Turn your iPad into an Interactive Whiteboard

This week, the International Society for Technology in Education conference is being held in Philadelphia.  For people interested in instructional technology and integration, the ISTE conference is sort of like Woodstock.  It gives educators the chance to attend sessions with Will Richardson, Hall Davidson, Alan November and many others.  I spent the day at ISTE yesterday and dedicated a good deal of time walking around the exhibit floor checking out new websites, devices and services that I could use in my classes and feature on the 8 Blog.  While I saw a lot of really innovative products on the exhibit floor, one of the more surprising realizations I had was that there are many companies getting into the interactive whiteboard business.  For the better part of the last decade, the interactive whiteboard (IWB) market has been dominated by a handful of companies (Smart and Promethean, to name a few).  Checking out the exhibits at ISTE, however, it seems that many companies are trying to jump into the market, even companies that have already established themselves with other products.  By looking at the ISTE exhibit floor, it seems that the IWB business is hot.

But, it’s really not.  Talking to educators from districts that are hampered by budgetary constraints, many are moving away from installing new interactive whiteboards because of their tremendous expense.  While a traditional IWB can be expensive to purchase and install, Splashtop offers a really inexpensive alternative that educators need to check out.  Splashtop Whiteboard is an app that allows educators to control their desktop or laptop computer remotely from an iPad.  While there are several iPad apps that offer this ability, Splashtop Whiteboard stands out because it offers annotation features that many of the competitors lack.  With Splashtop installed on an iPad, educators can remotely control their Mac or PC to show movies, demonstrate websites, and lead Powerpoint presentations.  Of course, educators will still need a digital projector in their classroom to use Splashtop Whiteboard but, unlike a stationary IWB that is mounted on a wall, Splashtop Whiteboard leverages the mobility and ease-of-use of the iPad to bring the interactivity to students.  The iPad can be handed to a student who can use Splashtop Whiteboard to show how to solve a problem, how to graph a relationship or outline an idea.  Splashtop Whiteboard offers all of this functionality for around $10 on the app store.

To see how Slashtop Whiteboard works, be sure to check out the following tutorial:

Innovative teaching showcased at IdeaJam:Education

In May, Intel hosted a one-day conference called IdeaJam:Education where innovative teaching was showcased from across the US.  While the conference was available through streaming video to viewers, I’m sure many people missed it.  Many of the conference presentations have been added to YouTube and can be viewed in segments.  The sessions are really inspiring.  You can see what creative educators are doing with technology and get a sense of how technology can be integrated in authentic and ground-breaking ways.   I thought I’d share a couple of sessions from the conference.  As you’re watching the videos, think about how the traditional educational environment in the classrooms has been changed by integrating technology.  In both of these situations, the teachers and the students have taken much different roles to create a more collaborative, learner-centered environment.

Eric Marcos and the “Mathtrain Kids” on Kids Teaching Kids in Mathematics

Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann on Flipping the Science Classroom

Five ways to avoid Twitter mishaps

Twitter has been in the news a lot lately and I thought I would dedicate some time to the innerworkings of the site.  As many of you know, Twitter is a microblogging site where users can post up to 140 characters describing their thoughts or actions.  Although the site has become popular with celebrities who post all of their random musings, I believe that Twitter has tremendous value for educators.  For instance, I use Twitter as a professional development tool.  As I described in an earlier post, I follow a group of Twitter users who I have selected based on their ability to help me grow professionally.  They are smart, thoughtful people who are reading and sharing interesting articles and posting “tweets” that make me pause and reflect.  In the classroom, some educators are having their students “tweet” reflections on chapters they’ve read.  Other teachers are using Twitter to have their students take on the persona of different characters in a book and “tweeting” as if they’re that character.  What would Juliet tweet?  Or Billy Pilgrim?  Activities like this could really resonate with some students and get them to think and apply what they’ve learned in new ways.

I used Twitter in one of my online classes recently.  Since I was teaching a class on Web 2.0 technologies in education, I wanted to spend some time discussing social networking in general and Twitter specifically.  After talking about the site conceptually, I had the class tweet while they watched the video Growing Up Online.  I assembled all of the students into a Twitter group and then placed a feed inside our online course shell.  Students could then follow along as their classmates reflected on what they watched.  Even though the students were not watching the video at the same time, by adding time stamps and chapter markers in their tweets, they could see how their classmates reacted to different portions of the video.

