Squidoo - organize your interests online

Squidoo is a free site that allows you to organize things online. You can easily create portfolios of web pages and write about them.

You can also browse other people's collections. Here is the education page: http://www.squidoo.com/topics/education



You can use text, images, and even videos.

It's a great way to organize web pages for research, resources, and even projects.

Hojoki - make all your cloud apps work together - very cool & free

Hojoki is a new service I just learned about from the Hojoki team. It's a very cool idea - it takes all of your online productivity apps and turns them into a newsfeed and collaborative space to work on projects.

I played with it a little today and will be using it more this week. It looks like something that could be very useful for education.

It' is in Beta now and free and there will always be a free plan available.

Here's more information and a video about it:

Teachers utilizing the cloud: Hojoki is your collaborative newsfeed for Google Docs, Calendar, Dropbox, Evernote and more

Hojoki’s basic idea is very simple: they offer one newsfeed for productivity apps. It connects to apps like Google Documents, Evernote, Dropbox, Mendeley and Google Calendar, building you a newsfeed and a collaborative space for your work.

Anytime an activity in any of your connected apps occurs, Hojoki informs you. You can share your activities with others in workspaces, where you can discuss events and manage whatever projects you’re working on. You never miss important changes from co-workers and have all your content in one place.





Why this is so interesting for Teachers?
Some of the tools Hojoki integrates are very powerful and established tools for education:

Google Documents for classroom collaboration
Google Calendar to share calendars with colleagues and classes
Dropbox for sharing and syncing files
Evernote with lot’s of uses prior, during and after class
If you and your colleagues use more than one of those tools, you know the problem. It’s almost impossible to manage communication and collaboration across all the apps efficiently. So both teachers and students spend a lot of time logging into lots of tools, checking for updates and informing each other on changes and updates.

Hojoki solves that fragmentation problem as it brings all the tools and all people involved in one browser tab and allows the creation of workspaces for collaboration.


How to use Hojoki in Education

Hojoki brings teachers and students and, most importantly, their tools together on one page. Here are three suggestions from the Hojoki team for educational use:

Creating and sharing teaching materials    
When creating and sharing teaching materials, teachers often use Google Docs, Dropbox and Evernote. As long as everyone is using the same app, everything is fine. But as soon as content spreads across apps, things become confusing. Everyone needs to log in, check frequently for changes and give feedback on other channels, like email. With Hojoki, you can connect all relevant content from lots of apps to a workspace to get instantly notified if someone updated or added something. Besides that, you get a full searchable history of changes in your teaching materials. Here’s an infographic that shows a typical workflow in Hojoki: http://blog.hojoki.com/post/20002424193/teaching-in-the-cloud-infographic


Online Classrooms
If you share and update content from Dropbox, Evernote and Google Docs on a regular basis for a class, create a workspace with your students in Hojoki and add the relevant content. By doing this, Hojoki shows every activity as a newsfeed - who updated a document in Google Docs, created a note in Evernote or uploaded a file to Dropbox. Hojoki connects even to Google Calendar to view class events. Everyone in the classroom workspace can comment immediately and discuss issues. Hojoki saves time by making it easy and keeps everything in one place, so over time you get a fully searchable knowledge base on top of your tools.

Supervision
Workspaces also work great to provide supervision on writing and student projects which utilize more than one cloud app. Teachers can keep informed on the progress of either one student or a group of students. Students get instant feedback and guidance from their teachers and that extra boost in motivation. ;)



Hojoki www.hojoki.com is free, so give it a try!  http://hojoki.com/  

Apple Announces iBooks2 E-Textbooks - my initial thoughts

Today Apple announced iBooks2 and interactive textbooks for the iPad. These new textbooks would combine graphics, interactive elements, notes, highlighting, widgets, videos, and more. They have created a Mac application to allow anyone to create one of these new "iTextbooks" and are partnering with major educational publishers to release pre-made electronic textbooks for the iPad.

They look great. Stunning visually, interactive, and more likely to get students to actually read their textbooks. The interactive features are amazing and I think it's a great idea and will engage students more. We know students like doing things electronically and interactive and multimedia are better than static paper.

