While sharing my browser during a DEN webinar last night, I was surprised to see the hot topic of conversation wasn’t the public beta of the new DEN website that I was sharing…. rather it was the various bookmarklets and links that I have saved in my Bookmarks toolbar.

I guess I don’t really think about it much, but that really is a bag of tricks that I depend on daily, and there’s some fantastic tools there that I’ve gathered together over the years. SO, I thought that I’d share a brief glimpse into my ‘dashboard’, the view that surrounds my view, all the toys gadgets and gizmos that customize my browsing experience.

First of all, my browser of choice is still Firefox. I’m on the verge of switching to Chrome, as I think it’s faster and more stable, but for now I like the suite of plugins and utilities that I have set up in Firefox better. Since I often have more than 25 tabs open at a time, real estate is always at a premium. That’s why I go with the Classic Compact Firefox theme. It’s about as small as you can get while still having actual icons for the primary buttons. Clean and minimal, that’s how I like my browser themes. The only plugin I have that adds actual buttons to the browser is Delicious. And to be honest, that can probably go as I don’t use any more functionality than I would out of a bookmarklet. However… My space for bookmarklets is pretty limited as you’ll see shortly.

In the status bar (that bar along the bottom that displays what URL you’re about to click on when you hover over a link), I have five tools. The first is the MeasureIt plugin, which resides in the lower left. This is a simple tool, but I use it almost daily. Click on it and your screen goes grayish. Then, you can draw a box anywhere on your screen and it will tell you how many pixels each side is. Incredibly handy for measuring web elements, pictures, embedded objects and so on. Honestly, it’s pretty darn close to indispensable. On the right hand side I have the Delicious notifiers, and a Google Wave notifier, but to be honest I rarely look at those. They could go away and I wouldn’t notice. I also have an indicator letting me know that Greasemonkey is running, another that I don’t really even ‘see’ anymore. But then we come to the far lower right, which is reserved for something I check nearly every day: Woot Watcher. It displays what the deal of the day is for Woot, and during a Woot Off it displays roughly how many of an item is left before it switches. I’m a big fan of Woot, and yes, I do glance down at that daily.

This brings us to the heart and soul of my web based toolbox: the bookmarklets. For those that don’t know, a bookmarklet is basically a bookmark, but instead of taking you to a favorite web page, it performs a function. I actually wrote a post on bookmarklets a few years ago, but the info looks to still be valid. I have quite a few of them in my browser bar and use most of them pretty regularly. In that they appear in my browser bar, here’s my current list:

Since you can store folders on a Browser bar, I do actually have a couple of those as well. In side I have a slew of websites that I want easy access to. You can even put folders inside folders, to create a nice hierarchy of sites that you want to be able to access quickly. Nothing fancy, but it does work pretty well.

So that’s my browser bag of tricks. Got any that I’m missing? Or something you think people ought to know about?

Well, got a lengthy comment from Russ Goerend regarding my initial thoughts about the iPad. I started replying as a comment… but the comment kept getting longer and longer. SO! A new post it has become.

Here’s the original comment from Russ:

Thanks for what feels like a realistic review. Overall, I agree. There seems to be potential for it to be an expensive, big iPod Touch. It is what it is. I’d love to watch a Twins game on it, of course that’s what the big TV is for. Or my laptop.

(I thought your choice of “boot” when talking about your laptop was interesting, though. Do you really shut down your laptop at home? And why would she have to leave the kitchen to look at your laptop? I have to guess we’re talking about single-digit seconds difference between me opening my Macbook and finding a recipe vs. unlocking the iPad and finding one. Not to mention, what if she wanted to use the recipe? Lay the iPad flat on the counter? I have my MacBook in the kitchen while we make dinner almost every night.)

I’m sure if I had one around the house it would get used. As someone who doesn’t have $500 of “fun money” to spend, I don’t see myself saving up for it, though. Besides, the only model that interest me is the 3G model (grandparents are each 2+ hours away) so now we’re talking $630 with data on top.

For me what it lacks — a has been beaten to death — is what really stands out. I have a two-month-old son. When we were visiting my parents this weekend, they asked my opinion on if they should look into an iPad. I asked what they wanted to do with it. First thing out of their mouth was “Skype!”

Typing on it for a few minutes at the Apple Store, I was instantly shocked that Apple still hasn’t implemented haptic feedback on the keyboard. Maybe it’s coming with OS 4.0, but wow.

Here’s my real problem: the iPad represents everything that’s gone wrong with Apple. It is the ultimate closed device. It’s “computer sized” (compared to the iPhone) and yet it is both literally and figuratively closed. There is no sense of ownership. I get to use what Apple permits on the only hardware Apple permits. It reminds me of how schools have gotten into the mess we’re currently in: close the classroom door, now open your brains, kids, while I fill you up with what I deem relevant.

I went into the Apple Store with my wife and son tonight and caught myself about 10 seconds after picking up an iPad with my mouth agape. Then I tried moving around the icons. The Apple Store had locked that down. I tried typing. Without feedback it wasn’t enjoyable. It’s not that it wasn’t doable, it wasn’t magical or astonishing or whatever Steve wanted it to be. It was frustrating. I opened up Pages so I could type and couldn’t figure out how to do anything to the document besides look at it. Turns out, I was in landscape and you can only edit in portrait. First time I’ve had to ask for help with an Apple product in my life — and I’ve been a geek since I was running Number Munchers on our IIgs when I was 6.