Although the site has educational value, Twitter can create some problems, as well.  You don’t have to look far to find people who have made mistakes on Twitter.  This week, I thought I’d offer some tips to help educators protect themselves from any mishaps on Twitter.

1.  Brand yourself.   We all have different interests and different facets of our personalities.  At the onset of using Twitter, people need to ask themselves “How do I want the Twitterverse to view me?”  Select a profile picture and contribute tweets that are consistent with that brand.  If you’re using the site as a way to communicate with your students, be sure to contribute tweets that fit within that persona.

2.  You might want to protect your tweets.  Depending on how you’re using Twitter, you might want to go into the settings and make sure Protect your Tweets is selected.  This will allow only your “followers” to read your posts.  For instance, if you’re using Twitter to share ideas with a research group, you might not want to share your work with the whole world.  Protecting your tweets will offer some privacy over your work.

3.  Understand Twitter conventions.  Despite being a really simple site to use, Twitter can still be a little confusing to understand at times.  When people first start using the site, it can almost be like visiting another country and not understanding the customs.  Twitter has its own unique set of conventions that have developed from people wanting to maximize how those 140 characters are used.  Three of the most common are retweeting, the @ symbol and the hashtag (or the # symbol).  For a complete explanation of each of these Twitter conventions, check out this great post from a social media PR blog.

4.  Use direct messaging for private conversations.  For people who are unfamiliar with Twitter, a direct message is analogous to an email message and a tweet is like a Facebook profile update.  “Tweets” can be viewed by all of your followers but direct messages can only be read by the individual receiving the message.  Confusing the two functions could create a real mishap (like a New York congressman experienced recently).

5.  Don’t tweet everything you think.  There are probably a multitude of variations on this tip including “Don’t tweet when you’re angry” or “Don’t tweet at 2 AM on a Saturday night…”  Regardless, it is critical to remember that everything that gets tweeted enters the public Twittersphere and can be potentially accessed by the world.  While the news tends to focus on celebrity and political mishaps, educators have had their share as well.  Some mishaps have resulted in educators being suspended or fired for using social networking inappropriately.  While Twitter can be a great educational tool, it can also create some problems when used improperly.

Storytelling the web with Qwiki

With all of its advances, the Internet is still an environment dominated with text.  Take a look at Wikipedia or just about any blog and you’ll see pages filled with text with an occasional picture added for some visual appeal.  Some news sites add videos to enhance a story but the bulk of the information is still conveyed through the text on the site.  What if the information was conveyed in a story that was read to you? What if relevant pictures and videos were assembled into a slideshow as the story was told?  That’s the idea behind Qwiki.  Qwiki pulls data from a variety of sources to build an “information experience” where users can search a topic and then hear a story (called a “qwiki”) about the topic.  To date, over 2 million different topics have been assembled spanning historical, scientific and societal concepts.   The site also offers daily Qwikis that relate to newsworthy topics.  For instance, during the NBA finals, a Qwiki of LeBron James was one of the featured Qwikis of the day.  Since the site works like Google and Bing, the site is extremely easy to use.  Just type in a search term and the site will display the related Qwikis that are available.  Select one and a computerized voice will tell the story of the term and display text, images and videos in an elegant slideshow.  There’s even a free iPad app that presents Qwikis on your iOS devices.

Qwiki has loads of educational opportunities.  For instance, Qwiki would be a great way to help emerging readers access information on the web.  Since the site displays the words as it narrates them, beginning readers could follow along and learn from the site.  Qwiki would also be beneficial for students who may have difficulty reading or may need to experience the web in a more auditory fashion.  Qwikis can also be used as a discussion starter in the class.  Instead of showing a video, consider showing a Qwiki.   The real educational power could lie in the not-too-distant future when the site starts allowing everyday users to publish their own Qwikis.  Then, it will not just be a novel way for students to experience the web.  It will become a platform where students can author new content as well.

Ten thousand and counting…

Last night (June 7, 2011), the 8 Blog logged its ten thousandth view.  When I started this blog in November 2009, I thought this would be a great way to share some of my ideas for integrating technology into face-to-face and online classes.  My hope was that a few educators from the local community would read the blog somewhat regularly and that it would be a great way to foster some discussion around instructional technology. Even though I study social media and use it educationally, I am honestly amazed and humbled by the response to the 8 Blog.  The blog regularly gets more than a thousand views each month and people are visiting from around the world.  I want to thank all of you who have supported my efforts by linking to, commenting on, retweeting or “liking” posts from the 8 Blog.