Earth tours, I'm sure, where you're flown to various places around the world and when you arrive there, the balloon opens then closes when you move on. All the while, the narrator's voice can be heard talking us through the tour.

I want to make one of those - and I can - but I can't share it.

I can set up a folder of locations with each location having a balloon for information about that place. I can click the Tour folder icon and it will do as it's supposed to do, flying me to each location. I've set the preferences up so that the balloons will show, as well. I can even click the record button and record audio with it. And, I can play back the tour on my machine and it's wonderful! But, I'm not able to share it.

When I right-click to save the file I am able to save the tour. But, if I send that file to someone else, the audio isn't there, And, frequently, the balloons don't display. Yet, it works fine on my own computer.

I REALLY want to resolve this issue, so if anyone can offer a suggestion as to what I must do to ensure that the audio gets compressed into the kmz file and the balloons show, I would LOVE to hear from you.

I've talked about this on Twitter, but maybe a reader can help me come to terms with Prezi. I don't get it.

I recently saw another person who used Prezi for the presentation, and again I thought, "This is everything that we complained about with Powerpoint. Needless, distracting animations. The only thing missing were sound effects, and I could imagine them containing whooshing sounds and spinner sounds and ratchet sounds to fit the nauseating motions.

Seriously, if Microsoft ever decided to steal .. sorry.. build similar visual effects, wouldn't we immediately begin to complain about them?

Or am I missing something? Am I allowing my stomach queasiness when I watch the zooming and spinning, etc, to cloud my judgment?

I had such a great day yesterday. I got the chance to hear all about the projects that the teachers in the LTMS600 class did with their students so far this fall. Yesterday was the final day for the course, and I thoroughly enjoyed the day.

From 3rd graders using a Wallwisher board as a KWL chart, to backchanneling with 8th grade Spanish students, to a Facebook-like project in Mythology that ended up in Issuu, to students making Jing screencasts for the library - and great uses for Google Docs, and student blogs and Google Earth tours.. and more. What fun it was to see and hear about the changes in their classrooms.

I wish now that I had thought to jot down all the comments that students had as they worked on the projects. The teachers told of how they didn't want to stop the activity when the period ended, and how they went above and beyond the requirements of the assignent because they enjoyed it so much, etc.

Comments from the teachers included: "My objectives were certainly met if not exceeded.", "Students would come to class and ask, 'Can we work on our wiki pages today?'", "The students and I loved it - every student participated." Or, "The students thought it would be cool to use this tool when they discussion other issues that they thought were important." This comment that I posted about the other day sticks with me, too: " Seeing the students rise to occasion was fantastic. The students becamse the teachers, and I becamse the learner." And this comment I thought was especially good, "This was one of the most successful projects I’ve ever taught. Not only because it was engaging for the students, but because they learned valuable skills: group discussion skills, research skills, supporting points with specific, accurate details and writing skills. These are skills that transcend the Communication Arts classroom; these are skills students will need to be successful in whatever career path they decide to pursue. " (I wish I could share her entire project description with you - it was excellent.)

It was a VERY good day, yesterday. And to Vicki, Scott, Lisa B, Lisa K, Nicole, Emma, David, Diane, Karen, Emily, Rich, Heather, and Amy - Congratulations. I'm so proud of your work. And I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to wrok with each of you.

This has to be one of the toughest ideas to fully comprehend - the matter of image sizes and 'weight.' And, unless you're aware that it IS an issue, you're destined to continue along doing what you're now doing, never to know what it is you're doing wrong.

And Microsoft (PowerPoint AND word) doesn't help matters. What happens when you insert an image into Word or PowerPoint? It displays at pretty much the size you're looking for, doesn't it? The picture fits very nicely on that PowerPoint slide. But, it lies. The picture is NOT that size. The picture is still the 3072 x 2304 size; it's just scaled smaller. And it's still 2.5mb heavy. That might even be acceptable (I would argue it's not, but I'll agree now that it is) if you're just making the PowerPoint for your computer and it won't be shared with anyone or, worse, uploaded online. But, when you're uploading those huge images online, they load needlessly slowly, and they're costing money in terms of a needless drain on bandwidth. I've even seen websites for computer companies that contain such images. ARGH!

Now, when you're at school and you're viewing the webpage containing that image, it will load a LITTLE slowly, but not enough, in your mind, to be concerned. But, multiply that page load requirements by 30 (the number of students in your class) and suddenly the images DO slow down to a frustratingly slow speed, and the bandwidth requirements has increased a great deal.

PowerPoint makes it easy - if you know the tool is there - to fix this issue. When you save the PowerPoint you can tell it to compress all images. Have you seen that option? No? I didn't think so. It's not as obvious as I think it should be, and it seems to be in a different place with every version. I don't see that option in Word, but you can let me know if it's there. Regardless, however, I think it should be very obvious how to have the image resized when you save the file. I just added a single image to a Word document with NO text, and the file was 4.5mb large. The image fit nicely on the page, however.

This is part of Digital Literacy, isn't it? An much overlooked part, too. I firmly believe that students should be taught about this notion and how to manage many files that will be used in a presentation.

When I was putting lots of files online in websites, I used a nifty, free program called, Irfanview. It's a windows only app, but it did a great job batch processing files. I could point it to a folder of images and tell it to resize them, rename them according to my pattern, and save them in another folder. I think there was even an icon that installed on the desktop and I could drop images onto it and it would automatically resize and save to my specifications. Then I'd use those images for the web.

There are many great programs out there that are free and can help you resize images. But, one thing's for sure, we really need to become aware of those file sizes.