I’m sad. As someone who is still running a 1,1 MacBook and sold the Wii I stayed overnight in an Iowa December to get to buy a first generation iPhone for $400, I’m sad. The iPad is really disappointing to me. It’s a tiny evolution, but the culture around Jobs has allowed it to be the front runner in conversations it should not be in. The iPad in education? It’s a textbook! The iPad to replace my laptop? Give me a break!

And here goes my response:

1) Thanks for taking the time to chime in. There’s nothing cut and dry about this, and these discussions help refine my own thoughts on the topic.

2) re: Booting and the kitchen: We have our laptops in the living room. If I wanted to show her something, I’d call her over because I hate walking around with an open laptop. I wasn’t sharing that as an example of why one might NEED an iPad, rather a way that it’s already changing the way I use a computer and interact with it. This IS something that is truly portable, and usable while standing. Significant? Maybe not. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

3) Haptic response: I go back and forth on this. I tried it for the iPhone and didn’t like it. Wound up turning it off. While typing felt unnatural at first, as I got towards the end of the blog post I was feeling pretty good. We talk a lot about learning and unlearning, maybe it’s just a matter of getting used to a new format. I would say it’s impossible to tell based just on 5-10 minutes of testing, and difficult to determine even after 30 minutes. Will let you know after a few weeks.

4) Re: Cost. Personally, I’m giving it a test drive. I figure I can buy one, try it out, and if it’s a keeper great. If it isn’t, Apple devices retain their value incredibly well. I can likely re-sell it on eBay for just a small loss. But consider this: you’re looking at it as a 500 dollar toy, not a computing device. This is a new niche. I’m just about of the opinion that this will be my home computer. I’ll have a cheap media server somewhere in the house (mine cost $300) and then use this as my daily device away from work. Is it as powerful as a computer? No. But it also does some things better. This isn’t a decision to be made solely on cost. Heck, what is? It’s about what it does.

5) And speaking of… You’re lamenting the closed community. Yes it is… sort of. There are over 3,000 apps for the iPad already, and that number will top 10,000 within a month (more likely a week). That’s an awfully big closed community. And yes, there are some things that it won’t do, but there are also a LOT of things that it will. To call it a textbook is the only thing you said that I think is absolutely ridiculous. It allows you to interact with content in a more direct way than any computing device prior. And in part, that’s due to it being closed down. Believe me, I prefer open communities. My iPhone is jailbroken and I’ll likely jailbreak the iPad too. But when I compare the iPhone experience to the Android experience, there’s no question. The iPhone is cleaner, simpler, more elegant and accessible to the average user. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s something Apple figured out a long time ago. Sometimes it’s worth it to give up a few features to make it a better overall experience.

To close this response-turned-blog-post, the key to the iPad is the same as the iPhone: the Apps. In the end, the real innovation behind the iPhone was giving a simple seamless way for people to access, browse and install applications. And despite the restrictions, the things people have come up with are nothing short of amazing. The same thing will happen with the iPad. Until Saturday, developers couldn’t hold it in their hand. They couldn’t see/feel what the experience was with it. Now they can and the developers will be going crazy turning ideas into reality. And in the end, that’s what is going to turn the iPad into a success. And that success will lead more people to develop innovative programs for the iPad.

Believe me, I can critique it just as much as anyone. The fact that I can’t use Prezi on it, or Polleverywhere, or Glogster with it drives me crazy. But when weighed on the scale against all the things it CAN do and will be able to do in the near future… well, it’s not even a fair fight. Yes, it’s Apple bullying people around. But people will comply. It’s just too big a market for them not to. it’s unfortunate for those developers that have committed to technologies like Flash, but if they want to be in the game they’ll have to play ball. And from the consumer perspective, the net result is a clean, positive experience.

So forgive the rant here. And if any of you disagree, please feel free to chime in. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic. But as skeptical as I was (and still am in some ways), I think the iPad is here for the long haul.

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Well, it has now been two full days with the iPad and I figured I ought summarize some of my thoughts about it so far. I ought to preface his by saying that I had/have a healthy degree of skepticism regarding the device. I’m no Fanboy when it comes to Apple. I have a great appreciation for what they’ve accomplished, but I held off for years before switching to the iPhone. While I do have a MacBook, i still work primarily on a PC. And I have to admit, the list of things the iPad doesn’t do had me grinding my teeth.

And yet, I still wound up outside an Apple store at 6 am saturday morning with four other die hard Apple fans, watching dozens of Apple store employees prepare for heat seemed to be he event of the century. This was my first time coming out for an apple launch, and it was quite a spectacle. Screaming,cheering, high fives galore… And that was all from store employees! Starbucks came out and made up free coffee and passed out snacks. All in all, it really was quite a good time, if a bit overdone.

And after hours of waiting, I finally got the box in my hands, drove it home and ripped it open. A mixed blessing, it came with a full charge, but had to be connected to iTunes before it would work. So…….. if someone wanted this to be their one and only device, they need a friend with iTunes to activate it for them. Strange. It also started loading up all my iPhone apps, and I have quite a few. So despite the full charge, it was still about half an hour before I could play with it (which is freaking forever in ‘geek with a new toy’ time).

When I first got it fired up and running…. I have to admit i was a .title disappointed. ‘big iTouch’ kept going through my head. And while it’s nice to be able to runthe iodine apps, that double size thing is mostly annoying. However, I did discover something interesting pretty quick. The keyboard on the double size iPhone apps is easier to use than either of the iPad keyboards. Why? Because it sits closer to the ,idle of the screen. The iPad keyboards sit so low that it’s uncomfortable to hold it up and thumb type. Much more comfortable with the keyboard closer to the ,idle. That being said, I still deleted most of my native iPhone apps. It’s such a beautiful device, it seemed a shame to use those blocky, pixelly apps.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was disappointed at first. But an hour or so later, I needed to show my wife a recipe. So I grabbed the ipad and had it up in a second and was showing it to her in the kitchen. That was kind of nice. Much more convenient than booting up the laptop and calling her over. Not much, but that was the first lightbulb going on.

