2012 Greatest Hits: Mercy's iPad App Finalists!

As the year ends, I will republish the Drive-thru's five most viewed posts of 2012.  This is #5.

Last week I met with our blue ribbon app selection committee.  These individuals were issued iPad 2s  in advance of our order of "new" iPads for the entire staff.  Our pioneers explored a wide-range of apps which might be pre-loaded on our staff and student iPads.  Since the seventy new staff iPads will soon arrive, we need to pin down our basic starter set.  Teachers from art, science, religious studies, health, and social studies have contributed to the selection.  Our IT Director and our Associate Principal/Academic Affairs also contributed

Here are the finalists.  Your feedback is still (and will continue to be) very welcome:

Animation Creator-- With simple, yet powerful drawing tools, layers, shake to undo, color palettes, color sliders, and easy to use frame management. http://bit.ly/GO8wrC

ArtRage-- A stylish, intuitive painting and drawing package that makes it easy to produce natural looking artwork on your iPad. http://bit.ly/GIcqGr

Avid Studio (or iMovie?)-- an easy-to-use app that enables you to edit video, audio, and photos at the speed of your creativity. http://bit.ly/GGvFz7

Calculator+-- designed with simplicity, usability  http://bit.ly/GPimr8 

CloudOn-- lets you view, edit, and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents on your tablet, which can then be saved directly to your Dropbox. http://bit.ly/zzlBu7

Dragon Dictation-- voice recognition application that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages.  http://bit.ly/GHLDTv

Dropbox-- Simple to use and extremely useful, this file synchronization app will keep all of your files in step.  http://bit.ly/GGPtxu

EMD PTE-- a new education app which provides teachers and students extensive information about the periodic table of the elements. http://bit.ly/GGQENt

Evernote-- helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. Makes these notes completely searchable.  http://intel.ly/GGbhL8

Flipboard-- Aggregates news, images, video, social networking updates, and shared links in a magazine-style layouts.  http://bit.ly/GJvL7g

Gmail-- brings Gmail "push notifications" to iPad meaning that you can be notified the moment a new message hits the Gmail servers.  http://huff.to/GN1ruO 

Google-- presents you with big, colorful links to several Google services, including Calendar, Docs, Google+, Picasa, YouTube and Google Books. http://ti.me/GGbuP9 

iAnnotate-- "go-to app" for taking notes on lecture slides, annotating important business documents, revising screenplays, grading papers.  http://bit.ly/GIm1gs 

iPhoto-- really powerful image manipulation tools here and yet Apple has made them simple to use thanks to instinctive touchscreen controls. http://tgr.ph/GGFSeW 

ITunes U app icon

iTunesU-- gives access to complete courses from leading universities and other schools — plus the world’s largest digital catalog of free education content.  http://bit.ly/GGibQz 

Keynote-- Keynote allows you to create, edit, and share multimedia presentations with graphics, animations, and charts.  http://bit.ly/GI8O0F 

Kindle-- gives users the ability to read Kindle books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks and PDFs on a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. http://bit.ly/GGOH8T 

LanSchool-- allows teachers to manage computer activities in the classroom from Apple's new device.  http://bit.ly/GH1e7f 

Noteshelf-- Noteshelf is the handwriting note taker that features super natural digital ink. Export your notes to Evernote or Dropbox.  

OneNote-- Create searchable notes with text, pictures and bullets. Then keep your notes in sync using free Microsoft SkyDrive.  http://bit.ly/GFKnCO 

Pages-- Create, edit, and view documents wherever you are. Pages works with iCloud and looks brilliant on Retina display. http://bit.ly/GHvnag 

PowerTeacher -- Is designed to integrate with Pearson's student information system, PowerSchool. http://bit.ly/GMQdX6

Prezi Viewer-- View and present your prezis anywhere with simple, intuitive multitouch gestures. http://prezi.com/ipad/

Pulse News Reader-- An RSS client that displays your feeds in a simple grid configuration that scrolls horizontally and vertically.  http://zd.net/GRu4Tt 

ShowMe-- ShowMe allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them online. Extremely easy to use http://bit.ly/GMsIsp 

Wolfram Alpha--   Alpha is a long-term project to make every bit of systematic knowledge available and, more importantly, computable. http://macw.us/GHTi4V

Word Web Dictionary-- fast searching, spelling suggestions, definitions, usage examples, synonyms, related words.  http://bit.ly/GOdreM 

Presentation in CBL-- The Teacher's Role, Part 3

Our staff continues to meet with me in regular professional development sessions in order to consider and discuss issues related to Challenge Based Learning.  But "meet with me" has been a little sketchy, recently.  Recently, two sessions were canceled last week when we celebrated our swim teams state championship with a day off.  And when I was in California for the CBL webinar last week, I arranged for a sub to cover one session.

