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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Internet: Pacifier of Digital Natives?

Is the Internet the Digital Pacifier of our Digital Natives? 

This is a question that was posed by Bill Lammers.  He conveys an incident in his high school classroom where the students were working intently on their assignments when . . . suddenly . . .  the Internet Died.

Some students squirmed because they didn't think that they would be able to work on their assignment without the Internet.  Others squealed in delight when they realized that they didn't have to work on their assignments but moaned in anguish when they decided that they "couldn't do anything else" because their window to the world, The Internet, was down.

Read Lammers' posting at The Pacifier of the Digital Natives

Blammer (Bill Lammers) makes an interesting observation when he notes how tied to the Internet his students were. I was talking with a reporter the other day who told me that some of his interns were literally lost without their GPSs. They had no problem finding places when their smartphones had full access to the web, but they had no idea about how to read a map. They had no idea how to find north and what all of the squiggly lines on the map meant.

Is this a crime or merely a Symbol of the Times? What do you think?  Read Lammers' article and then join in the discussion here about being connected to the world through the Internet has changed the skill set for our digital natives.

Join the discussion in the comments section below.

Z
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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

What Happens on the Internet in 60 Seconds?

A minute isn't what it used to be . . .
  • We used to hold our breath for a minute. 
    •  Now we upload 72 hours of video on YouTube. 
  • We were excited if we could stand on one leg for a minute. 
    • Now we upload 20,000 new images on Tumblr. 
  • We could boil 1/3 of a 3-minute egg in a minute. 
    • Now we have 20 million photo view on Flickr. 
Qmee Online in 60 Seconds InfographicOnline in 60 Seconds [Infographic] is an infographic that was produced by Qmee

What do you do in a minute?

Z

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

What are Superintendents Believing This Week? - Gallup



Wondering what your superintendent is thinking?

Gallup was thinking the same thing, but they asked them. This was all described in their What Superintendents Really Think report. They wanted to know what they thought about Common-Core Standards, Education Beyond High School, Affected Areas in Budget Cuts, and Technology in the Classroom.

What do you think?  Do these results match your superintendent's opinion last time you spoke with her/him?

Z

BTW, I am actually riding my bike across Iowa with 12,000 other cyclists in RAGBRAI. I am with Team Flamingo and we are having a blast.   (Thank goodness for Blogger's capability to schedule posting releases.) 
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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Making Learning Meaningful at ISTE '13

Well, I'm back from the ISTE '13 conference in San Antonio in late June.  We had a wonderful time. Gaming was the theme of the conference and it was exciting to see Joan McGonagal talk about how life changing gaming can be. She autographed  my book with "Play with Purpose."

One of my highlights was my opportunity to share my ideas about Making Learning Meaningful to Millennial students. I was honored that ISTE decided that my presentation should be video broadcast to those who couldn't make the conference.  These broadcasts were recorded and are available through the ISTE channel on YouTube.

I decided that instead of providing a lecture full of facts and platitudes about what Meaningful Learning meant, I would provide a framework for the content but it would be more important to create a learning environment that demonstrated what we were discussing.


I was quite impressed with quality of the video production. Thank you for your work.

What do you think?  I think that it went well.  Were you there?  If so, how did you like it?

Z
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Monday, July 08, 2013

Focusing in the Age of Digital Distraction

Do you ever feel like you live in the Age of Distraction?

I was just taking (not teaching) a course on how to teach online, when they introduced us to a wonderful diagram about dealing with Digital Distraction and I thought that I would share it with you.  It is from LearningFundamentals.com.au

This is an interesting diagram that suggests strategies for managing time, how to work, reflecting on your work, and managing your space.

Some of the ideas are common sense and some are quite ingenious.

Upon reviewing the Learning Fundamentals website, it turns out that they have a collection of such Mind Mapping Diagrams that address: Getting Motivated, Getting Ready for Exams, Mindmapping, Busting Procrastination, Getting organized and a whole lot more.

I will probably be including them in the future, but you can take a look at them at the link above. If you use them, remember to follow their Licensing Agreement.

If you find this or any of the other maps useful, please share with us how you used them.

Z
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Friday, July 05, 2013

Social Media Landscape Infographic

The Social Media World is huge and ever-exploding.  I was just reviewing graphics on social media when I came upon this Social Media Landscape infographic from the All Twitter Blog. 
I found this graphic most useful by reading the topics to better understand the multiple aspects of the Social Media Landscape. Once you have an overview of the categories, explore the apps that are mentioned.  Unfortunately, there are a few recent additions to the SM World that are not included (like Pinterest) but that will be included in Version 2.0.

How will you use this Infographic?

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Monday, July 01, 2013

Organize Yourself as a Mac Stickies Ninja

Yes, this is how I organize (?) my life. 

I have been a long-time user of Stickies on my Mac. It is a simple and non-intrusive tool for taking notes. I happened upon a blog posting at the Mac Tuts blog about Stickies and it inspired me do some research and share it with you.

