Highlighting New Tech Developments at MHS

As noted here recently, we are updating iMercy, the Multi Touch book that describes Mercy technology.  We published it to iTunes in 2013 where it remains a free download.

I am working with 12 other wonderful people* on an updated edition which we will submit for review to Apple this summer. Last week we were formally invited to apply for a renewal of our Apple Distinguished School status. The updated book will serve as evidence that we continue to be a leading edge school with Apple 1:1 technology.

Our committees have now reviewed each section of the book and are already collecting resources and data highlighting new developments in each area. Here is a sampling:

Visionary Leadership
An entirely new section on the iWizards will be written acknowledging new projects such as their iPad Tips & Tricks course and their iCreate workshop

Gerry Meloche's students use iPhones to identify paramecia

Innovative Learning and Teaching
We have so many new developments which could go here. The new technology in courses like Broadcasting, Photo, Film and Animation, Graphic Design, etc. could fill a chapter.

Ongoing Professional Learning
This section will feature our successes with peer to peer training as well as our Tech Talk Conference.

Compelling Evidence of Success
As I recently posted, we are surveying staff, all juniors, and all freshmen to gather comparative data to the the study we completed two years ago.

Flexible Learning Environment
Since our book was published we have adopted a new learning management system. A section on how we leverage technology through Schoology will be a key addition to this section.

We have much work ahead but I am very proud to have the opportunity to share with the world all the exciting ed tech innovations that are happening at Mercy!

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*Committee Members include Larry Baker, Christopher Blitz, Cheryl Corte, Julie Earle, Angela Harris-Schultheis, Tom James, Alison Kline-Kator, Dr. Cheryl Kreger, Ann Lusch, Carol Shea, Cindy Richter, Lisa Schrimscher, Susan Smith

Hunting down Paramecia with an iPhone!

As the year ends, I am republishing the Opinion Drive-thru's seven most viewed posts of 2014.  This is #2. It is probably my favorite from the year.  It was completely spontaneous as probably only an hour elapsed between being invited to microbiology, taking the pictures, and composing the post. I think I got some nice photos with my iPhone.

On Friday, MHS microbiology teacher Gerry Meloche contacted me to say that there was considerable excitement in his class.  For a microscope exercise requiring students to identify paramecia, he had added a new dimension.  The students were using their iPhones to photograph and video record the microbes before they scooted out of view.  This helped with the identification, but it also generated great collaboration and enthusiasm.  As the photos below indicate, the images the students were capturing could be mirrored on an Apple TV and projected to a screen.  As I reported in a past blog post, Gerry also can show live images through a microscope using a device I was introduced to at the ADE Institute in 2013. 

Apps for School Administrators

At Mercy, we are putting together an iBook on how we use technology. Here is a piece I created to describe digital solutions for keeping organized on the fly:

Take Out from the Opinion Drive-thru

Stanford Launches iPhone/iPad Course on iTunes

Stanford has teamed up with the social learning platform Piazza to enable students to pose questions to course instructors, other students and app developers around the world 24 hours a day. It’s a feature that on-campus Stanford students already have access to, but it’s a first for iTunesU. And it adds a whole new degree of interactivity to the iTunesU course experience.

http://bit.ly/Pxz8VI

Twitter Homework

I am wondering how many teachers around the world are preparing to write a post on the value of Twitter in the classroom. No doubt, the debate rages on, and will for years to come. For me and a small percentage of my students, it is no longer an issue. We have answered that question for ourselves and have embarked on journey together to integrate Twitter with our curriculum while trying to embrace a more “out of the classroom/school day” learning mindset.

http://bit.ly/LVO9NG

GPS Endangers Paper Maps

Transportation departments around the country are in the middle of reprioritizing their spending amid times of falling revenue, and paper maps could be on the chopping block.

http://bit.ly/Nxx6iV

Are Open Educational Resources the Key to Global Economic Growth?

