Fun with photos...

I used one of the cool options on Dumpr for my Facebook icon and lots of people have asked about it. I discovered it a while ago and have been meaning to share.




Dumpr is an easy-to-use site for creating fun photos! It would be a great site for students to use for their "about me" slide in a presentation. No registration is required to use the site to upload an image and download the project.

Fax Machines....not!

I have always disliked the fax machine. It seems like old technology that is past its prime at this point. However, since my husband and I both need to send and receive faxes, it was a necessity to have one in the house and on its own phone line.

Over the past few years, the number of junk faxes that have come in, wasting our ink and paper, has become so overwhelming that we keep the machine off unless someone notifies us that they need to send a fax. It kinda defeats the purpose.

Back in the old dial-up days, I tried to use the fax option, via the modem, that came with Windows, but that did not work very well. Recently, I decided to see if the Web-based fax services had come of age yet.


Well, guess what? They really have! After some research, we went with Faxage. They ported our existing Verizon fax number over to their service so the fax number remained the same. The company communicated with us every step of the way-- they were great!

The system allows us to set up fax folders for all of us in the family, we can each have our own fax cover sheet, and we are notified via email when a fax comes in (and the fax is attached to the email for a quick review). If it is a junk fax, it is a simple delete! The faxes are kept in PDF format within their system and are very readable.

Of course, when sending out a fax, if something is not already digital, we have to scan it to the computer, but it really is not troublesome.

The option we chose was $7.95 per month for 150 faxes. We are saving the $24 for the phone line and $10 for the long distance service per month on the line, AND our ink and paper is not being wasted by junk faxes. I think it is a win-win situation!

New netbook on order!

Netbooks are the new "little" laptops that are all the rage. There are those that have 8.9" screens, 9" screens, and 10" screens. There are those that run Linux and those that run Windows XP Home. There are those that have solid state drives (SSD) which have no moving parts and those that have regular hard drives. There are white, black, pink, green, red, and blue versions of netbooks available. They have wireless, Ethernet ports, multiple USB ports, VGA-out and some have card readers and built-in video cams and mics.

I have had two since this class of computer came out. I started with the 7" Linux-based Asus EEE PC which was a swift little machine with a great suite of tools. I then moved to the 7" XP Home version of the EEE PC, but the SSD was not large enough for the apps I wanted to run. I fell in love with the 8.9" EEE PC 901, but, by that time, there were starting to be more of these on the market and at good prices.

I toyed with the idea of the MSI Wind (10") for a while since it had a bit larger keyboard than the EEE PC. The price was right, but the overall device was kinda large for my idea of a netbook.

I liked the HP Mini-note 2133. It had a great keyboard, but by the time I spec'ed it out to have the OS and hard drive I wanted, it was too pricey.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 came out today, but it is not available with any more than a 16GB SSD.

I have been reading great reviews of the Acer Aspire One, and the only negative I could find was it only had a 3-cell battery. The price was right, the keyboard was largish, the size was right, the camera was 1.3 megapixel, it came with a regular-sized hard drive with XP Home, and had all the best of all the devices. It does not have Bluetooth or an N-standard wireless protocol like some of the others though, but this was not a deal-killer for me.

Today it showed up on Amazon with the 6-cell battery and even a larger hard drive than the previous model, in white or a sapphire blue color (if you care about things like that), and at the price of the earlier version...w00t! I ordered the blue initially, but after reports of its "smudginess" and having to type on a black keyboard, I decided on the white one.



It is on order and I will let you know what I think when it arrives in a few weeks! (Hey, the Aspire One even has its own Facebook page!)

UPDATE: 9/9/08
For those of you who want a little larger netbook with 10" screen, the Asus EEE PC 1000H is available at mwave and Amazon for $449 with its price drop yesterday. What you get for the $50 extra dollars is a 10" matte screen, a tad more battery life, N networking and Bluetooth. What you lose is the smallish size of the Aspire, half the hard drive space (160GB on the Aspire one, 80GB in two 40GB partitions on the EEE PC 1000H), and the lighter weight (the EEE PC weighs one pound more than the Aspire One). However, the Asus EEE PC 1000H gets great reviews and would be a nice option for someone, too!

I decided to stay with the Asus Aspire One-- I want white, a glossy screen, and the smaller form factor, but I was tempted!

UPDATE: 10/17/08

The 6-cell Acer Aspire One finally came today and it is everything I expected! The screen is beautiful, the keyboard has large enough keys to touch-type comfortably, and it seems pretty speedy. Since I ordered it, there have been new versions of other manufacturers' netbook models, but I kept comparing and came back to the Acer Aspire One as my netbook of choice.

With 1 GB RAM, a small form factor, a 160 GB hard drive, and Web cam and external mic, it is a little powerhouse! I have not tested the 6-cell battery life yet, but it is supposed to last 5 or 6 hours. I will be taking it to conference next week, and the real test is always how it performs as a presentation machine!

Working smarter

I realize I have not posted to the blog for a while. I have been micro-blogging with Twitter and Plurk and using Facebook to keep in touch with many of my ed tech colleagues. I also realize that information that normally would have been shared via blogs is getting lost in the "Twitterverse".

I have spent the last few weeks really working on making the Mac my main platform. (All my machines are Intel Macs which are dual-platform.) Those of you that know me know I am a die-hard Windows user and have been called the "terminally left-brained learner". Until OS X, I really was not comfortable using the Mac operating system and still had not spent a lot of time on that side of my computers.

All that changed two weeks ago when I moved to the iPhone 3G and MobileMe and also purchased a new iMac for home. I know there has been some bad press about MobileMe, but I have had nothing but success with everything I have done. In the past, I never had the luxury of an Exchange server and had limited access to IMAP. (IMAP allows one to keep all machines and devices in sync for email, contacts, and calendars, among other things.)

I took the plunge and moved my stand-alone Outlook folders of info up to MobileMe for my personal account, and moved my work folders to our gmail-hosted apps mail for our school domain. I also now am working on the Mac side of the machine for most of my tasks, with brief forays to the Windows side for the use of some applications.

What a difference this has made in the way I do business! IMAP is the greatest thing! No matter what device I use, I have access to all of my folders of data, so I no longer have to say "Oh, that is on my work computer and I can get it for you tomorrow."

In addition, everything is in sync all of the time. I guess maybe I have come late to this party, and all of you already have been conducting business this way for while. In any case, I am much more productive since I can easily use the iPhone for almost everything I need to do when away from the computer and I have all my data at my fingertips all of the time

I just re-read this series of articles from the Economist today, since we are studying it as an administrative team at a retreat next week. I suggest you give it a read if you have a chance. It is fascinating to think about the changes that ubiquitous access to the Internet is starting to bring to the work force.

Kathy

Pic on the bull

Just found the Flickr site with all the NECC-goers riding the mechanical bull in the exhibit hall. It is pretty funny to run the entire thing as a slide show!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/genevalogic/

We are such geeks!

Kathy

Google's Lively-- another virtual world

Maybe it has been around for a while, but I just tried Google's Lively virtual world this morning. Second Life it is not, nor does the client currently work on the Mac (note on the site says Google Labs is working on other clients), but it runs within the browser on the Windows machine very well and does not seem to take a super-machine to work it. (Maybe it might even work on the MSI Wind or the eeePC!)

Because of my Second Life experience, I had no problem creating and editing my avatar, creating a room, and decorating it. It will be interesting to try this out with some educators (and, if we make a private room) with some of our students, if that is possible at some point.

Here is my room "K-12 Educators". I cannot seem to find it in the search, but the URL, if you are trying Lively out, is http://www.lively.com/dr?rid=-5452546736007296038.

Misunderstanding at NECC?

