Sometimes it’s the simple things…
Image by Bright Meadow via Flickr
Saw a new site recommended on Twitter today called Pen.io. The description? “Create beautiful text based pages in seconds and share them with the world.”
That’s it. And that’s really all it does. No registration, no email required. Just put in what you want the link to be and a password of your choice. It takes you over to a page where you can enter in a title and your text. Click save. More…
Tripline: The interface we always wanted for Google Lit Trips… and more!
Image via CrunchBase
Mike Bryant dropped me an email last night recommending that I check out Tripline, and boy am I glad he did! It’s another one of those sites that allows you to create custom Google Maps, but the interface and features make it stand head and shoulders above many others. It has the social features that I always look for, allowing you to connect directly to Facebook, Twitter, Tripit, FourSquare, Gowalla and others. And with just a few clicks, you can create ‘trips’ based on them. So for example, if you use Tripit to organize your trips, you can import in all the locations from a single trip and lay it out on a map. Or if you use the locations feature in Twitter, you can lay out your tweets based on where you tweeted them from. More…
A quickie about Qwiki.
- Image via CrunchBase
Ever see a new site that wows you, not just because it has good content, but because of the way it presents it? That’s where I file Qwiki. So far as I can tell, it basically takes text from a variety of locations, adds a great text-to-speech translater to it, and then blends in images and videos from a bunch of other sources. The end result is a video encyclopedia mashup of content from around the web. It sounds pretty darn decent, it looks incredibly polished, and everything is hyperlinked. Videos, images, related content, all just a click away. More…
Jamming with uJam
- Image via CrunchBase
Matt “Geekybird” Monjan told me he had a site that he thought I’d love, but I’ll be honest, I was skeptical. It isn’t often that I find a Web 2.0 site that totally rocks me. uJam does. Big time. I’ve shared it in three presentations in the last week alone, and every time I do, there’s an audible buzz amongst audience members. I’m still not exactly sure how it fits into education besides a few obvious ways, but without a doubt it’s something teachers and students alike are going to love. More…
Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them.
- Image by PinkMoose via Flickr
Several months ago, the guys over at PollEverywhere wrote a blog post asking “Should we even offer a free product for teachers?” At the heart of the conversation, the issue was that while they wanted to keep free accounts for teachers, people using the service does cost them money. “Considering that we pay the mobile phone companies several cents for each text message, a disturbing proportion of free users (overwhelmingly educators) cost us over $50/user/year in texting fees, and that’s before we spend any time on customer support.” That may not seem like much, but when you start adding up the numbers, it’s a matter of dollars and cents. If it’s free for you, someone is paying for it. And considering the size of many of these Web 2.0 companies, often that ‘someone’ is the founder and/or developer.
The reason I bring this up is that I’m a big fan of free sites. One of my most popular presentations focuses strictly on free tools for educators. I know far too many teachers that make a point to only use free sites. Some do it as a point of pride, others do it due to financial considerations. The trouble is though, if a site isn’t making any money… it likely won’t be around for very long. That’s not good for anyone.
People often ask me whether they can rely on a Web 2.0 site being around for a while. Generally, I respond by telling them to look for a business model. Do they have premium features that people can subscribe to? Advertising on the site? Enterprise level solutions that business can purchase? If there’s a clear indicator for how the site is making money, then they’re probably going to be around. If there isn’t, that’s a red flag to me. Some sites like Wordle I wouldn’t stress about as much. They’re simple enough that I have a hunch that they are just paying for hosting/bandwidth at this point, which can most likely be covered by ads. However, the trade off there is that there isn’t any active development going on there. When was the last time you saw Wordle release a new feature?
Which brings me back to my point. There are some sites that I promote through my presentations and professional work. I do so because I see potential for them and believe educators can get good use out of them. I don’t get a kickback from any of these sites (besides my host, Bluehost) other than a few sites have given me a free premium account. That said, there are several sites that I use on a regular basis that I do pay for. I bought a pro version of Flickr several years ago because I thought they were one of the best sites I’d ever seen for photo sharing and I wanted to see them succeed. I have even given pro subscriptions to friends and colleagues as gifts. I’m a huge fan of Tripit.com and recently upgrade to a pro account. I’ll be honest, I don’t think the features you get for upgrading are even worth the cost, but I wanted to support the company. I love the service they provide and hope that they can stick around. That’s worth a $50 donation from me even though I’m not a fan of their premium features.