Later I gave it to Aiden to see what he would think of it. I was expecting some kind of wow moment, and I really didn’t get it. He just grabbed hold of it and knew exactly what to do. He flipped through the pages of apps and loaded up a game. When he got bored, he exited out and fired up the Toy Story interactive book and proceeded to watch the entire thing. The ,sot fascinating thing about it was just how intuitive it was for him. No instruction necessary, he knew just what to do. In some sense, that actually was kind of magical. It’s a new niche built on a familiar platform. He was careful, respectful and left much smaller fingerprints than mine.

I really started to see the potential when I brought it over to a friend’s house to watch the final four. I put it in the ,idle of the coffee table and just left it there to see how it would get used. And it got used constantly. People used it to look up sports facts, the Hawkeye football schedule, camp sites for a summer trip, the calendar to plan the same trip, the Lollapalooza lineup, to watch letterman use the iPad on YouTube, to check out a recipe, look up photos and who know what else. All I know is that it was used constantly. Yes, at first because it was a new gadget, but then because it was… Simple. Easy. Convenient. Intuitive. Accessible. And that’s when I started to really see where this thing is going. It’s a social machine because it CAN be. Try huddling sound an iPhone and having three people watch a video. Or passing an open laptop around a sofa. Can it be done? Sure! But this just does it… better.

Since then, I’ve used it for two more days and a good part has bee setting it up. Syncing calendars, getting email accounts up, installing apps, loading music and movies and so on. But I’ve also read stories to Aiden on it and started reading my own book as well. I’ve done more Thant my fair share of web surfing on it, which is quite simply a pleasure. I’ve read and sent emails, as well as done some actual work on it. And right now, I’m typing this post on it. It’s lying din in the sofa and I’m doing the fastest two finger typing i’ve ever done. I could do it faster with a real keyboard, but I wanted to try this out. And it ain’t too bad,

So what’s the verdict? I dunno. I can’t recommend someone buy it especially in place of a different device. But k can tell you I don’t regret the decision so far. And i can also say that while the apps are good so far, most were designed off a simulator. I’m confident they’ll get a lot better now that people can develop with production models. And as we saw witness the iPhone, the hardware was a good start, but it was the apps that really made the device. And this will be a dream of a platform to develop for.

So as of now, I’m satisfied with the experience as it is, and I see big potential for it. A s for it’s implications for education, I think the verdict is distill out. It really ain’t a cheap device, and the question is whether the benefits will justify the cost. Believe me, I’ll be coming back to that.

All things in time. As of the first three days, it may not be as magical as Jobs claimed… but i don’t think that’s a bad thing. Some times the best magic is the kind that’s simply invisible.

Augmented reality is one of the few technologies that have come out within the last few years that really have the ability to simply drop jaws. Primarily, it’s hung out in the marketing field, and been used in car ads and recently on the cover of Esquire magazine. Home versions include a DIY lightsasber and Addidas has announced plans to include an AR code into several of their upcoming shoes, allowing people to actually use the shoe as a controller for a video game. Seriously. I really couldn’t make that one up.

The big question of course is, does Augmented Reality have a place in education, and if so… what is it? At FETC, the folks over at SMART had a small corner of their booth devoted to Augmented Reality. The person there said flat out that they have nothing in production right now, they really have no idea where it’s going to go, they just think it’s neat, has potential and wanted to hear what educators thought.

Well, I got an email about a month ago from a company with a product called Imaginality, and they’re much farther along the path of figuring this stuff out than anybody else that I’ve seen yet. They’ve taken the ordinary webcam, combined it with images that you print out and created some pretty dynamic modules. Basically you download their software, choose which modules you want to purchase, and setup your webcam. Then, when you hold the ‘paddles’ in front of the camera, it displays various 3D objects. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What’s really interesting is the way the paddles can interact with each other. For example, check out this video of the Solar Explorer module.

As you can see, each paddle representes a different planet. The planets spin at the correct proportional speed, and have some bars in the corners representing various stats about them. But what’s interesting is when you move the planets within a few inches of each other. They resize themselves proportionally. The most dramatic example of that is when you move any planet next to the sun. Pretty powerful effect, much more so than holding up the pumpkin and a marble.

A few other examples. The video below is about the human heart. One paddle shows a beating heart, and by rotating it around you can see it from any angle. But the next four paddles display each of the four chambers. By holding up the ‘info’ paddle, you can make it translucent and see how blood flows through it. But when you start moving the paddles next to each other in the right combinations, the chambers actually connect to each other to create a complete heart.

Is this all you need to teach a student about the heart? Absolutely not. But you do have to admit that it’s a pretty amazing demonstration of the direction technology is moving. I mean, this isn’t something that you find in a museum, it’s being done with ordinary webcams and bar codes you print out. Pretty amazing.

The big question is, where does this belong in education? What kinds of AR should people be building? Science seems to be the most obvious application, and everything from biology to chemistry could make use of this. Think about the building blocks of matter, and how atoms interact with each other. But Imaginality also has a math module, using blocks to demonstrate how multiplication works. It’s more of a proof of concept right now, but it really does show some great potential.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this one. Where does Augmented Reality fit in? If you could ask them to build a module, what would you want them to create? How would you use it in the classroom?

