My Electronic Brian

My Electronic Brian

For the past several years I’ve been trying to go paperless. I typically scan important documents, save information so it’s accessible from any computer or mobile device (i.e. iPad, iPhone, Blackberry), and I try not to print web pages, emails, or documents. Instead I store, organize and interact with all of this information digitally. It’s overwhelming sometimes, but I found the best way to manage this is with electronic notebook software called Evernote.

Evernote allows you to create notebooks that you can sync between multiple devices, including the web. With Evernote, I’m able to make audio, video, or text notes, and I can clip information from the web or certain desktop applications – like Microsoft Outlook. I use Evernote for a range of things:

· Research for work, school, or travel

· Save receipts

· Store recipes

· Save important voicemails

· Store business cards and contact information

· Lists

· Manage passwords, and account information for work.

· Small scale project management.

I like Evernote so much that I encourage my employees to use it too.

Evernote also integrates nicely with other applications too, like livescribe. And, you can share all of your notes with others via email, the web, or social networking. This makes is a great collaborative tool for education.

It’s a remarkable piece of software that truly helps you get organized.

Ten Tech Commandments from the ISTE Conference

I recently watched a video presentation from the international, ISTE conference. The title of the session was “The Tech Commandments, ten ideas to help revitalize education using Ed Tech.” It was more appropriately a list of ten things the presenter learned through supporting and working with Educational Technology in day schools. His rules for using educational technology are mostly common sense, but they are not necessarily obvious.

There were some valuable take-a-ways from the seminar, and I’d like to share those I think are most relevant to implementing and supporting technology. My comments follow each rule.

1. Don’t trap technology in a room.
There are so many mobile devices that learning can take place anywhere, anytime. This is especially true with the introduction of tablet devices, smart phones, and net books. It’s easier than ever to carry a device with you that provides access to mobile learning. An excellent example is wireless generation.

2. Technology should be ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible.
I agree. Technology is not the object; learning is. If the tool gets in the way technology will simply be a distraction. This isn’t helpful for students or teachers. It requires a great deal of planning and practice for technology to be seamless. So, implementing educational technology requires thought.

3. Training is essential.
If you don’t spend time teaching teachers how to use Smart Boards, learning management systems and other classroom systems they will go unused. By the time people start ‘figuring out’ how to use the technology, it will be out dated. Institutions must provide learning opportunities in any form that works.

4. People make technology work.
This is similar to item 3.

5. Long-term planning is part of educational technology.
It is our responsibility as technologist, or people with familiarity of Ed Tech to have a strategy for its use and be thoughtful about researching and planning for it.

6. Technology for technology’s sake doesn’t solve any problems.
In thinking about a technology for a school, it must meet a specific need. There are a lot of great tools available, but just because something looks useful, doesn’t meet it will work for your environment. This goes back to researching and planning.

Ideas for Using a Wiki in the Classroom

I scoured the web for some practical uses for the Wiki as a classroom tool. Here are a few of my favorites.

Exam Review
You can use the discussion forum to facilitate a dialogue with students about future assessments.

Student Portfolios
Each student can create a Wiki site and post samples of their work.

Peer Review
Students can post their work and others can comment on it.

Glossary or Vocabulary List
The class can develop a glossary for a specific assignment, or for the year.

Calendar
Have students add items to the class calendar that are interesting to them, but relevant to the course work.

Classroom Scrapbook

Notes Collaboration
Share notes on group projects.

Lesson Summaries
Have students summarize a lesson using the Wiki.

Exploratory Projects
Assign a research project and ask students to use the Wiki to report what they find by writing about it, posting files, links, etc.

What are some of your classroom uses for a Wiki?

Second Life

I started using Second Life for a class assignment and wanted to share some of my thoughts and observations. I am using it to explore how other educational institutions and organizations are using it. It’s fascinating. I explored 3 worlds: ISTE Island, Tisch Library and Write Center for Climate Change, and Seminole County Public Schools. Here are some of my thoughts and observations.

· There is a learning curve. Second life takes some time to understand how to navigate different worlds, interact with various features, move your avatar, and use the Second Life browser. It’s worth taking the time to visit Orientation Island that takes you through the basics of walking, jumping, teleporting, and interacting with the many second life features.

· Navigating Second life is an amazing experience. You are able to ‘teleport’ between worlds and the range of experiences seems never ending. I was able to visit places I never imaged, and get a fairly good introduction to them. You can chat with other users and from different parts of the country, or world. I visited Greece, for example and was able to explore the Acropolis and learn a little bit of history.

