tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19616661435558828012024-03-05T01:25:18.903-06:00MANUEL S. HERRERAManuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-41685145736267831342014-07-02T20:02:00.002-05:002014-07-02T20:02:37.485-05:00"An Update to the Schedule is Available" My #ISTE2014 Reflection<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRRf1buUk7zJoZszMfcvIoxO1Ed0I836USNUkhaAcHaW63fnX_R68SZX51HWUzIk69kP8r8Zx5NbWuzpWewm6NJ_dN1akEvZmpPf0LCD1vwIKex2EQ46mXitZ8u7wxIi8ausoK-06h0v76/s1600/AnUpdateIsAvailable.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRRf1buUk7zJoZszMfcvIoxO1Ed0I836USNUkhaAcHaW63fnX_R68SZX51HWUzIk69kP8r8Zx5NbWuzpWewm6NJ_dN1akEvZmpPf0LCD1vwIKex2EQ46mXitZ8u7wxIi8ausoK-06h0v76/s1600/AnUpdateIsAvailable.png" height="400" width="225" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i>An update to the schedule is available. Do you want to download it?</i>" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you attended ISTE 2014, then you are very familiar with that wonderful notification. Now, i</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">t's over. Five days. My first ISTE. What a ride! My head hurts. My heart is happy and my mind is ready to download the update.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My journey in education started eleven years ago. Not having a clue as to what I was doing. However, each year I would strive to be a better teacher, a supportive colleague and an innovative thinker. Always trying to find the update and download it. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first few years were tough and I didn't know where to look. I guess because I really didn't know how easy it could be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 2009 I started to connect and I started to grow exponentially! Now here I am in 2014 and I can't imagine what it would be like without my supportive network. Attending my first ISTE allowed me to have the personal conversations I've been wanting to have with long time connections. It allowed me to listen to inspiring people and make new connections. There were discussions that were lengthy and conversations that were brief. However, every "update" was unique, meaningful and noteworthy. Remember developers don't always wait to release the most robust update. They release what is needed and that is what I walked away with from ISTE. Each conversation was going to make me a better teacher, colleague and thinker.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As inconvenient as the app notification was it made me think about my own learning. I thought about where I am currently and where I want to be as educational leader. I shouldn't be annoyed by any update. I need to embrace them because after meeting all of these amazing people I've realized that I have a long way to go. So this reflection is more of a "thank you" to those who notified me (mostly without knowing it) that I needed to update my learning and "<i>Download Now</i>".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Thank you" Robin Pence <a href="https://twitter.com/rpencetech" target="_blank">@rpencetech</a> for taking time away from your Makerspace Playground experience and helping me brainstorm ways to bring a Maker Movement into my new high school space. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Thank you" Vinny Vrotny <a href="https://twitter.com/vvrotny" target="_blank">@vvrotny</a> for speaking with me about your middle school Makerspace and the creative things that your students are doing with e-textiles. I'll be reaching out to you very soon! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Thank you" to my friends from Decatur; Jennifer Panganiban <a href="https://twitter.com/jpanga10" target="_blank">@jpanga10</a>, Chrissie Edwards <a href="https://twitter.com/techiechrissie" target="_blank">@techiechrissie</a>, and Sara Kelly <a href="https://twitter.com/Kellysara6Sara" target="_blank">@Kellysara6Sara</a> for showing me how colleagues can work and grow beautifully together. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Thank you" Kristen Ziemke <a href="https://twitter.com/KristinZiemke" target="_blank">@KristenZiemke</a> for your wonderful presentation and thoughts on Student Learning Networks and showing us how your 1st graders connect. I loved your comment "Stop global competition. Start global collaboration." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Than you" Michael Matera <a href="https://twitter.com/mrmatera" target="_blank">@mrmatera</a> for our discussion on our journey as educators and how we have grown over the years. I also enjoyed talking about the great cities of Milwaukee and St. Louis. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Thank you" Jimmy Casas <a href="https://twitter.com/casas_jimmy" target="_blank">@casas_jimmy</a> for taking a moment and chatting with me about Iowa, Texas and family. By the way I told my wife we need to start teaching our kids more Spanish. Because Jimmy said so. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are so many other individuals and teams that I would like to thank but I should probably keep this short. Just know that if I we met or if we reconnected, then you made me better. I can only hope that I did the same for you and we continue our conversations. </span><br />
<br />Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-3580300149342140162014-03-03T21:50:00.000-06:002014-07-02T21:53:29.064-05:00KMOV News Highlights MOUSE SquadLast month, the local news station KMOV stopped by Normandy Middle School to interview our students about the MOUSE Squad Program that we started this year. The kids were great! I thought I did a pretty good job as well considering how nervous I was to being on camera. I'm happy the cameras didn't pick up all the sweat that was pouring down my head. Click the link below to see read the story.<br />
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<a href="http://www.kmov.com/news/editors-pick/Normandy-School-District-aiming-to-make-students-tech-leaders-247336201.html">Normandy School District Looking to Make Tech Leaders</a><br />
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<script src="http://www.kmov.com/templates/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=247336201&pos=top&swfw=470"></script><object data="http://swfs.bimvid.com/player-3.2.15.swf" height="264" id="_fp_0.4071895102970302" name="player" nbsp="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="470"> <param value="true" name="allowfullscreen"/> <param value="always" name="allowscriptaccess"/> <param value="transparent" name="wmode"/> <param value="high" name="quality"/> <param name="movie" value="http://swfs.bimvid.com/player-3.2.15.swf" /> <param value="config=http://www.kmov.com/?j=embed_247336201&ref=http://www.kmov.com/news/editors-pick/Normandy-School-District-aiming-to-make-students-tech-leaders-247336201.html" name="flashvars"/></object><script src="http://www.kmov.com/templates/belo_embedWrapper.js?storyid=247336201&pos=bottom&ref=http://www.kmov.com/news/editors-pick/Normandy-School-District-aiming-to-make-students-tech-leaders-247336201.html"></script><br />
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<br />Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-58328961262264651232013-10-10T14:43:00.002-05:002013-10-10T14:44:56.423-05:00Our 1st @MOUSESquad MeetingLast week I held my first official MOUSE Squad meeting with my new squad. Eight excited 4th graders at Bel Nor Elementary in the Normandy School District. I had asked the administration and a the 4th grade teachers to identify eight students that they thought would be interested in being a part of the Bel Nor MOUSE Squad. They selected 4 boys and 4 girls. All these students knew was that they would get to work with computers and that excited them to no end.<br />
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Our meeting began with introductions. Who I was and who they were. Then I asked the question, "What do you think the MOUSE Squad is all about?"<br />
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"The mouse on this computer."<br />
"Computers."<br />
"Taking apart a computer."<br />
"Blogging on a computer."<br />
"Playing computer games."<br />
"Fixing computers for our teachers."<br />
"Using computers to do our homework."<br />
"Fixing the Promethean Board."<br />
