I worked up a little flowchart in Pages on my iPad to help you make your
decision on whether you should buy one. This post and the graphic were
totally created on my iPad.
[
][]
Author: ryan
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Flowchart: Should you buy an iPad?
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iPad initial impressions
There are enough other reviews on the web about the iPad, so I’m going
to focus on my experiences and how I’ve begun to use the iPad in my home
life and how it may be used in education.The purchase
I reserved my ipad the day they opened reservations on line so I would
be guaranteed to pick one up on April 3rd. I didn’t trust Saturday
delivery, so I headed to Columbus to the Easton Apple Store to stand in
the “privileged line”, the one which had the others who had also
reserved their iPad. When we arrived at 7:30am, there were approximately
40 people in the reserved line and about twice that many in the
“unreserved” line, those that were hoping to still pick one up.Anyway, I bought mine and while my brother and sister played with iPads
in the store, I pulled out my Macbook and setup my iPad. Some reviews
talk about the iPad ready for use right out of the box, but mine popped
up the “connect to iTunes” symbol. The initial sync didn’t take long,
but I really wasn’t syncing up too much.Initial Impressions
Fast! It is probably the fastest browsing experience that I’ve ever
experienced. For the first time it was the speed of the network and not
the hardware slowing me down. The onscreen keyboard isn’t that bad, I’m
typing this article on it, but it does take some getting used to. The
biggest problem is keeping your fingers up off the glass so it doesn’t
register additional “key” presses. The other issue is that it is
practically impossible to type without looking at the keyboard, so if
you are typing in information that is on paper, it will be a lot slower.
Im debating whether to buy the bluetooth keyboard. I paired it with my
old Think Outside keyboard, which was a piece of cake, but that keyboard
is getting old and the k and l keys do not work the best. I also bought
the Apple case for it, which helps put the iPad at a good angle to use
or type on.Longer term impressions
There are more situations where a tablet can be used than a laptop, and
the additional screen space makes the iPad a lot more useful than the
iPod Touch. For example, at a meeting I can have the iPad in my lap or
on the table. Where the iPad shines is when I want to show others
information or something on the screen. I can just hold up the iPad or
hand it to them without the awkwardness one would experience with a
laptop. Maybe it’s just the websites I visit, but lack of Flash has not
really been an issue. A lot of the video sites already support HTML 5,
which works flawlessly on the iPad.I’ve been impressed with the number of iPad ready apps already in the
app store. Some of my favorite apps, such as Evernote, WordPress, and
iSSH are already available.Educational implications
That being said about Flash above, students would notice the inability
to use some of there favorite sites. Sites such as Starfall, which would
be amazing on the iPad, fail from lack of Flash. The availability of
Pages and Keynote bring some productivity to the iPad, but the clumsy
method of using iTunes to transfer files would hinder their use in the
classroom.Closing thoughts
I’m going to be posting more as I work with the device longer. I’m
excited to use it to teach a lesson in a kindergarten class to see how
well it will work as a teacher device. Some accessories will probably
end of purchasing include the camera connection kit and the Bluetooth
keyboard. The big unanswered question is “who is the iPad for?”, and,
unfortunately I can’t answer that yet. -
The iPad has landed
Braving almost 70? weather I arrived at the Easton Apple store at 7:40
am to pick up my reserved 32gb iPad. I’ll have a longer review later,
but I’m currently typing this blog post while using the WordPress app
and sitting in Cos?.So far, So cool.