Dear All,

It has been called to my attention that something I talked about in my presentation last week at NECC has been misunderstood. When stating that the ISTE docents had been "coerced into service" with the promise of a "virtual pat on the back", in addition to talking about how they are always there to help new users get acclimated, I was intending to point out that they are all volunteers.

They help out in Second Life because they are the type of educators who will help out in real life, too-- not for money or fame, just because it is the right thing to do. The ISTE community in Second Life has flourished in large part because of these educators.

I am sorry for any misunderstanding and I am sorry my words were misunderstood. Those of you that know me in real life, know that I would never belittle other educators. Those of you that just know me in Second Life might not realize that....

Kathy

Educators wherever we are...

It is always interesting coming home from NECC. I spent four days talking to hundreds (if not thousands!) of like-minded educators who are engaged and excited about the current and upcoming possibilities of technologies to support teaching, learning, and professional development. I had one-on-one conversations with many dedicated educators who were there to learn, and I loved the time I could spend with them, learning what they get excited about.

On the trip home, I still found myself talking to everyone. I ran into some NECC-goers in the airport, and we discussed our favorite sessions and the new things we saw. After our little group broke up, a businessman next to me started asking me about my laptop. I was more than happy to show it off.

On the plane, I sat next to a retired Army general who was very interested in the Kindle, so I continued to "spread the word". At the sandwich shop in Atlanta's airport, I was using my phone (HTC Touch) to check my email, and three employees came out from behind the counter to take a look at it and learn more about it. On the bus home from Boston's Logan Airport, I had to tether the laptop to the phone to find a hotel reservation for the woman in the seat next to me, since the amount of traffic we encountered on the 90-mile trip caused her to miss both the last boat and plane to Nantucket, where she was planning to spend the holiday weekend.

We talk about engaging our students and getting them up-to-speed on the 21st century skills. I guess I am figuring out that if we don't get the rest of the current workforce and the employers of tomorrow up-to-speed, too, our students may not get the chance to utilize these skills.

Be generous with your time with strangers. Those of us that tote the "gadgets" need to explain the possibilities to others if they are interested. An educator is an educator wherever we are!

Kathy

Photo courtesy of the American Memory Collection, Lewis Wickes Hine, Photographer.

NECC Report #4: Day 3

The Innovation Exchange today went swimmingly! The high-level group of 150 educators heard a wonderful keynote by Dr. Richard Baraniuk who provided an in-depth overview of his passion and his project, Connexions. This was followed by five short presentations and breakout sessions dealing with netbooks (like the Asus eeePC and HP Mininote) used for a portfolio project (Kurt Madden), online synchronous professional development tools such as Adobe Connect Pro (Lee Keller), an introduction to three unique Web 2.0 tools (Leigh Zeitz), the innovative use of the Nintendo DS in the classroom to support teaching and learning (Camilla Gagliolo), and my presentation about the use of portable applications on a USB flash drive (and a little about the Kindle thrown in, too!)

In the afternoon, I attended the ISTE-led session dealing with ICOT, the ISTE Classroom Observation Tool. I will have to investigate it more on my own before giving you more information.

The closing keynote was crowded, and my favorite part were the video interviews with teachers presenting poster sessions about global education projects. Without fanfare, they described the meaningful work they were doing in their classrooms. Kudos to all of them!

Once they are posted, many of the spotlight sessions, the keynotes, and selected other sessions may be found on this page.

Thanks to TCEA for hosting the conference this year and thanks to the ISTE Conference Committee and staff for another job well-done!

NECC Report #3: Day 2

Today was another info-packed day. I watched the keynote from outside of the ballrooms with many others and it was great! I continued my journey through the entire exhibit hall from beginning to end and learned some new things from vendors. I then conducted my presentation in the big theater. I felt it was well-received and it was fun to be in that venue with so many educators! You can find the links and see the presentation as a Picasa Web album or a PDF handout here if you are interested.

Later in the afternoon I went to Hall Davidson's presentation about the potential of cell phone use in the classroom. He gave an excellent presentation with practical sites and good ideas for the use of this technology that almost every student has in his or her pocket! He does not have the presentation posted yet, but it will show up here when it is.