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Well, they were all right! We discussed how they will be part of a new training program that will help them to become the digital experts of their campus. We also talked about how their MOUSE Squad will support their campus and ensure that their technology is always working properly. Then I played the video below to show them some of the activities that they will be part of.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">After we watched the video and discussed the hands-on projects that we would work on as a team we got out the markers and paper and everyone created a poster that answered the question, "What does it mean to be on a team?" I'd say the first meeting was a success! We even have a website -<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_423287960"> </a></span><span style="line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://belnormousesquad.weebly.com/">http://belnormousesquad.weebly.com/</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-35146854011854191152013-09-30T13:59:00.000-05:002013-10-10T14:16:12.376-05:00Bringing the @MOUSESquad to the Normandy School District<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the big projects that I am working on this year is to begin implementing the </span><a href="http://mouse.org/" style="font-family: inherit;">MOUSE.org</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">'s youth leadership program, the </span><a href="http://mousesquad.org/" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">MOUSESquad</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, into our school district. I am working on making this happen across five elementary schools, one middle school and one high school. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of my </span>responsibilities<span style="font-family: inherit;"> is to help identify at least one teacher on each campus </span>as a MOUSE Squad facilitator <span style="font-family: inherit;">and then support them as they implement the program on their campus. This can be during class, lunch, after school or whenever. Well, this was too good for me to pass up. So I decided to make myself one of the elementary MOUSE Squad facilitators! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>First, a little info about MOUSE.org<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"MOUSE <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">empowers underserved youth to </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">learn, lead and create with technology</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">, preparing them with skills essential for their academic and career success."</span></i></span><br />
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Better yet. Just watch the video!<br />
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Pretty awesome huh? MOUSE helps us to empower our students by providing curriculum and activities, aligned with national standards, that are hands-on and centered around current and future technology careers. Student learn new skills by getting their hands dirty and diving in head first into exciting projects and opportunities.<br />
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I'm very excited to get started. Check back soon to see how we are doing!Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-53309693237571531892013-09-27T08:46:00.002-05:002013-09-27T08:59:00.405-05:00My Morning in the Hero Hut Kitchen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This year my goal is to get into the classrooms at least 3 times a week and work with our students in some capacity. It's been 4 years since I've been a classroom teacher and I tend to forget what the classroom setting can be like on a day to day basis. How can I support educators if I don't know what is going on in the classroom. I have to be a realist and not just pretend that educators have all the time in the world to implement a new idea or strategy that I might suggest.<br />
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I have three big projects this year. Begin the roll out of over 3,000 devices (iPads and Laptops) to teachers and students, getting our <a href="http://mousesquad.org/" target="_blank">MOUSE Squad </a>program up and running in our district (more on that in another post) and supporting our high school Culinary Arts Chef with technology in and out of the kitchen. Chef O'Bannon has quite a bit of technology "toys" that we are excited to use. SMARTBoards, document cameras, digital camera, video editing software and laptops.<br />
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I finally had a chance to come down to the "Hero Hut" kitchen to see what her students are doing. WOW! This is what you call hands on. The students were everywhere! I seemed to be in the way most of the time but I was able to capture some of the great work that was going on.</div>
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These aspiring chefs were measuring vanilla, mixing ingredients, sifting flour, reading recipes, giving each other tasks to complete. I was AMAZED! Chef O'Bannon simply facilitated. Students were asking each other questions and problem solving their way through their project on their own. I want to make every classroom like this one!</div>
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And by the way, they were making "Wacky Cake". A non-dairy cake recipe. There's a story behind the non-dairy recipe. Maybe our kids could write a blog post or comment below to give us a little background!<br />
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Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-58055523341470786042013-02-19T11:12:00.001-06:002013-02-19T11:12:18.984-06:00Creating Professional Edu-Lurkers - Using Twitter Search to Introduce Twitter<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past two weeks I've been a part of several conversations with educators about using social media to expand learning networks. These were wonderful conversations that all lead to helping one another learn more about inspiring students. Sure enough nearly each of those conversations lead to the following question, "Why aren't more teachers using Twitter?" It was usually solicited with a look of bewilderment. As if everyone in the world was Tweeting and these "nonTweeters" were some type of unlearned individuals. "We tweet. Therefore, we are."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my experience with introducing Twitter to the "nonTweeters" is that it can be a very scary place. What with all those @ symbols and funny looking links. And oh don't forget those number signs. Those hashags! What are they? What do they mean! There's just so many of them. #confused So, trying to convince an apprehensive "nonTweeter" to just create a Twitter account was wrong on my part. Then someone showed me </span><a href="https://twitter.com/search" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Twitter Search</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh <a href="https://twitter.com/search" target="_blank">Twitter Search</a>, you magical thing! The best way to describe <a href="https://twitter.com/search" target="_blank">Twitter Search</a> is to say, it's like a Google Search for Twitter. Go ahead. Try it. Search for some edu-wondernous like "digital citizenship" or "common core". I'll continue after the break. Click the image to get started. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pretty awesome isn't it. This is NOW how I introduce Twitter to the "nonTweeters". Sorry, I mean fellow educators. No account necessary. No registration. No username. No password. No commitment. Yet! Remember, baby steps. I pretty much encourage #lurking. But for an educational good cause.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>How I Teach Edu-Lurking 101</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Step 1</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I ask them to search for edu topics using </span><a href="https://twitter.com/search" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Twitter Search</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Type it in the search box and hit enter! Don't let them get too broad in their search though. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I know what content area my participants teach, I will try to prepare a list of some topics to search for ahead of time. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You will always have that one math teacher who searches, "5th grade adding improper fractions with and without common denominators games based on common core standards". This is usually where the 140 character limit conversation comes in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Step 2</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I tell them to find a tweet with a #, an @ and a link because we're going to "unpack" the tweet. Get it! "unpack" the tweet. Ha! That's a joke for all my "unpacking the standards" folks. Uh-hem. Ok. Moving on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next, I ask them, "What do you want to know about your chosen tweet?" Common questions:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does this person know I'm looking at their tweet?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why are the messages so short?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's the "#" symbol?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can I click the "#" symbol?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is there an "@" symbol?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why are there three "@" symbols?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's an RT?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why are there so many pictures of eggs as profile pictures?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can there be public and private conversations?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I like to let them explore. They are more likely to click links and hashtags if they know they don't have an account linked. This is where "ah-ha" moments happen. Participants begin to find resources and ideas that they can use in their classroom immediately! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Step 3</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I tell them to search for people and organizations. This is the perfect opportunity to have discussion on digital citizenship and professionalism and what it can mean to have a Twitter account. We talk about the positives and the challenges of having an account. Again, I try to give them a list of edu-Tweeters and organizations to search for. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Step 4 </b></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was able to meet @cybraryman this<br />year at METC13. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Usually, there are one or two that are excited and are ready to set up accounts immediately. They want to know who else they should follow and how can they find more people. So for those that are ready, I provide them the Twitter Holy Grail. Jerry Blumengarten's (<a href="https://twitter.com/cybraryman1" target="_blank">@cybraryman</a>) Twitter pages.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html" target="_blank">Educational Twitter Hashtags</a> - by Jerry Blumengarten</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://cybraryman.com/chats.html" target="_blank">Educational Twitter Chats</a> - by Jerry Blumengarten </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you're having some of the same conversations that I had about introducing educators to Twitter, I highly recommend starting them with </span><a href="https://twitter.com/search" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Twitter Search</a>.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It's easy. It only takes 3 seconds to get them looking at Twitter, finding useful tweets and you're not forcing them to remember another username and password that they may never use. Good luck!</span></div>
