Kindle Versus iPad Musings

Amazon has slowly rapidly been changing the way people read. I won’t even attempt an opinion about the long term effects on book stores and publishing. I could not say if it will eventually be a good thing or not. It is what it is. As a friend if fond of saying, you can’t put the poop back in the bull.

That said, I am interested in some of the changes that are happening now. I have been a fan of the Kindle for several years and use an IPad for work. I also use the iPad to read books from Amazon that are more than just text. The non-back lit Kindle is my preference for night reading but for things like cookbooks, tutorials, basically any book that has a lot of pictures, I utilize the kindle app on the iPad or iBooks.

I will be watching the roll out of the Kindle tablet for just that reason. The iPad has been the most useful piece of technology I have had in my hands since the MacBook. It is lightweight and wireless so I can carry it everywhere and take care of many tasks on the spot which saves steps up and down stairs. With Wunderlist, I can quickly add or check off a task, it syncs with the website and even sends me a cheerful email if I let a priority task wait too long “Ahoy Matey! You have some tasks to complete!” I can go to the website and print a list of completed tasks so I have documentation of what I have done and when. I get a very satisfying feeling from checking things as done.

I have both Pages and Keynote (not free but still reasonable at ten bucks each) but so far, I utilize the little free Notes app for that comes pre-installed more than any other. Just click a plus sign, get a new page with the date, type and click out of it. It’s like a huge legal pad that I can search, send, or share. Simple and handy as sliced bread.

I read articles on the Zite app. Zite is an application that comes with a few preloaded categories but you can add your own. It then searches for news and blogs that fit the categories. But wait! There’s more! It has a like/dislike button much like the Facebook icon that helps it “learn” your preferences. You can choose to see more articles like the one you are presently reading and/or more articles from that particular source. Zite gives you the ability to share, email, or add the article to several apps (my preference is instapaper). It is pretty – think google reader in glassy magazine format.

Dropbox is one of my favorite web apps but with the iPad it really shines. I can upload a PDF from any computer, open the dropbox app on my iPad, click the file, then one more click to open in iBooks. Now I have it in a nice readable form even when I am without wireless. Things like the master schedule, instructions for tasks that I do not use frequently enough to memorize, the entire gradebook manual…all are in my iBooks now. Macs have had the ability to save anything as a pdf as long as I have used them and now with Office 2010 having the option to save as pdf, I can put any document that I think I might need to refer back to in iBooks. Bam.

The highly addicting Words With Friends game is pleasant on the bigger screen and I am also hooked on scramble which has a social aspect to it but so far I play it solo – just a screen full of letters. You find words from letters that are next to each other until the time runs out. You are scored according to how many words you find and get extra points for using certain letters.

There are tons of pretty apps that are useful and free or very reasonable. Interactive books and all of the educational apps are going to be a big force in education. I tried using a vga connector to connect my iPad with the data projector and it was incredibly easy. I have read a few articles that say you are not able to project everything but the few things I tried worked very well sharing your screen is an option and at twenty-nine dollars for a vga connector, a reasonable solution for a classroom that has a limited number of iPads.

Running through the list, the apps I use on a daily basis are all free. I read, I write, play a few games, utilize the internet. If the amazon Kindle table will do those things it will be a viable option for me and at half the price of an iPad.

Amazon is doing a couple of things that could make it even more attractive. They have opened up the ability for public libraries to lend ebooks via Kindle. Huge!

There is also buzz about a “netflix” like subscription service where, for a fee, readers will be able to download books.

If the Amazon Kindle tablet is able to do the same things that I regularly do on my iPad, hook to a projector (or my tv) via vga connector, then it will have my vote – especially at half the price of the iPad.

TedTalks

I hope I am able to embed this video.  If you are unfamiliar with TedTalks, it is TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a U.S private nonprofit foundation best known for its conferences, now held in Europe and Asia as well as the U.S., devoted to what it calls “ideas worth spreading”. …

I was familiar with a little of the genetic “engineering” that goes on, but not to this extent.  Mr. Wolpe suggests that we take a close look at our ethical responsibility regarding what we are already able to do, and what we will be able to do in the future.