The NEISTE get-together was fun and I visited with old friends and made some new ones. This was followed up by a quick stop at the DEN event with tons of people, and then a quiet dinner with some of my DoDEA friends.

Today is the Innovation Exchange from 8am until noon. More later....

Kathy

NECC Report #2: Day 1

I started off the day with Joyce Valenza and we visited a press suite where we learned more about PBS TeacherLine's new and upcoming professional development options and met with Discovery Education and Wilkes University to talk about their joint online master's degree in Instructional Technology.

I then worked with a group of teachers, in the hallway, on the floor, on Moodle strategies (because we were blocked out of a workshop that was full) and it was a great collaborative time.

I went to the exhibit hall to visit the vendors I wanted to catch up with, including Asus, so I could actually touch the new eeePC 901. It is sweet, out in 7 days, and all I have to decide is to get glossy black or glossy white. (The black one is cool looking!) Going back tomorrow to do the entire hall and see some new things!

I rode the bronco while I was in the hall, too.


Then I went to a Thinkfinity session with Chris Dede and Danny Edelson entitled "The Learning Multiplier: Using Multi-Device Environments to Engage Students". It dealt with innovative and practical practices for the use of smaller devices to conduct real-life data-gathering and research.

I ran into tons of people and friends, and had a good time networking, of course!

I finished up the day at a Google Apps presentation put on my Cristin Frodella and Danny Chang where they provided a very good overview of Google Apps for Education. We use it in our district, so I did not learn a bunch, but they did a very good job providing information for the audience members who were not using the suite of tools.

On to the MICCA/VSTE reception tonight and then getting ready for my talk tomorrow!

NECC Report #1: Leadership Symposium

This session focused on both defining the meaning of various NETS*T for our table, attending four short sessions from great teachers who are conducting collaborative and global projects, coming back to discuss our "discoveries", listening to a short presentation by each of the contributing educators (so we could hear from the four we did not get to visit), and a chance to ask questions.

I chose to be in the "Communication and Collaboration" strand, and was very excited about the discussions and presentations that I was able to see! The sessions were videotaped so I assume ISTE will be sharing this online as some point.

Continuing on with the day!

Gettting ready for NECC in SL!

I took a little trip in Second Life today to the TX PBS TeacherLine and TCEA's shared site on one of the ISTE islands. Took a bull ride and chatted with Joie Despres (SL) who was busy getting the site ready for NECC!

She handed me a notecard to share with all of you about an event they are having on their sim area tomorrow night.

"Howdy Ya'll!

On June 19 at 6PM SLT, put on your cowboy hats and boots and join PBS TeacherLine of Texas and the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA), your Texas Ambassadors, as we welcome you to NECC in San Antonio, Texas 2008!



We are going to fire up the barbecue, put on some country western for a little line dancing, and get real crazy with a bull-riding contest. Yeehah!! So, come on down!"

SLURL for the event:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island%202/128/175/23/

I immediately went out and found a cool cowboy hat! Looking forward to the event in SL and even more to the event in San Antonio in RL!

Kindle update...

The Kindle is a interesting device! Having 10 hours at a time (twice!) on the bus to and from Washington, DC, to put it through its paces, really gave me time to learn how to use it well.

The screen is easy on the eyes although I still have to remember I need an external light source to read it. The bus seat lights worked just fine as did reading it in the bright sunlight outside.

The "experimental" browser takes some getting used to, but once I started using the mobile versions of sites, like I do on my Windows Mobile phone, I could do just about anything I needed to do. I even posted to Twitter!

I listened to an audiobook for some of the time, and that worked well, too. I practice marking things up, creating clippings that could be searched later, and read some of my own content I had put on the device.

The battery life was really long, but I don't know how long, since I was busy taking care of chaperoning duties in-between! I did shut the wireless off while listening or reading, and I know that extends the battery life, too.

