Making Photobooks

Get your free photobook BookSmart software at blurb.com, create a book, and make it available online. The book might be text (black and white) or color photo in a range of book sizes. Page counts range from 20 to 440, and prices from $4.95 to $186.  Although the software is free, you’ll need to order at least one book to make the book available online. You can choose to make your book public or private. If it’s public, others can go online and order it. For example, if you create a class book or a book on a school event, and you want to make it available for parents and students to order, this is a great way to do it. Works on PC and Mac. There are also photobook competitions you can enter.

Want to Change a PDF?

Have you ever had a pdf document you’d like to edit, but didn’t have the Adobe software to accomplish the task? It’s either copy the whole thing over or find someone who has the software and can do it for you. Now you can do it on your own. Just go online to OnlineOCR.net, a web-based OCR (Optical Character Recognition) service that allows you to convert documents, photographs, etc. “into editable and searchable electronic documents including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Rtf, Html and Txt.” It’s available for use in 28 languages. I tried it using a pdf, which I uploaded, and requested a MS Word document. It worked perfectly. The online system uses a credit system, which I found a bit confusing at first. You get 5 free credits to begin with, which translates into 5 pages. Once your credits are used up, you can purchase more ($3 for 30 pages) or be awarded additional free credits by posting links to and information about the service online, making a video about it, etc.

Google Apps Tutorials for Teachers, Administrators & Everyone

Google offers a nice introduction to Google Apps through a slideshow presentation. The show describes essential services that are available for schools, businesses, and families and how these services can be unified through the Google Start Page from which everything can be accessed. Some of the areas covered are Google Apps Mail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Start Page. Administrator tutorials include information on signing up for Google Apps, comparing different editions of Google Apps, a demo on navigating within an administrator account, and Google Apps’s APIs (tools/programs). Although you are probably familiar with some of Google’s free products, this “Welcome to Google Apps” presentation will give you a good overview of the extensive tools that Google provides.

NEH & ALA Offer Classic Books

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA) have announced that public and school libraries may apply for the
We the People BookShelf Grant. The grant features seventeen classic titles for young readers, Grades K-12, some of which are available in Spanish translation. There’s also a bonus, which includes two books and the Ken Burns video on the Civil War. The theme for the 2009-2010 grants is “A More Perfect Union”. Those submitting applications must state how they will promote and use the books and the films in their libraries. The deadline for applications is January 29, 2010.  Some of titles in the package are: Tico and the Golden Wings, by Leo Lionni; When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson by Pam Munoz Ryan; Eagle Song, by Joseph Bruchac; Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson; Lincoln Shot: A President’s Life Remembered by Barry Denenberg; American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic by Joseph Ellis; Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson; Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose; The Origin and Influence of America’s Founding Document , edited by Christian Y. Dupont; and the Civil War DVD.

Are Biometic Tools in Your School’s Future?

You’ve seen businesses where employees submit hand scans before they can enter a building. But what about “hand geometry” and other biotech scanners for schools?  Will they work? Are they practical? Some schools, like Academy of Appleton in Wisconsin, are already using them. The scanners can be used for security at entrances, for library check out, for cafeteria purchases, to track student attendance, and much more. There are fingerprint scanners, facial recognition systems, voice print technologies, and even ID solutions that can recognize people by their voices or the way they move. An article in T.H.E. Journal (October 2009) says that technologies like hand scanners can be a problem when used with growing kids. Fingerprint scanners work better, except when fingers are simply too tiny. All this is mostly in the testing stages for schools, but the promise is there. Personal identification would certainly be easier than having kids carry around ID or security cards. Can you imagine how many of them would be lost or borrowed? But as, the T.H.E article explains, the kids will always have their traits and biological parts with them.