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Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-72904547560800422622013-02-07T09:34:00.001-06:002013-02-07T11:58:46.417-06:00See What I See<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A reflective post? This never happens. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I just wrapped up a 30 minute presentation on an upcoming Bond Measure that the community will be voting for on April 2. The purpose of my presentation was to give principals information on how we plan to use the potential funds to enhance technology in our district. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>My</i> takeaway was at the beginning. Before my "official" presentation even started.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Prior the presentation I played the video below. </span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/l-gQLqv9f4o?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We've all seen it. It's a great video. Inspirational. Motivational. Funny. Cute. But as I watched it, I looked at it in a new way (It wasn't an epiphany or anything, just a cool thought). My thought was, I want our students to create something inspirational like this. I want our students to express themselves with media. I'm sure many of you had the same thought. Or not. You've done enough student videos to make your head spin. My head isn't even turning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So after the video, I made a couple of enthusiastic comments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"How awesome would it be if our students made a similar video!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Don't you think our students would love to have their voice heard?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"This guy must be so proud to see his work shine!" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Blank stares. My enthusiasm was met with blank stares. Ok, maybe one or two nods of agreement. Those were by the principals who love when I come to help their teachers. And I am very appreciative of this. But I wanted new leaders to share my excitement. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student videos.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know this is not a new idea. But I do know that this is something that we do not do in our district. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why do school leaders not see what I see? Maybe it was too early in the morning. Maybe the coffee was bad. Maybe it's February and the pressure of state testing is on. Maybe I'm not selling my ideas the right way. Maybe I'm not selling my ideas the right way. Maybe I need to work on my salesmanship. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To be continued...</span><br />
<br />Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-21134377194976631222012-06-25T09:08:00.001-05:002012-06-25T09:08:49.963-05:00Feedly - It's like Flipboard for your desktop. Sort of.What I love about my iPad is that I can pick it up, open my <a href="http://flipboard.com/" target="_blank">Flipboard</a> app and begin reading from all of the news websites (uh, hum my social media outlets) and ed tech blogs that I have hand picked. The best part is that these websites are arranged as if they were in a magazine or newspaper. Complete with a headlines and images. So, it makes choosing the articles to read a little easier. I'm a visual guy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Mdf1YNMMEOgxNKa_uxB8vO1YvEBeoXphZzvdLGI9tfkh1gYciprRue4WLHdLi7gGtXjJuORQlQKisXutn1qhRVx3Tg-ki2EltTyKbO_xPmieR2IBsgy7NwHsgBVdlFRyxXvLCAjfRn9V/s1600/Feedly+screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Mdf1YNMMEOgxNKa_uxB8vO1YvEBeoXphZzvdLGI9tfkh1gYciprRue4WLHdLi7gGtXjJuORQlQKisXutn1qhRVx3Tg-ki2EltTyKbO_xPmieR2IBsgy7NwHsgBVdlFRyxXvLCAjfRn9V/s320/Feedly+screenshot.png" width="320" /></a>I love <a href="http://flipboard.com/" target="_blank">Flipboard</a> for my iPad. However, I spend 85% of my day behind my desktop and there isn't a desktop version for Flipboard. So I went searching for my own and found <a href="http://www.feedly.com/" target="_blank">Feedly</a>. <a href="http://www.feedly.com/" target="_blank">Feedly</a> works very similar to the way Flipboard does. Once you sync your Google account <a href="http://www.feedly.com/" target="_blank">Feedly</a> takes your existing Google Reader feed and displays it on your desktop in a magazine or newspaper type layout for easy navigation. I use my Google Reader quite a bit, but I'm lazy and I don't like scrolling through an entire post to get to the next article. And just displaying the title isn't good for me. Remember, visual guy here.</div>
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<a href="http://www.feedly.com/" target="_blank">Feedly</a> has several options for you to choose how your content is displayed. You can display your content in a magazine style, with titles only, as a mosaic of images, as cards or as the entire article. Your content will be pulled straight from your Google Reader feed so you don't have to start manually migrating all of your websites to <a href="http://www.feedly.com/" target="_blank">Feedly</a>.<span style="background-color: white;"> Don't worry if </span><span style="background-color: white;">you</span><span style="background-color: white;"> don't have a Google Reader feed. You can start building content directly within </span><a href="http://www.feedly.com/" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Feedly</a><span style="background-color: white;">. One downside, is that </span><a href="http://www.feedly.com/" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">Feedly</a><span style="background-color: white;"> doesn't display your social media streams (Twitter, Facebook, Google+) within the layout you choose. It creates a </span><span style="background-color: white;">separate</span><span style="background-color: white;"> sidebar that displays your social media stream. Similar to a widget in your blog. </span></div>
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</div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-49265769605458922702012-06-15T14:54:00.001-05:002012-06-15T18:04:31.210-05:00Oh Social Media, How I Have Tamed You. For Now.What I love about social media is that it can provide you several avenues of communication and collaboration in the professional world. If, you choose to use them. Whether it's Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Blogger, LinkedIn, etc. There seems to be infinite ways to "stay in the loop" or contribute to "the loop". However, it's those same infinite ways that can be a nightmare!<br />
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I'm sure many of you with multiple social media accounts have gone through one the following scenarios. You send out a tweet, with a great resource or idea, to your followers. However, you feel like those who have "liked" your Facebook Page would love to hear about this idea as well. And don't forget about you LinkedIn connections. So you find yourself...<br />
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A. Copying and pasting the various links to the resources into your many social media accounts and then making all the necessary edits.<br />
<b>OR</b><br />
B. Growing tired of maintaining all your accounts so you really only keep one account up to date.<br />
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I find myself doing the latter.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvH3ikYaoDSA1lw3kTfrBl3UQGbMSg1icBsA4tSsqV8BhZsnfrbfqSVlbQix5_SbFqyMB_4DlNyl8rcVGRK7fkoyCzdoh55OAzAyyBG71ATq_YUr3ZljGyzk5K-5srjqBwB0hclbiqS2fQ/s1600/ifttt+++Put+the+internet+to+work+for+you..png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvH3ikYaoDSA1lw3kTfrBl3UQGbMSg1icBsA4tSsqV8BhZsnfrbfqSVlbQix5_SbFqyMB_4DlNyl8rcVGRK7fkoyCzdoh55OAzAyyBG71ATq_YUr3ZljGyzk5K-5srjqBwB0hclbiqS2fQ/s1600/ifttt+++Put+the+internet+to+work+for+you..png" /></a>Then I found <a href="http://www.ifttt.com/">www.ifttt.com</a> or <i>If This Then That</i>. It allows you to distribute content from one social media account (ifttt calls them channels) to others. No more copying and pasting from your Blogger to your FB Page, Twitter, Posterous, Tumblr, ect. It shows up on both! And it's so simple.<br />