“Paul Root Wolpe examines the ethical implications of new science — genetic modification, neuroscience and other breakthroughs that stretch our current philosophy to the breaking point. He’s the chief bioethicist at NASA, among other appointments.

Paul Root Wolpe directs the Center for Ethics at Emory University,  where he works on the biggest issues most of us face in our life-long ethical journey: death and dying, new reproductive technologies, and new medical and scientific breakthroughs that are not covered in our traditional ethics (what would the Bible say about growing a human ear on a mouse?).

He’s also the chief bioethicist at NASA, where he advises on the medical experiments that happen during space travel.”

In case it does not embed I have provided a link to the video.

TedTalks Paul Wolpe

Fake Social Network Projects For Students

Web Writing Projects

Fake iPhone Text

http://www.fakeiphonetext.com/

Click Create and fakeiphonetext.com will generate a picture that resembles actual text on an iphone.



My Fake Wall

create a fake facebook page about a historical or literary character.‭ ‬You can include people your character would have been friends with,‭ ‬geographical information,‭ ‬educational background,‭ ‬groups they would have joined,‭ ‬family members.

http://www.myfakewall.com/

Here is a Word Template if you prefer

Fake Tweet Builder

You may have heard of twitter which is a social networking site.‭  ‬You can post short blocks of text called tweets.‭  ‬You are limited to‭ ‬140‭ ‬characters per tweet.

Result without customization:

A few more fun things:
http://vozme.com/index.php?lang=en‭  ‬type or paste in a block of text,‭ ‬click choose male or female voice,‭ ‬click create mp3

You know those URLs that are two miles long and by the time the student has typed it in,‭ ‬found their spelling error and gotten to the correct site,‭ ‬the class period is nearly up and both of you are frustrated and tired‭??  ‬No more‭!!
Go to either of these sites and type or paste in your long URL one time.‭  ‬A cute,‭ ‬short,‭ ‬tiny little address will be created that you can give your students and they will be rocking along on that website in no time‭!
http://bit.ly/
http://tiny.cc/

I hope you have fun with this – I did!

Noyes Stadium Memories Night

Next weekend will be the last game played by the Paris Wildcats in Noyes Stadium.  Tony created and hosts a blog for sharing memories which can be found here: Noyes Memories

I had the honor and fun of designing the cover for the programs.  Hope to see you there

General Catching Up Post

Our campus is at about 40 80 percent getting on the new domain.  This is pretty  good.  I would have liked to be further along but weird little things happen to slow the process down.  People are, for the most part; being incredibly patient and supportive for which I am so grateful.  Hitting hit hard tomorrow to try to get as much done before Monday as possible.  We have to go to Tyler Saturday but maybe Sunday afternoon I can finish up any stragglers before students arrive on Monday morning.

On the ride to Tyler I can work on my list of where to start Monday morning.  I’m glad I only have the responsibility for one campus.

There hasn’t been time or energy to write for FUN until tonight but things should get a bit easier now.

For tonight it’s tv, french fries, ice cream, and early to bed.

P.S. A thank you to my daughter who was hired as a temp to help us get all this done – she has been AWESOME!

Friday Notes To Self

This is just one example of how my day was yesterday. At one point I got up from my desk and walked to the printer. When I got back there was a voice mail on my cell phone. As I listened to the voice mail, the phone on my desk rang. It was the person who had left me the voice mail. As I spoke with them on the landline, my cell buzzed again. It was someone calling to tell me that the person on the landline was trying to reach me.

This was all because the Barracuda mail server had to be rebooted and some other things and when I told people they could get back in to their email, this person got an error. Told them to try restarting – the world is saved.

