As you know from my previous post, I have an iPhone that I’m having a blast playing with.  I thought I’d share some of the apps I’ve been exploring.

Keeping Up:

Here is the first “page” of apps on my iPhone.  Most come standard: messages, contacts, notes (great for my to do and grocery lists), camera, calendar (keeps me organized by combining my iCal, Google, and Moodle calendars), photos, settings, voice memo, clock (customizable alarms ensures I don’t forget to set up the laptops three times a week for pullout class!), and calculator.

Ones I added:

Just Light (free) – as the name implies, a blank white screen used as a flash light – you never know when you’ll have a power outage and need a light.  And I have used it a time or two already.

Twitterific - Free Twitter app that I downloaded as soon as I got the iPhone. and for a free app it is pretty good.  Liked the dark screen with light text vs white screen with black text – less harsh on my eyes.

Tweetie2 – the Twitter app that I use now.  Cost $2.99 but was worth the price.  Just wish I could customize the screen & text colors.  Has more bells and whistles, but for the light Twitter user, Twitterific works just fine and is free.

Reader – Free Google Reader – mobile app takes a bit of getting used to, but love being able to quickly clean out the reader when I’m on the go.

Evernote (free) and Delicious Bookmarks (free) are new and I haven’t had a chance to explore them just yet.

Games:

FlowerzLite – free match game – just for time wasting!

reMovem – also just a free time waster game I like.

Wild Things – movie tie-in/ad for Where the Wild Things Are – totally cute.  You interact with Carol who throws things at the screen and when he gets angry he “smashes” your screen (both cause the iPhone to vibrate).  Scared the beegeebers out of me the first time my screen “cracked” and vibrated.  Again, a time waster, but cute and free.

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader – $4.99 app that I purchased for our Teen Read Week program.  We used a document camera and the questions from the game for the competition.  The two teams took turns choosing a category and answering the question.  Right answers earned them a point.  Team with the most points at the end of the period won.

Action bowling isn’t really my game, but it was free.

PAC-MAN – much harder than I thought – moving the guy around the screen takes some skill!  Sol Free – gotta have a solitaire game on your phone.

Ocarina - $0.99 novelty app, but don’t know what to do with it.  It basically turns your iPhone into a flute.  Kinda cool, but another time waster.  You’re supposed to be able to upload your “masterpieces” online to share with others.  I got it just to play around with it.

This is only the first page and a half of my four pages of apps.  I wont bore anyone with the rest, but I’ll share a few at a time that I find useful as I get finished exploring them myself.

….my Macbook.   Ever since I got my iPhone a few weeks ago, I’ve been spending more of my time on it and less time using my Macbook.   Activities such as checking email, Twitter, and organizing my day are done using the iPhone instead of lugging out the laptop.  I’m still not proficient enough with the touch screen keyboard – a texter I’m not, so I’ve still got a learning curve.   However, the one feature I’m really having fun with is the built in camera.  I’ve been so long without a working camera that I’ve forgotten the joys of snapping photos.  My family and co-workers now know my fascination with clouds after being forced to look at the hundreds of photos I’ve already snapped on my drive home and from around the house.  The one in this post was taking on the front stoop – the original subject was the clouds in the background, but I got distracted by my mom’s rosebush.  My point, you’ll probably be seeing more of my amateur photography skills now, so I’ll apologize in advance.

I’m also loving the voice memo app which comes in handy when I’m in the car and need to make a note to remember something.  I don’t usually have pen and paper handy.  Which brings up the most wonderful feature(s) of the iPhone – The Apps Store!  I’ve been going wild surfing and downloading apps, but that’ll be another post.

I know it’s been a while and I’ve got a bunch of links clogging my bookmarks to share with you guys.  Here are some for today:

Scholastic.com: Top 20 Teacher Blogs - I subscribed to a couple of these already and will give the others a try.  I’m passing it along because on of my good friends is highlighted on the lists: #14 Best for Media Specialists – TechnoTuesday. Way to go Cathy!

Center for History and New Media – “Providing free access to primary sources, building high-quality online teaching modules, and offering instruction on critical thinking skills.”

PrimaryAccess – “PrimaryAccess is a suite of free online tools that allows students and teachers to use primary source documents to complete meaningful and compelling learning activities with digital movies, storyboards, rebus stories and other online tools.”