OERs are learning materials that can be accessed, used, and transformed by anyone, anywhere. Though the concept is simple, the economic potential is tremendous.

http://bit.ly/MLuzoW

The 25 Best School Websites

Here are the criteria we kept in mind for these sites:

Design

Ease of use

Copywriting

Interactivity

Use of technology

Innovation

Content

http://bit.ly/LxZsxx

Google’s Spring Cleaning

Technology creates tremendous opportunities to improve people’s lives. But to make the most of them, we need to focus—or we end up doing too much and not having the impact we strive for. So last fall we started a spring clean and since then we’ve closed or combined more than 30 products.

http://bit.ly/NxyEtk

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Creative Commons Photo courtesy of mag3737

The Mobile Administrator

'Most of my posts are about ways that technology allows me to enhance instruction. But mobile devices have become integrated to my role as an Associate Principal. I really appreciate that now I carry excellent microphones and cameras virtually wherever I go. Recently, this has included a Regional track meet and league championship softball game; an English tea and an iPad Open House. In each case I was able to snap off photos and send them to Facebook or share them with others in the school. When Ann Jamieson was told during her gym class that she was our "Teacher of the Year", I was the only one on hand with a camera (iPad). My photo was used on the school web site and in the school paper.

I took a day off last week and was unavailable to do an interview with a student who was working on her science Challenge Based Learning project. Fortunately, I could still help her out with the voice memo feature of my iPhone. She emailed me questions, and I emailed audio answers.

None of this is rocket science of course. The kids consider this perfectly ordinary. But it's kind of "out there" for and old-fogie administrator. And I have found that snapping pictures is a very social business around school, and gives me a pleasant way to interact with the kids when I am making the rounds.

In a 1:1 iPad school, the possibilities are marvelous for a classroom teacher, particularly with all students armed with an HD video camera. Though our laptops were outfitted with cameras and mics, they were larger, heavier and much more awkward for snap and shoot activities.

I admit the usages I have described are pretty prosaic, but they have made my job more interesting and fun. If others at school have the same experience, that can't be a bad thing.

Why Aren't Students Using E-books? (and other Links)

joyoftech.com

Why Aren't Students Using E-books? 
The slow adoption of digital textbooks by students doesn’t necessarily mean that textbooks will be the last bastion of print. But it does highlight the ways in which students’ needs aren’t being met yet by digital content providers. That means there’s still a huge opportunity here to reshape what the textbooks of the future look like. Openly licensed content, for example, could address students’ concerns about sharing. Better social tools could help meet their needs for social reading and learning.
http://bit.ly/vInDXp


22 Filmmaking Apps for the iPad and iPhone
The iPad and iPhone have taken the world by storm. Only very recently have filmmakers started to see their potential in a production environment. The iPad has only been out a few months and we are already seeing it used in some very creative ways.
http://bit.ly/u7fobQ

Don't Get Caught with Your Paradigm Down

Now let’s look at teacher training in the digital age. For about 200 years, since the introduction of the blackboard in 1801, education in America has been relatively static and so has professional development. Phases come and go and we all attended professional development workshops which were promptly forgotten. Does everyone remember going to Cooperative Learning workshops? How about Whole Language seminars or Total Quality Management applied to education? Old ways of continuing teacher education just won’t do. We can’t be effective educators in the exponential times we live in unless we develop a new paradigm of professional development.

http://bit.ly/vNgISS


The New Nook Aims at Amazon's Kindle Fire, but the iPad is Still Safe
Whereas Amazon launched a completely new product when it revealed the Fire, Barnes and Noble is really just upgrading its existing Nook Color and finally adding the word "tablet" to its name. In the launch presentation, CEO William Lynch Jr could hardly have made it more obvious who the company is gunning for here. He made several direct references to Amazon and the Kindle Fire, which he unsurprisingly dismissed as an inferior product.

http://rww.to/snpNxY

Redefining Our Value

There is an urgency now to redefine our value. We cannot be about passing the test. We cannot be about content to the extent we are today because content is everywhere. We cannot be about a curriculum that’s a mile wide and an inch deep. Something else can do that now, and in some ways, that’s a good thing. We have to be about the thing that technology cannot and will not be able to do, and that’s care deeply for our kids as humans, help them develop passions to learn, solve problems that are uniquely important to them, understand beauty and meaning in the world, help them play and create and apply knowledge in ways that add to the richness of life, and develop empathy and deep contextual understanding of the world. And more.

http://bit.ly/tdZLnB 

An Amazing Social Network (Comic)

http://dthin.gs/s1Lb3i

A Baker's Half-Dozen Slices of Apple

Flickr CC Photo by indie.ca

Since I am attending the 2011 ADE Institute at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at ASU, I am posting six Apple links.

