Doctor Loopy's House of Fun

A tweet today led me to this Glogster done by Doug Valentine for his school library. He also writes a blog at Doctor Loopy's House of Fun.

And can be found on Twitter @Doctorloopy
I love inspiring librarians who have so much to offer and share!

BlogPress PS

Interestingly you cannot go back and edit once you have posted from BlogPress.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.

Another iPad app

This is a trial using BlogPress on the iPad. It's configured to work with Blogger, MSN Live Spaces, WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad, Live Journal, Drupal and Joomla. When using BlogPress it will be helpful to have some HTML coding knowledge.





Part of the team.
Posting images is as simple as downloading them from the web to your iPad and then selecting using the camera icon. You can save the post as a draft or post directly to a blog.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Summer Project

One of my summer projects is mentoring a pilot group of teachers exploring the potential of the iPad. It's fun to watch the excitement generated by using a mobile device but the bonus will be if they begin to see new ways of accessing information and modelling learning with their students.

In preparation I've been combing my PLN for mobile learning resources and ideas. Here are a few good ones:

Apptivities - learning activities using apps on mobile devices compiled by an ADE Summer Institute group.

Hottest Apps - another ADE Institute list

Digital Storytelling with the iPad

Presenting your Portfolio on the iPad

ISTE: iPad in Education

Learning Continuity - apps by discipline

iPad's Hidden Keyboard Functions video

@bryanhughes has set up a great introductory page with basic information, links to tutorials and guides and a list of 'starter' apps. for the group to use.

A couple of my own favourite free apps are SoundHound (for identifying music) and Open Culture (mobile access to educational audio and video collections) and this list of free reference apps.

For Socials teachers:

Seadragon - high resolution imagery

Louvre - art works, museum tour

France 24 - International news

HistoryMaps - historical maps

And for the 'Wow' factor, these two videos that demonstrate master artists using the iPad:

Finger Painting on the Apple iPad

lang lang playing Flight of the Bumblebee

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain (For more quotations on risk-taking check out the Awesome Sardine)

Photo credit: Lesley Edwards

Saying good-bye. Saying hello.

The end of the school year always brings changes and new adventures.  This year is a particularly significant one for me.  Yesterday I handed back the keys to the library I had managed for the past 12 1/2 years.  But while I will enjoy the pension checks rolling in I'm not quite ready to call myself retired.

I haven't finished learning and exploring, sharing and collaborating.  While I'm not about to take up hang gliding or learn a foreign language I find the world of social media in education intriguing.  My intention is to continue writing here as I learn new things or have worthwhile information to pass on.  The summer may see a bit of a hiatus.  I'm not sure if the focus of the blog will change a little, or expand to include new adventures.  Hands up if you really want to hear about my upcoming trip to South Korea.

I have been blessed and overwhelmed by the number of greetings, good wishes and celebrations that helped me see out my final month of working for the school district.  Everyone should have that experience!  Thank you all.

I wish you a restorative, adventurous summer.  I'll be back.
Let me know if you need a consultant.  :)

Photo used under a creative commons license from bryanh
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanh/4736644811/sizes/z/in/set-72157624240068977/

A figment of your imagination?

I love conversations that make me want to shout, "Hey, hold on just a minute!" My colleague Bryan Hughes (@bryanhughes) and I were discussing three blog posts we had read recently that pushed the way we think about district Pro-D delivery and the future of education in general:

Will Richardson - Yeah, You've got problems.  So solve them.

Carl Anderson - The Real Disruptive Innovation 

David Warlick - Zero Tolerance

Bryan agreed with Carl's thoughts and commented, "I provided little that the network couldn't - that speaks to my deficiencies, but also to the institutional barriers that our schools reinforce".

Wait a minute!  I think these perceived institutional barriers are largely a figment of our imaginations, or perhaps a security blanket that keeps us from getting out there on the edge and changing our teaching practices.  Do principals or school board administrators actually tell their teachers how to present lessons?  Not in my experience.  Teachers usually have a good deal more autonomy than they ever exercise.  I do know of an instance where one innovative teacher was told by  department colleagues that she could not use social media tools in her classroom because THEY weren't comfortable with that.  Come on, seriously?  I think they felt threatened and had no right to tell her how to teach.

What could you really do if you cast off your imaginary fetters and took the advice of those three sage educators whose posts I have linked to above.  What obstacles lie in your way?  Are they real or imagined?


Photo credit: kevinrosseel from morguefile.com

iPonder #2

I've had the use of an iPad for several weeks now and wrote a post earlier on my initial impressions.  I took it along to a conference I attended. It was certainly all I needed and my back will be eternally grateful that I wasn't toting my full computer bag.

A couple of tricks I've learned:

• To copy a URL tap and hold in the address bar.  This will bring up the keyboard.  Ignore it and simply tap and hold again until the magnifying circle comes up.  When you release your finger a pop-up will allow you to "select all".  Choosing "select all" gives you the option to copy and then paste elsewhere.
• When typing in most apps, to end a sentence just tap the space bar twice.  A period will be inserted and the next word you type will automatically start with a capital letter.

The magazine reading experience is delightful with all the imbedded media and colours that pop off the page.  Even the ads engaged me.  Wired Reader is impressive.  The current issue has a video trailer for the new Toy Story 3 movie imbedded on the cover.  There are several ways to navigate the articles.  Some pages have Touch buttons to move through a series of items.   For longer articles you simply swipe up to reveal successive pages.  I learned how Cheetos are made, fascinating, and I love the photo of quality control testers wearing hairnets, beard nets and earphone protection.

  

Navigating is as simple as tapping anywhere on the page to return to the cover or pull up an index menu.  A slider along the bottom of the screen lets you advance or page back and shows you your progress.

One of the  'pay for' apps I'm trying out:

Audiotorium Take notes and record voice.  There are 7 font choices and a range of font sizes which would be useful for younger students or vision impaired users.  Notes can be arranged into three basic categories: my notes, work notes or school notes and you can add your own additional categories.  Using the plus sign icon in the category menu lets you add subjects within categories, for instance adding 'English" under the School Notes category.  To start taking notes, select a category and subject first, then hit the + sign located in the top right.   Notes are saved automatically and stored chronologically.  

If you are recording an interview or lecture you can drop bookmarks into the recording so that you 

quickly return to those spots when replaying.  You can also send your notes to yourself and others        via email.

 Here's what the developer has to say.