The most recent topic has focused on student "presentations."  Consequently, I requested that one of our fine speech teachers be the sub.  She emphasized the fundamentals of face-to-face speech and did a really great job.  My intention was to focus on slide and video presentations, but since her tips and instruction are necessary to any form of presentation, we are going to attempt have her meet with all five groups.

The groups are becoming less synchronized as the semester winds down, but I am learning to relax a little about that since we are not simply spinning our wheels or wasting anyone's time.  Worthwhile topics abound as more teachers sink their teeth into CBL. Here are the most recent slides:

The Teacher's Role in CBL, Part 3  

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Screen capture of my "Presentation 10 Commandments" for next spring's CBL presentations.

Challenge Based Learning Webinar

Tuesday, I'll be in Cupertino for a live broadcast of an Apple Education webinar on Challenge Based Learning.  I will join three of my CBL mentors, Katie Morrow, Don Henderson and Mark Nichols.  My piece of the presentation is "CBL in Action".  With 2700 registrants as of last week, this is pretty heady stuff.

I can't help but think that it was less than four years ago that I began to investigate educational technology seriously in my own classroom (It all started with podcasting).  Less than two years ago, I taught myself Keynote for making slides.  And only Fall '09, I did my first serious presentation outside of school at Mame36 in Traverse City.

The educational technology trip put me on a career arc I could never have anticipated.  And nothing has been more professionally transformative for me than CBL.

There is still time to register for the webinar (November 30, 10:00 A.M., PST).  However, I've been told that it will be archived after the event.  If I don't royally embarrass myself, this should be a great new experience.

Learning with Apple: Challenged Base Learning Webinar

Dragon Dictation & Movie Making

I had the unusual experience recently of using my iPhone to help make a movie. No, I didn't use its movie camera. Instead I used the dictation app, called Dragon Dictation. I dictated my script over the phone and emailed myself the text. Now, granted, I might do something like this just for the geeky heck of it. But in this case it was pretty helpful. I was scripting a narration to accompany some movie screen captures , and I needed a rough idea of the timing, since the audio would have to be synched with the video (I used the iPhone as a stopwatch for this).

Below is the result. In addition to Dragon Dictation, I used GarageBand, iPhoto, Keynote, Voila, and iMovie. I worked much harder on this than my last module, but you'll see that I was not up to smoothing out all the rough patches.

Flickr Creative Commons Rocks!

This summer I put considerable effort and energy into creating some tools for teachers interested in trying Challenge Based Learning. For example, I created one called "CBL Media Management Do's". Recently, I completed a companion piece about the "don'ts" of media management. But there is a different twist,. On the first one I primarily used screen shots for my demonstration. But for this one, I relied heavily on Flickr Creative Commons photos. Though these pictures were not taken with CBL in mind, I still think that they help illustrate the points I tried to make in the narrative. Do you agree?


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The movie was created with GarageBand, Yahoo Advanced Image Search, Photo to Movie, Voila, Keynote, and Preview

Good Times with Timelines

Usually I speak out strongly against using "tech for tech's", so consider me a hypocrite. Yesterday, I was guilty of using a piece of software simply because I was looking for a chance to use it and thought it was cool.

I gave a presentation (more on that Monday), that included instructions for when various steps of a process were due. Voila! A chance to use Timeline 3D!

At the 2010 ADE Summer Institute, I saw Robert Brock give a fabulous presentation which was based on various turning points in his life. As he narrated, a giant 3D timeline swept across the screen. Afterwards, many of us inquired about this animation and Robert graciously shared information along with a discounted price. So I bought a copy right away.

So why am I a hypocrite? Well, I knew that my small screen in an enormous room would not allow for any details, let alone the dates, to be visible in my presentation.

That was certainly not the software's fault. And I would like to add that its templates are gorgeous, data is easy to enter, and images may simply be dragged into the timeline. It then exports ever so easily into a Keynote slide show. I wish I taught history. I would have timelines screaming across the screen every other day.

One more cool thing. You can export it as an HD movie. So check it out:

Hail to the Chief!

Since Howard Dean's campaign for president in 2004, I have been fascinated with netroots politics. After dazzling onlookers with his ability to raise funds and organize volunteers online, Dean wiped out. But Barack Obama’s took online campaigning to a new level, and his election has installed the first new media administration the Executive Branch. Consequently, the White House web site has now become a valuable resource to me.


My American Government Students learn that the presidency is several different authorities, responsibilities and symbolic functions wrapped into one. I am using the online resources of the Obama administration to illustrate these roles. First, I downloaded pdfs, podcasts, and videos for this purpose. I have used Apple tools (Preview, GarageBand, iMovie) to create screen captures and clips and then placed them into a multimedia slide presentation. The slide show vividly portrays the president playing out his various functions.

