New way to use Google Documents

I just downloaded the App "Documents Free" for my iPod Touch. What a great tool. The iPod Touch, unlike the iPhone is not always connected to the internet. I can download a document onto my iPod. Once it is on there I can edit it all I want without accessing the network. When I am done, I can find a wi-fi spot and upload my edited document.

Creating documents on the iPod Touch is not always desirable, but using the spread sheet function I can do some basic inventory of equipment out in my building. Usually I have to write information down on a piece of paper and then come enter it on the computer. With this interface I can skip the paper.

Yesterday, I actually used it at work. I had to inventory some equipment that was in my building. Using this program I was able to go from room to room and type the information in. It was pretty slick. Next year when my building has wi-fi this won't be quite as necessary, but it is very helpful right now.

Awesome!

6th sense

Pattie Maes & Pranav Mistry: Unveiling the "Sixth Sense," game-changing wearable tech

I just watched this presentation about an item that is in development. It is another way for people to interact with technology. Using a camera, a cell phone and a mini projector, it would allow people to access the information on the internet in a whole different way.

Draw a circle on your wrist and the projector will see your visual signal and project a watch telling you the time.
Using your fingers, frame an area and the camera will take a picture. Look at a person, the
camera will recognize him (presentation doesn't say how) and pull up information about
him from his blog or other online sources. Look at a book, the camera will recognize it and pull up reviews from amazon.com.

The purpose is to have instant relevant information available the moment you need it. Almost like a portable attachable extra brain. I have to wonder how the development of this product will impact the development of people in general. A student was overheard bragging because they knew a telephone number. When I was growing up I had lots of phone numbers memorized. Students today simply put them in their cell phone. They rarely dial a number..simply select a name and send. What are the implications for brain development when information is accessed via portable devices in stead of through memorization? I am not a fan of lots of "memorizing" but will this allow us to strengthen and develop other aspects of our intellectual capacities or cause our brains to become out of shape, and unable to perform mental weightlifting?

Most technical gadgets cause me to say "cool, I want that". This is a potential breakthrough that leaves me a little nervous.

CRAP

I was reading the Blue Skunk Blog and Doug Johnson wrote:

"Ever feel like the same educational trends re-appear ever so many years with different authors and terminology. There is a name for this phenomena*: CRAP which stands for:
Continually
Renaming
Academic
Practices"

This struck me with so much validity that I had to write about it. I've only been in education for about 15 years and I am often overwhelmed how many times I have been taught and retaught the same things in staff development. Same ideas, different labels. I can't imagine how I will feel in another 20 years.

It sometimes leave me feeling like a hamster running on its wheel.

How much is too much?

I went out of town last weekend. You can see what my dog thought of the whole thing. My husband stayed home with her, but from the sounds of her cries as I pulled out of the drive way, you would think her heart had broken.

Anyways, I went without my laptop or my iPod touch. From Friday to Monday I was without access to my usual technologies. Before the weekend was over, I had to borrow someone else's computer to check my e-mail.

MILI has taught me that there are almost unlimited tools online. Some are best used in the education setting, others for personal use, but all require us to spend more time in front of a screen. While I have greatly enjoyed this and have used many of the tools, a question I have to ask is how much time should we be spending with our computers?

I worry personally, because I want to have balance in my own life and I worry professionally, because I know students who can text message, IM, e-mail, and facebook, but they cannot hold a face to face conversation. How do we determine good guidelines? For me at this point, it is a rhetorical question that I am struggling with. If anyone has a good answer, please feel free to let me know.

PRO CON

An interesting website that I was looking at today was called Pro/Con

http://www.procon.org/

Pro Con examines controversial topics from both sides. While somewhat limited in its current scope, it looks like something that could develop over time into an excellent resource. The authors claim to be unaffiliated with any specific religion or political group. Their goal is to put out information that informs readers about both sides of a given controversial topic.

If this website does what so many others have done, it will be free until it develops into a fabulous resource with a lot of users and then they will start charging.

I will keep an eye on this resource.

Appropriate Use Policy

I was reading an online article about whether we should still have parents sign an agreement giving their students permission to use the Internet and agreeing that their student will use it appropriately.

He argues that in many classrooms the Internet is now an integral part of the curriculum and no longer a supplemental resource. (http://www.edjurist.com/blog/acceptable-use-policies-becoming-a-relic.html)

He thinks that correct usage of the internet should be assumed (maybe placed in the student handbook) and we should punish students retroactively for bad behavior rather than having them sign before hand.