Apple iCloud vs. Amazon Cloud Player vs. Google Music Beta

With Apple dropping the third shoe in online music services, after Amazon and Google, some striking differences are now apparent.

Katie Morrow's Curated Challenge Based Learning Resources!


Katie Morrow curates this topic from blogs, tweets, videos and much more: find out how!





iPad accounts for 97-percent of US tablet traffic online


According to the web monitoring company, the iPad and its successor account for 89 percent of tablet internet use globally, and 97 percent here in the US. 

iPad Apps for Administrators


This site contains information and resources for Craig Nansen's iPad 4 Educators workshops.

7 Must-Have iPad apps



More and more schools are using iPads in the classroom. These seven apps will help students — and teachers — get the most out of the hottest tech tool out there. 

Google Voice- The Ultimate iPhone How-to


This article, looks at how you can use Google Voice from your iPhone, how you can display your Google Voice number as your Caller ID, and how you can make minutes-free Google Voice VoIP calls via WiFi.

Ode to a Land Line

Flickr CC Photo by alfromelkhorn

This past week,  my wife and I passed a significant technological milestone. . . . (at least for our demographic). We got rid of our land line phone. Granted, to younger folk and the masses of other cultures, having the expensive redundancy of a house phone in addition to a mobile seems ridiculous. But to us, the home phone seemed such a basic feature of family life. We waited until it was pretty obvious that it had become useless-- neither of us were picking up the voice mails left there and the telemarketing calls outnumbered those we might care to answer.

In fairness, we were ready to make the move last year, but we changed from cable to DSL,  purchasing a new package that made it cost-effective to hang on to the old ways until this month even though we both have iPhones and have steered nearly all friends and family to our mobiles.

At this point, you may we wondering, "So what?"

That's exactly what I am anxiously wondering, "So what does radically evolving landscape  mobile devices and virtually ubiquitous connectivity mean for education?".  And more urgently for me, "So what should my school be planning in terms of infrastructure, hard ware, software, and professional development?

I know that applications and storage are moving to the cloud.  I know that the reasons for spending money for a laptop instead of a mobile are becoming fewer.  I know it takes far less training to teach a student or teacher to use a "phone" than a "computer", even as they ironically become less and less distinguishable.

I also know there are huge cultural issues to overcome. Administrators correctly believe that students are far more adept at using technology socially than for rigorous learning. Having such terrific access to information is a marvelous boon for education, but if we start to give up uniformity of software and machinery, what will this mean for the classroom?

The consequences of my choosing to slog behind the times by staying with my good old land line were almost inconsequential.  But holding onto a land line mentality at my school in specifically and education in general has major consequences.  So what's cutting edge in instructional technology, today?  Droids? Twitter?  Google Apps?  iPads?

I am not sure at all, so please tell me.  But make it quick because your answer might change in a couple of months!

Techy Trends

I've collected some news about several  major trends. Pretty interesting sutff, partcularly about iPads.

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University of Minnesota  CEHD News

The College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), in partnership with the University's Office of Information Technology, will provide its entire freshman class of about 450 students with iPads, in the largest pilot of its kind at a major research university. . . .  CEHD faculty, who are world leaders in academic technologies and postsecondary education, will research how iPad use relates to student retention, engagement, and learning outcomes. A broad spectrum of first-year undergraduate courses in the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning will incorporate the devices.
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Michael Liedtke A.P.: "Google plugs free PC-to-phone calling into e-mail"

Google is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones. The service . . . enables U.S. users of Google's Gmail service to make calls from microphone-equipped computers to telephones virtually anywhere in the world.
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Ben Worthen, WSJ: "Businesses Add iPads to Their Briefcases"--

When Apple Inc.'s first iPhone came out in 2007, many companies told their employees that the device wasn't appropriate for the workplace. The iPad is a different story.

