Doxie sent me a Doxie Go Smart Digital Scanner for the purpose of this review.
The big one for me is seeing how it is going to work with my iPad. If I'm scanning things, I want to access them on my iPad. If you are not using a wireless SD card, it would be wise to get the Camera Connection Kit. With a traditional SD card, you can scan the documents you want then slide the card into the connection to your iPad. The documents are instantly upload to iPhoto. From there, you can drop them into specific Evernote or Dropbox accounts. If you tend to need lots of scanning and travel quite often, the wireless SD card might be the route to go. If it is just occasional scanning with your iPad present, the traditional SD card will be fine.
At $199, the Doxie Go Smart Digital Scanner might seem pricey, but I think it is a great value. I have plenty of items that need to be scanned and saved in one of the many other tools that Doxie works. I will have receipts from travelling, pictures that Leo will draw and many other things that I will receive in paper form that I will want to save in my digital space.
I could see how this awesome scanner could be used in an Elementary classroom where a teacher scans and shares work their students complete with parents and the school as a whole. Since it is such a quick scan and load process, Teachers could quickly scan student work and share it before the students even get home. What a great way to create a digital portfolio of a student's work.
If you are looking for a great way to quickly organize the clutter of paper on your desk into your digital life, look no further than the Doxie Go Smart Digital Scanner.
I wanted to share with everyone a way to save Pages and Keynote files from the iPad to your Dropbox account. Here is a link to the document I shared with my students on Dropbox. http://db.tt/VySWoJ6y
Basically, you create a document using Pages or Keynote and email to yourself. You go to your email through Safari and access your email. In the email, open the document and it will take you to a new tab. From the new tab, it will give you different programs you can open the document in. Choose Dropbox and it will let you save the file in an existing folder or you can create a new one. The PDF is a bit more detailed, but it works every time. Give it a try.
I've been very lucky to get a class set of iPad2s for my classroom to pilot this year. I have many fun and exciting lessons to try out on the tablets, but my first concern was having students access documents quickly and easily.
I've been a Dropbox user for a few years now and love it. I was never able to access my school documents from home. With Dropbox, I have access to all of my documents from anywhere. With my iPad, I can access, edit and send them without hassle. This is what I want for my students.
I spent a day in the lab having students set up accounts using their school email addresses. I walked them through Dropbox and what it can be used for and how we will be using it for class. Many of the students were interested in the process and even asked if they could use Dropbox for other classes. The thought of not having to constantly email things back and forth was a huge plus to my students. They no longer had to worry about presentations being too large to email. I could see that some of my students are really going to enjoy using Dropbox.
I created a shared file for American Literature and shared it with every student. I will now be able to drop files I want students to access easily from my desktop. When students use the Dropbox app on the iPads, they will be able to log in and access the files. They can edit the files using DocsToGo and drop them into their personalized folders.
If we do group work, students can create group folders and easily share work at their desk and then share the final project with me. With the Apple TV setup in my room, students will be able to open their project and present using the projector without having to leave their desk.
It's taken me a little while to figure out which apps will work best with Dropbox on shared devices. Students will have to remember to log in and log out of the devices, but I'm not too worried about students accessing other students' files. Kids can just log others out without a problem.
The more I play with Dropbox and the other apps that connect to it, the more I like what I see. Although iPads were not designed for collaboration, they are great tools at facilitating collaboration. I cannot wait to share the work my students will be sharing with each other.
This post was orignially posted on my school blog, but I thought I would share it here as well. Enjoy.
We have many new teachers in the district this year and I thought it would be helpful to compile a list of great tools that every new teacher should consider when starting their teaching career. Do not feel pressured to use every one of these tools right away. These are just suggestions based on my experience and the experience of many other veteran tech teachers when asked. If you have any questions about any of the tools listed here, please do not hesitate to contact me.
RSS Readers
There is a ton of information on the Internet, it is tough to keep up with your favorite sites. Often you find yourself wasting time to check websites that have not been updated or you miss other sites that are are updated constantly. By creating an RSS Feed, updates to your favorite website can be sent to one spot for you to read. I prefer to use Google Reader. It's easy to use and you can access it from mobile devices. Here is a cool little video that will explain the process of RSS Feeds.
Here is a great site for teachers that want to show some YouTube videos but might only want to show certain selections. Tubechop is a website that lets you take any YouTube clip and chop it down to size. It is very simple to use and does not take very long. Just select the video you want, select the portion you want to watch and click the chop button. You will be given a link or a code to embed into a website. This site can come in very handy if there is a specific part of a clip you want to show your kids without constantly resetting the video player. This can save you time in the long run. Check this site out.
Livebinders is a great site. It is a great way to keep any or all of the documents you have for a unit or an entire class. I have created a binder for my Graphic Novel Class. It's labeled as Pictorial Literature and it was a way from me to keep an organized binder of all of my new materials I wanted students to have access to. I was able to create individual units on each tab of the virtual binder and cut and paste my documents. Each assignment was clearly labeled and easily accessible for my students. As the Semester went on, I uploaded and linked more work to the binder. Each Binder has a 100MB capacity. I find it hard to believe that people are going to cross the 100MB mark, but you can always create another Binder. The Binders do not have to be teachers only though.