But, I have an issue. They are only available on iPads. So, what happens to the schools, teachers, and students that don't have iPads and don't have the money to purchase them? What about all the school systems and people who have Windows, or recently got Android tablets like the Kindle Fire? They get left out in the cold.

Even The Verge reporter mentions this at the end of the presentation: "What about getting students iPads more easily?"

What I would prefer to see the textbook publishers and technology companies do is to make a platform-independent or web-based e-textbooks like this. That way, schools, students, and teachers can use the devices and OS's that they already have to access them.

I don't even use a textbook with my Physics classes because the ones we have are old and not easy to read. Instead, I have a collection of resources on the class web site that students use. These resources include 4 interactive websites, 2 online physics textbooks, and multiple online, virtual, interactive labs and simulations. No need for one textbook.

The new iBooks2 will automatically generate study cards. This eliminates that fact that the process of creating study cards helps students learn and study. The instant look up of the meaning of the word may make students note even learn words. Why learn it when you can just look it up?

There are ways to create amazing, interactive electronic textbooks so that they could be used on any platform. Maybe Adobe Acrobat X could be used since it can handle multimedia and interactive content? Maybe Apple and the Publishers could work on a conversion or porting system to port these e-texts to Windows and Android? Maybe they can use HTML5 to make web versions so anyone could access them, on any device, just using their access code?

I think these are definitely better than paper textbooks, and more cost effective at $14.99 vs. $80 - $130, but they are only for Apple. Many school districts have investments in Windows or Android and can't afford to switch to Apple. Many students have Android smartphones and Windows computers. What about them?

Maybe this is an opportunity for a company to come in and work to port these e-texts to the web and other platforms?

Apple also announced iTunes U and an app for the iPad for educators to use as a type of course management system. Again, can I access those features and content without installing iTunes? There are also tons of free course management systems that are web-based and completely platform independent, like My Big Campus, Moodle, Google's apps, it's Learning, CourseKit, LearnBoost, Edmodo, Schoology and many more.

I believe that educational resources should be platform and company independent so that ALL students, schools and teachers can use them without needing to purchase new hardware.



What do you think?



Related Article:
On device apps/software vs. web apps - which is better for schools?

iPads, Chromebooks, on-device apps, cloud apps - great discussions

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled "On device apps/software vs. web apps - which is better for schools?" in which I discussed the pros and cons of on device apps and web apps when it comes to education.

I had made some points about web apps being free, no install required, automatically update, and platform/OS independent.

A while back, I wrote about Google Chromebooks and Chrome OS and why they were a great idea for education. Reasons included no apps to install, no IT support needed, no updates to do, multiple student logins, no student data stored on device, etc. I also prefer a physical keyboard when typing anything more than a quick message or email.

I find that on-device apps are great in many cases, especially if there is a chance of not having internet access, but they are platform dependent, not always free, and have to be installed and updated. Web-apps are free, platform independent (just need a web browser) and no installs or updates to worry about. These days its very hard to find an educational location that does not have WiFi, so that isn't an issue for the most part.

I just read an article that points out many of these same things, entitled "Can I Trade the iPads for Chromebooks?". The author talks about his school have iPad and Chromebook initiatives and the difficulty of updating and installing apps on the iPads. He also points out how the iPads are difficult to use with multiple students. He also talks about the cost of both. The Chromebooks are cheaper and can even be leased and the iPad requires some accessories, like a case. Then there's the issue of app cost. It's an interesting read.

I would prefer a room full of Chromebooks over iPads, but many teachers will find iPads or other tablets, better for their needs. I prefer web apps because of their cost (free), ease of use, and platform independence. A student can go home and continue their work on any device they have. 

I think that iOS and Android need to have multi-user logins built in to their next devices and have a system to install apps and updates on classroom sets of devices, over the air, from a master device. Any developers want to work on this?

What is great, is that there are so many different devices and systems out there to fit everyone's needs and preferences. 

Which do you prefer? Have you used iPads or Chromebooks in school. 

On device apps/software vs. web apps - which is better for schools?