I think this is a pretty fair article and I agreed with most of it.

I was wondering how much teachers use the Internet for the bulk of their curriculum. I think that quite a few teachers still use it as a supplement. Any opinions?

Myths and Legends

I spent some time on the myths and legends story maker page tonight.

http://myths.e2bn.org/story_creator/

I love it.  I can think of lots of educational uses for it.  Foreign language classes could write simple stories using their 2nd language skills.

It could be good for summarizing, because you can only use so many words per picture.

I think students would really enjoy making a project on here.

 Personally, I think it would be fun with my younger nieces and nephews.  They love to have stories read to them.  I'm wondering if they would like to listen to the stories on this site.

I didn't get very far in the story I was making.  It definitely helps to have a somewhat thought out story before you start creating.

Technology and students

I taught a class on Friday about Google Docs. I showed the students some of the things they could do, gave them a handout with login directions and let them give it a try. More than half had never heard about it. It was fun.

While students were creating documents and sharing them with their peers, one of the students told me about Google Groups. He and some friends had created a group for some school club they belonged to.

One of the things that is exciting about technology is that it often allows a student to demonstrate knowledge that the teacher doesn't have. It is one of the subject areas where teachers and students can often be on a voyage of discovery together. The learning and sharing is real and not artificially created.

Lifelong technology learning

The continuously changing technologies of literacy mean that we must help children learn how to learn new technologies of literacy. In fact, the ability to learn continuously changing technologies for literacy may be a more critical target than learning any particular technology of literacy itself.
Donald J. Leu, Jr., The New Literacies

I found this quote when I was reading the Web 2.0 blog and I was struck by the phrase "In fact, the abilty to learn continuously changing technolgies" I sometimes point out to students that when I get confused about showing them a program that since I have started using computers, I have had to learn to use around 8 different operating systems (Mac and PC), I can't remember how many different word processors I have learned, plus their upgrades. Then add on that all the different software programs I have worked with. The most important technology skill I have is the ability to sit down at a new piece of technolgy and figure out how to use it. (Still haven't quite figured out Dreamweaver yet)

I have been a big fan of Mac computers for years, and I think the reason is that most of their programs are intuitive and fairly easy to figure out. (The latest iMovie being an exception).

I agree with Mr. Leu. It is imperative that we teach our students how to learn new technologies.
Probably the best way to do this is to expose them to a number of different programs. So teaching them programs like "voice thread" Power point, google docs, comic life, iphoto, garage band, blogs, wikis and whatever other programs lend themselves to our subject matters are never a waste. They are more training in being able to adapt to different technology tools.

Efolio

I signed up for an e-folio page. Which is a website hosted by the state of MN for students and others to use as an online professional portfolio. It is targeted at students so they can have an online portfolio of what they do in their 12 years in school.

Mine is a very basic start up page.
http://www.debrasnell.efoliomn2.com/index.asp

I can see a lot of great uses for this. In fact I think that our career center shows this to students.
This seems like a really great tool for showcasing skills. I know an ELL teacher who wants to have her students do their resumes online and this would be a great site for her. I also know some home schooled students that I think could use this.

It is a nice service and I would definitely recommend it.

Ning and ipods

Ning was recommended as a good site to try for online group communications.  I joined a web 2.0 group on Ning and read a little.  Quite a few of the postings were travel adds.  The site looked pretty easy to use though.  It made me wonder if we could use the district's wiki pages to create the same thing.  If we could then we wouldn't have to worry so much about hackers getting on and seeing what our students were saying or doing.  I think I will check into that.

On a slightly different note.  We were given a set of ipod touches to use at our school.  I have been carrying one around for a few weeks.  Wow has it changed the way I work.  I carry it with me everywhere.  I can set alarms to remind me that I need to check the computer lab "now" or be in the library in ten minutes.  It carries my calendar, my e-mail, my to do list, and of course a few games.  I downloaded an app the other day that will allow me to record and track my spending.  (Hmmm.....that might be depressing)  

The reason I write this is that our school has had a policy of "no electronic devices".  As smart phones and other devices become available, I think we as educators might want to start thinking of these things as our friends.  They could be a way to help our students get organized in a way they have never been before.  (Of course we will need to do a little training on responsile use.)  When the time comes to turn in the ipod, I will have to go buy one. (Of course now that I have the spending tracking app, I can save up for it.)