Here's the way the website works. You create these "If this... then that...." statements (ifttt calls them tasks) using your social media accounts. By creating content on one account you trigger the other account to post the same content. Take a look at a task I'm using below. If I create a post on my Blogger, then it creates a tweet on my Twitter feed with the post title and a link back to my to blog!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiUhsBWffwF93QY7naeDBi9J78eN0fMoFUGF86p4ZSTahZlTaoU9W42161CiB1xXQucVJaPA-gNUK5RRz2jQxgtN8at-XslA5aqvd2HV3HN1GNjgqTeGK7H-IBhsiAlQiYenEMDheciLd/s1600/ifttt+++Send+a+tweet+when+you+post+something+on+your+Blog.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJiUhsBWffwF93QY7naeDBi9J78eN0fMoFUGF86p4ZSTahZlTaoU9W42161CiB1xXQucVJaPA-gNUK5RRz2jQxgtN8at-XslA5aqvd2HV3HN1GNjgqTeGK7H-IBhsiAlQiYenEMDheciLd/s320/ifttt+++Send+a+tweet+when+you+post+something+on+your+Blog.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Sure, you can go on your Blogger, Wordpress or Facebook and hit "share" and send it out via Twitter, but <a href="http://www.ifttt.com/">www.ifttt.com</a> eliminates that extra step. How about setting up a task like this...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6IFHNzEK5MYgwdyBUBywvAjVvZS7Fa_Y6vwF4fk9OUXcKx75d1GB3ENU4AlSi4gGHsvDuo1LVAvkIkx4LonlRCBUNFrievFc0MtqpZvJds9rwMayDA0xqSTSLNV_AxcaGRS1n4HRWhoV/s1600/ifttt+++Save+all+Instagram+photos+to+Dropbox.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6IFHNzEK5MYgwdyBUBywvAjVvZS7Fa_Y6vwF4fk9OUXcKx75d1GB3ENU4AlSi4gGHsvDuo1LVAvkIkx4LonlRCBUNFrievFc0MtqpZvJds9rwMayDA0xqSTSLNV_AxcaGRS1n4HRWhoV/s320/ifttt+++Save+all+Instagram+photos+to+Dropbox.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So from now on all the Instagram photos you take, go straight to your Dropbox. </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoym6zHSVwN0KYOGc2FBgBLumdElBb-4T8p48k5MpzRb5kpN0li1uQK5T-fmHF9zFUmx_9zH9Fs7HqV_eNaGW3CxAe-lvdaTqYulSYs87cJzQeWS_GaV1b4AObKDHUPKt77W15fjN-zzCn/s1600/ifttt+++Channels.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoym6zHSVwN0KYOGc2FBgBLumdElBb-4T8p48k5MpzRb5kpN0li1uQK5T-fmHF9zFUmx_9zH9Fs7HqV_eNaGW3CxAe-lvdaTqYulSYs87cJzQeWS_GaV1b4AObKDHUPKt77W15fjN-zzCn/s200/ifttt+++Channels.png" width="200" /></a>I suggest you give this service a try and see if it works for you. Unfortunately, you can't create an If this... then that... statement that takes care of all of your social media needs. You'll need to create tasks that only includes two channels. For example, I can't say, If I post to Twitter, then post to my Tumblr, Blogger, FB page, LinkedIn, and Evernote. Which is a good thing. Because each service is a little different and requires a little tweaking in the way it's content is distributed. You can't post a 300 character status update from FB to your Twitter. So you'll find what work for you. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0Kirkwood Kirkwood38.592465 -90.407134tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-44580486140882431182012-05-31T16:07:00.001-05:002012-06-18T07:55:44.172-05:00Snapguide - Create Step By Step "How To" Guides<br />
Would you like to quickly show the world how to prepare gazpacho that would make <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqXGWQhowXk" target="_blank">Samuel L. Jackson</a> proud? Or demonstrate how to <a href="http://snapguide.com/guides/replace-wiper-blades-on-honda/" target="_blank">change out the wiper blades on your Honda</a>. <a href="http://snapguide.com/" target="_blank">Snapguide</a> is the way to go.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZAz6EtEiXzqf7yScrQk7mGk4vELR9cljuuBmL46HuG81vIByfO8iO6EhgWVgSZsKAt9IwSOJUCQpHceUVKXs3FlBzDXRXVTv_4hqOjDRp9O_sFpUaEUcVN7_EKsuuBWuryKP9vhXty8ur/s1600/Snapguide.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZAz6EtEiXzqf7yScrQk7mGk4vELR9cljuuBmL46HuG81vIByfO8iO6EhgWVgSZsKAt9IwSOJUCQpHceUVKXs3FlBzDXRXVTv_4hqOjDRp9O_sFpUaEUcVN7_EKsuuBWuryKP9vhXty8ur/s200/Snapguide.png" width="200" /></a><br />
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While searching for free iPad apps for an upcoming presentation, I came across this wonderful little gem. It's called <a href="http://snapguide.com/" target="_blank">Snapguide</a>. <a href="http://snapguide.com/" target="_blank">Snapguide</a> is a free iPhone app that allows you to create a step by step "How To" guide about anything right from your iDevice! Your guide can then be published to the web and viewed on many web enabled devices!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiXOn-Cz0cOjUBafEp-ZhIz4lOgcb__9nPsE5UKw8mv_XLntT-aSAa39n69z6IMTJkZQjAzKEc12xZXKlfKTMlabWusZ_aCDe_ACJSsCLVHtCTI63KFPcfqs6YzlvtdtQ2e556JWfFKqiz/s1600/Snapguide1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiXOn-Cz0cOjUBafEp-ZhIz4lOgcb__9nPsE5UKw8mv_XLntT-aSAa39n69z6IMTJkZQjAzKEc12xZXKlfKTMlabWusZ_aCDe_ACJSsCLVHtCTI63KFPcfqs6YzlvtdtQ2e556JWfFKqiz/s320/Snapguide1.png" width="171" /></a><br />
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Here's how it works. </div>
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1. With your iDevice, take a few photos or capture some video that demonstrates each step in your "how to guide"</div>
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2. Add text and/or audio to your steps to provide more detail.</div>
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3. Publish to the web. </div>
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4. Share with your friends on Facebook or Twitter.</div>
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It's that simple. I made one in about 20 minutes. Take a look!<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://snapguide.com/guides/use-find-my-iphone/" target="_blank">How to Use the Find My iPhone App</a></div>
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How can students, teachers and even tech support use this little gem in the classroom?<br />
1. Students create their own visual tutorials about a particular concept or idea<br />
2. Students submit a guide demonstrating the mastery of a skill<br />
3. Students create a visual guide on the steps taken in the scientific process<br />
4 . Student publish interactive digital stories<br />
5. Teachers post homework guides on their websites or blogs demonstrating how to solve step by step sample problems<br />
6. Teachers develop an interactive scavenger hunt by posting visual clues with directions on how to accomplish a task<br />
7. Tech support posts guides for teachers explaining how to troubleshoot or perform a task<br />
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</div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-17587651187069380262012-03-02T09:57:00.006-06:002012-03-02T10:43:57.729-06:00iPad Initiative - Who downloads your free apps?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWnpn0h_YFfJ-RUnqo3-lNjL14p-IygkGBVnEdTfmqDmJXRQ39bQ-2NmxNBhF9ZOqXiMGbNQsJBRo8PHTD8OCvFTBPffunndJb2uz5PcTEhL31F3ZjxnDCj-qDt6cLHJ6EgN02mOzWuXk/s1600/syncpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWnpn0h_YFfJ-RUnqo3-lNjL14p-IygkGBVnEdTfmqDmJXRQ39bQ-2NmxNBhF9ZOqXiMGbNQsJBRo8PHTD8OCvFTBPffunndJb2uz5PcTEhL31F3ZjxnDCj-qDt6cLHJ6EgN02mOzWuXk/s320/syncpic.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Currently, our district is enrolled in the Apple's Volume Purchase Plan. However, we are still waiting to receive our first set of volume purchase vouchers. So until then we are downloading free apps to the iPads.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought I'd post a Q & A between myself and I to show you how we are managing this task. Don't worry. I didn't ask these out loud. Nor did I respond to myself out loud. But I guess that should be the least of our worries. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Myself: Good morning. How are you?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I: Great. Enjoying my first cup of coffee.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Myself: Well, lets get started. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q: What are you using to sync your devices?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: A Bretford Sync Cart with a dedicated Dell laptop. We are using 30 devices (iPad 2)</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q: Who purchases and syncs the free apps? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: Me (District Instructional Technology Coach). I will eventually delegate this down to the campus ITS.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q: How do the teachers let you know what apps they want?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: We're using a Google spreadsheet with color coding. Teachers have editing permissions and may add apps that they would like to have synced to the devices. I then go in and sync what I can. I use a color coding system to let teachers know it has been done. It's simple and makes sense. Take a look ours. Nothing fancy. <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AubCb8yK4fYfdEhOYUdPNXdFVU9OclpSZjFmNC1PVHc&output=html" target="_blank">iPad App Spreadsheet</a></span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q: How often do you sync the devices? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: I try to do it as often as I can. At least once every two weeks. Well that is my goal until it gets too overwhelming. I have to go to the campus to do this and it can take a couple of hours. I've only completed this twice. We haven't had the devices long. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q: What if a teacher needs an app ASAP?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: They can do it themselves if they'd like. They know how to sync them using the Sync Cart but it can take a lot of time. The cart does not sync them all at one time or very quickly. The other option is for the teacher is to touch each device, log in and sync them. It's up to the teacher and how much time they have. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Q: Are you going to use the same process for the new cart you are expecting with 30 additional iPads?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: Yes. I'll just use a different spreadsheet for different teachers. And then the delegating will begin!</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: I'd like to thank you for your time and I hope we can talk again soon. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I: You welcome. Have a great day!</span>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-45469020143196839672012-03-02T08:15:00.007-06:002012-03-02T08:27:37.845-06:00iPad Initiative - Writing Workshop Research<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last Thursday, Ms. Murphy's 5th grade class utilized their iPads to begin conducting research for their writing workshop that would focus on careers. Students participated in an open class discussion and generated a lengthy list of potential career choices to research. The students then used the iPad app <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qwiki/id373717412?mt=8">Qwiki </a>to help with their research. With <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qwiki/id373717412?mt=8">Qwiki, </a>students could search a topic and </span><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qwiki/id373717412?mt=8" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Qwiki</a> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">would combine relevant images, videos, graphics and narration into one presentation that students could begin exploring. From there, students would then decide if this was the right career choice for them to write about. If not, they could move on to another option. I loved how easy it was for a student to begin researching another career without having to get up and grab a different book or other resource. Everything was at their fingertips!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEb6IbG-Qo7IaBehT9SNw6oqMKGpkdVOjns4w9jeJfElKm4c1KE70v60lUlCOoyyxDbK-JPT6jQqNO8wm5eTInH04vO7UaKRa0PuI5Kj0xH1ShwO8BzxqFzxVlwEsJdanGSMJ37X8kpKa/s1600/qwiki.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEb6IbG-Qo7IaBehT9SNw6oqMKGpkdVOjns4w9jeJfElKm4c1KE70v60lUlCOoyyxDbK-JPT6jQqNO8wm5eTInH04vO7UaKRa0PuI5Kj0xH1ShwO8BzxqFzxVlwEsJdanGSMJ37X8kpKa/s200/qwiki.png" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbnmd12Dx07hkDb-zZMZsdGuV2vqqImlxRxb_wF3_FEHx6X1_negWxSr0VdFljzT_dTm5Jm8ElaxtnFhBGVQkMKX8IEiCiYJc0Rzpfp14cmCVpp3RWoYk52bBcpJ0v3WAtWl4hu6N1owg/s1600/qwiki2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbnmd12Dx07hkDb-zZMZsdGuV2vqqImlxRxb_wF3_FEHx6X1_negWxSr0VdFljzT_dTm5Jm8ElaxtnFhBGVQkMKX8IEiCiYJc0Rzpfp14cmCVpp3RWoYk52bBcpJ0v3WAtWl4hu6N1owg/s200/qwiki2.png" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the images below, you can see that our next app may be a mind-mapping or brainstorming app! If you know of any good ones, please feel free to share. I've had some Twitter followers give me several recommendations. Thank you to @nanc765 and @MissDSciTeacher for your recommendations. Here is a blog post by Greg Swanson from his blog </span><a href="http://appsineducation.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apps In Education</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> titled </span><a href="http://appsineducation.blogspot.com/2011/06/10-mind-mapping-tools-4-ipad_22.html" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10 Mind Mapping Tools 4 the iPad</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq1ULV5WhzjUR_TVlGoZt0MJGa07Ibdp4LSPjDQAVsaa2rryYSifun5Fqlfj97d8nYxLy0bjT1HEUpoFL5c-utCLoNHUPY0PbdjBKFzOPJ9VzUiDTThxHXqvhLBYKOgdDoCzTSB-boljJs/s1600/photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq1ULV5WhzjUR_TVlGoZt0MJGa07Ibdp4LSPjDQAVsaa2rryYSifun5Fqlfj97d8nYxLy0bjT1HEUpoFL5c-utCLoNHUPY0PbdjBKFzOPJ9VzUiDTThxHXqvhLBYKOgdDoCzTSB-boljJs/s200/photo+1.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVqGEW7A-zCHYooGQwsR9D7wIIGYvZAJ2T-OwZ7BE8r0IbzWetbj0yjP2XoucQKA6ceUbnZ8Tl3l0xhCve1xd_q9fCazCW6LmVTLymoMzG59gL2ln9i0yRNifKAt1zCsvYEa5-IfVF-F9/s1600/photo+2-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLVqGEW7A-zCHYooGQwsR9D7wIIGYvZAJ2T-OwZ7BE8r0IbzWetbj0yjP2XoucQKA6ceUbnZ8Tl3l0xhCve1xd_q9fCazCW6LmVTLymoMzG59gL2ln9i0yRNifKAt1zCsvYEa5-IfVF-F9/s200/photo+2-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17iYTRXXIsWHubPuSvRdHRuxhr47IjUrd2EXCaCfZqvgW3M9Ac9drPL3VthVHsZyfA4ORA3ARF2qyCY_4ZDpOmBWM-JxLYhkx97awdJ-Gw_INx7BFN6GeUTSwDJqcpB0blmuJizXz-mep/s1600/photo+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg17iYTRXXIsWHubPuSvRdHRuxhr47IjUrd2EXCaCfZqvgW3M9Ac9drPL3VthVHsZyfA4ORA3ARF2qyCY_4ZDpOmBWM-JxLYhkx97awdJ-Gw_INx7BFN6GeUTSwDJqcpB0blmuJizXz-mep/s200/photo+3.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijIevXIQkJxI6JAUDW5woly373HV8ght6n5noG_GkwPYrKnPrmcez7mtIn0fQMbIPxFzsiEBxY9Q2Idmf7DJtrwzOJBl1mCFVkmiKloKHkx_Zek48Zhxxu5DXvYyAU-l_znAqbxcj-TmQm/s1600/photo+4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijIevXIQkJxI6JAUDW5woly373HV8ght6n5noG_GkwPYrKnPrmcez7mtIn0fQMbIPxFzsiEBxY9Q2Idmf7DJtrwzOJBl1mCFVkmiKloKHkx_Zek48Zhxxu5DXvYyAU-l_znAqbxcj-TmQm/s200/photo+4.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Ms. Murphy teaches an all girls 5th grade class at Lucas Crossing Elementary in the Normandy School District. </span></div><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-27321914430268141762012-02-16T16:03:00.008-06:002012-09-12T07:55:55.828-05:00iPad Initiative - Restrictions and Responsible Use Policy<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another update on our iPad Initiative. I'm trying to play a little catch up with this post. The next step we took before we handed our students their iPads was to create a Responsible Use Policy. We reviewed various iPad RUPs before creating ours to help give us an idea of what we needed to include. The iPad RUP that we created is called, "iWill". Very creative, huh? Earlier in the year the students reviewed and signed a District Acceptable Use Policy but we felt that the iPads needed a little extra attention. It's not perfect, but then again what is. What we wanted to do was create some dialog between the teachers and students on the purpose of their iPads. I've included a sample of what we included in our "iWill" at the bottom of this post. Please let us know if you have any suggestions on how we could make it better.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJN4kWfFtFOA0MTzbBzEx1LOzjuhR-T32vQCHinBZMtWljBQrcjdYH6k6bc6DAe-LFlxHSiMjS_UeEX0xPd5e4MX5F83HkQsJYAPJ089DaO7WD1im6RA-jC1u6Bh3kvIYwWAjlblVx5mfy/s1600/photo-3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJN4kWfFtFOA0MTzbBzEx1LOzjuhR-T32vQCHinBZMtWljBQrcjdYH6k6bc6DAe-LFlxHSiMjS_UeEX0xPd5e4MX5F83HkQsJYAPJ089DaO7WD1im6RA-jC1u6Bh3kvIYwWAjlblVx5mfy/s400/photo-3.png" width="300" /></a></div>
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to the "iWill" RUP and the classroom discussion, we enabled various restrictions on the iPad. I've included a screen shot from one of the devices. I'm sure many of you will say, "Wow. That's a lot of restrictions!" Remember, this is new to us and we would like to avoid some of the potential mistakes that may happen. These devices are also shared. Therefore, one teacher may not be ready to manage a classroom set with all the bells and whistles. I'd like to share our thoughts behind the restrictions and get any of your feedback. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>FaceTime -</b> We may look to open it up for certain projects. This is more of a student safety concern. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Ping - </b>Managing a social network for music is not a priority right now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Deleting Apps</b> - Why would we want kids to do this?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Location - </b>It's enabled. Just locked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Email - </b></span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We plan to open this up very soon with an email address. As of now, we just have not figured out how we will manage it. Will we have one email for all 30 devices or one for each. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Allowed Content - </b>We set these according to the age of our students. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>In-App Purchases</b> - There is not a credit card on file with the Apple ID's that we are using but we would still like to avoid any accidental charges. </span></div>
<div id="__ss_11621426" style="width: 477px;">