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Matt Monjan let me know that the Simpsons spoofed cell phones in the classroom this past weekend. Yes, it’s funny, but it’s also frustrating because there’s so many hints of truth in there. Give the segment a watch before continuing. For visitors outside the US, visit FOX to watch the full episode. Clip I’m referring to is from about 1 minute in until the 3:30 mark.

Yes, it’s a comedy, but comedies are only funny if there’s kernels of truth in there. The kids are distracted by the phones. When asked what they’re using them for, they know the stock answers and can rattle them off without thinking. But there’s a big difference between a student rattling off an answer that they think will satisfy an inquiry, and a teacher actually using a mobile device for educational purposes. And all too often, the solution is pretty similar to what you see in the clip… lock it away and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Fact is, they aren’t going away. If anything, they’re only becoming more and more prevalent. School budgets are tight, and here we are with millions of dollars in technology that’s being paid for by the parents VOLUNTARILY… and most schools refuse to leverage it because of outdated policies and teachers that don’t want to modify their own classroom management strategies.

I’ve heard it thousands of times it seems, “cell phones are a distraction in class.” That’s great. So is the class pet, a window, a paper clip and pencil/paper. Isn’t teaching students to overcome these distractions part of what we do in the classroom? Heck, I used to focus on that in kindergarten! “Maybe you should put that toy behind you right now because it’s circle time. You can play with it again during choice time.” Saying that cell phones should be banned in schools because they’re ‘too distracting’ is a cop out. If your current classroom management model can’t incorporate mobile devices…. well, then it’s time to do some unlearning and relearning.

When I saw Jeremy Davis recently, he told me of an educator who uses cell phones in the classroom. In fact, this teacher requires that the cell phone be out and ON the desk. In plain site. Not hidden in a pocket or backpack. So if the student is using it, the teacher KNOWS. And if the student is using it when they shouldn’t… Well, that’s when there are consequences. Phone is confiscated until the end of the week, or the parent can pay a $25 fine to get it back for their student. Sure, there were plenty of students who lost their phones, and plenty of fines paid. They used the money to pay for a field trip before the end of the year. But the point is, the students learned when it was ok to be using the phone as a learning device, and when it was inappropriate. Believe me, no student wants to go to his parents and let them know that they need $25 to get their phone back… and explain why.

Sure, we can keep fighting to keep cell phones hidden or banned in schools. But it’s a battle that schools can’t win. Life progresses, things change. Like it or not, these devices are here to stay, and adoption rates are racing towards 100+%. I suggest teachers be proactive. Because there’s a tidal wave coming and you can either ride with it, or have it crash into you.

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A few years ago, I had the opportunity to try out an alternative to medication in the treatment of ADD/ADHD. The idea is that ADD causes some people to generate brainwaves in an abnormal pattern.

When a normal child tries to read or concentrate, he increases the amount of beta waves in certain parts of his brain. ADHD children don’t do this. Instead of increasing beta waves, they increase theta waves, the daydreaming brain wave. That means that where other children are concentrating harder to complete a certain task, ADHD children are drifting off. (source)

The machine I was hooked up to measured my brain waves and presented me with a video screen with an airplane on it. When I was concentrating well and producing beta waves, the plane would go faster. If I lost focus, the plane would slow down. I marveled at the idea and wondered whether someone could simply exercise their brain until they were no longer prone to ADD type behaviors. Of course the equipment involved made it difficult to find a location that could provide this sort of treatment, and the costs were rather higher.

Interestingly, now it seems to be available as a home game. With a Star Wars theme.

Yes I’m serious.

ThinkGeek.com has put up for sale the Star Wars Force Trainer, for about $120. As a Star Wars fan, I felt obligated to check it out. I stopped dead in my tracks when I got midway through the description.

Using dry sensor technology, the Force Trainer can determine the differences between the alpha, beta, gamma and delta waves present in your brain. You can control these different brain ‘states’ by using your ability to focus and to concentrate. A micro-chip inside the Force Trainer then uses an algorithm to figure out which brain state you are in and then decides how to raise or lower the ball based on that state.

Sound familiar? I don’t know for certain what makes the ball go up or down, but if it’s keying in on beta waves, then isn’t it doing the exact same thing that I tried out in at the SMART workshop?? And if that’s the case… could this actually be a home version that ADD students could use to help train them to focus their concentration on demand?

I know it sounds crazy, but this just might be the most valuable toy a parent could buy for their ADD inclined student.

Now… when will we see a Bluetooth version that hooks into an iPhone?

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I’m not shy about how much I love my hosting company, Bluehost. In fact, I seem to blog about it once a year, it seems as thought it’s about that time again. Reason I’m mentioning it now is because they recently upped the ante once again and I couldn’t be happier.

So a friend of mine asked me how much space you get for $6.95 a month on Bluehost, because she was always filling up her hosting account and running out of space. I knew it was alot, but I couldn’t remember the exact amount so I went and looked it up. Low and behold, they’ve changed how much space you get. To infinity. Yes, that’s right, you now get an UNLIMITED amount of space with your Bluehost account.

Of course, let’s say you create a wildly successful video podcast. Each of those videos can be upwards of 100mb. With thousands of people downloading them, you’ll probably run out of bandwidth pretty quick. That’s why hosting companies like LibSyn have made a splash, because they give you unlimited bandwidth. So I looked up how much bandwidth you get right now at Bluehost. Guess what? That’s unlimited too!