The company's tablet-style device seems to be sidestepping the resistance that the iPhone and other consumer-oriented devices have faced in the corporate environment. Indeed, many businesses have raced to snap up iPads.

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Rob Pegoraro T"Apple's move pushes TV toward Internet delivery"

Apple's updated video vision falls in line with that of such competitors as Amazon's video-on-demand store and the free, ad-supported viewing available at the Web sites of the TV networks and Hulu, which is owned by some of them. All those offerings mean free viewers don't have to pay for things they don't want to watch -- unlike the traditional programming model, in which they subscribe for a large bundle of content and then proceed to ignore most of it.

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GEOFFREY A. FOWLER And MARIE C. BACA The Washington Post: "The ABCs of E-Reading":

New Devices Are Changing Habits. People Are Reading More, Even While in a Kayak . . . . Among early adopters, e-books aren't replacing their old book habits, but adding to them. Amazon, the biggest seller of e-books, says its customers buy 3.3 times as many books after buying a Kindle, a figure that has accelerated in the past year as prices for the device fell.

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David Winograd, TUAW   "Notre Dame embarks on a paperless course with iPads"

The University of Notre Dame's yearlong study of eReaders in academics is starting the school year with a bang-- a course that will use the iPad as the only textbook students need. 

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Bret Lang, The Wrap "Look Out HBO"
 

Netflix announced that it had struck a deal with cable channel Epix that will allow it to instantly stream more box-office hits. Sources tell the Los Angeles Times that in exchange for access to the Paramount, Lionsgate, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer digital libraries, Netflix will pay Epix $1 billion over the next five years, putting the cable company back in the black. Under the agreement, which goes into effect on Sept. 1, Netflix will be able to stream movies 90 days after Epix picks up the rights, or around the time that movies go to DVD. The deal will dramatically expand Netflix's instant-streaming catalog.

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 Blog Photo from Notre Dame News

Personal Technology

Excuse me as I indulge myself with a short reflection on how recent upgrades in personal technology have or have not affected my lifestyle.

In July we made a major switch in providers of our phone line, internet, and television programming. After a careful cost comparison, I decided to go with ATT U-verse. I did in fact achieve cost savings and the installation process was fairly smooth, but I have not really taken much advantage of the interesting DVR and mobile features. Barb and I did consider the "radical" change of dropping our land line altogether, but this consideration became rather complicated by our alarm service being linked to the phone. Based on a number of factors eliminating the phone line proved to yield more hassle and less cost savings then we liked. So we'll stay tethered to the land line for a while at least.

With a rebate that I received for switching services, I bought a Blu-ray player. I love to watch movies and listen to music with good equipment. I was rather amazed to find that my new player had a wi-fi connection and the ability to stream music directly from Netflix and other sources. But I haven't taken advantage of this feature. More surprisingly, I am only occasionally aware of images or sound that is sharper or more dynamic with the Blu-ray.

So far, all hat, no cowboy.

Such is not the case with my smartphone. I am really fairly shocked by how quickly it has become integrated into my day to day. And of course this has little to do with phone calls. In fact, I call my family members less as I have begun texting my kids pretty often. My calendars are now with me wherever I go (This was possible with my iPod Touch, but I had no other reason to keep it constantly on my person). I frequently use several personal utility apps on the phone. And of course I frequently use the browser to check for information like sports scores and the like. More significantly, I've gotten into the habit of snapping pictures of this and that, emailing them about, and posting them to Facebook.

None of this is particularly revealing, I suppose. It reaffirms what most of us already know: even really cool technology doesn't inherently improve our lives. But when applied to the right circumstances it can yield immediate and comprehensive improvements. When I advocate educational technology, I'll be sure to remember this summer of geekdom. Technology may provide a terrific solution to your teaching challenge. But depending on the person and the need, some of the technology is interesting but just sort of there.

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Flickr Creative Commons photo courtesy of madmaxx