Smithsonian American Art Museum – Classroom Activities – “These American Art Museum online features contain interactive or media-rich assets that can easily be used by educators in the classroom. Students can learn by viewing media or taking part in various online activities.”

Lastly, here are a couple of online graphic organizers:

• Lovely Charts - online diagramming program to create flowcharts, site maps, organizational charts, etc.
• Bubbl.us – great for mindmapping/brainstorming

I spent Wednesday & Thursday this week attending the Upstate Technology Conference in Greenville, SC and had a fabulous time!

Wednesday:

Connecting With Tech Savvy Students – Bill Sheskey and Chrissy Robinson

• Oconee County Instructional Technology Integration – Specifically, click on the Teacher Resource page for links to resource that they have tested and are safe for educational use.

• xtranormal.com – type a script and make video snippets to grab students interest.

• PowerPoint with two videos side by side on the same slide – one is a recorded interview (could use the Flip cameras) and the other is PhotoStory  with just visual of what the interviewee is describing (for example, she was talking about a flood and he found photos from the event, put into PhotoStory to run as she’s talking about it)  Great example of low tech “split screen” video!  as well as examples of primary sources – the actual interview & the photos of the historical event.

• 24/7/7 – 24 hours, 7 days a week, on all 7 continents! Our students need to be able to compete globally.  You can also add 365 as everything is available online every day of the year.

• How Google hired workers based on a billboard w/ a math problem that led to a web address, with another problem, that led to another address, and so on until it led to a contact page from Google saying we want to hire you!

• News magazines have an archive of their covers online, why not use them in your research or teaching to emphasis a point/topic you are sharing?

Keynote: Chris Craft!

• AWESOME!  Chris is a dynamic speaker.  I hope you take a moment to go to his blog and watch his keynote.  Just a couple of ideas I wrote down (didn’t write more as I was too caught up in his presentation!):

• Snazzy Videos – short videos he shows at the top of the class. Something the students look forward to watching…(interest motivates learning?? I think that was what he said!)  You can probably catch some at his SpanTube website (Spanish YouTube!)  His class website – www.class326.com and uses Gcast.

• He records his announcements, instructions, reminders, etc. and plays them as soon as the bell rings to begin class.  This way he doesn’t have to repeat them over and over each class, and so he doesn’t forget to mention something to one class!  Also, a routine that the kids stop what they are doing to listen to the announcements and get right into the groove of class.  The announcements are followed by a riddle (could be any type of interesting bell work question/problem).  While they are listening to the announcement, he’s taking attendance and then begins class answering the riddle and straight on into the days lesson.  Smooth transitioning and no down time or lost time at the beginning of class!

• I also liked his sharing the quote from one of his friends that Twitter = Virtual Teachers Lounge.  That is how I view it – as a way to learn and share from educators & librarians who just don’t happen to work in my building!

What Can The Web Do For You? – Susan Isball

This session was geared more toward elementary teachers, so while the resource she shared were great, they just weren’t as useful for me.  You can follow the link to see her presentation and resources.  There was also a gentleman sitting next to me (sorry, I’m embarrassed I can’t remember your name) who is an assistant principal at a high school.  He came in and was doodling and by the time we left had the most spectacular “picture book” quality drawing I’ve ever seen.  He is such an artist.  He said doodling helps him think – and don’t get me wrong, he had a page and a half of notes from the session, too!  I wish I’d snapped a photo of it…he should be illustrating children’s books!

Shhh!  Don’t Tell We’re Using a Social Network – Avis Canty

The social network she uses with her classes is Ning.  Being a member of several Nings, I was already familiar with her topic.  I was more interested in how she organized getting her Ning up and running (research on social networks, administration support, parental permission, ning access, etc.) to pick her brain for my own blog proposal.  I will definately be contacting her in the next few days!

Socializing Time!

Of course, if I’m being entirely honest, the real reason I attend conferences is the socializing!  I had lunch with Fran Bullington and a couple of ladies from her district.  I also attended a Tweet-Up at Wild Wings in downtown Greenville after the last conference session for the day, followed by dinner out at with Cathy Nelson, Fran, and Kim Isiminger (Kim held the librarian position at Wagener-Salley HS before me!)  There was a huge group at Wild Wings – at least 20 – and just like MaryAnn said in her blog that the Twee-up was like a human twitter feed.  With conversations going all over the place and way across tables and everyone jumping in here and there!  Oh, shout out to Mary Mason who let me crash on her hotel room’s fold out couch for the night!  Photo credit: Wild Wings07 from loonyhiker – I don’t think Pat will mind I used her photo!  That’s me in the safari print shirt.