We have just purchased two Kindles for our high school library as a pilot, and I found out a couple of things. First, you can have up to 6 Kindles tied to one Amazon account, and, if you buy a single title, you are allowed to put it on all 6 of them.

Secondly, since any user of the Kindle can purchase a new title from the Kindle store from the Kindle itself, we did not know how we were going to control students from purchasing books on a whim. We are solving the problem by putting a gift certificate on the Amazon account with no other method of payment on the account. The teachers will spend the gift certificate funds to purchase a bunch of titles, so there will be no payment method available to purchase new titles by the users. We will just load the books up with the purchased titles.

(Update to clarify the above paragraph: As we do in the real library, suggestions for purchases submitted by students will be considered for the Kindle as they are for print titles in the library. I was not suggesting that the educators would control the content purchased for the Kindle. I was suggesting that, for a district that does not have a credit card and needs to carefully control spending due to limited resources, the gift certificate option would allow a designated amount of money to be spent on titles suggested by staff or students at the school.)

I will have the Kindle at NECC with me if anyone is interested in trying it out...just ask me when you see me!

Kathy's Kindle

Well, I have had the Amazon Kindle, Amazon's new electronic ebook, for a week now and will be putting it to the test starting tomorrow on the 10-hour bus ride to Washington, DC with the 8th graders!

I cannot yet comment on the screen for reading for long periods at a time, since I have really spent the week getting to know Kindle. I read the PDF guide (on the computer although it is also on the Kindle in azw format) and tried all of the functions. I read for a bit, and it is comfortable to hold, once out of its cover, and readable outside in the son and under inside light. It took me some time to get over the fact it is not backlit like a computer or my old Rocket eBook. However, once I remembered to treat it like a "real" book, the clarity of the screen was great and the ability to change the text size was neat.

I purchased a few titles from the Amazon Kindle store (Daniel Pink, Janet Evanovich, and Ann Brashares), loaded up some e-texts from the public domain e-text sites, put some MP3's on the SD card to counteract any movie playing on the bus, and spent some time with the Internet access available on the Kindle. Buying and downloading the books could not have been easier or faster, but I was surprised when Collin's "Good to Great" was not available as an e-text to purchase.

I have decided not to take a computer with me to Washington, and have been trying out the experimental Web browser on the Kindle as an alternative. (The Kindle includes no-cost Sprint cellular EV-DO access to Amazon and the rest of the Net for every owner of one!) As one that is used to using the Web on a Windows Smartphone (Treo before and now HTC Touch), using the mobile versions of Web sites comes naturally and I think I will be able to take care of business this week using the Kindle. Time will tell...

Gotta go pack!

Wii Fit Fun!

Well, as with Wii Sports, I can only do things well with the Wii Fit that I can also do in real life. In Wii Sports, I can bowl, which I can do in real life, and I cannot play tennis, which I cannot do in real life.

With the Wii Fit, there are activities in the areas of strength training, yoga, aerobics, and balance games. Well, I cannot walk a tightrope in real life, nor ski a slalom, nor ski jump, nor head a soccer ball, and I did not do so well in these balance games.

I was better in the aerobics area. I could not twirl the hula hoop, something I have never mastered in real life, but the step aerobic sessions were a good workout and I could follow those. On the island run, I became winded after a time, as I would have in real life.

I have not tried the strength or yoga areas yet-- 40 minutes was enough time for one night! It really is a remarkable combination of hardware and software. It is engaging and takes practice to master, but you do get a good workout. You get your BMI calculated and are presented with your Wii-Fit age (which I will not share here, thank you very much!)

Time for the morning workout now. If you have a chance to try the Wii Fit, go for it!

Kathy

Asus eeePC with Windows XP

Earlier this week, Best Buy started carrying the Asus eeePC with Windows XP Home installed. Mine arrived yesterday (no suprise there, eh?) and I have been having some fun with it.