There are many sites that have created educational portals/pricing to support the things teachers are doing in the classroom. PollEverywhere is a great example of this because they literally restructured their entire free scheme around the classroom. Prezi created educator specific pro-accounts as well and have publicly stated how committed they are to supporting teachers. Other sites like Glogster and Voicethread have devoted enormous resources to making their sites better suited to teachers’ needs.
But these sites can only keep doing that if there’s money coming in. It’s a bitter pill, but that’s reality. If you love free tools, then you need to do your part to keeping them free. Consider it paying it forward. Don’t do it for every site, and don’t do it for a site you’ve never tried before. But if you’ve been using the free version of the site and think it’s something you feel is worth continuing to make use of, then consider paying for the premium version. Even if you don’t need the premium features, do it so that you can hold your head up high and know you’ve done your part to make sure that site is going to be around for the long haul. And don’t forget, as a paying customer, you usually have a more direct line to the developer’s ear. Let them know what features you think the site needs, or how it could be better suited to what you do in the classroom. That same email has a lot more weight when it comes from a subscriber rather than a free user.
I know some of you are going to say that you spend enough on the classroom already, and that the school should pick up the bill. Fine, then fight that fight. But if you can’t push that through, I hope that you consider doing something personally. It’s the only way these tools we love so much are going to be around for the long haul.
In my next post here, I’ll be sharing a new offer from PollEverywhere. I didn’t write this post to push you over to them, but they do happen to be one of the sites I’m a huge fan of. They’ve been kind enough to give me a premium account to use during presentations. However, I’m putting my own money where my mouth is and buying into the promotion as well. Why? Because I believe in what they’re doing, I believe in their commitment to education, and I want them to stick around. If they aren’t your site of choice, that’s fine. Pick another. But spend a few minutes thinking about what tools are perpetually on your ‘goto’ list and how you can help make sure they don’t go away.
Because if we don’t support the sites we can’t live without… well, you better be prepared to live without them.
What have you found worth paying for? Are you willing to pay out of your own pocket to support a site you love?
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Top 10 Web 2.0 for Educators – NICE Miniconference
Will be presenting in about 10 minutes at the NICE mini conference here in Illinois. Doing a revamped version of my Top 10 Web 2.0 for Educators. Most radical change is that I don’t have an aggregator in there. Still kinda torn about that. Part of it is that time is limited, but another piece is that I’m not positive that it’s as relevant as it used to be. Considering people are aggregating via their inbox, via iGoogle, via My Yahoo, within the browser and more. There’s so many ways to subscribe, that I’m not positive it’s worth including an aggregator in this type of fast paced presentation.
Regardless, the current version is embedded below, and the examples I show for each site can be found here.
Let me know what you think! What did I get right, and what did I miss? Above all, please be sure to include WHY. Oh yeah, you can also add your thoughts to this Wall.
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If you Tweet, will anybody hear it?
- Image via Wikipedia
I think that many people (myself included) that share sites like Twitter at conferences inadvertently do our attendees a disservice. In the effort of attempting to demonstrate how wonderful, simple, powerful and dynamic it is, we make it seem much more effortless than it really is.
For example… How many times per day do you see somebody say, “Give a shout out to the people in Nepal who are attending my presentation about social networks about using the Luge to teach physics!” And then 30-40 people reply with a hearty “Hello”. So attendees believe all it takes it to toss a tweet out there, and dozens of responses will pour in.
What isn’t necessarily shown, or may just be glossed over, is the fact that it takes TIME and EFFORT to gain a few hundred followers. And without having a critical mass of people to message out to, your odds of getting a response from a general tweet are VERY small. If you have 40 followers, more than likely none of them are actually online at the same time as you. And even if they are, who knows if they’re checking Twitter? And even if they are, who knows if they’ll see your tweet? And if they do, how many people will see it and ignore it, versus will see it and respond?
For example, if I send out a “Please give these folks a shout out” tweet, I expect maybe about 30-40 responses on a typical school day during normal hours. If it’s a weekend, or in the evening, you can cut that number in half. I currently have about 5000 followers. So at best, that’s less than 1%. At that rate, if you have 100 followers, could you realistically expect an instant response from even a single person? I’m not sure… It depends on who is following you.
That’s not to say that everyone should run out and get more followers. My point is simply, things aren’t necessarily as rosy and simple as we may make them seem during presentations.
I can’t tell you how many times I see a Twitter newbie who has under 50 followers throw out a request like, “I’m trying to find schools that have updated their AUP this year. If you know someone, please tell me.” Then when they don’t get any responses, they get frustrated and may wind up quitting. While I can’t address what may be an issue with persistence, I do think that person has set themselves up for failure.