Apps, software, web apps - they are all tools to use on computing devices to get things done. I use 95% web apps (Gmail, iGoogle, Evernote, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Tweetdeck, Prezi, etc) and occasionally use Microsoft Office for some things I haven't uploaded to Docs yet. Web apps are free, easy to use, accessible anywhere, and platform independent.

Apps and software are sometimes free, usually still easy to use, not accessible anywhere (although your files can be if you use a file sync service) and dependent on your platform. Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Blacberry, webOS, smartphone vs. tablet, etc.

So, which should schools be using? I think schools should look at web apps whenever possible. There are thousands of blogs and sites that talk about free web apps and what web apps replace what software, etc. For the most part, everything that students need to do can be done with web apps. There is also no updating for IT to worry about, no lost dollars if you switch platforms, and any one can access them no matter what platform they are on. This is really important if you are working towards BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). It would be terrible to have a lesson that relies on a specific app and then a student or teacher has a device that doesn't have that app. With a web app, that is no longer a concern. It's one of the reasons I love Google Chrome OS and Chromebooks.

Don't get me wrong, I have tons of apps on my TouchPad and Android phone. But, whenever I share a service or app with my colleagues or students, I always make sure that there are web apps of it. There may be on device apps for these services too, like Evernote, but they also have a web app. Most of what I use with my students for classes are web apps or web sites that they can access from anywhere.

So, what do you think? On device apps or web apps? And why?

Are there on device apps that you have to have that you can't find a web app version of?

Sliderocket - online presentation software

Sliderocket is something I've heard about but never used until today. It is a standalone site but also is a web app in the Google Chrome OS Store, so I started trying it out.

Sliderocket is a free online presentation software (similar to an online version of PowerPoint or Google Docs) that has some really great features. You can create a new presentation or even upload an existing PowerPoint presentation to the site. You can easily add photos from your library or from the internet with Flickr as a choice. Videos are simply installed and embedded. Slide transitions are supported along with allowing viewers to comment on each slide. You can embed Twitter feeds as well as a variety of other features.

Sliderocket has a very good demo/tutorial that walks you through the steps of using it. There is also a good help section and plenty of people using it that post information online.

I found it easy to use and very powerful and will be using the Chrome OS webapp version quite a bit now.

It's very useful for education. Students can interact and collaborate on presentations. Teachers could post presentations and have students comment on the slides. The presentations are also more interactive and have some cool features that PowerPoint doesn't have.

You can even integrate SlideRocket into your Google Apps account.

There is a free version with some limitations and a fee-based version with more features.

Living in the Cloud - I'm ready for Chrome OS -Update

Chrome OS is all the rage right now in the tech circles. Google has released a very early version to certain people installed on their CR-48 laptop. Chrome OS basically takes everything to the web and, for all intents and purposes, turns an OS into a browser, and doesn't do much on the actual device. To be able to take advantage of this, you have to have a lot of your resources as web apps or web sites.

I'm hoping to be one of the lucky ones to get a CR-48 to test out and evaluate. I'm pretty well set in the cloud as it is now. The only thing I'm still using on the computer is PowerPoint. But, I'm moving most of my presentations to either Google Docs or Prezi.

Chrome Web Browser (currently running 9.0.597.19 beta)

1. Home email - my home email, through my cable internet service is web mail.
2. School email - web mail, through Microsoft Exchange
3. Gmail - secondary email and used for my Google accounts - love the fact that it keeps multiple email replies together in a conversation.
4. School student data system - attendance, information, gradebook - all web based (PowerSchool)
5. Evernote - notes, lesson plans, and so much more - web based
6. Blogger - web based blogging platform - this blog and my class blogs
7. Google Sites - class website and reference web site with links, resources, and files
8. iGoogle with Google Reader, Google Bookmarks, Google Notebook, Google Calendar, Google Tasks, Google Contacts...all web based.
9. Picasa - online photo storage
10. Google Chrome extensions and web apps:

1. Tweetdeck web app
2. Clip to Evernote
3. Aviary screen capture and edit
4. Google URL shortner
5. Bookmark to Diigo
6. Chromey calculator

11. Online scientific calculator

12. Dropbox - cloud file storage and sync to access my files

13. Google Docs - online office suite - uploading my PowerPoint files and videos to Docs and YouTube

14. Aviary - online graphics, photo and detailing suite.

15. Prezi - very cool, online, presentation program

That's just the main things I use on a daily basis. I really don't need to access a hard drive or have local storage of apps/software or files to be able to do my work. It also means I have access to all of my stuff no matter where I am: home, school, at a different computer in the district, or even on my Palm Pre+. I can access everything from anywhere. 