FaceBook

Facebook,

So I finally gave in and got a FaceBook page. I only did it, because I heard that two of my friends from high school were on there and I wanted to see pictures and see how they were doing. It was really cool. It has been fairly quick to log on and see what has changed on my friend's pages. I log on take 5 to 10 minutes to read the new posts and then I am off. Is there something like this that could be used for a class? I find this a little easier than all of us having blogs and then going to the e-reader to the updates. Not that reading blogs is that hard, just Facebook seems easier.

I'm curious to see if I will still be using FaceBook a year from now. At the moment it is a kind of fun novelty.

Piknik

I was experimenting today with Piknik. http://www.picnik.com
It is a easy to use website where you can upload your photos and edit them online. The editing features are some of the best free ones I have seen. Doesn't beat photoshop, but it's not as hard to use either. It also has some easy features to send your completed photos to Flikr, Facebook, or other sites.

Thing 8

I have been using online databases like the Discovery Collection and EBSCO for years. When I wrote my thesis, they were invaluable for helping me find professional journal articles.  They were and are an incredible gift. 

I am old enough to remember being in school and looking up magazines in the old readers guide.   Then I would take my list of articles to the magazine archives where I would spend  hours finding and skimming articles.  Finally I would take my chosen articles to the copy machine and pay my 5 cents a page to take the needed text home.

Now these hours of work can be done in minutes from my desk or home.  The ease and convenience is awesome.  

When searching for basic information, I usually start with the Discovery Collection part of the Gale Databases.  For journals, I prefer EBSCO.  My dad, who is not a big reader or a heavy library user thinks the ALLData automotive database is awesome.  

I will say this, when it comes to doing every day research I still tend to use Google. For ease of use, Google is hard to beat.  

That make it hard to promote databases with students.  I can talk to them about reliability until I am blue in the face, but for most of them the most important criteria in a search is speed and simplicity.  

Thing 6

Google Docs: I have 4 different computers that I use fairly regularly. I think Google Docs is great for storing my documents on....so I don't have to have a jump drive with me everywhere. I still don't always remember to use it. I need to change this habit.

Collaborating. I have used it to set up shared sign up sheets.

I have used wikis to look up information (wikipedia, the ITS wiki), but I haven't created my own shared wiki yet. (Unless you count my Flicker account.) I have created a photo share group on Flickr so I can share photos with my extended family of different get togethers and old photos.

That experience has been interesting. Different family members will go there to view photos, but so far most of them won't post there photos. They are mostly older and a little intimidated by the technology.

Thing 7
When looking through the google educators page, I found the "google notebook" I added it to my iGoogle page. I think it could be a great way to keep track of things that i have learned online. I wish I would have had it when I was preparing for my last trip. I think that could be a great place to store what you have learned about different attractions, hotels, restaurants, etc............

Thing 5

I have always been a regular user of my public library. As a voracious reader, it is impossible to buy all the books I read. Without the public library, I would have developed into a very different person. The access I had to buildings full of books helped me to develop many academic skills as well as opinions on a wide variety of topics.

I grew up using Hennepin County libraries. This library system is considered one of the best in the nation. It has quiet study rooms, a teen section, tons of computers (including classes on how to use them), books, magazines, DVDs, books on CDs, downloadable books (audio and text), downloadable movies...comfy chairs and well lit reading areas. My library (the Brookdale library) has a large children's section as well as a teen section.

One of the librarians wanted to add a drive through section when they remodeled. You could order your book online and pick it up at the drive thru service. She thought it would be great for moms with young children. They wouldn't have to take the kids out of the car seats to get their books. Unfortunately, the architect in charge of their remodel could not figure out how to do that with the physical limitations of the building.

Since I signed up for online notification of overdues, I have almost never had an over due book. I love love love my neighborhood library.

Professionally, I have used the library to supplement our collection. I have a link to the Mpls library and the Hennepin libraries on the web page and on my bookmarks. I can help students find out where they can find the books they need, if we don't have them.

I have also used the ask a librarian chat. If I can't find information that I need or a student needs, I have had really good luck with the ask a librarian feature on the hennepin county web page.

MN LINK I was looking for a book on a health topic at my local library. I couldn't find anything. I tried MN Link and had 15 books to choose from. The book that looked the best is at the Duluth library. They are going to send it to my local library. How cool is that.

One of the questions posed by the blog is will timing be an issue for using MNLink. For most student projects it probably will, because frequently student is another word for procrastinator. However, in my search, I found some online electronic resources. So sometimes a student could get lucky and be able to download that electronic text immediately.