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View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">documents</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mrherrera">Manuel Herrera</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license"><img alt="Creative Commons License" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/3.0/88x31.png" style="border-width: 0;" /></a><br /><span property="dct:title" xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">iWill Responsible Use Policy</span> by <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.normandysd.org" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Normandy School District</a> is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/deed.en_US" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
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Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-39107932582136953412012-02-15T17:57:00.005-06:002012-02-15T19:57:59.669-06:00METC 2012 Presentation<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those of you who were unable to attend my METC presentation, No More Paper, No More Books.... I wanted to write up a short post on a few of the tools that I shared. </span><br />
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</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The focus of the presentation was to share with teachers several free web-based tools that can help turn student netbooks, laptops, desktops, tablets and smartphone into learner response devices.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can view my "virtual handout" here: <a href="http://mymetc2012.wikispaces.com/">mymetc2012.wikispaces.com</a></span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfEEQikS4zFHjIfx2o90BhpTP1DTxhEumt0mTLjQoWzB9Y0Y2UycKTDQ1hu-cB0kJOv65kDJdYWnhUQ-ln-JLHwCSO2UZogNvs7Pvtp0ut1X_oXikrICy4TdMY4KFNXqasHNoP0IQ7eAJN/s1600/menti.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfEEQikS4zFHjIfx2o90BhpTP1DTxhEumt0mTLjQoWzB9Y0Y2UycKTDQ1hu-cB0kJOv65kDJdYWnhUQ-ln-JLHwCSO2UZogNvs7Pvtp0ut1X_oXikrICy4TdMY4KFNXqasHNoP0IQ7eAJN/s200/menti.png" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first tool is <a href="http://mentimeter.com/">Mentimeter</a>. </span><a href="http://mentimeter.com/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mentimeter</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is a free web-based tool that provides the teacher a quick and simple way to interact with their students and receive feedback. Teachers can do this by having students respond to multiple choice questions via their mobile device. All the participants need is a link to the question. Results are displayed in real-time. No login required. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><img border="0" height="50" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcmA4Nbws-96-7pB9dGel9spJy14ZdPog7ozjRYtKLdNufUhWhbfXMZZGjFk4qxiVBP0rgeytFt54ELV6FjMuw4UnKKuupcZr3dwi4JqsuhohYIaSdHXuKzpXVatWRwIpVbAoKCdc8Xm7/s200/polleverywhere.png" width="200" /> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/">Poll Everywhere</a> is a another free-web based polling service that allows a teacher to gather live responses from an audience via their mobile device or desktop computer. Students access the question via a direct link to the poll and can respond to a single multiple choice question created by the teacher. There are two features that set this tool apart from Mentimeter.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. When you create an account, all of your polls are saved and can be used again.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Teachers have the option to ask an open ended question that the students can respond to in a free text format.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisET_Kjxu0WjlOmZdy7VluudyvXMpkDlnnouEBIAlXjY3hhKQ2VQMyZra0KKSONrB-FadM3vBW0gOCgH0AyLYXOlESUIoxHRbibYIro6LcclWE0STG2uYnM15bXR5TrembzEcALOwrbw2C/s1600/socrative.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="101" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisET_Kjxu0WjlOmZdy7VluudyvXMpkDlnnouEBIAlXjY3hhKQ2VQMyZra0KKSONrB-FadM3vBW0gOCgH0AyLYXOlESUIoxHRbibYIro6LcclWE0STG2uYnM15bXR5TrembzEcALOwrbw2C/s200/socrative.png" width="200" /></a> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.socrative.com/">Socrative</a> is my favorite of the three listed here. <a href="http://www.socrative.com/">Socrative</a> is also a web-based tool that allows the teachers to collect response from their students. However, there are several great features that set this tool apart from the others.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. An entire multiple choice tets can be created and saved within the application or upload using their .xls template. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Questions can be graded and results can be sent back to the teacher via email or downloaded as an .xls file. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. It's also a free iPad, iPhone, and iPod app. There is an app available for the teacher and an app for the student. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Very simple to use.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Currently, <a href="http://socrative/">Socrative</a> is in beta and is free. However, with the easy to use and needed features, this will not be free for long. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-67646544322713213332012-02-13T20:52:00.000-06:002012-02-13T20:52:31.417-06:00MentimeterIf you are looking for a simple web-based tool that can make your lessons or presentations more interactive, then <a href="http://www.mentimeter.com/">Mentimeter</a> is a good solution for you. <a href="http://www.mentimeter.com/">Mentimeter</a> is a tool that allows you create a simple one question poll that your audience members can respond to via their mobile device. As long as their device can access the web, they are ready to respond! Just provide your audience the Poll URL or Vote ID and send them on their way. Give it a try for yourself.<br />
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Go to <a href="http://m.mentimeter.com/">m.mentimeter.com</a> and type in 71756<br />
Or go to <a href="http://vot.rs/71756">http://vot.rs/71756</a><br />
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Now watch the results below populate instantly!<br />
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Mentimeter is free and there is no log in or registration required. Your poll is saved forever and you can go back an edit it at any time as long as you keep the administrator URL that is provided once you create your poll. Results can also be embedded into your blog or wiki or shared via Twitter or email.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://mentimeter.com/public/1f84b9d5cd9b" width="420"></iframe>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-71385679629331879332012-02-10T09:34:00.002-06:002012-02-10T11:29:10.950-06:00iPad Initiative - In the ClassroomWell the day has finally arrived! The iPads are in the classroom at Lucas Crossing Elementary. I think i was just as excited as the kids! Here is a glimpse into the first day!<br />
Day 1 <br />
Ms Camp's 2nd and 3rd grade class had a day of exploration and reading. Students had a chance to do a little clicking and a little swiping. Many of the students had never used an iPad prior to this. They treated them with extreme care! Students were also introduced to reading their favorite books online.<br />
More pics and details to come!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJcrpCiL0DmziMC2mpOcqtrh7IRhF6BTaQRHzHg25yySNpGFPvMXGN2Cn32jadGUDgQUJ0R813VwQLJd1PFsOWq9HBSCfFhkw8C8AZmLqWMRGBaRf1PXNzyoma8Y2vXfW4WIYkwDLhDnIW/s640/blogger-image--1592783424.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJcrpCiL0DmziMC2mpOcqtrh7IRhF6BTaQRHzHg25yySNpGFPvMXGN2Cn32jadGUDgQUJ0R813VwQLJd1PFsOWq9HBSCfFhkw8C8AZmLqWMRGBaRf1PXNzyoma8Y2vXfW4WIYkwDLhDnIW/s320/blogger-image--1592783424.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9QLga5vz2TvZljRNbJLo6SAoihvN6J5nflb-ljzVmGyFhcEdxQLSUnckYL3XSNEdK6hrbg3KVpHteNKU88Htj35J_N6JSMgRPCzedPFvlK8aDz2awbTMRCx_XvckaVMYnkVZ5p_4vR6_/s640/blogger-image--632050997.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9QLga5vz2TvZljRNbJLo6SAoihvN6J5nflb-ljzVmGyFhcEdxQLSUnckYL3XSNEdK6hrbg3KVpHteNKU88Htj35J_N6JSMgRPCzedPFvlK8aDz2awbTMRCx_XvckaVMYnkVZ5p_4vR6_/s320/blogger-image--632050997.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQDxyO_TgRUAZJn6feNzmHToZuwKHMdnop56JE51KJiWEoTasg3xlFXzkP62WyMzof9V20yZnnURp1xIq2Cp-hoI3InmIftm-vwa_XAHRx7_tfbPA93-7dqmwSPaKqPtJ6C4nIMoFWbYM/s640/blogger-image-249018939.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcQDxyO_TgRUAZJn6feNzmHToZuwKHMdnop56JE51KJiWEoTasg3xlFXzkP62WyMzof9V20yZnnURp1xIq2Cp-hoI3InmIftm-vwa_XAHRx7_tfbPA93-7dqmwSPaKqPtJ6C4nIMoFWbYM/s320/blogger-image-249018939.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-9956759086914287972012-02-03T09:33:00.002-06:002012-02-03T09:36:43.223-06:00iPad Initiative - Volume Purchase Program<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8mW7XlJNVIQn9OmdRiiG7Vr-v2ARxK4u4u_a2OnGPentqW7f8RcOdvUkjsiDmlM4wtuwMiSg5LR18_LH5bUmetvEUkVbtCAvy_CzO1ldRbBVg0F60vR81LbotfVKRSK5AzleChb2Roud/s640/blogger-image--383296453.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8mW7XlJNVIQn9OmdRiiG7Vr-v2ARxK4u4u_a2OnGPentqW7f8RcOdvUkjsiDmlM4wtuwMiSg5LR18_LH5bUmetvEUkVbtCAvy_CzO1ldRbBVg0F60vR81LbotfVKRSK5AzleChb2Roud/s200/blogger-image--383296453.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apple IDs. Check. </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sync cart. Check.</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">30 iPads connected. Check.</span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Synced free apps. Check. </span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now lets spend some district money!