The Standards Debate

Most standards seem like common sense. Good teachers don’t have to look up standards to find out what kids in their courses should accomplish. Standards are often numbered lists of desired outcomes, not how to get the outcome, or what to do beyond mastery. Even though the standards movement has been going on for some time, we keep hearing that we aren’t making progress in our schools. Is the problem that standards aren’t national, or it is something else? Maybe we are too busy looking up standards, teaching to the standards, and testing to see if students are achieving standard level? Standards focus upon the bottom line, the minimum acceptable. Perhaps that’s the problem? As we look to new models, core standards, and grants for improving education, we need to think about whether our proposed standards and testing programs will measure what they need to measure to help us improve education. Robert Pondiscio comments in The Core Knowledge Blog, “Find one single teacher drawing breath that needed a secretive committee of two dozen experts to tell her that high school students ought to be able to ‘discern the most important ideas, events, or information, and summarize them accurately and concisely.’  This is not a standard, it’s a platitude.” You’ll find educators who believe the idea of standardizing standards stifling, and you’ll find educators who suggest that standards by themselves without a roadmap to achieving them, won’t work. Consider Core Standard #12 under Writing for College and Career Readiness: “Use technology as a tool to produce, edit and distribute writing.” No educator would disagree with that. It’s common sense in today’s world. Do we need someone tell us that our students should be able to use tech as a tool in writing? If we do, we are in big trouble. Take a look at the revised draft of ‘Common Core Standards. You have until 10/21/09 to submit your feedback on them.

ADHD & the Internet

CNNHealth.com reports in an article (Internet Linked to ADHD, Depression in Teens) by Amanda MacMillan that those students who seem addicted to use of the Internet are often likely to be teens who suffer from ADHD, depression, social phobia, or hostility.  The author says there is no official diagnosis for Internet Addiction, but that if Internet use, especially the playing of games online, “interferes with everyday life and decision making ability”, this is a sign of Internet Addiction. Those who work with students with problems such as ADHD, social phobias, etc. will tell you that Internet use provides action for some and a place to retreat for others. It is suggested that parents and teachers monitor time spend on computers, especially for those who might be considered high risk.

It’s Learning for Student Success

It’s Learning, a program that focuses upon individual students, is being used with almost 2 million students across Europe. Now available to schools in the United States, the program features ways to help schools with planning, engaging, learning, assessing, reflecting, and reporting. Integration of It’s Learning requires no local installation or maintenance; offers anywhere access, automatic updates so that everyone using it is on the same version, a secure learning environment, and lower costs. Besides all that, it’s said to be ready to be put to use in 24 hours. With the program, students can create personal learning blogs, ePortfolios, multimedia content, Web pages, collaborative projects, and much more. They can join courses from other schools, hold real-time discussions, collect data for surveys, keep personal calendars—you name it. There are an abundance of options for teachers and administrators as well, which include grade books, planning tools, online examinations, custom reports, accessibility support, international standards, and individualized learning plans. It’s impossible to describe all that It’s Learning does. If you are interested in this complete learning system, you’ll want to go to the site and take a look at the science demo. You can also request the US demo and additional information including a slideshow about the product.

Confused about Google Tools & Docs in Education?

If you look at Google’s Term of Service, you’ll see that those using it must be of legal age to sign a binding contract, which means in most places 18 or older. This seems like an obstacle if you want to use free Google tools and docs with your students, but if you sign up to create accounts for you and your students, that’s okay. You are making the contract. Students using the accounts must be 13 or older. If you go to Using Google Docs in the Classroom: Simple as ABC, you’ll not only find information about using Google docs, but also an account creation link. There are videos and other information that show you how to create accounts. Creation will depend upon whether students already have school email accounts, don’t have email accounts, or have their own email accounts. Don’t forget to check out the Google Tools for Educators page.

Share Files with DropBox

Instead of attaching files to email and saving on USB drives, try sharing files with Dropbox. Dropbox for Windows, Mac, and Linux is a place where you can store your files online and across computers. If you use different computers at home and school, it’s a great way to have your files available in both locations and also available through your mobile digital devices. When you edit and save a file, it saves the edits on all your computers. In fact, you can even go back and look at the history of your edits. If you want to share your files with others, put the files in your Dropbox and share the link to the files. When you put your files in the Dropbox, the files are automatically backed up on the Dropbox servers. You get 2GB of storage free, but can opt to pay for additional storage up to 100GB.