Category — Online

I’ve written about what can be done with the kids’ cell phones here.  I was turned on to this site by my school’s technology integration specialist.

www.wiffiti.com (a terrible name that combines wifi and graffiti…i think) is a website that allows anyone to send a text message with some text to their number and have it displayed on the screen. Our class is studying projectile motion, so I had students text in examples from their experience outside of the class (outside hobbies, sports etc). Their examples were visualized in real time as the students text’ed them in. Here’s the results:

I intend to incorporate the students’ interests as they’ve texted them in into examples I use in class. This will help the students buy into the new topic.

I like the idea of keeping all of my documents up in the internet could and getting at them from wherever I am.  Dropbox is the only solution I’ve seen that makes that possible.  Google docs is almost there, but doesn’t include all of the features I want to see yet.  Essentially what dropbox does is it keeps your documents in sync across multiple computers.  Whenever I save a word document at home, it is instantly uploaded (without clicking a thing) to the dropbox servers, and then pushed to my computer at work.  All of my documents at home, therefore, are the same as my documents at school (with about a 2 second lag time).

Ever have to drive home quickly because you forgot to email yourself something?  Not me, all the documents on all of my computers are the same.  Ever forget to print something out but not have it on the computer in the classroom?  Even if you only have one computer, all of your documents are stored on the dropbox website and you can download them on any computer.

This would be good for any business, but there are a few features that make it totally great.  First of all, all the files are transferred over SSL (nerd speak for a secure connection) which means that if you want to get a movie file or an .exe through your school’s restricting BS network (deep breaths Kadin…deep breaths), you are all good.  Even nicer, inside your dropbox folder, there is a separate sub-folder called “Public.”  You can get a url (a link) to any file you place in this directory.

You can use this link when you send documents to students.  Rather than sending attachments in emails, the students can simply click the link.  This is really helpful for class blogs that don’t have a space for uploading files.  The link that you get points towards the actual file on your computer as well, not a temporary copy of the file.  Thus, if you post a power point on your class blog (like I do, blog.mrkadin.com) and then later make a change to one of the slides on your computer, the students will get the most up to date version of the presentation when they click the link later on.  Booyah.

Seriously, this is an amazingly powerful tool and it works for PC/Mac and….Linux!  The cost:  Free.99

I want DATA.  All the time.  Tons of it.

I don’t want my students to raise their hands anymore.  I want them to push a button on their desk that indicates to me they are interested in speaking.  Let the computer set up a speakers queue which I can adjust on the fly.  Let me examine how often each student volunteers and grade them on it.

I don’t want to take attendance anymore.  I want the student’s to wave a keycard by a reader near the door and have the computer deal with it.  Then I want to have the detentions instantly issued by an email to the detention proctor and a printout waiting for me at my printer on my desk to give to the student the next day.

I don’t want to have to plug my laptop into the wall in my classroom!  That’s just ridiculous.

I don’t want to grade multiple choice questions by hand.  I want a scantron machine that grades the tests and gives me data by content standard, by student, and by question.

I don’t want my students to have text books.  I want them to have computer information portals that don’t just make them walk through a sequence of pages, but let’s them explore as they wish through a virtual space with information, practice problems, and examples.  And I want the data on how long they read each thing, what their interests are, and how well they are doing when they practice.

I want ALL of this data in one place.  I want the entire school wired up.  And while classes are assuredly taught by people and not by videos or computers, and while the kids are still doing their work by hand, I want to know everything I possibly can about them, so it can inform my teaching.  I want to set up warnings and rules, so when a student didn’t raise her hand for 2 days, has been late to class, and missed a homework assignment, it doesn’t slip through my fingers.  The computer tells me to take her asside.  I want to be able to show a student who has been misbehaving how I marked down on the behavior log on my touch screen tablet that I carry with me while I teach that he has been rude and disruptive for the last 4 periods.  I want graphs, I want analysis, I want patterns, I want trends.

I want the data.  The systems are there.  Hook it up.

In sitting down to decide what to post about for the first ever blog post, the choice was easy.  This particular technological tool has been the most valuable addition to my teaching practice.  The LiveScribe Pulse Pen is a lot more than a regular ink pen.  The pen uses a tiny IR camera that picks up on almost invisible minuscule dots on the pages of the company’s special notebooks to record what you write.  Thus, all of your notes, or whatever it is you chose to write in the notebook are not only produced in ink as usual, but are also transferred onto your computer in digital form.  The software comes with handwriting recognition so that you can search your notes by keyword.

That technology alone would not be that impressive.  Getting a digital copy of your notes is as simple as scanning in your notebook pages, a minor inconvenience, but no big deal.  However, also included on the smart pen is a small microphone that records audio as you write.  Beautiful!  Videos of the writing, tied in with the audio can be viewed on your computer.  In addition, you can upload these videos to their website, where you can embed them in your class website or blog.

Students love this resource. Before tests, when they get lost on a particular type of problem, they can actually have Mr. Kadin walk them through it! Not to mention, if you are lucky enough to have a projector in your classroom, when you are out of school, the students can get a full (though not interactive) lecture from you. You don’t have to waste the day by having them watch a movie and answer questions. Or you can use it to explain the homework problems as you walk around and check who’s completed them, a valuable time saving strategy. Admittedly, this is not a free or even cheap option (mine cost 150 bucks, but I think the cost has gone down some), but it’s value is so high, that I thought I’d share it with you anyway. It’s not something that schools are talking about, but is it something they should be? Maybe just one for the school or teachers who will be absent, or just to bring in to your teaching every once in a while. Even if you don’t have the pen, check out the website for other teachers teaching similar content. It might be helpful for your students.

I think the pen is mostly marketed towards students, who can take notes and link the teacher’s lecture audio to the notes themselves. The product, I believe, is most valuable the other way. Teachers can teach, re-teach, or reinforce their work for any kid who has an internet connection at home. For those who don’t, hopefully there is a computer in the school where the kids can take a look when studying.