We panic without our email. (note to self – stop giving out cell phone number)

A student kicked a power strip and shut down the whole middle row in the lab. I got to crawl around on the floor trying to figure out which power strip. (note to self – buy some new power strips, The old ones don’t light up anymore when they are on)

I put a computer on the domain that had been forgotten. It lived in an office way in the back of everything. There was a big cup of sunflower seeds on the desk and mouse droppings all over the place. Every time I touched the keyboard I could just imagine little mighty mouse skittering across it, piddling as he goes. I washed my hands four times and used some germ-x. Eeew. (note to self – buy more germ-x)

The table around my printer is littered with a lot of unwanted pictures that were printed by students who have been in the lab for several days with a sub. The behavior was not that bad considering but they didn’t seem to have a good grasp on what they wanted and so a lot of trees died and a lot of printer ink was wasted which makes me growly.

Note to self – THANK GOODNESS IT WAS A FRIDAY!

Making New From Old

I did something today that I have wanted to do for awhile.  I have some computers in my lab that are probably some of the first XP Dells ever sold and they have gotten so slow.  XP creates profiles for every person who logs on and just deleting them doesn’t seem to speed things up much.

I did a clean install and thought everything was fine but then I couldn’t add it to the domain.  The screen resolution was all wonky too.  I was so frustrated – I thought this was going to be easy. I asked our tech for help and it turned out it WAS easy – I just needed drivers.  I was able to put it on the domain and install Office and the antivirus and the basics like Flash, Adobe Reader, Firefox, and Gimp which I plan to include on all the machines from now on.

We have a lot of kids that are creative and savvy enough to figure out how to use it and I want them to have the software available.  I plan to do more machines and hopefully that will improve the quality of the lab over-all.
I have thirty computers coming after Christmas that will have nothing on them – not even the operating system, so this is my practice.  Finally, I’m excited about something.  We have spent the biggest part of the last month just getting things back to what they were BTC (Before the crash).  It’s good to be moving forward a bit even if it means making old new again.

Profile Moving Day

Some things I learned while copying profiles over as we put teacher computers on the new domain:

Outlook express email and address books don’t ALWAYS come with the profile.  I’m sure there is some tiny obscure reason why this happens but it would sure be nice if it was OBVIOUS.

Microsoft Windows doesn’t make anything simple.

Many people do NOT know what it means when you ask them to clean out temporary files.

Keyboards are very personal things. After touching so many in one day it starts to feel like I am handling peoples’ tooth brushes (not something to dwell on).

No matter how many times (or how many ways…) you tell someone something important (like what their password will be) sometimes they just don’t hear you.

People really like to be able to print.

Moving Outlook is different from moving Outlook Express.

If there is no administrator password on the local machine you can still get in.  Hmmmph, who’d of thunk it.

Even though you technically sit at a computer, you get a lot of exercise walking from one computer to the next…

Next are the student computers – no email to deal with but for the labs that use deep freeze and schoolvue, I’m wondering how complicated it will be.  Every extra step adds to the overall time.

The main lesson – put the money out for servers.  This is not an experience you want to have first-hand.  For the individual computer user – organize and back up!

Jump drives are your friends!

Be Slow To speak, and Quick To Work!

We started studying the book of James last night and the verse that stands out to me the most is

James 1:19-20 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

My biggest problems come from being too quick to speak and even today, the day after we studied this I snapped at someone who was only trying to help me.   I’m tired and feeling under pressure but not being much of a witness by getting all growly. I hope sleep will improve my personality!

Progress on getting everyone on the new domain was slower today which makes sense since the first ones were all fairly close to each other geographically and now things are more spread out and some of the computers are not “standard operating procedure” so it takes longer and there is a bit more troubleshooting involved.  There is the added pressure of time because grades need to be exported Monday.  Tomorrow – another day, another building, another growing to-do list.

Thank goodness for friends who are willing to help and chocolate!