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Ping.fm bookmarklet for multiple Ping.fm accounts
Since Ping.fm doesn’t allow you to add multiple Twitter
accounts to one Ping.fm account, I’ve resorted to have two accounts with
them, one for my personal accounts (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) and one
for my professional accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). To
update my status for either Ping.fm account I use the special email
addresses they offer and my email client.My problem was when I wanted to post the current page I’m reading to
either account. Ping.fm offers a bookmarklet, but it uses the current
logged in ping.fm account, so I would have to continually log in and log
out. I decided to put together my own bookmarklet that starts up a new
mail message in my default email client addressed to the correct Ping.fm
account. To get started, drag the following link to your bookmark bar:Once there, right click on the link, select edit and replace
YOURPRIVATEPINGADDRESS with your private Ping.fm email address (just
the part to the left of the @). Would you like to do it with GMail? Drag
this link:And once again, right click on the link, select edit, and replace
YOURPRIVATEPINGADDRESS with your private Ping.fm email address.You can drag the links multiple times, editing the email address and the
name of the link so you can associate each one with a different Ping.fm
account. -
Google Teacher Academy for Administrators Video
I’ve applied to attend the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators,
and as part of the submission process I was required to complete a video
entitled “Innovative Leadership in the Age of Google”. I decided to list
what words inspire me as an educational leader and arrange them with
pictures and music. -
OS X Widget to show machine name
[
][]I use Apple Remote Desktop or a KVM
(Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switcher to administer several OS X servers and
machines. When you’re working on machines in this way you can sometimes
get confused on which machine you’re currently controlling. If you’re
lucky you won’t do anything stupid, but there have been times when I’ve
shutdown/restarted a server that I didn’t mean too!Over Christmas break I wrote a little OS X widget call Show Name. All it
does is show the name of the current machine. To start using it you just
install the widget onto your Dashboard. Once there, it will show you the
hostname of the machine you are currently using.Where things get interesting is when you drag it off of the Dashboard
and put it on your Desktop. This way you can alway see what machine
you’re on. To drag widgets off of the Dashboard, you need to turn on the
widget developer mode. On the Show Name widget, you can click the little
“i” in the bottom right and check the box to turn it on. As soon as you
click Done it will restart the Dock, so the Dashboard and the Dock will
disappear for a second. To drag the Show Name widget (or any widget for
that matter) out of the Dashboard and onto the Desktop, click on the
widget and start dragging. Don’t let go of the button and close the
Dashboard. The widget you are dragging will stay with your mouse
pointer, and you can drop it anywhere on your Desktop. To put the widget
back in the Dashboard, start dragging it, open the Dashboard, and stop
dragging it. It will now re-attach itself to the Dashboard.I use Apple Remote Desktop or a KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switcher to
administer several OS X servers and machines. When you’re working on
machines in this way you can sometimes get confused on which machine
you’re currently controlling. If you’re lucky you won’t do anything
stupid, but there have been times when I’ve shutdown/restarted a server
that I didn’t mean too!Over Christmas break I wrote a little OS X widget call Show Name.
All it does is show the name of the current machine. To start using it
you just install the widget onto your Dashboard. Once there, it will
show you the hostname of the machine you are currently using on the
Dashboard.Where things get interesting is when you drag it off of the Dashboard
and put it on your Desktop. This way you can alway see what machine
you’re on. To drag widgets off of the Dashboard, you need to turn on
widget developer mode. On the Show Name widget, you can click the little
“i” in the bottom right and check the box to turn it on. As soon as you
click Done it will restart the Dock, so the Dashboard and the Dock will
disappear for a second. To drag the Show Name widget (or any widget for
that matter) out of the Dashboard and onto the Desktop, click on the
widget and start dragging. Don’t let go of the button and close the
Dashboard. The widget you are dragging will stay with your mouse
pointer, and you can drop it anywhere on your Desktop. To put the widget
back in the Dashboard, start dragging it, open the Dashboard, and stop
dragging it. It will now re-attach itself to the Dashboard.[Grab the widget here][Show Name].[
]: https://ryancollins.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-15-at-12.40.41-PM.jpg -
Following lots of people on Twitter? You need ReadTwit
[![10th November 314/365][]][]
[![Creative Commons License][]][] [photo][] credit:
[fifikins][]A couple of months ago I decided to expand my use of Twitter, and began
following more and more people in the education community. This was
awesome, until I realized I could not keep up with the barrage of data
that I was being given. In November I started brainstorming ideas on how
to keep up. I noticed in any of my twitter clients that they were not
grabbing all the tweets that had been posted from the last time I
checked. The reason being is the API only gives you the last 200 tweets,
and for me that was about 40 minutes worth.My first course of action was to write some software that would grab the
tweets from my [@mr_rcollins][] timeline, parse the info and store it
in a MySQL database. Besides pulling out the data I was interested in of
each tweet, I also stored the complete tweet. This became impractical,
since in a month the complete tweets themselves occupied 4.2GB! I
stopped storing the complete tweets which left me with a 20MB database
after a 5 weeks of collecting, which was a lot more manageable.The next step was to start parsing the tweet’s text for urls, resolve
any shortened urls, and dump them into another table for me to peruse.
