Web Poster Wizard Home Refreshed review of Outlinely — a new outliner for Mac [Due to the major hash I made of my previous review of Outlinely, I have decided to start over with a (mostly) new review.] Thanks to the eagle-eye of one of the folks over at outlinersoftware.com, I was recently made aware of a new outlining application for Mac known as Outlinely (requires OS 10.8 or higher). Aside from the name, there is a lot to like about this nifty little app. The introductory price of $5 makes it a real bargain. If this application were for Windows, it would instantly be one of the top outliners on that platform — which, admittedly, is more of a commentary of outliners for Windows than accolades for Outlinely. Outlinely is a new option for people who use outlines for writing, planning, thinking, tracking, note-taking and more. The application has a clean interface that does feel a lot like a word processor, which is one of the goals stated by the developer. With Outlinely you can focus in on one topic. You can’t select or change the bullet/labels for the outline.
Character Flaw Index To make characters realistic and relatable they are given flaws, because if there is anything a writer can be sure of it is that no one in their audience will be perfect. Flaws are character traits that have a negative impact in the narrative, unless they are simply informed. They can also be exploited. See Good Flaws, Bad Flaws for a scale of flaw acceptability. Compare Seven Deadly Sins, Ego Tropes. Abusive Parents: Habitually violent and cruel to their own children, often because that's how they themselves were raised.
LibriVox | free public domain audiobooks English Text To Speech, TTS: English, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, German, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese Text to Voice, also known as Text-to-Speech (TTS), is a method of speech synthesis that converts a written text to an audio from the text it reads. The Text-to-Speech engine has been implemented into various online translation and text-to-speech services such as ImTranslator extensions for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge. ImTranslator Translation ImTranslator Dictionary ImTranslator Compare Online Translators ImTranslator Translate and Speak service This TTS reader service sounds like you are listening to a real person. The service gives you the opportunity to practice your listening and speaking skills or master a foreign language. If the voice is too fast for you, you can adjust the voice rate by using the Speed menu. The text can be replayed as many times as you wish. Use ImTranslator speech-enable service, and get your computer talking to you!
Three Good Tools for Building Flipped Lessons That Include Assessment Tools In the right setting the flipped classroom model can work well for some teachers and students. I recently received an email from a reader who was looking for a recommendation for a tool would enable her to add an assessment aspect to her flipped lesson. Here are some tools that can accomplish that goal. eduCanon is a free service for creating, assigning, and tracking your students' progress on flipped lessons. eduCanon allows teachers to build flipped lessons using YouTube and Vimeo videos, create questions about the videos, then assign lessons to their students. Teachers can track the progress of their students within eduCanon. To create lessons start by identifying a topic and objective then searching YouTube and Vimeo from within the eduCanon site. Teachem is a service that uses the TED Ed model of creating lessons based on video. Knowmia is a website and a free iPad app for creating, sharing, and viewing video lessons.
20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes I’ve edited a monthly magazine for more than six years, and it’s a job that’s come with more frustration than reward. If there’s one thing I am grateful for — and it sure isn’t the pay — it’s that my work has allowed endless time to hone my craft to Louis Skolnick levels of grammar geekery. As someone who slings red ink for a living, let me tell you: grammar is an ultra-micro component in the larger picture; it lies somewhere in the final steps of the editing trail; and as such it’s an overrated quasi-irrelevancy in the creative process, perpetuated into importance primarily by bitter nerds who accumulate tweed jackets and crippling inferiority complexes. But experience has also taught me that readers, for better or worse, will approach your work with a jaundiced eye and an itch to judge. Who and Whom This one opens a big can of worms. Which and That This is one of the most common mistakes out there, and understandably so. Lay and Lie This is the crown jewel of all grammatical errors. Moot
6 Ways to Make Sure Your Reader’s Brain Syncs with Your Protagonist’s Brain photo by Andres Musta via Flickr Because here’s the thing: it’s not fiction. It’s fact. Except, you know, for the Vulcan part. And, okay, the part where you have to put your fingertips on the other guy’s face to do it. But hey, the world was pretty much analog back then, so who could blame Wincelberg for seeing life as hands-on, and thus missing the nuances of how information is actually transferred from one brain to another? To figure that part out we had to wait for something that even ‘Bones’ McCoy didn’t have access to — fMRI technology, which revealed that when we’re really engaged in listening to a story, our brain synchronizes with the speaker’s brain – literally mirroring it. fMRI studies reveal that when we’re really engaged in listening to a story, our brain synchronizes with the speaker’s brain – literally mirroring it. In other words, we really are on the same wavelength, and their experiences become ours. The exact same thing is true when we’re reading a story. Exactly! 1. 2.
Podcast Maker for Mac Podcast Maker is a tool for Mac OS X that makes podcasting simple. Using Podcast Maker novices can becomes podcasters and professionals can podcast without having to do XML situps. You can also create enhanced podcasts with your images and links to take your podcast to the next level. Features: Drag and drop podcasting. Version 1.4.1: Fixed crash issue when publishing in OS X 10.7.