How many domains can you host there? Unlimited. Subdomains? Unlimited. Email forwards? Unlimited. FTP Accounts? Only 1000. But if you need more than 1000 separate FTP accounts, we gotta talk

What else do I like about Bluehost? For $6.95 a month, you get a free domain name that you can set up a blog on with a single Click. Or a Drupal. Or Moodle. Or Joomla, or just about anything else. You get FTP, Email accounts (with 3 different webmail choices), wikis, SFTP, full stats, SSH, PHP, MySql, Ruby and the complete works. I have yet to want to do something with my Bluehost account that I couldn’t find a way to make it work.

In fact, it’s so easy to set things up and take them down that I do it for friends all the time. They want to try out a blog? I install one with a single click, let them play around, and then remove it. They want to try out Moodle? Install, play, remove. Couldn’t be easier.

Customer support is phenomenal as well. I’ve had about 4 or 5 problems over the last few years so they aren’t perfect, but the good thing is that every time I’ve ever called in I’ve gotten a person on the phone within a few minutes, and that first person I’ve spoken to has been able to find a solution. The service is exemplary.

In all honesty, in hindsight, had I known about them when I was a Tech Coordinator, I would never have hosted our school site on the XServes we bought with a grant. I’d have saved a bundle of money and just put it on Bluehost. No worries about backing things up, no worries about up time, power outages, server racks, or anything. Just let them take care of all that so you can focus on doing the good stuff.

Now, for the full disclosure part. The links to Bluehost so far have all contained my affiliate link. Whenever someone registers for Bluehost, I get a small kickback. However, I’m a big enough fan for them that I’d recommend that you use them even if you don’t use my affiliate link. So if you click here you can go check out Bluehost and sign up WITHOUT giving a cent to me. Pure and simple, I use them because I love them and I think you will too.

If you have any questions about them or want to play around with any of it, just let me know!

Got an email from a friend of mine (who’s name shall be withheld to protect the innocent). He had a conversation with his district technology director that he asked for some help with.

I had a short conversation with our district technology director yesterday and Second Life came up. I was telling him how streaming video would be projected in SL and how cool it was … He cut me off when I was trying to explain how I thought it would be interesting to some of our teachers to see what SL was like. He asked me: What is the point of using SL? Can you please provide me with some talking points to help me in the future with “what is the point of using SL”.

So I put together a few ideas of my own, regarding why I think Second Life is significant.

provides us the opportunity to experience things that we could never experience in real life. Because avatars aren’t bound by silly things like physics and laws of nature, we can experience things firsthand in an interactive way, as well as new ways that we could only imagine before.

For example, I can watch a hurricane occur from beginning to end, pausing it, rewinding it, checking out its perspective from above and below the water line, from up in the air and so on. Instead of just studying the cell, and the parts of the cell, I can step inside one and see them moving in three day. I can see the shapes and relative sizes of its parts relative to each other. I can study a painting by Van Goh, and then actually step inside it and explore it.

It can also a valuable tool for distance learning. It provides you with a flexible learning environment that also has a personal touch to it. Virtually face to face meetings.

It’s an ideal environment for breaking down our mental barriers regarding physical characteristics. Would students treat someone differently if they had a male avatar? Female avatar? What if they chose to be African or Asian, even tho in real life they’re white? Would that make a difference in how people treat you? Should it? And so on….

And obviously by its very nature, it can really help engage the video game generation. It gives them a virtual learning environment that they can mold to suit their needs.

To be honest, I’m not certain that SL is the ideal platform for education, but I do think it’s the best we have right now and well worth exploring so we’re prepared to leverage it as well as future virtual environments. It provides a platform for live social networking, which is becoming an increasingly important skill in the business world.

However, I’m just a dabbler. I haven’t gotten to spend nearly as much time in world as many other people, and I know some of you reading this have made serious investments into using Second Life in education. I’m hoping that you’ll help my friend out and share your ideas with us.

So in your expert opinion, what is the point of using Second Life in education?

Well, remember when I ‘reviewed’ the Teachermate PC a few posts ago? Basically I slammed it for three reasons: 1) It’s not a PC if it can only run proprietary software 2) It doesn’t cost $50 if you HAVE to buy their software to make it even worthwhile to own and 3) Their website is wonky, and that’s putting it kindly.

After writing that post, I was contact via email by Seth Weinberger, the Executive Director of Innovations for Learning. He thought that if we had a chance to talk and see it firsthand, I might revise my opinion of the Teachermate.

I gotta admit, he was right about two of those three items.

The one thing he was wrong about is the website. It’s slow and clunky, but even worse, it’s incredibly misleading. Part of the reason I blasted the device is because they’re calling it a Handheld Computer. It is NOT a handheld computer. At least, not by the colloquial definition. Rather, it’s a custom built platform designed to run their reading and math software.

What’s the difference there? Quite a bit. As Seth shared with me, they’ve spent 15 years developing reading and math software for students grades K-3. A serious amount of time and research has been put in to make it integrate tightly into the core curriculum (textbook), and really target students at their exact ability level. The software is the breakthrough. The hardware is a means for putting that software in students hands.

You’re probably thinking, why not just box it up and sell it? Seems as though they’ve been doing that. Trouble is, most classrooms don’t have a 1:1 environment. In a typical early elementary classroom, there are 1-5 computers, and 3-4 of them are sometimes working, sometimes not. T he one computer that DOES work… is on the teachers desk, not to be touched by student hands. Yes, they do visit the computer lab, but not to learn reading skills, rather to learn computer skills.

So what they did was they built a custom hardware platform SPECIFICALLY to run their software. That puts an entirely different spin on things. So perhaps the issue isn’t so much a matter of deceptive practice (billing it as a $50 PC), rather misguided marketing combined with sensationalized reporting.

