#edtech #edchat #elearning #elemchat
Image via CrunchBase
While I was sitting and enjoying the opening keynote for the TIE Colorado conference, I could help but notice that the presenter, Roger Pryor, was wearing a tshirt with a elephant’s head printed on it. If fact, he even referred to his shirt a few times in his keynote. The elephant’s head is of course the logo for Evernote. I had never really though very much about Evernote, but the keynote references to it were just the beginning. It seamed that everywhere I went this summer I kept running into people that love Evernote.
Evernote Video Tutorials on Atomic Learning
So take I finally gave in and I downloaded the Evernote app to my iPad, then to my iPhone and then finally to my MacBook. I will install it on my school PC when I get back to work next week. I know nothing about using Evernote so I started with some online tutorials form Atomic Learning. You can see from this image that they had a lot of quick little lesson videos about Evernote. These lessons are part of their much bigger workshop called “The Social and Interactive Web.”
I spent about 15 minutes watching the videos all the while pausing every now and then to practice what I had just learned. I am now using Evernote lickety-split. I’m no pro — but I know way more about Evernote than when I woke up this morning.
Part of being a 21st Century teacher is always being ready to learn new things — and today I am glad I did, I can already see how this little program is going to help me get a little more organized as teacher.
- Brad Flickinger, Bethke Elementary School
Related articles
- Keep it Forever Using Evernote’s Web Clipper (techie-buzz.com)
- Evernote Tips Tricks and Resources (ismckenzie.com)
- App of the week for journalists: Evernote – A must-have app ‘like having a second brain’ (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
#edtech #edchat #elearning
Every week I try to improve as a teacher — so what happened this week?
On Monday I was cruising through my Personal Learning Network (PLN) on Tweetdeck when I noticed a tweet about a new book that I have been interested in for months called The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. The tweet was about how the ideas presented in this book could be used in education. How could using checklists improve education?
Image via Wikipedia
Since I am a big believer in checklists, I was intrigued. I grabbed my iPhone, opened the iBooks app and found the book in the online store, then downloaded a sample. After reading the intro (that was all that was included in the sample) I was hooked. I pressed the buy button and I continued my reading.
I could only read for a few minutes before I would have to put it down so I could go to the Notes app and write down the flood of ideas that were coming to me.
- A checklist for my daily podcast; one for the host, one for the sound tech and one for the producer.
- A checklist for the new 5th grade documentary project.
- A checklist for the old 5th grade blogging project (that could have saved a lot of heartache).
- A checklist for the 4th grade U.S. Constitution podcast project.
You get the picture. Checklists can make our student projects even better. And I am only on chapter 3!
I can’t imagine what things will look like with my teacher by the time I finish the book.
Related articles
- Applying Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto to SEO (seomoz.org)
- Book review: The checklist manifesto(scottberkun.com)
- Checklists: They help surgeons, journalists and Van Halen prevent errors (stevebuttry.wordpress.com)
#edtech #elearning The School Technology Report: Update to my quest to get my iPhone/iPad app developed. I finally have a few developers that love my idea and want to make the app.
#edtech #elearning The School Technology Report: follow along as a elementary tech teacher gets his iPhone app developed.
#edtech #elearning The School Technology Report, follow along as a school teacher develops an iPhone app.
#edtech #elearning – The School Technology Report: Learn how a school teacher makes his first iPhone app.
In my work as an edtech consultant and speaker I am often asked to look into my crystal ball and give my predictions about future of school technology. For example, when I keynoted at a district convention back in the summer of 2007 I spoke about how netbooks were going to take over our educational world. Some things I get right — like netbooks, and some things I get wrong — I’d rather not say.
So sit down, let’s turn down the lights and crank up the ol’ crystal ball and see what she says now…
I used to think that school technology is going to be split into two distinct categories:
Consuming Digital Content Devices; these devices are for just sitting back and browsing and using the Internet and apps. This is what most people do 90% of the time. Students researching, checking social network sites, browsing the web, etc.
- iPod Touch
- iPhone
- Droid Phone
- Kindle
- Nook
Creating Digital Content Devices; these are the more traditional devices that we use to type long articles and papers, edit audio, photos and video, etc.
- desktop computers
- laptop computers
- netbooks
So that is what I used to think — and then I got an iPad, which I thought was just going to be a consuming device. But then I started creating things on it, like this blog, I edit photos, I work on documents like spreadsheets — holy crud, I am creating on this stinking thing! That wasn’t suppose to happen.
Or was it?
The future of school technology is…
Drumroll please…
Mobile devices that can both create and consume content. Think about it — what we really want are devices that we can use to read books, research the web, take and edit photos and video, edit audio, tweat, blog, etc. In short we want it all, and we want it to fit in our pockets. We want to be able to consume digital content (about 90% of the time) but when we want to create, we don’t want to have to dust off the ol’ laptop just so we can write a blog. The iPad is just the beginning.
So hang on folks, we are about to see some pretty incredible edtech devices hit the market over the next 18 months.
Yesterday I went back to school shopping with my soon-to-be 16 year-old daughter, and somehow we ended up in the AT&T store with my daughter explaining to me that the new iPhone 4 was at the top of her list…
- iPhone 4
- notebooks
- pencils
- new backpack
- etc.
Get the idea?
I don’t think for a second that I am the only parent now faced with this type of a back to school shopping list. To be honest, I am not all that shocked, I remember a few years back when I had to buy a new TI graphing calculator that was $160 — so how do I argue with a $199 iPhone 4?
So we checked the coverage map and sure enough her high school is right next to a cell tower. (dang) This is important because her high school’s WiFi is locked to outsiders like iPhones and other smart phones.
She finished off her case by stating, “You should get one too and then we can use FaceTime to talk to each other.”
She had me: hook, line and sinker.
So now with regards to school technology and this blog — starting in a few weeks when students return back to school — many of them will have more technological power in their pockets than sitting on the desks of most school computer labs.
How does this change teaching? Do we ban these items or embrace them?