I really do think you need to follow/be followed by about 100 people at the least for Twitter to begin to be valuable. If you have a dedicated, highly focused group, that number may be smaller, but in general I think that’s a fair ballpark. If you have less than that, you need to be much more aggressive to get responses.
A few suggestions for people who are new to Twitter or have relatively small audiences right now.
1) Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with putting a message out there multiple times. If you’re worried about looking like a spammer, reword it. Mention that your STILL looking for information. But it’s entirely possible that people didn’t see your message. So give them another chance. And yet another.
2) Ask some people directly to respond. If you send a tweet that includes @TheirUsername, more than likely they will see it. It may take a day or two before they look for personal replies, but most people WILL see it. Unless they have fairly strict privacy settings, it should work. So if there’s someone you think might be able to help you out, send it directly to them by using this feature.
3) Reach out to the hubs in your network. Let’s face it, some people have more followers than others. Maybe they do a lot of conferences, maybe they just have too much time on their hands. Regardless, they may have a longer reach than you do. So contact them directly and ask them to retweet it for you! I’m extremely grateful to have the audience that I do, and I’m happy to share them whenever someone asks. By doing this, you maybe be able to ensure that your request has been seen by a few thousand people instead of a few dozen. Doesn’t guarantee a response, but it does give you better odds.
Of course, the best solution in the long term is to build up your own community. The only real way to do that is to maintain your own presence, to reach out to others, and to follow people and give them the chance to follow you.
For those of you that do present sessions including Twitter, do you see the same thing happening? Is it just me or is this something you’ve experienced yourself? And if so, how do you address it?
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Top 10 FREE Web 2.0 Sites for Educators: NECC Edition
I’ve had several requests via email for my Top 10 presentation from NECC, and realized that I should probably post it here. Of course, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing!
So here’s a link to the presentation slides, such as they are. Most of the presentation is live demonstrations, so they’re only of limited value by themselves.
Here’s a link to the ISTE broadcast of the session. Video looks and sounds great, but they didn’t record what I was doing on the screen until 20 minutes in.
Then there’s my own personal broadcast of it using Procaster and Livestream. It has what’s happening on my screen throughout the entire presentation. However, the camera angle isn’t exactly the most flattering one I could have chosen 
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What to do with a dog tag
- Image via Wikipedia
ArtsCow.com is doing a sale right now on their custom Dog Tags. Using their designer, you can upload your own images and have them printed out on a dog tag. Normally, they cost 8.99, but through August 16th, they have a sale going on. If you use the coupon code 199DOGTAG, you can get a two sided dog tag with free shipping for $1.99. I don’t ordinarily post deals like this, but I think this could be a lot of fun for educators and it’s a pretty darn reasonable price.
So what can you do with a $1.99 dog tag?
- Create one for each of your students that has your School, Class Name, School contact info, and then their name and/or photo on the back. Be great for field trips, and early learners can use it to help learn how to spell/write their name.
- Random student grouping. Mix and match pictures and colors on each side, so you can use them for random grouping. For example, if you want to be able to do groups of 3, 4, 5, or 6 at different parts of the day, put 5 different animals on 3 different color backgrounds on one side, and then put 6 different shapes on 4 different colors on the other side. Then you can give each child a tag when they walk in, and call out groups as you need it. “All squares, come to the writing table.” “Yellow tags, go to music, green tags, stay with me.” You get the idea.
- Extension activities/centers. When students finish their assignment, they can pick an extension activity out of the bucket. Only put in as many tags in there as you can have at that activity or center. They were it as they play, and then put it back and pick a new one when they’re done.
- Job chart. List their jobs on the tags, and they can wear the tag to remind them what their job is until they do it. Then they just hang it up.
- Create permanent versions of Kevin Honeycutt’s Web2.0 keychain. A website on one side, a tip and a mentor’s email on the other.
- Bathroom passes, hall passes, Star of the day necklace, create yourself a cool keychain, etc. Hey, for 1.99, why not?
- Rewards for other teachers at your school. Create your own, Technology Teacher of the Month award! Give your colleagues a pat on the back for doing innovative things with technology in their classrooms. For $24 you could create one for every month this year.
- If you’re a geocacher, this would make a fantastic travel bug!
That’s about it off the top of my head. So let me toss the ball to you. What might you create custom dog tags for?
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