This Tuesday’s Ten Things

1. I am a little out of my regular routine.  I pulled a muscle in my back this weekend and have been taking pain medicine while we get the computers on the new domain.

2. It has been hectic and I have learned some things as I go along but we are making progress and the teachers have really been good about the process.

3. People will be getting here for bible study in while and Dale has made Rigatoni Bolognese so I am planning on “carbing” up and starting the book of James.

4. The possibility of a server crash and having to migrate profiles is a VERY good reason to keep things organized and cleaned out on a computer.  The more junk you have the longer it takes to copy a profile and the less organized you are, the harder it is to find things as they are moved.

5.  Teachers may fuss and complain about little things but when they know you are working to get them back in business they are patient, kind, and leave candy bars in your mailbox.

6.  Nothing about computers is ever as easy and smooth as it should be.

7.  It has been rainy and cool for the last two days but today I didn’t know what it was doing for most of the day – I never had time to look outside til lunchtime and then again after 3:00.

8.  We worked last night til 8:30 and there were ten of us – techs from the other campuses came and helped and I am so thankful.  It made a huge difference in getting the bulk of the main building on the new domain,  They are a great bunch of people!

9.  I am smelling dinner cooking right now and it is making me hungry!

10.  After bible study I am going to soak in a hot tub and curl up with my book.  A good night’s sleep and I will be ready to hit it again!

Ten For Tuesday

1.  This day has flown by because I never stopped moving!
2.  I am going to make it my business to learn what is where on the servers from now on!
3.  Some of what we thought was gone is not (which is the reason for number 3!) and there is more than one way to keep grades and do an export.  You can physically move folders and export files.  Not elegant but it works.
4.  The weather is getting chilly – time for soup and bread!!

5.  I cannot stress enough, the importance of backing things up.

6.  If we didn’t have bible study tonight, I would probably be in bed by 7 o’clock.

7.  It never seems to amaze me, the people who are the most willing to help in a crisis.

8.  I am again reminded that I get dumber when I am tired.

9. I am also reminded that sometimes the best way to learn to swim is to be thrown in the water (and the best way to learn is when you absolutely HAVE to)
10.  I am planning on writing more on this blog, even if it is from prompts. I want to write more with the goal of learning to be a better writer. If you read here you may find some strange posts appearing in the future.  I am saying this now so that I will be able to hold myself to it!

I think I could have written twenty for Tuesday but I’m going to save it up.  I’m going to take a deep breath and let it all go til tomorrow, and to quote Sidney the psychiatrist on M.A.S.H. – “pull down your pants and slide on the ice!”

Sometimes  we just need to be silly…

Thursday Stuff

I went to church for a half hour before work this morning.  It isn’t a beautiful sanctuary with stained glass windows, but the lights were low and Jason was playing guitar and singing praise.  There weren’t a lot of people there, but those who were, sang and prayed and I left with a peace.  I could start the day like that every day.

A student was killed in a car accident last night.  It was not known til this morning and the kids were already wound up because tonight is the bonfire.  There are having a candlelight silent time in her memory.  I couldn’t go. I knew her by face but other than that not really.  I have friends who lived right next to her while she was growing up – she used to keep their kids.  She was a senior yesterday and now she is gone.
I made it the whole 24 hours and didn’t even really fell any discomfort til pretty close to the end of the day.  Food was on my mind but I didn’t want it – weird.  I may try to do this every now and then.  Every time I thought about food I remembered to pray. Even with all the crazy little things going on all day.

A server tanked today and I have people scheduled in the lab and no idea if anyone will be able to log in.  We don’t realize just how ubiquitous technology has become – until it is broken.  Tomorrow will be interesting.  I’m sure there will be a lot of questions and complaints.  It’s Friday though and we will survive! Hug your kids tonight – I know I will mine.