While I got that software working, I came across ReadTwit.com. This
is a great service that will take your timeline, parse out the urls,
resolve shortened links, and give you a RSS feed that you can subscribe
to in your favorite RSS reader (I use Google Reader. Now I just go
through Reader like normal, and am able to tag/star important sites that
are posted to my Twitter timeline.[
]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25925793@N00/4091878747/
“10th November 314/365”
[
]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
“Attribution License” -
Top ten skills needed to succeed as a teacher (and technology)
[![when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies
they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say][]][]
[![Creative Commons License][]][] [photo][] credit:
[davidsilver][]This article started out as the top ten skills needed to use technology
effectively, but as I wrote the list, I realized that technology
shouldn’t be separated out. As we proclaim that technology is a tool, we
also shouldn’t single it out when talking about what skills it takes to
educate. The following list has a few items that are somewhat related to
technology, the others are what I view as important skills any teacher
needs to have if they want to succeed. Successful teachers will not find
any surprises in this list.1. mastery of your subject – If you don’t know your subject, your
students will learn that rather quickly. You must know what you’re
teaching, backwards and forwards. There are no shortcuts here. If you
cannot answer a student’s question, use your searching skills to find
the answer as quickly as possible.2. classroom management – Whether it’s your morning math meeting or
working in small groups, you will not have a successful class if you
cannot manage it.3. Your students don’t know as much as you think they do, and you know
more then they think you do – There are a few phrases that have gained
some popularity in the past couple of years that I disagree with. The
impression that teachers are digital immigrants and students are digital
natives is an incorrect assumption. Most students do not know as much as
their teachers when it comes to using technology. And teachers do know
more about technology then they realize. The personal computer is over
30 years old, for a majority of teachers this is longer then their
teaching career. They’ve seen how technology has changed some
classrooms, and can leverage that experience in their own classroom.4. Ability to punt – Your day to day classroom will probably never work
exactly as you pictured it in your mind, and your ability to punt and do
something different is imperative. Supplies for a science experiment
hasn’t arrived? Prepare to punt. Internet access down? Punt!5. Keeping an open mind – “Those who say it can’t be done, are usually
interrupted by someone doing it”6. Understand cheap, fast or easy, pick any two – This is a phrase I
use when talking to administrators when they wonder why something isn’t
working the way they thought it should. The phrase basically means, you
can only two out of the three items. For example, if you want it cheap
and easy, it’s not going to be fast. Or if you want it fast and easy, it
isn’t going to be cheap.7. Know how to search – Learn the shortcuts for how to include and
exclude search terms. Find out how to search for a particular filetype.
If you need a presentation on the water cycle, learn how to search for
one (with google use “filetype:ppt” as a search term).8. Embracing life-long learning – Anything you learn today will be out
of date before you retire. We don’t have to sharpen our quills anymore,
or learn how to make dittos. Be prepared to learn every day.9. Creating a personal learning network – Seek out like minded teachers
as yourself. Email them, follow their blog, follow them on Twitter.
Create your own blog and Twitter account. Learn to share.10. Owning a home computer – I am totally surprised at the number of
teachers that do not own a home computer. The new netbooks are priced at
under \$400 and desktops around the same price, so price isn’t much of
an obstacle. If you can’t afford to buy, check out your local Freecycle
or Craigslist for people looking at getting rid of older computers.Anything I missed?
[when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies
they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say]: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2531/4150956463_31586f2a02_t.jpg
[![when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies
they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say][]]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66267550@N00/4150956463/
“when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say”
[]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
“Attribution-ShareAlike License” -
Need a cheap screen for your classroom?
[
][]Over at instructables Saul has posted his directions for using
Tyvek wrapping for a [Tyvek Projector Screen][]. Since this is used
for wrapping houses it is very inexpensive and somewhat durable. He used
a pipe in one end to keep it taunt. From reading the comments there are
ways of purchasing it without the logo or using other materials, such as
black out clothe, that is available in white.[
]: http://www.instructables.com/id/Tyvek-Projector-Screen/ -
Facebook’s new privacy settings
[![Screen shot 2009-12-13 at 9.35.36 PM.png][]][]
[![Creative Commons License][]][] [photo][] credit:
[ekurvine][]Facebook has begun rolling out new settings for who can see your
Facebook profile and what they can see on your profile. I suggest you
double-check what is viewable about you. I try to keep my personal FB
totally separate from my Facebook Page, so my profile is pretty much
locked down. Over at Digital Inspiration they’ve written an article
on How to Cross-Check Your Facebook Privacy Settings.[ad]
[
]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13257277@N00/4182535184/
“Screen shot 2009-12-13 at 9.35.36 PM.png”
[]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
“Attribution-NonCommercial License”