What I really like about Chrome OS is that it would be perfect for education. (I wrote about that here). 

What about you? Can you live in the cloud and still get things done?

UPDATE: Very interesting. I got home on Friday (the day I originally wrote this post) and UPS shows up with a Google Chrome OS CR-48 notebook for me. I will be posting a review this week, so stay tuned. So far, I really like it. 

Related Links and Posts
Technology I use on a daily Basis
Chrome OS homepage
Cloud File Storage, Backup and Sync
Backing up your Cloud/Web based Data
Operating Systems and Web Based Apps

Apps that work with Dropbox

I'm a huge fan of Dropbox. I have it on all of my home computers and linked to my network drive at school. I have access to my files from any computer and from my Palm Pre+. I can view, edit, and upload files from anywhere. I also use it to share files with the other instructor for the paramedic program I teach at (very large files).

I just posted about AirDropper (and earlier about DROPitTOme). Both are apps that work with Dropbox.

Dropbox's site also has a listing of apps that work with Dropbox.This is not unusual. Many web services are teaming up with other web apps to work together to provide more functionality to their service.

Some of the apps for Dropbox include office productivity apps, file readers, editors, scanners and much more. Many are smartphone apps, others are web apps. Check them out and see what's available to help you be more productive.

Backing up your cloud/web based data

I'm a big believer and user of cloud / web based apps and data storage. I use Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Sites, Blogger, Evernote, Engrade, iGoogle, Aviary and more. Web based computing allows me to have access to my data and files anywhere that I can get internet access, including on my smart phone. It also allows me to share data and information with others. I also like web based apps and data because it is platform independent - Windows, Linux, Mac - it doesn't matter. The web based apps also, in my experience, seem to run better on older, slower computers than native applications.

I'm also a believer in being prepared and having backups of my data. The services I use have great data centers and backup, but sometimes their servers go down, and sometimes I may not be able to get internet access.

I backup all of my work and data in multiple places so that I always have access to it, even without an internet connection. Here's what and how I do:

1. Google Docs - I use GDocBackup to backup my Google Docs. I also have Google Gears installed so my files are synced with my computer that way too. You can also export your Google Docs to your hard drive.

2. Evernote - I have Evernote's desktop application at home so all of my notes are backed up on my home computer. I also export the data once a week to an html and txt file for backup.

3. Engrade - this is an online grade book. I export my files once a week to Excel for backup.

4. Google Products - I also export my Blogger blogs, iGoogle Settings, Google Reader subscriptions, Calendar, email, tasks, and bookmarks once a week as a back up. For each of them, go to settings and look for the export command. Here's more information on how to export data from Google's services.

(I use Google Chrome so my bookmarks are synced between my two computers.)

5. Google Sites - I use HTTrack Website Copier to make a backup of my website.

All of the backup files are in a directory that is automatically backed up to SugarSync and then kept in sync on both my school and home computers. Sugarsync does this automatically, so it is no effort for me. I also have really, really important data (financial, digitized paper records, etc) on a flash drive in my fireproof safe. Just in case.

I also sync my Palm Centro smart phone with my Google Calendar and Google Contacts using Goosync. I then backup everything on my Centro by Hotsyncing it to my home computer. I also have a microSD card in the Centro that has a back up of my important files so that I can access them via my Centro, even if there is no signal to get an internet connection. I can use Sugarsync to access all of my other files via the internet on my Centro also.

My home computer's disk drive is also backed up to an external hard drive every day.

Some may say this is overkill, but all of it takes me about 10 min each week and gives me great piece of mind.

How do you backup your files and data?