Tuesday Ten

Or a typical day…

1.  My phone rings a lot (people think I know more than I do)
2.  I answer a lot of questions (evidently I know more than I thought)
3.  I need more answers! (I still need to learn more)
4.  I need to work on staying focused after interruptions (I’m a little challenged in that area)
5.  I need to prioritize (I like to make everybody happy – it doesn’t work)
6.  I’m glad I’m home (that makes me happy)
7.  Time to dig into the bible with friends
8.  The weather is awesome! (Cloudy and cool)
9.  After bible study I’m going to take a shower and curl up with a book ( a no-brainer)

10.  Tomorrow I get up and do it all over again! (I will need latte)

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrpatrick/2939955644/

Good Bad Day

1. bad – didn’t get a teacher scheduled when she wanted
1. good, got to play with a nice big monitor (bought a bicycle lock and will chain it to my desk)
2. bad – laptop cart (really bad)
2. good – got a nice thank you email from a teacher
3. bad – can’t find any inventory info
3. good – helped a kid with their paper
4. bad – only got two things on my todo list done (and added three more)
4. good – grades got exported and it went very smoothly – preparation helped
5. good – daughter got a 29 on her ACT
6. good – hubby made me shortbread cookies
5. bad (did I mention the laptop cart?)  aaarrrg
7. good – son got a job (another one! – this one just temporary but good experience)
6. bad – the economy news is scary
6 bad 7 good – close but good wins

Guess at the end of the day it’s good to be ahead

Getting Things Done and Organized With Google Spreadsheets and Forms

Example of a Google Docs spreadsheet PDA

• Create a new spreadsheet
• Create headers across the top – you can format the text and background color if you like.
• I used Subject, Date, Notes, Details
• At the bottom of the screen you will see a tab for the sheet you are working on..  If you click it you have several editing choices, including delete, duplicate, rename, and move right or left.  For now you might want to rename it work.
• Now click again and duplicate it (I did this twice) You now have three sheets with the same headers and you can now click on and rename the other two sheets.  I have named my sheets Work, Home, Ideas.
• Now here is where it gets fun
• You could just enter information directly into the spreadsheet but with Google Docs you can create a form that will make it easier to quickly enter data and have it automatically update in the spreadsheet.
• We will create a separate form for each sheet and show you how you can use those links to populate your spreadsheet PDA
• Click on the tab for one of the sheets so you will have that sheet open.
• You should see a row of light blue tabs across the top of the document – click the tab for Form
• Click create a form
• A new page will open with your form already created according to the column headers you used in your spreadsheet.
• As you move your mouse cursor over each field in your form you will see that you can edit that individual field, you can move it, you can even add or delete questions.  Just remember that what you do on the form will be reflected on the spreadsheet.  If you delete a field it will no longer exist on the spreadsheet either.  A good rule of thumb is that the form is “the boss” of the spreadsheet.
• Now choose “next choose recipients”  You can put in your own email address and if you look on the right you will see a note saying that if you have trouble viewing or submitting this form, you can fill it out online and there will be a link.  This is the link you want to save as a shortcut on your desktop.  You can change the name of the link to make it easier to find.  On a PC you will right click on the shortcut and choose rename.  If you use something like @Home the @ sign will cause it to be near the top if you arrange you icons in alphabetical order.  On a Mac you will control-click the shortcut and choose info. There will be a field where you can change the name.

This would work for a student organizer – just change the column headings to something like assignment, due date, teacher/professor, class period, notes/resources. 

A couple of modifications and you can share and collaborate so now you have an online project management system.

You can also click publish – this gives you an embeddable link and an RSS feed so you can subscribe to your own list.
Choose more publishing options and click in the drop down box and choose HTML to embed in a webpage.  You can also choose which sheets and even which cells to show.  The will generate some HTML that you can paste into your blog.  Pay attention to the sizes shown in the HTML.  If you paste it and find it is bigger than the space provided in the webpage you can usually adjust those numbers to make it fit.

I hope this is useful to you!

I have only included a form that adds information to one sheet.