· I was impressed by all of the interactive features these worlds have. Some of the features are basic, like hyperlinks. Others are rich like videos and multimedia. The most impressive one I saw was a photo booth in the ITSE world. Participants could take pictures, in advance of a conference, for their ID badges.

· There are many practical uses for Second Life, especially in education. If you search Second Life for “Education” you will see many learning opportunities. This is an excellent tool to engage students, parents, or the public. The world you create is accessible by anyone and I saw many areas for public school districts, individual schools, or even universities. The material ranged from specific course information to general information about the organization.

· Second Life is complex and large. There is a vast network or people and places. You will need time to explore and find quality content.

· In the short time I used the Second Life Viewer, the web browser, which is what you use to access Second Life, was glitchy. It uses a lot of computer resources, and some worlds were only partially accessible because of ‘server glitches’.

Overall, Second Life presents, in some ways, the future of interaction on the web. I see the potential for gaming, learning, teaching, social networking, etc. I think Second Life has a learning Barrier, and I’m not sure how expensive or difficult it is to develop within the environment. The potential is grand and I’m interested to see how far it goes.

Slide Share

I’m taking a class in Educational Technology. I think I mentioned this in previous posts. This week, we’re reading about visual learning tools. These are typically web-based tools that allow you to present information visually. I was asked to upload a presentation to one of these websites. I choose Slide Share. I uploaded a “How To” guide for connecting an iPad to a Wireless network.
I uploaded a word document and in less than a minute, it was online and viewable by Slide Share’s community, which is over 50 million. It’s one of the 250 most visited websites on the web, and one of the top 10 in the educational market. The file was converted into a read-only word document and to my surprise the formatting remained intact.
This is great, but I wasn’t convinced of the power of this site. Then I started reading about Slide Share, and I realized the power of this tool. I’m able to upload presentations, make them public, and share them with anyone. I can also search other presentations and use their work to create or improve presentations for my projects. This is great because it gives me access to a group of people that can comment on my work, share it, or use it elsewhere. It might even mean someone will like what I have to say and hire me to speak or consult.
I was so excited; I decided to post a second presentation I developed about preventing cheating in an online course.
I can’t wait to see what feedback I get.

A Brief Thought on Social Media

As a technology consultant and a full-time educational technology evangelist, I’m often asked how to use social media as an educator. Recently, a friend and college professor wanted to know why she should use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to stay connected with her students. I initially responded by noting it’s how teachers and students communicate, but as I researched the use of these tools by college instructors I started to realize I might be misguided. Here is an interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that reviews a national survey by persons of 1,000 faculty members about their use of social media. It’s clear from this research that social media is being used as an information source and not for social interaction.

On the contrary, it appears the use of social media in K-12 is prevalent. This is also evident by the many social media tools available for this audience.

I think there is more resistance to social media in higher education because students are mostly self-motivated. In K-12 these tools are great for engagement and collaboration (locally, nationally, and internationally) and there seem to be more opportunities for the use of social media for learning.

Google Docs for Education

The age of web 2.0 didn’t just bring us social networking tools. It also brought us productivity tools, such as Google Docs. This created a new way of working more efficiently using web-based technology. Google Docs provides central repository for files that are accessible from any computer with an Internet connection. It also interacts with Google’s suite of tools like Gmail. This creates a powerful workflow that integrates different processes, but keeps everything accessible from anywhere. The most important aspect of Google Docs for teachers the collaboration it provides. Multiple people can share documents and interact in real-time.

In fact, I used Google Docs to write this blog post. Actually, I wrote in Microsoft Word and used Google Sync to upload my file to Google Docs. With Google Docs I have a versioning history of my work, and I can share it with others for help editing it. That’s far more efficient then using email or printing out a copy for review.

If I take that into a classroom setting and I’m using Google Docs, I’m in a much better position to work with students on assignments (i.e. researching, writing), or for peer-to-peer interaction. The key functionality being that we can work interactively on a project.

A lot of schools are adopting Google Apps for Education that provide Gmail, Docs, etc. for a low cost without the worry of hosting and managing these complex applications.

Google has an entire site devoted to its educational tools. It’s full of good examples and product descriptions, of course.

Probably the best resources, however, is our peer starting with this YU 2.0 community. So please share your thoughts on Google Docs, or other productivity tools for education by posting a comment.

Lecture Capture

I really like the idea of podcasting and video casting. It helps to extend information beyond the classroom in a meaningful and useful way. It can also be used for classroom assignments and exercises. The most interesting aspect of casting for me is lecture capture, which is the ability to record a lecture. The primary motives for doing so are to provide an opportunity for content review and for use in an online course. Recording a lecture or classroom presentation is not a new concept, but the technology that exists today makes it easier than ever. There is a wide range of software and hardware that could be employed for this task, and cost range from free to tens of thousands of dollars for proprietary hardware.

While I was writing this blog, I found a series of articles from EmergingEdTech describing Lecture Capture in detail. The first article is a conceptual overview of this topic. The second piece discusses the lecture capture process. The third essay continues to explore the technology introduced earlier in the series.

My preference is for software like Elluminate because the main hardware required is a computer, web cam, and microphone. Most classrooms or faculty have a PC and the peripheral devices are inexpensive. I use Elluminate for remote meetings and its being used in an online class I’m taking now. I think it’s also owned by Blackboard, who is the largest player in the online learning space. That means the software is supported. It isn’t the cheapest option but if you’re with an institution it’s a reasonable price. Other, more expensive hardware requires the proper network infrastructure and network-based appliances.

The advantage of lecture capture is that it makes recording presentations easy. I work at a four-year university and our faculty request this capability to record a class in advance of an absence, so the class can continue if the teacher is abroad, to capture complex modalities like computer programming, and to use recorded material in our learning management system, Angel. Our school doesn’t have the products described in the EmergingEdTech article. They use Camtasia to record activity on the desktop and audio from an external microphone.

Whatever the approach, the benefits are clear. Casting, especially lecture capture is a unique way to provide important information to students for present of future use in the classroom or beyond.

How do you Tweet?

I find twitter frustrating. I know a lot of people who use it, but I only know a few of them personally. Most are famous, local entrepreneurs, or companies I follow for general interest, couponing, or to create an impressive profile. As a technologist, I'm not 'in the know' if I don't have a Twitter account.

But, I rarely use Twitter because I haven’t figured how to use it in a way that makes sense for my lifestyle. I have one twitter account that functions as a personal brand representation. I’m not interested in using Twitter to talk about my personal life. After all, it’s part of my digital foot print and at this time in my life I'd like people to find out what I positively contributed to society; not what I ate for breakfast. I struggle with what I would tweet about, and what groups I would join. After all, the Twitter network is larger. At least Facebook I’m connected with Friends instead of strangers and that helps me find interesting, useful, and relevant content.

It’s difficult to keep up with the stream of tweets too, and rather than feeling productive, using twitter ends up feeling like a time sink. I used it enough to know its value and to be able to teach others how to use it – I’m an educational technology manger full-time.

But I’m being challenged now via an online class I’m taking to think about twitter as an educational tool. Yet, I struggle. For me, it’s another social networking tool; a way to share or receive information in short, digestible blips. I’m not presently a teacher, so instead of guessing, I thought I’d ask you, the Y.U. 2.0 community for help.

How do you use Twitter to teach?

Blogs in Education

I think we are all familiar with Blogs. If you’re reading this I think that’s especially true. I don’t need to tell you the power of self-publishing, and how blogs help millions of people express themselves in ways that are unique, and often thought provoking.

This blog post isn’t about blogs, however. That’s already written. It’s about blogging as an educator. After all, this is a YU 2.0 post, so it relates.

I think when we – as teachers – think about blogging, “Why should we use a blog” and “How” are the first two questions that come to mind?

A blog is a very simple tool to use. It can be setup in a few moments, and provides a powerful system for publishing content.

The natural integration in the classroom is most likely for a writing class, but it can also be used for activities that require collaboration, communication, critical thinking, or research. It it’s purist form, a blog provides a tool to build a website that ‘pushes’ information to students via subscriptions.

There are lot of websites and books about using a blog to teach. I’m reading one now, “Web 2.0 How-to for Educators”. It provides some good examples of classroom use, but blogging is only one small chapter. I searched Google and found many, many more examples.

If you’re intimidated by the technology, try setting one up – Y.U. 2.0 is a great place to begin because all you need is an account. I really like Word Press because it’s easy to use, provides nice templates, and is customizable through third-party plugins. You need not know anything about technology or websites to use Word Press or it’s features.

If you’re not sure how to use a blog in your classroom, look around the web, in the bookstores, ask your colleagues, and even your students. Try it for a class project, or writing assignment. It’s a great tool for self-reflection since students’ can think out loud about what they’re working on.

Blogs aren’t so new anymore. They’re a standard tool for writing, group work, or self-expression. They may not be right for all classes or class assignments, but they are good for many. The best way to learn is to set one up, and start using it. Get everyone in your class and school involved and it will be a much more valuable process.

You can even blog about it!