Evernote and Skitch a Great Pair

Evernote has been a primary player in my digital toolbox for the past few years. It all began when I needed a tool to help organize my project notes when I was working as an educational software producer. I immediately found Evernote to be intuitive and very easy to search. With Evernote it is possible to capture pretty much anything. Another selling point for me was that I could also add to Evernote from my PC laptop, Android Phone, iPad, or even the web. I continued to promote the use of Evernote when I returned to working in the schools. I used Evernote to capture PD ideas, tech integration examples, conference notes, and so much more. Evernote continues to be part of my daily life.

In the variety of jobs that I have held throughout the years I have often relied on annotated screenshots to tell a story for PD materials, further explanation of a particular article, quick "how to" for myself/teachers, reminders, and multitude of other reasons. In the past I relied solely on using Jing to create all of my annotated screenshots. This changed when I started using my iPad. Jing is not available for the iPad so I had to start looking for alternatives.

About a year ago Evernote acquired Skitch. Skitch is a fabulous screenshot annotation tool that works seamlessly with Evernote and is available for all iOS and Android devices as well as Mac computers. I use Skitch all the time from my iPad. All of my Skitch screenshots are immediately filed in a folder within Evernote so I never have any trouble remembering where I saved them. I find that both Evernote and Skitch together make a very powerful tool for today's classrooms.

Check out how to get started with using Skitch.
Skitch as a teaching tool

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words or Maybe More

Skeletal System ThingLink Example

Recently I stumbled across a tool that I am excited about! ThingLink is tool that allows teachers and students to create interactive images. Videos, music, and web content can easily be added to any image using sites like Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr, and Soundcloud. The interactive image can then be embedded in a class site, wiki, or blog.

Richard Byrne gives a short demo on how to use ThingLink. 


There are many educational uses for ThingLink. I see this tool successfully integrated across the curriculum whether you are trying to build excitement when starting a new unit, activating prior knowledge, doing an author study in Language Arts, explaining the structure of a cell in Science, walking through the steps to solve a problem in Math, providing details for a map in Social Studies, and the list goes on. There are so many wonderful uses for this tool!

@AuntyTech has also compiled 27 Interesting Ways to Use ThingLink in the Classroom.

The Power of Educational Video

At least once a week a teacher will ask me where to find good educational videos. Here is a small sampling of the many great educational video sites that are out there:

Khan Academy  

Over 3,000 educational videos across the curriculum. Check out the NEW Teacher Resources section as well as the Common Core Map. 

 

YouTube Teachers

Find educational videos separated by content area and grade level.

TeacherTube
This is a great place to find "how-to" educational videos.

School Tube

This is a great site for sharing student and teacher produced videos.

PBS Video

This site provides access to many full-length PBS videos on many different topics including history, science, technology, and health.

OER Commons - Open Educational Resources

This site contains educational content from around the world. The site also includes resources aligned to the Common Core.

Creating a Community with Edmodo

Edmodo is a free social network that can be used by teachers and students. It is a great tool for collaboration and can be accessed from any web-enabled device including smartphones and iPads.

Edmodo has many great features:

• Student accounts that do not require email addresses
• No games or advertisements
• Safe environment where the teacher controls who can join
• Ability to include files and links in a student/teacher generated post
• Share assignments with the class
• Create online quizzes
• Tag posts to better organize content
• Keep an online calendar or gradebook
• Organize classroom documents using the library feature
• Create small groups within a particular class for easier communication

Recently I had the opportunity to work with middle school English and French classes on two very different Edmodo projects. For the English class the students joined an Edmodo group as one of the main characters from the book they were reading. The students created journal posts in their character’s voice essentially producing an online diary.  In French class students had the opportunity to join Edmodo to communicate with a partner classroom in France. Each of the two classes joined the same group in Edmodo giving the students the ability to communicate with each other while being safely managed by their two co-teachers.

To learn more about using Edmodo in your classroom check out Edmodo’s Help Center or the videos on the Edmodo SchoolTube channel. Edmodo also provides a series of webinars. To access the Edmodo app for mobile devices go to iTunes for the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad and Google Play for Android devices.

Microsoft Office in the Cloud

Recently I have been experimenting with cloud-based solutions for using Microsoft Office with my Mac, PC, and iPad.

Photo Credit: zdnet.com

This past week I downloaded the OnLive Desktop App to my iPad. The OnLive Desktop App provides users with a Windows 7 experience on the iPad. With this free application users are able to use Office 2010 Word, Excel, PowerPoint along with a handful of other apps like Paint and Notepad. After you sign in to your OnLive account you are taken to a virtual Windows 7 screen. From there you can start a new Office document from scratch or you can access any documents that you have uploaded to your OnLive account. You can access your account through a web browser and upload documents to your account from either a PC or a Mac. All your files are seamlessly synced to the OnLive servers and your free account gives you 2GB of storage.