Gotta share a few other tidbits that I learned while talking to Seth. I loved the idea of the Sync and Store case for its simplicity, but I didn’t realize how critical it was to use these devices effectively. The idea is, once per week the teacher goes into the classroom management software and marks off where each student is for reading and math, at a class, group, or individual level. Then, the device will load up lessons that are specific to that students’ level! The device won’t have the entire year stored on it. Heck, it won’t even have the entire unit. It will have just the lessons that the individual student would need for that week. VERY targeted. Of course, the flip side is that students’ answers/responses are recorded and uploaded to the teachers’ computer at next sync so they have a solid idea how the student is doing.

Another tidbit that almost blew me off my chair was how they’re using the microphone. The example he showed me was the Teachermate displaying an image along with a sentence below it. Then, using the built in speaker, you would hear a person read the phrase aloud. After hearing it read aloud (highlighting the words along the way), the student would repeat it back. The microphone would record the student reading it. Then, it would play the original voice reading it, the student reading it and the original once again. So the student had the ability to compare their own reading and inflection to the original! Not only that, but those recordings? They also get transfered over to the teachers computer so he or she can HEAR how the student is doing. Just think how powerful that would be to be able to break out during conferences and share with parents.

But wait, that’s not all! After reading a story (or watching an animated story), students can even choose characters from the story, stamp them on the screen, type out their own story via the onscreen keyboard (yucky, but kids are doing it anyway on their video game systems all the time), and then NARRATE IT using the microphone. The whole thing is saved and can be transfered over to the teachers computer. I know what you’re going to ask next, and no, there is no way to publish those just yet, but it’s on the list for 2.0.

Starting to get the idea why I’ve changed my opinion of the device on the whole? This is not a PC. Calling it one just confuses things. Rather it’s an incredibly powerful 1:1 deployment of the Innovations for Learning Reading and Math programs.

Of course, the big giant unanswered question is whether it’s worth the roughly $100 per student it will cost to deploy throughout your K-3 classrooms. To be honest, I don’t know. We’ll have to see what the research says once it comes in. My gut feeling says students will wind up with positive results. Could those results have come about another way without spending the money? Probably. But at the same time, this is such a no-brainer to deploy that substitutes could use it easily with little to no training. In an era where teaching quality has really come into question, this would certainly be a pretty powerful asset to any reading or math program.

Personally, I think they’re on to something here, and I’ll be watching them careful for future releases.

A few years ago I was at the CUE conference with Discovery, and was part of a little scavenger hunt we had at the booth. People had to come up to me and tell me one innovative way they were using technology in order to earn my stamp. By far, the most innovative story I heard just happened to be someone about as far away from the cutting edge as possible.

Essentially, his district was clearing out the old technology. No, we’re not talking about eMacs, or Beige G3′s, or Purple iMacs, or even 5400′s. We’re talking about Apple IIe’s. Not just a few, 20 of them. This teacher (boy do I wish I had his name still) said, “Pass them over to me. I’ll take them.” SO they set up the computers around the edge of his classroom. While they couldn’t access the internet, they had basic wordprocessing programs available and some fun reading and math games. Yes, he could stand up proudly and say that he had launched a 1:1 initiative in his classroom!

Which leads me to an email conversation I had with Brian Mull yesterday. He pointed out that regardless of the age of the equipment, if you have an internet connection you have access to a wealth of web2.0 applications that require very low overhead. So we were wondering from a very practical standpoint whether there were any teachers out there who are using new online applications on ‘older’ computers, and how well they ran.

SO, if the computers in your classroom are 3 or more years old, leave a comment sharing:
1) How old your computers are and what type they are (PC, Mac, etc)
2) What online applications you use (Google Apps, Picnik, Slideshare, Zoho, etc..)
3) How the experience has been. Just some anecdotal notes about successes and failures.

I think there are quite a few schools on the far side of the digital divide that would be interested in hearing your experiences!

UPDATE: After discussing the Teachermate with its creator and doing a hands on demonstration, I have posted a follow up to this post. Please be sure to read that as well.

I’ve often been told that if it sounds too good to be true… it is. A classic example is the new Teachermate PC that has recently been posted about on the Crave blog and Engadget.

I know in the blogging world, it often seems like a race to get information out first, but how about just a LITTLE bit of research beyond the press release? The more I looked into this Teachermate, the more irritated I got.

So what is it?

It’s obviously not the most powerful handheld, but it should be plenty for the kids in kindergarten through second grade for whom it is intended, with a 2.5-inch color LCD, built-in microphone and speaker, 200MHz ARM processor, 512MB of memory, and a 4-hour battery. “Software for the handhelds includes a complete K-2 reading and math program that aligns with the Chicago Public Schools’ reading and math initiatives,” according to its press release.

Sounds all well and good. Until you learn that the only software it comes with is a classroom management program. That’s it. You can organize your students into classes and keep track of how long they spend reading and doing math practice. Based on the information that I can find on their website, that’s about it. I’m not even certain what students themselves would do with a basic, out of the box Teachermate.

Want more software? There’s a Reading program and a Math program. They cost $20. Apiece. WHAM, your Teachermate just about doubled in cost right there. Don’t like those programs? Well, that’s too bad. Because those are the only programs that will run on it. So you’re pretty much locked in.

There IS a very nifty carrying case for them. They call it the Sync and Store case, and it will hold 30 Teachermates at one time. Yes, it will also charge them, and it will even sync all thirty at once which is VERY slick. Of course, it isn’t free. In fact, it costs $300 (plus shipping and handling).