The original eeePC had a 4gb flash memory drive and came with a flavor of Linux. Those are still available, are speedy little items, and come with a nice suite of office, creative, and educational applications.

The Windows XP Home version, at the same $399 price point, comes with Microsoft Works 9 in addition to the default Windows operating system applications. Since the Windows OS is larger and uses up a substantial portion of the 4gb hard drive, I had to make some application decisions since I was planning to use this device as a traveling and presentation device. I deleted the Windows Live applications and Microsoft Works, and installed PowerPoint XP (I figured it was smaller than the current versions) and some really old, tiny versions of FTP software and HTML editing software which will do what I need them to do while on the road. I also installed a very old version of Paint Shop Pro which will give me the capability to do image editing if need be.

As for new apps, I installed Skype and Trillian, AVG antivirus, and MS ActiveSync for my Treo.

When I am in a networked environment, I can use all the great Web 2.0 apps for everything from databases to full image editing. I just wanted to make sure I had the things handy I needed when not on a network. In addition, I loaded up a USB flash drive with PortableApps (http://portableapps.com/) so I also have access to some versions of pieces of software that run directly off the Flash drive. Using the SD slot to house a card for storing files, I still have 1/4 of the drive free for future needs.

For schools thinking about purchasing the eeePC, you will want to talk to your tech gurus to find out the feasability of Windows XP Home in a server/domain environment and also consider the Linux version of the device if there is a client that will work on your network. For me, it is nice to have the familiar XP environment, but the suite of apps on the Linux version would be nice to have for students.

If you have any questions, feel free to write!

Some interesting Web apps

There are so many cool Web apps out there, it is hard to just talk about a few. I encourage you to try any new Web app that you think might help support teaching and learning and add your favorite(s) to the comments below!

Alltop.com presents a categorized page of RSS feeds in all types of categories, education included. It is an easy way to quickly get feeds from the most prolific, informational, and news-worthy blogs. When trying to explain the concepts of RSS and aggregation during a professional development session for teachers, I found demonstrating Alltop a good way to introduce them to those topics by letting them investigate the site.

Voicethread has really become popular with educators. A Voicethread "is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world." It is easy to use, powerful, and a lot of fun!

Twitter is a wonderful tool. Imagine having access to all your personal and professional friends and colleagues for help and support all of the time! Educators are using Twitter to share and gather facts and information from other educators all over the world. Users keep a client open on their desktop, and another user can post a question (I asked my education friends about their school-sponsored student e-mail naming conventions yesterday before deciding what ours would be) and the wonderful, helpful education community always comes through with plenty of suggestions and thoughts! Users can write to you directly or answer the question by directing the answer to you but allowing others to see the answer, too. The "tweets" are limited to 140 characters, so I have become a very succinct question and answer creator!

These three are enough to keep you occupied for hours-- have fun and please share your new discoveries with the rest of us in the comments!

It's about time...

Am I the only one who is constantly using a time zone converter to figure out what time I am supposed to be somewhere online? With Webinars and Second Life, and other synchronous meetings, I am always asking for time verification from the workshop coordinators.

In 1998, Swatch, the Swiss watch company, created "Swatch Internet Time" to alleviate this problem. We used it in our house, and my son even has two Swatch watches that tell the time in Swatch Internet Time. Swatch Internet Time is the same all over the world!

I think this is an idea whose time has come, and urge you to try it out and see if you like it. No more wondering if that particular US state does or does not move their clocks ahead or back. No more worries about the time in Australia. Swatch Internet Time takes care of all that!

You can simply keep this URL handy to see the current Swatch Internet Time. You can even get a widget for the Mac OS here and this World Clock program for Windows also includes Swatch Internet time. This page is a bit older, but some of the Internet Time clocks are still available to use and/or download.

Let's all get in the same time zone, okay?

Macbook Air fashion statement

Here are two photos of my "blinged out" Macbook Air. It has a Unique Skin vinyl skin that I created by uploading a photo to their site. Matching desktop wallpaper and vinyl skin...cool, eh?