Please note that I have included a table of commands in this posting.

I use stickies in a variety of ways: 
  • I will go into a meeting, pop open a sticky and take voluminous notes about the session.  
  • I also use stickies when I am taking notes about my students' work as I read it. I like to do this because the stickies are small notes that can be placed anywhere on the screen alongside of the work I am reading. 
  • Stickies is a great place for creating your To Do list. Since you can turn a note into a translucent floating note, it can sit in the upper corner.  You will see my To Do list in the photo above. Since it is a floating window, it can appear over any of the other projects that I am running throughout the day as well.
  • I also use Stickies to store photos or screen shots for quick access when I need it.
Organizing Stickies
You can rearrange your stickies in any of 4 ways: Color, Content, Date and Location on the Screen. I usually use Date. It's kind of like organizing things in stacks on your desk. The most recent items are on top. I don't organize by color, but sometimes it is useful to organize by content. I don't understand how the "Location on the Screen" works, but it must be useful.

Keyboard Shortcuts with Stickies
I found a Plethora of Possibilities that I didn't know were available in Stickies. Decided that it would be useful to create a table of the commands and then discuss them  Here it is:



Command
Operation
Command + ~
Rotate through sticky notes (Like Command – Tab)
Command + Ctrl + D
Opens dictionary
Command + Option + F
Toggles between Floating and Regular Note
Command + Option + T
Toggles between Translucent and Regular Note
Command + Shift + Y
Nab Text – Highlight text or URL. Text will appear on newly created notes
Command + W
Closes the note but allows chance to save before you close
Command + M
Toggles between Collapsing and Opening a note
Drag Media
Drag all forms of media into Sticky Notes (including emails)
Fn –Fn
Dictate to Stickies
Option + Tab
Create a list on your note (Inserts Bullets)
Cool Command

Command + Space
Launch Spotlight












Entering Content into Stickies
  • TALK TO STICKIES - Yes, you can actually dictate to Stickies (and any other text input application.) It is built into into Mac OS 10.8+  THIS IS AWESOME!!!!   You just have to tap the Function key (fn) twice and it will open a microphone to dictate a 30-second audio file. Tap the fn key again and it will save the audio file. You need to be linked to the Internet for you.
  • DRAG CONTENT - You can just drag and drop photos, I have had more success with this when I have been dragging a file to a sticky. 
  • NAB TEXT/URL - Want to save a set of text or URL?  Just highlight the text you want and click Command + Shift + Y.  If you have your Stickies already open, you will see your text appear in a new note. I was pretty excited when I learned about this.
Formatting Stickies
  • LISTS - I have often pined for the ability to insert bullets into my notes.  Here is the answer. Just click Option + Tab and it will insert a bullet.  Click Tab again and it will indent the bullet.  Shift + Tab will outdent your bullet. Hit Return twice and the bullets will disappear. 
Managing Notes
  • EXPLORE - You can rotate from note-to-note by just tapping Command + ~  Great way to peruse your work.
  • OPEN/CLOSE - You can open and close and open and close and open your note with Command + M.
  • SHUT DOWN - Want to delete a note? Tap Command + W.
  • FLOATING - If you want your note to remain in front of the other documents on the screen, you just have to FLOAT it. Tap Command + Option + F to turn your floating on and off.
  • TRANSLUCENT - Sometimes it's useful to be able to see through your notes. I don't use this much but I envision this as an overlay where you can take notes while examining something on your screen.  Just use Command + Option + T to toggle it on and off. 
Sticky Notes for an iPad

Want to have the wonderful capabilities of Stickies on an iPad?  Your dreams have been answered. You can upload Sticky Notes for free to your iPad. It has all of the capabilities of your Mac Stickies but it is on your iPad.  The only problem that I see with it is that there doesn't seem to be a way to synch the messages on my MacBook Pro with my iPad.   This means that I live in 2 different worlds when I move from laptop to tablet and back again.

I just found something called StickiesSynch.https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/31646/stickiessync  Haven't tried this yet, but it might be the answer.  Apparently, you need to have access to a server that will check your system periodically for updates.

I FOUND IT!!!!   I just found AirStickies. This is an app that I found online.  They say that it costs $1.99, but I just downloaded it for free. Turns out that it costs $1.99 for the Mac OS X version to work on your computer. It requires that your iPhone is connected through wifi. I can't get it to work right now.  Will make a posting when that is working.  Good luck.

Evernote Might be Next
There are many things that we can do with Stickies.  I think the next step is Evernote.  I don't know much about Evernote but it would be good to find some way to export all of my Stickies notes to Evernote. Evernote would provide a method for synching between my iPad and MacBook.  It would make life a little less segmented.

What do you use?  Do you use Stickies or Evernote for organizing your life?  If you don't use these, what DO you use?

Z

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