Related Posts:

Operating Systems and Web Based Applications

Cloud File Storage and Sync

Readability - clean up web displays for better reading

Readability is a nice piece of free technology. It installs on your web browser as a bookmarklet and then will take a web page and get rid of all of the flashing ads and other distractions and just leave the text behind to make it easier to read. You set up a free account and you can select how you want it to display the text. It is very easy to use. It is not 100% perfect, but if it there are errors on the screen, just reload the original web page.

Below is an image of an article on my local newspaper's web site and then below it is the article after Readability was used.

(Thanks to my Twitter PLN for telling me about David Pogue's article in the NY Times about Readability).

What do you think? I think it makes reading things online much easier on the eyes and may prevent some people from printing things out to read them.

Operating Systems and Web Based Apps

(cross posted at http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/21132)

Operating systems - this is the part of the computer that allows you to run software. Microsoft Windows and Apple OS are the two major operating systems out there. There is also Linux, which is an open source project with many varieties.

Most schools use Windows or Apple, and sometimes have both depending on the use. Apple was always thought of as the operating system to use for music and art, but it has gotten used more widely over the years. The iPhone has helped push Apple's OS out to more people.

Google has also release it's own operating system, Android, for use on smart phones and netbooks. Netbooks are small laptops that are mainly used by travelers to do email and web browsing.

Palm has just released it's new operating system, WebOS, on it's new smart phone, the Palm Pre. Palm has announced that this new operarting system will be used on many more devices and the industry rumors are pointing to a WebOS powered netbook in the near future.

I have just listed 5 different operating systems that currently run, or will soon run, on computers. This means that schools have to worry about compatability and interoperability among school computers and home computers used by faculty and students.

There are many ways to make this less painful. There has been a big push in the computer industry to standardize certain software formats, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, so that anyone can open a file, no matter what operating system they have. Apple also has versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint that can read and edit the Windows versions, and Linux has OpenOffice, which can also read Windows and Apple file formats, and Apple has it's own iWorks.

Another push in the computer industry looks to eliminate the operating system as an issue. Cloud computing has been a major topic for years, but more and more companies are pushing it as a way to avoid operating system issues. Cloud computing is simply having all of your files and software hosted on a network somewhere. This means that all you need to acces the files and programs is a web browser. These systems work with any web browser. The system does not care what operating system you are using. You can use Windows, or Apple, or Linux. If you can get to the internet, you can get to your files and applications. Most people have already used a cloud system when they check their email with a web mail system. Cable, Verizon, AOL, Gmail, and Yahoo are all web based email systems that you can accces from any computer with a web browser.

The most popular cloud system is Google Apps. With Google Apps, you can create, edit, save, store, and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. You could work on the file on an Apple computer at work, and then continue working on it on a Windows computer at home. There are other cloud systems out there, such as Zoho and Evernote. Many more companies are developing web apps so that they can have users from any operating system.

Schools should look into more cloud or web based applications in the future to eliminate the issues of compatibility between operating systems. Most web based applications offer offline applications that can run even without an internet connection as well as a way to save your files to your own computer. The other benefit is that most of these systems are low cost or even free.

As the operating system wars heat up with Windows 7, Apple Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Linux, schools need to make sure that no matter what OS their faculty and students use at home, they can access files and applications at school and home. It also helps avoid the issue of "I forgot my assignment file at home," or "my printer ran out of ink." By using the web apps, students could just log into their account at school and print it out. Teachers would also always have their files available to them no matter where they are. In many cases, these new web applications will also save on licensing fees since they are free.

Web based applications and files can also be accessed from smart phones like the iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and G1. This means that you would have access to your files and applications at any time.

There is a lot of information out there on cloud computing and web applications. Take a look at a couple of these:

http://www.google.com/educators/tools.html

http://www.zoho.com/

http://moodle.org/

http://www.labnol.org/internet/most-useful-web-applications/6278/

http://www.smashingapps.com/2008/07/11/21-online-free-web-based-applications-that-you-probably-would-love-to-use-every-day.html

http://nedwolf.com/Web-Applications.htm

http://www.techlearning.com/article/7902

http://www.techlearning.com/Blogs/18764

http://www.techlearning.com/Blogs/18598

http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/20444

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing