Technology for Teachers

If you could tell/ask your Principal (or building leader) one thing about technology, what would it be? Please use the comments option below to post your thoughts.

Our school year has yet to start (with students) so in my role as a Dean of Students I’ve yet to fully implement my iPhone in that role.  As far as my role as Activities Director (also known as Athletic Director) I’ve begun to use a handful of apps to increase my productivity.  One of the main group of items is from Google as I use Google Docs, gMail, picasasa, Google Calendar, etc.  I recently added an app called MiGhtyDocs which lets me access my Google Docs quicker.  I have a doc set with all of the officials and game workers still needed so as people call back I can quicky pull up an up to date list (the Google Doc also lets me make it viewable to people as a webpage).  I still use Evernote off and on.  I’ve also recently added WhitePages which works pretty slick as an iPhone phone book.  I also have the WordPress App installed but I’m waiting for our seasons to get in full swing to see if I use it to post mobily to wordpress blogs for our Activities Department.  I added Adventure to see what the pre-k style apps are starting to look like, a bit too simple for my daughter though.  So all in all I’m increasing my productivity through the use of this phone.  I’ve been able to import all of the contacts from around our state that are using the same program for their Activities Departments and I await a list of all the ADs in our state.  Pretty sweet phone.

• Google iPhone Apps: http://www.google.com/mobile/apple/
• MiGhtyDocs: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10012949-2.html
• WordPress: http://iphone.wordpress.org/
• EverNote: http://evernote.com/about/download/iphone/
  
• WhitePages: http://www.whitepages.com/
• Preschool Adventure: http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/08/18/review-preschool-adventure-for-iphone

Here are a few more (with their iTunes link, clicking on the link will attempt to open it in iTunes for you to subscribe):

• NAASP, National Association of Secondary School Principals
• National Middle School Association
• Voice of MN Education

Podcasts you’d have to download and add:

• TASA Midwinter Conference

Sites to look around:

• http://www.speedofcreativity.org
• http://leadertalk.org/
• http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/

Thought I’d pass along some ideas that I’m using with my iPhone.  If it doesn’t  pertain to you feel free to ignore this…. 

I’m adding podcasts to my phone that are related to ed leadership, not to surprising but I’m not finding many podcasts that solely fit this need… so I’m finding and subscribing to podcasts but I’ve changed the iTunes settings to look for updates but not to download them….  this way I can select the episodes I want, I used to just download everything and put it on my iPod (a little bit pickier with less space on the iPhone, I should have done this anyway).

If you don’t have any podcasts yet you can start with one by Wes Fryer to find a few good items.

First of all to add "Podcasts" open iTunes and click the "Podcast" button in the left hand column:

This will bring you to your library of podcasts, if it’s your first time it will ask you to go to the iTunes Podcast Directory.  If it doesn’t ask you to go to the iTunes store, look in the lower right hand corner and click on "Podcast Directory".

This will bring you to the iTunes store where you can search for podcasts and subscribe to them (podcasts are free).  Once you find one of interest click the "Subscribe" button.   I searched in the upper right for "Wes Fryer".

(if not reinforcement, here’s some repetition)  I’ve changed the settings in my iTunes installation to only make note of new episodes but not to download them.  This is mainly because there are not many podcasts soley dedicated to educational leadership.  This way I can pick what my computer downloads, kind of like only picking up the issues of the paper you want instead of getting every one that’s printed.

Here’s how I changed my settings to do this (on a PC you’ll start from either the FILE or EDIT menu but I can’t remember, you should probably just buy a Mac!!!).

Go to the iTunes prefererences (under FILE or EDIT for PC users):

Click the "Podcasts" tab:

Change your settings to reflect this:

Then in my podcast library I manually select the ones I want to "Get".  So I see all the episodes, but I have to manually "get" them.

I hope this helps other out there!

Sincerely,

Sean M. Martinson
Dean of Students & Activities Director – Deer River High School

M.S. Educational Leadership
Licensed K-12 Principal

smartinson@deerriver.k12.mn.us
(218) 259-3129

www.isd317.org

Just added the wordpress app to the iPhone. Slow typing, but we’re mobile!

Picture is from the dentist’s office. Nasty, but an example of mobile pic.

So my iPhone is here.  So far I’m using www.EverNote.com and its plugin and I’ve been keeping busy using it for notes and work in both my Activities Director and Dean of Students positions.  The image at right is of my evernote page with the contained notebooks.

My daughter also finds the camera of measureable interest.  She had quite a bit of fun while watching me at the dentist.  The picture below was taken with the camera and then sent as a saved photo to evernote.

I’ve also been able to add the following sites to the phone for on-the-go use:  our district/school website, activities websites (including admin sections), student information system login, and email.  I’m still looking for the push client for our email system but using gMail to pull it all right now.

Day two with the phone and it’s already coming in quite handy!

(I should preface that I’m the Dean of Students and Activities Director at a rural school district in northern Minnesota and am due to receive an iPhone this coming week)

First of all I’m going to sync my iPhone to my laptop as it’s what I’ll have at work.  Hope that works okay but I can’t see any issues yet…

This list also doesn’t incorporate all of the contacts that I’ll load (school, AD, etc.).

Okay so what have I added so far to iTunes or noted for future addition even before I have the iPhone:

• Infinite Campus
  • Our Student Information System, I have to add the URL for the mobile interface.
• First Class
  • Our email system, until push is working have to do the mobile interface as well.
• Athletic Scheduler
  • Our activies scheduling software, also Facilities when it’s running.
• MSHSL
  • A link to our State High School League Website.
• District Site
  • Of course, our site.
• FaceBook
  • I use this to communicate with friends, educators, students, and other school community members.  I welcome any discussions this brings about.  I have only one version (no private areas) for my account.  Again love to hear the discussion begin about educators and administrators using FaceBook (yes I’ve had students contact me through FaceBook, some during school apparently).
•  Twitterific
  • I use this in communication/collaboration with other educators at www.Twitter.com/smartinson, I hope this app will improve my use of a great collaborative tool.
• WordPress???
  • I see an App for TypePad, probably only a matter of time before I can access a plugin to allow me to add content here as well.  Sorry TypePad, I like having control of my entire account.
•  An EDUCATION Category?  Sweet.
  • Yes a category started for education, so I’m not the only one who can see the iPhone grabbing hold in education?  Although I appear too cheap to spend any $ yet.  May change once I have the actual phone…
•  Games?
  • Okay, how old am I, not putting any games on it.  This is a productivity tool (for me anyway).
•  StarMap
  • OMG (oh my gosh!), scratch earlier… guess I’m not too cheap..  "A complete hand planetarium for beginers and advanced astronomers."  I am so in, I’ll drop the $12 on that one.  I’ll wait to see but this looks like a sweet app to turn students on to science.
• EverNote
  • Another OMG, an external brain, who couldn’t use that!  Had to sign up for their services as well.  I’m interested to see how the snapshots and their online service truly connect.  Now I need to learn how to use the site.  http://www.evernote.com
    
•  Picasa?
  • No app for Google’s Picasa, yet.
• WeatherBug
  • This should help me avoid the shorts on 30 degree days and the pants and long sleeve on 80 degree days.  If you lived up here you’d know what I mean, come on, can’t we just look out the window any more?
• Spanish English Dictionary
  • Okay I didn’t buy it but how many Spanish students with non-tech aware teachers just made a hey day?
• NY Times
  • I was thinking of getting a Kindle, maybe this app will knock out the need for that…
•  Health/Fitness
  • Plenty of apps but it’s getting late….  I use www.gyminee.com and they are supposed to run with an iPhone, we’ll see.
• Utilities
  • Still have to look through these, time for bed..

NOW IF ONLY I COULD GO WITHOUT SLEEP.

ps.  It’s been so long since I’ve used WordPress (the software running this blog) that I’m blown away by the changes/updates.  PS.  I use Bluehost for my sites and many school sites…. bluehost.com, not .org!

MP3 (Audio Podcast) File of this Posting

Yesterday, after a workshop that I’d attended, I had a list of books to order.  Well, the list totaled up to a bit more than I wanted to spend at the moment.  The books were in regard to educational leadership and it got me to thinking…. boy it’d be nice if I could list all the books I have (leadership specific) online for other educators  to borrow and in turn for them to list and share theirs with me.

I knew off hand that a few people I knew probably had the book that I was looking for…..  this in turn got me thinking about social networking and the possibility of there being a site that could do exactly this.  I really didn’t feel like digging through the billions of pages on the internet to look for this type of site, especially since I had no idea as to what exactly I was looking for.  So i hopped on to twitter (another social networking site) and asked my list of followers if they had any ideas, here’s  picture of that original question:

within minutes I had a response pointing me to a site called "Shelfari".

Right off the bat, the nice thing is that Krisitin (khokanson) saved me the time and effort needed to find and preview this site.  So far, with Shelfari, I’ve been able to create an online "bookshelf" that lists the books that I’ve read, I’m reading, I plan to read, I own, my wishlist, and my favorites.

Also, in the time that it would have taken me to locate this type of site, I’ve been able to create a group as well.  The group I created is called "K12 Administrators".  Time will tell how well this site will work but all indicators point to it being able to do exactly what I was looking for…. and that is provide an online place where a K12 Administrator could discuss and share professional resources.  If you have time I encourage you to check it out.   You can access my bookshelf and groups at the following page: http://www.shelfari.com/smartinson

Here’s my wish list:

A couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to present information to area Principals about the possible uses of cell phones in the classroom.  This presentation was requested as many area schools are either banning or looking to ban the use of cell phones and other handheld technologies by students.  Having been a student when bans on TI-82 calculators were being enforced and now as an educator where they are a mainstream tool used daily in Math classrooms across my region I can’t help but enjoy the ongoing discourse in education in regards to new technological tools.

I think I’ll put in my 2 cents and leave the rest for further information.  I don’t believe that this banning movement is anything new, the cell phone (iPods, MP3 players, etc.) are simply the latest tools that we as educators are failing to embrace, failing to see the educational implications for their uses, and are thus failing to educate our students in the ethical uses of these tools for life long learning.  If we are going to ban said items let’s be honest with each other when we say, these are temporary bans and we are banning them because we as educators are failing to educate our students in the proper uses of these tools.  In turn, when we’ve figured out how to use them we’ll lift the ban….. that’s a lot easier for me to stomach than placing the blame on the shoulders of our students who are simply doing the same thing that kids have been doing for generations… and that’s simply figuring it out before the adults.

Links to further information (this information is referenced from Joseph Miller, Darren Draper, and a variety of others):

• A video of Karl Fisch’s "What If?" slideshow that I previously posted.
• Liz Kolb’s K12 Online Conference Session that I referenced for our area Principals.
  • iPod ready presentation
  • Cell Phones in Learning Website.
• Tony Vincent (who I originally heard about years back with his work with handheld devices and student podcasting)
  • Mobile Web
  • Learning in Hand
• A video I found through Twitter shared by Alec Courosa
  • "The Essay"
• An article from Mark Prensky entitled: What Can You Learn From a Cell Phone? – Almost Anything! (PDF)
  • This article was published in Innovate!
• Jeff VanDrimmelen’s 8 Ways to use Camera Phones in Education
• Pay Attention movie from T4 Jordan School District
• Ellen D. Wagner’s Enabling Mobile Learning (PDF)
  • This article was published in Educause.