Addendum: I cannot get the embedded form to work.  I can use the form I created from my desktop or via my email so for the time being look at the above images as screenshots and don’t be afraid to follow the steps to create one to play with yourself.

Comp Day May 2008

Here is my handout. Some of it is covered in other places in this blog. It was created on a Mac using Pages. I am trying to get more comfortable using the iWork software and I think that while it is not as much of a workhorse as Word it was fun and easy to export as a PDF.
Jumpdrive

Create a folder

PowerPoint Backgrounds and creating content in Word

Adding Sound to PowerPoint and making the music play across multiple slides

Creating Screenshots

Creating a group in Outlook Express

Locking your computer

Word Tips

FireFox

End of year grade export

mayStaffDevTips.pdf

Just a General Update

What is it about the spring – I always fall under it’s spell. I brought most of my plants home from school so they could live on the back and front porches which are their true homes. I started digging up the rose bed today. Dale is tired of fighting with it – Roses are just so high maintenance. We are planning to fill in the area with stone so it will mean a lot more work and quite a few more trips to Home Depot for stone. I’m getting the itch to paint too. We have squash, asparagus, and walking onions growing in the garden. I have herbs and spinach in big pots on the back porch. I’ve already picked spinach three times and it is ready again. There was plenty of rain this year and it has made a difference. Even my peonies have been beautiful.

I managed to get a “start” on cleaning off my desk. I was starting to feel like I would be smothered under piles of paper! Another teacher and I got our presentation submitted for next year at TCEA and I only have one more week of staying late for open lab. The year is winding down. Dale is doing well and Kinsey will graduate. Jessica will get her license and will look for a job.
I bought myself an Mp3 player on ebay and it came today. I wanted something small for carrying when I walk and so far I really like it. The end comes off and you plug the whole thing into a usb port. I spent about an hour this evening dragging songs over to it and then went for my walk and I think I walked twice as far as usual.
Now I am watching Numbers and putting up the laptop and curling up with my book. No alarm clock in the morning and tomorrow is our 28th anniversary. I hope the rain holds off – I plan to work in the yard tomorrow but I’m not cooking. Supper will probably be Magels – mmmm. I’ve got to make the PowerPoint for Sunday evening but with google docs it will go together quickly. BJ is teaching on Romans and I have an idea for a skit for the kids to do on 1st Kings (maybe next month). It will take some time to get it together but I’m starting to put an outline together.

Monday is a weather day so I have extra time to play in the yard. Goodnight world and have a peaceful weekend!

TeachersFirst Question of the Week

TeachersFirst.com had this for the question of the week recently. Below it is my response.

Some teachers create their own MySpace and FaceBook accounts. Some have personal blogs. A recent article in the Washington Post details indescretions by teachers in such public spaces. If a teacher wants to have a personal web presence, what guidelines or advice would you give to him or her about what should/should not be shared online for the world to see, and why?

Having a presence on the web is like having a picture window into your life. Anyone driving by will form an opinion of you by what they glimpse through that window. If you are dancing around with your lampshade on your head – they are going to make a snap judgment. Every picture, every post, every song playing on your website creates a picture of you for someone who visits. If you are a teacher and have not learned what is and is not appropriate in public then you have bigger problems than the internet.

It doesn’t matter if it is correct, the opportunity to make an impression has passed and if it is a bad one it will be very difficult to change even if you get the chance which in most cases you won’t.

If you are the type of person that sweeps the floor, dusts and straightens up for company then do that on your website as well because company will be coming and going most times without you even knowing it.

In education this is even more crucial. Whatever is on your website may as well be on the principals’ desk, the school board meeting, the local newspaper, or a students iPod. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it. We should just use it for what it is – a tool to communicate. It is not and never has been your private diary with pictures and sound.

Our students are now creating content on the internet. We have a wonderful teaching opportunity if we choose to utilize that capability. That means we have to get on the bus with them – not stand on the sides wringing our hands. We just need to have a destination in mind and plan accordingly.

Amen?