Photo Credit: theiospost.com

Another great cloud-based solution for using Microsoft Office products is CloudOn. CloudOn is very similar to OnLive Desktop in what it has to offer. One difference is that CloudOn uses a DropBox account to sync your files to the cloud. CloudOn provides you with the same amount of online storage as OnLive since a free DropBox account gives you 2GB of space. Since I have DropBox already installed on my local machine I find it very easy to have my documents ready to use with CloudOn without having to log in to another account to upload docs. DropBox can also be easily accesed from a web browser.

The look and feel of the two programs is very different. CloudOn is more of streamed version of Microsoft Office while OnLive Desktop gives you the virtual feel of working in the Windows environment. CloudOn only offers Word, Excel, and PowerPoint where OnLive Desktop has some additional Microsoft Programs. Try out both and see which one works for you.

Lending and Borrowing Kindle eBooks

Photo Credit: Jon Davis

Over the summer I enjoyed reading several eBooks on both my Kindle and iPad. Most of the time my preferred device for reading was my Kindle. I found that both the size of the Kindle and the E ink technology made it the easiest to read under most conditions.

In past summers my sister and I would exchange boxes of books to share with each other. This summer was different because we were both Kindle owners. If you are a Kindle owner there are several great ways to lend and borrow eBooks with friends, family, or complete strangers.

In October of 2010 Amazon began allowing Kindle users to borrow and lend eBooks from other Kindle users. Each Kindle book that a user owns can be loaned once for a period of 14 days. The person that you loan the book to does not need to have a Kindle to read the book. All that is needed is the free Kindle reading application that can be downloaded to a computer, cellphone, etc.

How it works - When you lend someone an eBook it is downloaded from the Amazon site to the "borrower's" device for the 14 day period. After the 14 day period expires then the book is deleted from the borrower's device and is again available on your own device again. Note: not all publishers allow lending of their book titles. Use your Amazon account to begin lending eBooks.

If you are a Kindle user that is looking for other great ways to borrow and lend books check out the following:

ebookfling.com - This site allows Kindle users to lend and borrow books for a 14 day fling. Borrowing books works on a credit system. If you lend a book you are issued one credit. You can then use your credit to borrow a book from someone else. You also have the option to purchase additional credits for 2.99 each. If you are feeling generous you can also gift credits to other users.

BookLending.com - This site also allows Kindle users to lend or borrow eBooks for a 14 day period. This site is programmed to reward really active lenders by allowing them to borrow books before other less active users.

Kindle Library Lending (coming soon!) - Amazon announced in April of this year that it is partnering with OverDrive to give Kindle users (or any device with the Kindle reading app) the ability to check out eBooks from their local library.

Flipping over the Flipboard App

Photo Credit: Gizmodo

The more relaxed pace of summer lends itself to catching up on the many things that are left behind during the busy school year. One of the things I have spent more time with is using the Flipboard App on my iPad. Flipboard was voted App of the year by Apple in 2010. Flipboard provides a digital magazine interface that users can customize based on their personal interests. Information is delivered in a magazine format and users "flip" the pages to enjoy the experience.

At first I primarily used the App for catching up on Facebook and Twitter feeds. Now I regularly use the App to read my Google Reader RSS feeds, technology news from sites like Gizmodo and Cult of Mac, education updates from sites like MindShift and Education Week, as well as a multitude of travel and entertainment content.

Recent updates to the Flipboard App (v. 1.5) now include a new Content Guide for easily browsing specific topics and categories, the ability to have unlimited favorites, a streamlined way to read full articles, and more. Another great plus to the Flipboard App is that it is absolutely free!

Summer Learning

Photo Credit: Dreamstime

Each June is a race to the finish for most educators. Once school lets out it is often time for some rest and relaxation. For many educators summer also includes time for personal learning and discovery. I find that it is a great time to explore new tools and catch up on a backlog of professional reading.

This summer I plan to take an online course that focuses on better ways to aggregate information to allow for more efficient evaluation, synthesis, and sharing of information. The problem with easy access to information is that it can also be completely overwhelming. I am looking forward to learning about new ways to tackle the ever growing amount of information that I have subscribed to.

For others you may also be taking a class this summer or exploring some other professional opportunity. If you are looking for free online events and courseware there's a lot available this summer. Check out some of the following opportunities:

Classroom 2.0 Live Events

The Future of Education

SimpleK12 Webinars

MIT Open Courseware

The 23 Things Web 2.0 Project 

Edutopia Professional Development Blog Series

Reform Symposium E-Conference - Friday, July 29 - Sunday, July 31, 2011