I think the White House site also serves as a perfect example of how social media has become a conduit for vital information. It is clear that organizations large and small are assuming that global consumers/citizens will want to be informed and updated through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and iTunes. Showing this as a key priority of the 21st Century presidency helps to make my case to educators that they are obligated to help students access and evaluate new media.

I’ve created a short QuickTime movie to demonstrate how I will be using the digital presidency as a classroom resource and to enhance my professional development presentations. Please check it out!

"Hail to the Chief" Multimedia Demo

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Demo created with Apple Keynote

Follow Your Passion....Connect Your Dots.

My blog title, "Follow your Passion....Connect Your Dots" comes from some notes from the ADE Institute that I tapped out on my iPod Touch. (I'm not sure who said it, the context, or even if it is exact). The metaphor speaks very strongly to my experience.

Connecting with Others (Input)
I was one of the first people in my professional circle to really "get into" a listserv. Shakesper was a revelation to me. Having online exchanges with the giants of academia like John W. Velz and Stanley Wells was unspeakably exciting for a high school teacher like myself. Now, I do the majority of reading for news, sports, education, and tech based on the blogs and articles that come my way from my RSS Reader and Twitter.


Connecting with Others (Input)
The Opinion Drive-thru was originally a political blog. During the Obama nomination campaign I actually posted blogs simultaneously on my Obama page where it was more frequently read. Sometimes I posted podcasts. Sometimes I posted on educational subjects. (Usually I didn't post at all). But these were my fledgling efforts to connect-- narcissistic to be sure, by fulfilling a need to reach a wider audience. A year ago I got my Flip camera and began to learn iMovie. Now I have a YouTube channel. I make movies with Keynote, PhotoToMovie, and iMovie. For the past four months it has been a great hobby and a nice outlet for my ideas, knowledge, and opinions.

A Reflection
Some of my friends seem to be suffering from the insularity of their school. They are tired of the same old office politics. They strike me as paranoid and deeply anxious, suffering cases of classic "burn out". Connecting with others has spared me this fate. As I started my thirty-fifth year of teaching, I realized that I no longer saw my work as exclusively taking place in a building or classroom. I have the strongest self-image that I have possessed as a professional: I see myself with a unique set of abilities for integrating the Read/Write web with curriculum. I enjoy this sense of uniqueness and like sharing it with an inner circle of colleagues and with fellow educators around the globe.

I wake up most days looking forward to connecting more dots-- not a bad way to meet the day.
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"Connecting the Dots" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Irina Souiki

Parent Night, Multimedia Style

Like most schools we have an open house early in the school year. Ours is called "Parents Night", which primarily involves the parents following their daughter's schedule , spending about ten minutes with each teacher.

We generally have a good turnout, so most of us try to bring our "A" game. In recent years, I've tried to add some flavor. When digital photo frames were new, I took a photo of each student in my home room group and had the frame running when their folks came by. Last year I used iPhoto and projected the album on screen with a data projector. This show was accompanied by music as the parents arrived. I could tell most folks liked it.

But last night, I went much farther. In addition to the photo slideshow for homeroom, I created a Keynote presentation for each class. The first slide is a photo of the class. This was easy to manage, because everyone was enthusiastic about being photographed on the first day of school. The slideshows took a couple of hours to whip up-- a little longer because I included some audio files. Here's a pdf version (sorry, no audio).

Parent Night Slideshow

Why take the trouble to do this instead of just showing up and giving my spiel as usual? Because, indeed, the medium is the message. I wanted the presentation to be dynamic and memorable. I wanted to give the parents of taste of why I am trying to crank up the technology in their daughter's class.

As it turned out, I will definitely do it again. Amazingly, the presentations had almost perfect timing (pure luck). And the parents were pretty darned locked in. Next time around I will do the "about me" segment as a quick animation build and focus more of my very limited time on the curriculum. I think it's quite likely that I can reuse much of the formatting and even some of the slides, next year. Bottom line: The extra time prepping for "Parents' Night" was time well spent.

The Old Guy Goes Multimedia

For want of the correct adaptor, I was prevented from showing my Keynote presentation on "Apple Solutions for the 21st Century" at Madonna U. last week. Instead, I improvised, going directly to the Web for a "show & tell" of some online concoctions I've whipped up for my high school courses. I took a more or less chronological approach. It made me realize how I had evolved over the past 18 months. My progression is outlined here:

It all started with podcasts by phone. I made mp3 lectures with Gabcast for my Government class, and I began to require my students to report by podcast as well.