So if you’ve been doing the math, you have the $50 Teachermate PC, $40 for the Reading and Math software and $10 for a 1/30th share of the Sync and Store case. Grand total for your $50 PC? More like $100. And that does NOT include a browser. Or even WiFi for that matter. Heck, you can’t even install your own software on to it!

To be honest, calling this a PC is really pushing it. It’s more like an advanced LeapFrog system or a colorful generic Nintendo DS (minus the touch screen, WiFi, and choice of software). I don’t care how good the Reading and Math programs are, charing $100 per student for such a limited application is ridiculous.

Oh, and for the record, their website has got to be one of the worst I have ever seen. Click on a link and then wait, wait, wait for it to show up. And once it does, you have to keep right clicking to zoom in in order to just read what’s there! Why use Flash to build a website that has nothing but static pages? Yeesh. Common sense here people.

Other than all that, I love the device and can’t wait to buy one.

UPDATE: After discussing the Teachermate with its creator and doing a hands on demonstration, I have posted a follow up to this post. Please be sure to read that as well.

I’ve used TinyURL off and on over the years, but my usage of it really started skyrocketing when Twitter came on to the scene. When you’re limited to 140 characters, every single character is incredibly valuable! Shortening a URL down by even just a couple characters can really give you some breathing room.

For those of you that don’t know, TinyURL let’s you plugin in a really long URL and it’ll give you a teeny tiny shortcut to it. For example, if I wanted to tell my parents where to find photos of Aiden, I could tell him to go to http://flickr.com/photos/teach42/tags/aiden/ That’s a pretty long URL though. By using TinyURL, I can shorten that to http://tinyurl.com/2pbnyn It may not be pretty, but it’s MUCH easier to share with someone. And this can be particularly valuable when you’re trying to share a link to something like a Google Map of Wrigley Field:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q
=wrigley+field,+chicago,+il&ie=UTF8&ll=41.94812,-87.65532&spn=0.002055,0
.005879&t=h&z=18&om=1

Trouble is, many schools block TinyURL. Some are worried about people not being able to see what’s behind that URL until they click on it. Others consider it a method to get around filters (although that one has always boggled me a bit). And let’s face it, TinyURL is just so bland… Wouldn’t it be nice of there was a sleeker, shinier, more Edu-friendly way to shorten your URLs?

Well, just in time for the holidays I’ve got a little present for you! The Teach42 Magic URL Shrinker! Wouldn’t you rather have Teach42.com/go as a shortened URL than TinyURL? I know I would!

Some of you may be thinking… “But Steve, isn’t Teach42.com/go a few characters more than TinyURL.com? Well yes, but TinyURL adds 6 more characters to give you a unique URL. Mine will only add on 1 or 2 characters. So for the first 3800 URLs people shrink, it will be as small or smaller than TinyURL. So I think we’re in good shape for a while!

Oh yeah, and the Teach42 Magic URL Shrinker comes in two different flavors. The first flavor is the traditional, quick method. Plug in a URL, it gives you the Teach42 shrunken version of it. The other version has a few safety features for people who are concerned about security. When someone clicks on the URL, it doesn’t take them directly to the destination. Instead, it takes to an intermediary page that gives people a warning and let’s them see what the destination URL is before they decide whether or not to click on it. Same short URL, but a little more edu-friendly for the security conscious among us. Both flavors are full of Teach42 karma though.

I didn’t write the code for this. Full credit for that goes to TopHat Stuff Go! It was very easy to install and not too difficult to tweak to my needs. If you’d prefer to have your own URL shortener, feel free to download the code and install it yourself! Otherwise, go ahead and take advantage of the Teach42 Magic URL Shrinker. It’s there at your disposal. Oh, and for those of you worried about how long it’s going to be available, I’ll make sure that it’s up and active as long as Teach42 is around. And trust me when I say i’m not going anywhere

Simulblogged at TechLearning
I don’t really consider myself cheap, rather I’m just very very choosy. I don’t spend much money on software or subscriptions or gadgets unless I truly feel it’s worth it. When I have a chunk of money to spend, I really take my time, do my research and try to make the most informed decision that I can.

So, with the holiday’s quickly approaching (especially Black Friday), I thought I’d share some of the gizmos, gadgets and things that are giving me geekbumps this holiday season.

For my money, the eStarling Digital Picture Frame is the top of the digital frame mountain. There are cheaper digital picture frames. There are larger digital picture frames. But I have yet to find any other digital picture frame that has built in WiFi, supports pulling in photos via RSS feeds, can have photos emailed to it, and will display text messages. Yes, this is the picture frame that geeks dream of. You upload your photos to Flickr, they magically appear in the frame. Take a photo with your digital camera and via email you can make sure that the photo is in the frame by the time you get home. Once you set it up, no computer connection or SD cards or cables are ever necessary again. Oh yeah, and no subscription fees either. Available in black or white, 7″ or 8″ screens for $199 or $249 respectively. When it comes to features, there quite simply is no better digital picture frame on the market.

What exactly is a Chumby? Wonderful question. It’s sorta like a beanbag, but you wouldn’t want to toss it around. It has a touch screen, speakers, built in Wifi, two USB ports, a squeeze sensor and an accelerometer. It can pull in widgets via Wifi that will do all sorts of things, like show you eBay auctions you may be interested in, display your Flickr photos, tell you what time it is, show you ads off of Craigslist, display the latest blog posts from TechLearning, and all sorts of other things. Plug in your iPod and it’ll play your music for you too. Oh yeah, and it’s completely hackable. Open source software, open source firmware, open source hardware. You want to tweak it, they encourage you to. One person already figured out how to get CoverFlow on it! So what exactly is a Chumby…. Well, to be honest I dunno, but it’s pretty cool. $179 in your choice of colors.