</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Apple App Volume Purchase Plan</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To maximize our small budget we decided to go with Apple's Volume Purchase Plan. Many of the apps in Apple's VPP are sold at a discount. The more you purchase, the more you save. Many apps are up to 50% off! I would love to say that we went in this direction because it was the easier process. However, it's actually a little more involved than just going into the App Store to download and sync. Well, the initial set up is. Here's the low down.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Program Manager</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To enroll in the program, I had to identify someone as the VPP (Volume Purchase Plan) Manager. This needed to be someone who would will set up the VPP account for the campus or the district. This person would also submit purchase orders for VPP vouchers. More on the vouchers a little further down. In the end, I decided to take on this role. My goal is to extend our iPad program, if we see positive results, to other campus. With my position as the district technology coach, I felt this was a good idea.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Program Facilitator</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next step was for me, the Program Manager, was to identify a VPP Facilitator. This person would be the one who does all the app purchasing with the VPP vouchers. Everyone I spoke with does this a little different. Some PM designate a person on the campus, others designate someone in the district office. After talking with our team, I was nominated. Lucky me. Once I workout any kinks in the process, this will be moved back down to the campus level.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>How it works</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the Volume Purchase Plan, the Program Manager will submit a purchase order to buy a certain dollar amount of Apple VPP Vouchers. These can be purchased in $100 dollar increments. Once they are purchased, these vouchers will be mailed out to the PM in 3-5 business days. The PM then sends those vouchers to the Program Facilitator. The PF will then go to the VPP portal (different from iTunes) to redeem the vouchers and purchase the apps in various quantities. App specific download codes</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">will then be emailed to the PF to begin downloading the purchased apps to the devices. The downloads can be done by the PF, the teacher or the students. It all depends on how you are managing your devices. With our situation, the teachers will be performing all the downloads and syncing. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's the Volume Purchase Plan in a nutshell. </span>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-67091618211860634392012-01-31T09:02:00.001-06:002012-01-31T10:39:16.026-06:00iPad Initiative - Setting Up Apple IDs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lCoxHuUi6MAXehc3yRGHljrnL0c-vQK_6EbvJKAE4-Q6fCKfbGXR8Gd5ec6fg_bQMpNl_dNY4WnalF7ctHQKQy_CdezyQvYKhwV-ViIsPkysWDtKzSQ4v5r2GAVE0ptTj8gDuLBrUiI0/s1600/photo-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lCoxHuUi6MAXehc3yRGHljrnL0c-vQK_6EbvJKAE4-Q6fCKfbGXR8Gd5ec6fg_bQMpNl_dNY4WnalF7ctHQKQy_CdezyQvYKhwV-ViIsPkysWDtKzSQ4v5r2GAVE0ptTj8gDuLBrUiI0/s320/photo-11.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next step in our iPad initiative was to figure out how to create Apple IDs for our end users (teachers and students). How should we do this? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We considered the following:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Do we allow teachers to use their own Apple IDs when they set up their iPads?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Will the district reimburse a teacher for buying apps for the classroom using their own credit card?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. What if the district purchases apps? Who keeps the apps?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. What if a teacher changes classrooms / campuses or leaves the district?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. Students do not have district emails so how am I going to set up their Apple ID?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. Will each device need an Apple ID?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. Do students need an Apple ID?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my head, this list went on and on. After consulting with our team, the technology department, various Apple reps and of course, Twitter, we decided to go with generic emails for teachers to help set up generic Apple IDs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Teacher IDs</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our technology department though it would be best to use generic teacher emails so that it could be passed on to another teacher should a teacher leave the district. This had to be done in Active Directory as well. If you'd like more info on how that was done, let me know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The emails looked something like this</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iteacher61@normandysd.org</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to the teacher, we also have a Instructional Technology Specialist who will support the campus teachers. We provided that individual an iPad and created them an Apple ID as well. </span></div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The "6" was the grade level and the "1" stood for the first teacher in the grade level. The teacher will then set up their iPad with that email as their Apple ID. If a teacher leaves the district, then the new 6th grade teacher would step into their place and iPad and Apple ID could easily be passed on. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Student IDs</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We determined that students would not need IDs. We would instead create an Apple ID for the iTunes account that would be shared across the 30 devices. So this eliminated the need for individual IDs on each device. I spoke with an Apple rep and he said this was acceptable under the Apple Volume Purchase Plan. We would still be required to purchase 30 Pages apps, for example. More on how we are doing that a little later. Our technology department created another generic email for the iTunes account. Due to the fact that we were using a Bretford sync cart (with the hopes of adding more carts / iPads) we used an email similar to this</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ipadcart1@normandysd.org</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok, now that we have the Apple IDs in order, I'm moving on to setting up the Volume Purchase Plan. But that's another post. </span></div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-5455518541165694412012-01-24T09:56:00.089-06:002012-01-27T08:44:34.123-06:00iPad Initiative - Now What?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklyBdOWCmRBPlXPMjj2qWYuk8tNSZi5i2Afpww5mCxZ5KeGPcyyqFBo8SklMDbPklJJrEejWqrlw6MRkV2hsALwXDFcSoHn-_TZE4nfl1cEju7tvrbPyAPveT34PIs51iP-AOJsfPihqM/s1600/ipads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiklyBdOWCmRBPlXPMjj2qWYuk8tNSZi5i2Afpww5mCxZ5KeGPcyyqFBo8SklMDbPklJJrEejWqrlw6MRkV2hsALwXDFcSoHn-_TZE4nfl1cEju7tvrbPyAPveT34PIs51iP-AOJsfPihqM/s200/ipads.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our Bretford Sync Cart and 36 iPad 2 devices are in! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now what? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was now the question I was faced with. In the beginning it all sounded so easy and fun. We'll give kids these iPads and they'll use them and it will all be so wonderful. Well, someone needs to determine how we are going to manage these little puppies. That someone was going to be me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After watching a few lengthy webinars, tweeting with various colleagues, reading most of<a href="http://learninginhand.com/"> Tony Vincent's website</a> and talking to various Apple reps, I have my strategy. Build the plane while flying it!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will enroll in <a href="http://www.apple.com/education/volume-purchase-program/">Apple's Volume Purchase Program</a>. This will allow us to purchase our apps in volume and distribute them out to the devices. One of the best perks of the program is that many of the apps are 50% off! </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tony Vincent does a great job of explaining the Apple Volume Purchase Program </span><a href="http://learninginhand.com/blog/app-store-volume-purchase-program-explained.html" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">here</a><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. It seems like a very complicated process. I'm not looking forward to this. However, we are only working with 30 iPads so it will be a good way to test this process out. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All 30 iPads will be placed on a Bretford PowerSync cart to charge and sync all of the devices. The cart did come assembled. This was a relief. On the cart we will have one PC, with iTunes, that is dedicated to the cart. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All iPads came engraved with PROPERTY OF NORMANDY SCHOOL DISTRICT to help with </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">identifying</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> them should they end up lost or stolen. We also plan to use the Find My iPad app to assist in locating any device. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first step will be to work with our technology department to create generic email addresses to set up Apple IDs for teachers and students. This may require working with our Active Directory. I want to keep the emails generic so that if a teacher leaves the district the Apple ID and any apps purchased with district funds will stay with the district. I'll keep you posted. </span>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-75402745147563427242012-01-04T06:55:00.002-06:002012-01-26T10:04:37.432-06:00iPad Initiative - The Low Down<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In December 2011 the Normandy School District was awarded the I<a href="http://www.enhancinglearning.org/">nnovative Technology Education Fund</a> <a href="http://www.enhancinglearning.org/2011Grants.html">Fall Grant</a>. The purpose of submitting the grant was to improve student achievement in literacy skills though the use of mobile devices. In addition to that we wanted to increase teacher effectiveness in technology integration. Four teachers and two technology specialists from Lucas Crossing Elementary are involved in this initiative and I am extremely excited to be a part of this project. This initiative impacts approximately 80 students (grades 2, 3 and 5)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the help of the <a href="http://www.enhancinglearning.org/2011Grants.html">ITEF Fall Grant</a> and district funds we were able to purchase the following. </span><br />
<ul><li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">36 16G Apple iPad2 devices</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 Bretford PowerSync Cart</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Various iPad apps</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">40 hours of professional development through the Cooperating School District</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 day registration to the Midwest Educational Technology Conference for each teacher</span></li>
</ul><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are definitely going to be building this plane while we are flying it! More to come!</span></div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-60105532459335899392011-03-31T10:16:00.005-05:002011-03-31T10:28:42.972-05:00Poll Everywhere Demo Results<script language="javascript" src="http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/LTE5NDk1NTUzMDE/web.js?height=350&results_count_format=percent&width=500" type="text/javascript">
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<div style="font-size: 0.75em;">Create your own <a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/">sms poll</a> at <a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/">Poll Everywhere</a></div><br />
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<div style="font-size: 0.75em;">Get a free <a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/sms-classroom-response-system">sms student response system</a> at <a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/">Poll Everywhere</a></div><br />
<div style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> OR got to <b><a href="http://poll4.com/"><span style="color: cyan;">http://poll4.com</span></a> </b>and give your response!<b><br />
</b></span></div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-57248595529227430382011-02-22T08:23:00.002-06:002011-02-22T08:53:43.941-06:00METC 2011 Rocked!<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I wanted to put out a quick post. I had my first iPad/iPhone/Android Digital Band Jam last week at <a href="http://metcconference.org/moodle2011/">METC 2011</a> (The Midwest Education Technology Conference). I have to say it was pretty sweet getting to jam with some of the METC presenters! There's nothing like geeking out and jamming with bloggers I follow! Kevin Honeycutt on guitar, Rushton Hurley on iPhone and Tammy Worcester on Galaxy Tablet. Be sure to follow them on Twitter. Enjoy. <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/kevinhoneycutt">@kevinhoneycutt</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/rushtonh">@rushtonh</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/tammyworcester"><span class="screen-name screen-name-tammyworcester pill">@tammyworcester</span></a></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Go easy. This was our first gig! Hopefully we can get the band back together. That's me with the ipad! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyMffB4_6gLBV3LnaFGGkPgZkzkqO3ahE4-lCUVJNVImagrRCb1BbKRLOfi3OOo_nrQ5GvXtD_hI_oBIjTkLg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-18245997252191149832011-02-14T10:53:00.005-06:002011-02-14T11:00:57.934-06:00What Going On At METC2011 Wiffiti Style!<div style="text-align: center;"><object data="http://flash.locamoda.com/wiffiti.com/cloud/cataclysm.swf?id=51970&title=1" height="300" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300"><param name="movie" value="http://flash.locamoda.com/wiffiti.com/cloud/cataclysm.swf?id=51970&title=1"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></object></div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-70059706463375235162011-01-18T20:18:00.002-06:002011-01-19T08:05:28.038-06:00Virtual Field Trip With Microsoft's Photosynth<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b style="color: blue;">What is it: </b><a href="http://photosynth.net/default.aspx">Microsoft's Photosynth</a> takes photos, mashes them up and creates a 3D scene out of them! Photosynth allows you to pan in and out of several two dimensional images, stitched together and create a three dimensional experience. This <a href="http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=dcb097b8-5e68-45b7-a7ab-7928e371c218">one</a> allows you to <a href="http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=dcb097b8-5e68-45b7-a7ab-7928e371c218">"walk around"</a> a statue of <a href="http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=dcb097b8-5e68-45b7-a7ab-7928e371c218">Anne Frank</a>.</div><div style="color: blue; font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: blue;">How to integrate it:</span></b> With <a href="http://photosynth.net/default.aspx">MS Photosynth</a>, you have the ability to create a virtual field trip for your students. Need to take your students to Philadelphia but you live in Austin? No problem. You could always just whip out a photo of Independence Hall that you found on Google, put it up on your IWB and viola! Instant field trip, right? BORING. With Photosynth, you can take a "walk" in and around the building that our forefathers once set foot in. Take a look a the example below.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If you DO have the opportunity to take students on a field trip, have each student take pictures of the trip and upload them to Photosynth to create a collaborative interactive presentation. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="175" src="http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=e316bcf8-9778-459a-8fd6-431c0c7b62f8&delayLoad=true&slideShowPlaying=false" width="300"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="175" src="http://photosynth.net/embed.aspx?cid=b4ea82e9-eebd-45fe-b11b-1f29fd6bb1a3&delayLoad=true&slideShowPlaying=false" width="300"></iframe></div></div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961666143555882801.post-56858960945268009642011-01-02T07:26:00.001-06:002011-01-02T07:27:31.358-06:00History For Music Lovers<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">There are teachers who go above and beyond to ensure that their students are hooked on a lesson and then there is <a href="http://globaleducation.ning.com/profile/AmyBurvall">Amy Burvall</a>, from the Le Jardin Academy in Kailua, Oahu, and her creative partner, Herb Mahelona. </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The two decided to make history fun and exciting by using popular music that they and their students were listening to. So they changed a few of the lyrics, created their own music videos and posted them to YouTube. Want to learn about the French Revolution? "Lady Gaga" can tell you all about it. Does the Black Death sound grim and morbid? Not when "Gwen Stefani" sings it! </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: center;"><object style="height: 300px; width: 500px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wXsZbkt0yqo?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wXsZbkt0yqo?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="500" height="300"></object></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I've got to give it to Burvall. She puts herself out there by getting in front of the camera and singing all of the songs. But it sounds and looks great. Her students must get excited when she is about to introduce the next unit on Cleopatra as "Fergie"!</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Here's a link to a recent story in the <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/arts-education/learning-the-french-revolution.html">Washington Post</a> and a link to their <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/historyteachers">YouTube Channel</a>.</div>Manuel S. Herrerahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05281202350701328204noreply@blogger.com0