About 14 months ago, I began to integrate hyperlinks into my film study guides, illustrating concepts with photos and YouTube examples.

Exactly a year ago, I began using the Flip Mino I received for my birthday. I turned the camera on myself and started to record video directions for absent students. More significantly, I loaned the camera out to my AP Government students, so that they could vlog opinion pieces. Then their classmates blogged about these vlogs. The blogging feature of iWeb was perfect for this little enterprise.

In November, '08, I began to edit video movies with iMovie. I was very intimidated by this great software, but once again Atomic Learning helped me out.

In February, 2009, I taught my sophomores how to use wikis so that they could host their own multimedia resources. Many groups conducted interesting interviews and created short video pieces. Using iWeb I began creating exhibition pages for my students' multimedia work. I then shared the link with the editor of the school bulletin, The Mercy Memo.

I began podcasting with GarageBand. What an upgrade over Gabcast! ( Thanks for the tip, Andy Mann). And thank you, Rick Strobl for suggesting at Schuste's retirement party that I animate jpegs with PhotoToMovie. This was the best $50 I ever spent on software. Combining GarageBand mp3s with jpegs and turning them into movies has been a fun summer pastime.

Discovering that I could search for Library of Congress public domain photos on Flickr, further enhanced my ability to animate jpegs for instructional purposes.

I finally learned how to use Keynote. I had no idea that what I took to be slide show software could present so many multimedia options. This is my July and August preoccupation-- making moves using GarageBand (for soundtrack) and Keynote.

While I can't prove that my students are learning more after being fed with this stew of media, I know that I have, and I believe that I am modeling communication skills that they will need in their careers.

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"Multimedia Message" (The cover of the May/June Communication Arts Magazine). Flickr Creative Commons photo by mwilke.

Death by PowerPoint and Resurrection by Keynote

I began a presentation last January by declaring that I didn't text or use PowerPoint. The idea was to put people at ease-- They were not about to be overwhelmed by a geeky, loves-all-things-techno obsessive.

Between you and me, I don't have anything against text messages. Neither my job nor lifestyle call for me to use mobile devices much. PowerPoint is another matter. It would be logical to use it in my job, but I've seen so many dreadful presentations that I haven't seen merit in learning how to do it. My greatest pet peeve is the presenter who reads his slides to us. And often the slides are terrifically uninteresting-- too many bullet points, etc. The fellow in the photo below pretty much personifies all that I loathe about slide shows.

BUT, I have had an epiphany. I am working through the Atomic Learning tutorials on iWork '09 with the idea of getting certified by Apple. Learning how to use their presentation software-- Keynote -- has brought unexpected pleasures. While slides serve as the spine for the presentations, the animation options and media integration allow for incredibly dynamic options. Recently, I completed a project that completely delighted me. I have been working on a Keynote presentation about my digital anthology for MAME 36.

I decided that I wanted to create a dynamic overview of the anthology, so I laid down a simple soundtrack with GarageBand and synchronized a set of slides with it. Here comes the cool part-- I exported the slide show as QuickTime movie. Check it out:

The Digital Anthology

So what to do with the movie? It has been embedded as a slide in the over all presentation. I suppose that I may still bore my audience to death, but it won't be because I chosen to use my slide show as a teleprompter.

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"GiardinaKARLSRUHE - Death by Powerpoint" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by alice_c

Serendipity

If you are over thirty, you may be able to relate to this. My usual approach to mastering something has been utterly linear. Whether it meant reading an owner's manual from cover to cover (yes, really) or prepping a new text by going though chapter by chapter, my idea of learning or gaining mastery meant not skipping any steps. And this approach has served me well in very instances. But recently, I have been letting go of some of these habits. For instance, I started playing around with Twitter. As the site explains, "Twitter means you can step in and out of the flow of information as it suits you and it never queues up." It also means you can't master it or maintain a linear correspondence.

OK, so I have been dabbling with Twitter. Well, last Friday I got the idea of setting up a colorful Twitter page design. Since I am a complete doofus with graphics, I looked for help online and found a template for Keynote, an application I owned but with which I had no experience. So I learned just enough about Keynote to discover that I could import a jpeg background for the page. I remembered recently reading that millions of digital photos were available on Flickr. This is probably not news to you, but it was quite a revelation to me. I opened an account, chose a couple of candidates for my Twitter design, digressed and selected some Third Man picts for my Film Class, chose the "Blue Sky 2" picture for Blogger, and contacted all the photographers concerned. By Sunday all had replied with permissions and I was able to show my finished Twitter page to the chap who had supplied me with the "Apple White Bricks" picture that gave uniqueness to my page. I learned a lot, but not by any sort of predetermined step-by-step.