Don’t ya hate breaking out your laptop, firing it up, waiting for it to boot… and then discovering that there’s no wifi in range? Well, that will be a thing of the past with this Wifi detecting T-Shirt! Yes, you heard me right, this T-Shirt will display how strong a Wifi signal is in your vicinity. No signal? No bars! The electronics and battery pack are easily removable for washing (you do NOT want to forget to remove those). Trust me, everybody at the conference will know you’re hardcore when you show up wearing this. And let’s be honest, this could be really useful for tech directors! Great way to see where your wireless network has weak spots. A stocking stuffer at $30.

I just discovered this one recently, and it certainly deserves another mention. The EyeFi Wireless 2GB SD Card is an SD card with built in Wifi. Let me say that again. It’s an SD card with built in Wifi. Just take pictures with the camera, and whenever it’s within range of Wifi (you can check with the T-Shirt above) it’ll send the photos to your location of choice, most likely a folder on your computer or to a photo sharing site like Flickr. No more messy card readers, no more filling up the card before you finally break down and transfer your photos. You just worry about taking pictures, the EyeFi card will get them where you want. Comes in orange and orange, for $99.

Want something for yourself but also want to do something charitable? You can’t go wrong with the OLPC XO Give One Get One program. For $399, you get one of the first OLPC XO’s, but you also donate one to a child in a developing nation. Need something to sweeten the deal? Everyone who participates will get one year of free T-Mobile HotSpot access. That means free Wifi at any Starbucks across the country (hear that Warlick?). It’s one of the more interesting machines of our time, and an incredibly worthy cause. Doesn’t get much better than that.

One of the most interesting gaming phenomenons of the last few years is the tossing away of the joystick in favor of getting your entire body into the game. Between Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero and the Nintendo Wii, gaming no longer needs to be a sedentary activity. However, the one that’s get me out of my seat is the upcoming release of Rock Band. In the box you get a guitar/bass, a microphone and a drum kit. Add on another guitar and you’ve got yourself a full Rock Band, ready to kick it! Everyone plays together and you get points based on your accuracy. Don’t have three friends to play with? That’s ok, you can play online as well and hook up with people that way. The set list is incredible, and while you may not actually be playing those instruments, it certainly makes you feel like you are. Oh yeah, and during those long instrumentals during Don’t Fear the Reaper, your microphone can be used as a cowbell! $169 for the game, microphone, guitar and drum kit.

And what do you get for the person who has everything? How about a Flickr Pro account! Or a year’s subscription to Animoto! Or Premium access to Picnik! Or a few thousand Lindens for Second Life! There are so many great sites out there that may be free to try out, but have extra features or functionality available for a few bucks. Most of them are fairly reasonable, and you’re geeky friend/family member will really enjoy having that extra access. Additionally, those subscriptions are what keeps those sorts of sites going. So if you like it, it’s a great way to support it.

So there you go, my top 7 geek toys for the 2007 shopping season. Am I missing something? Another gadget out there giving you geekbumps? Share it with us!

This just may be one of the most impressive implementations of technology for education since…. Hrrrm… Well, in a long time.

Via Tim Childers on the Tennessee DEN Blog

The official description is:

The Livescribe smartpen revolutionizes the act of writing by recording and linking audio to what you put on paper. Tap on words or drawings in your notes, and the smartpen replays recorded audio from the time you were writing. Transfer notes to your PC to backup, replay, and share them online.

But that doesn’t do it justice. You should really watch this video to a demo. Essentially it records what you’re listening to and notes what you write and when you write it. So if you click on a line of your notes, you’ll hear what the professor was saying at the time you wrote it. Of course, you can also rewind, fast forward, speed up and slow down.

This would have been a dream device for me when I was a student. I was always sloppy with my notes and would often spend hours trying to figure out why I circled three times “War/zoo analogy”. Seemed important at the time, but when it came time to study, I’d have to put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and try to figure out what the heck it meant. With this, I could double click, rewind a few minutes and just hear it again.

And that’s just the beginning. You can email the notes and audio, record and upload drawings, and much more. It does seem to use special paper, but it says on the website that the notebooks will cost about the same as a standard notebook.

For $200, I think it’s a pretty darn useful piece of tech. Can’t wait to see one in action.

I never have till now. Introducing the Eye-Fi Wireless 2GB SD Card. An SD card with WiFi? Heck yeah! This is brilliance. Let me lay it out for you step by step.

1) You stick the 2GB card into your digital camera.
2) You take a whole bunch of digital photos.
3) While you find other things to take pictures of, the SD card connects to your network and sends your photos to your computer or the photo sharing site of your choice.
4) Shampoo

What’s missing from that process? Namely getting out the SD card, finding the SD card reader, plugging it in and hoping that your OS finds the card, navigating to the folder that holds your images, copying the images to your computer, and FINALLY uploading your images to your site of choice (mine would be Flickr).

This is perfect for lazy people (like me), wives (nothing personal honey, but I *do* wind up uploading all of our pictures), parents (who just don’t seem to understand why online is so much better than a printout), teachers (who never remember how or where to save their images), kids (who try to jam the camera into the DVD slot) and anyone else that seems to have difficulty with the process.

I’m in love. And it’s pretty darn cheap, only $99 bucks. Considering that it’s a 2gb card with a full WiFi radio and built in antennae and all, I think it’s a darn good deal. Learn more from the EyeFi website, or Paul Stamatiou has a great review of it.