Thursday

Using & Integrating Moodle – Ryan Rucker

An nice overview of Moodle and what it can offer for your class.  Since we already use Moodle, the benefit of attending this session was I now have a contact person to help me troubleshoot my Moodle questions/mistakes!  I’ve already warned him he’s probably going to get tired of my emails!   For teachers whose district doesn’t already support Moodle, you can go to NineHub and they will host your Moodle course.  However, it does have ads and you are limited in the features available with free Moodle hosting.

I Heard It, I Saw It … Now What? – Debra Belue

One highlights from this session include recording students & teachers booktalking, sharing their own stories, and research projects and recording them for play on their MP3 players (the library has sets of them) which students can check out.  They have a recess book walking club – each student has an MP3 player and they walk and listen to booktalks the teachers, students, or downloads from StreamlineSC.  She has parents give permission for student to be able to check out MP3s as well as to join the club as they are giving up recess. High schools could do for study halls.

Place Based Stories – Michael Edwards

Very interesting.  Documenting local history for future generations – a Memory Project that students can produce to preserve stories before they die out.  Great thing, he’s at Pelion HS which is just up the road from me!  Two ways: Google Earth and iPod Museum Tours.  Geotag and upload photos, documents, audio and video to Google Earth and take virtual tours of your area.  They use different place markers to delineate eras or types of events.  For the iPod Museum tours, everything is on your iPod (text, audio, video) all hyperlinked and organized.  You drive to the location (or walk depending upon the area) and listen, watch, read about the location.  This allows you to physically experience the place.  Here are his resources.

Abort, Retry, or Fail: Management Skills for Today – Jude Hunt

Engaging speaker – very nicely done.  There were a couple of things that stood out:

• Defusing phrases: I Understand; Probably So; Nevertheless; and I’m Sorry.  All used as a complete sentence w/ nothing after them.  They acknowledge the student and his/her “feelings” without agreeing or disagreeing.  Used appropriately they can stop disruptions before they escalate.

• The other was a “refocus” space with a reflections form on why they were sent to “time out.”  This can be a place in your room or preferably a co-workers room – but never the hall or an office where students can just goof off or be seen as a get out class free card.  Gives the student time to chill out without further disrupting your teaching.  What I liked about this idea was the form asked the student what they did to get sent to time out (they have to reflect and understand what behavior sent them there) which then goes into their file as documentation – great for parent/teacher conference and if further discipline is required.  There is a lot more to this concept as well as in his presentation, but I’m trying to be brief here!

Lunch today was spent in the august company of Chris Craft, MaryAnn Sansonetti, and Fran Bullington.  We had an enjoyable hour catching up since our last get together at EdTech.  Today was jam packed with learning, laughter, and looking forward to next year with an opportunity to put some of these tools and ideas into place.  Once again I am amazed at a FREE conference being not only enjoyable, but extremely useful.  The notes I’ve shared here aren’t a tenth of the notes I took.

So a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who put together such a fabulous conference!  Let’s do it again next year!

Wired: “Where Gadgets Go To Die: Facility Strips, Rips and Recycles” – interesting look at how a facility sorts and recycles old electronic equipment.

Library of Congress YouTube Channel – “Timeless treasures and contemporary presentations from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. As the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, we are the steward of millions of recordings dating from the earliest Edison films to the present…”

World Digital Library – looks interesting and will become active on April 21st.  “The World Digital Library will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials…”

New York Times: “A Story of a Teenager’s Suicide Becomes a Best Seller” – article about the origins of the book TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY by Jay Asher.  This title is on our South Carolina Young Adult Book Award Nominee list this year.  The article also mentioned the YouTube video campaign that shows someone listening to Hannah Baker’s tapes.

Chicago Tribune: “Annoying ‘mosquito’ noise keeps students moving” – the article shares how an Indiana high school uses the mosquito machine to deter students from socializing in an area of the hallway between classes and instead get to classes on time.  I’ve written previously about this machine here and the mosquito ringtone here.  I am opposed to this device being used, especially INSIDE a school, and not just because I can still hear the tone.  There are other ways to ensure students keep it moving in the hallways – HELLO, teachers, stand at your doors and don’t let the kids stop to chat.  When I stand at the library doors, the students don’t loiter between classes.  When I’m not there, the do – doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.