Students can use binders for projects. I hate having to carry around a bunch of different projects that students have created. They were frustrating in paper form and are a different type of frustrating if they are sent to my email or are burned to a disc. I use a Mac (Love it!) and might not be able to check the assignment at home if they used some weird program I don't have. Also, I just don't trust what kids put on their flash drives or email to open it at home. Livebinders allows anyone to create the binder and store on their website. With the ability to upload PDFs, Pictures, videos, etc, the students will be able to create a full presentation that a teacher can check from the comfort of home. For Social Studies teachers, I know you like to use binders for current events and other projects. A virtual binder would be a great way for students to link to current events and other important Social Studies materials that you can check at your leisure. Also, this is a free service, so it will not cost your students, or you, a dime.
I find it is a great way to store all of my documents in a easy to use location without taxing the school's servers. It also allows you to access handouts from the Livebinder that might have been previously saved at school. The Internet provides teachers and students with options, so it's important to try them out.
Drop Box is a service I use and love. I wrote a post about it last year. You should check out this post and see how you can use Cloud Computing in your life. Drop Box Post. If you are not sure what cloud computing is, watch this video to see if Drop Box is for you.
In the old days, when you found an interesting website but did not have the time to read it, you would create a bookmark in your browser and read it later. That worked fine unless you wanted to read that page from a different computer. Social Bookmarking sites, Diigo or Del.icio.us, allow you to bookmark sites to be read at a different time and place wherever you have computer access. The title link will take you to a post I did on using Diigo with students. It has made my life a little more organized, which is a huge help as a teacher. Below you see a video explaining Social Bookmarking and using Del.icio.us. Diigo and Del.icio.us are both great bookmarking sites. Try both out and see which you prefer.
I have written multiple posts in the past about the benefits of using Twitter as a teacher. For some reason, it has been slow to catch on with others. I can honestly say that I have learned more from the connections I have made through Twitter than any PD or grad class I have taken. When I have questions, my Twitter teacher buddies will have answers in minutes. You can follow me @TheNerdyTeacher and I would be more than happy to connect you to the teachers I chat with daily.
There are many more articles and posts out there about Twitter and how it has helped connect teachers from around the world. It is an amazing tool and you should seriously consider using it.
Wallwisher
I love using Wallwisher! I wrote a post on using it last year. It is great for peer feedback for projects. Check it out.
Here is a screen cast I had to create for a grad class. Embarrassing, but helpful.
A collection of sites:
Below are a list of sites that I cannot live without. They are blogs and sites written by some very amazing people that will go out of their way to help you. I don't have the space to really list all of the sites I follow, but here are just a few to get your RSS feed going.
I hope these sites are just a jumping off point as you continue to explore the wonders of Social Media and how it can make you a better teacher. Give it a Try!
One of the biggest problems I have dealt with a a teacher is the inability to access information from my work computer when I'm at home or files on my home computer when I'm at work. I'm constantly emailing documents I create in one place so I can work on them more or use them in another place. Another way to transfer information is to use the Flash Drive. Sometimes I would forget it at home or leave it at work. I know I have talked to other teachers and they have said access to school files from home would be great. Well, I don't think the school will be opening up their servers to teachers anytime soon. Dropbox is the answer to all of our file sharing problems.
I've heard some of the teachers in my PLN talk about Dropbox, but I really didn't think twice about it. Crawling around the web the other day, I stumbled upon Dropbox and finally decided to give it a look. I'm angry at myself for waiting this long to investigate. The days of Flash Drives and Emailing documents are over. All of my school documents are only a few clicks away. Below is a video you should watch to give you the ins and outs of the system. below I will give you some of the key points that have me excited and some thoughts about how I could use it in the classroom.
I hope you liked what you saw. Once you jump on their website, they have another great video walking users through the Dropbox process. Here are some of the things that really got me excited about using Dropbox as a teacher.
I no longer have to worry about transferring documents from one computer to another. If I create a test at home, I only need to save it to the Dropbox Folder. Once I get to school, I only need to log-in to Dropbox.com to download the document and use in class.
Sharing is easier. We have shared folders in the district, but many of us do not use them for one reason or another. Most of what I do is created at home. Once I create it there, I email to school, make copies and that's that. With Dropbox, I can create folders for each unit I tech and share them with the teachers in my Department from the luxury of my home computer. There is no need for extra steps. Once a folder is shared with other people, they will be able to access it whenever they want. Again, teachers are no longer chained to their computer in the classroom and that is a huge plus.
I can create folders for work and for personal use. Sometimes I want to share a bunch of pictures from a trip. I can place the pictures in the folder and share it with family and friends. Too often, pictures are all over the internet for people to see, but this can allow people to actually keep copies of pictures taken at events.
iPhone access! I downloaded the Dropbox app and can have access to all of the same documents on my phone that I would see on the computer. I can double check to see what documents I have access to from anywhere in the world. If I decide to make a document accessible to the public, I do not have to wait to get to a computer to do so. I can also take pictures from my camera and post them in the shared folder. On a trip, family and friends could view pictures as I take them instead of having to wait until I get home to upload them to a site like Flickr.
I can share individual files with anyone I want. If I really don't want someone to look at my entire folder, I can store the document (Word Doc, Picture, Song, etc) in a public file and it will create a special URL link I can send to anyone I choose. Click here for an example.
The last point is very exciting to me. In theory, I could create public folders for each of my classes and share documents with my students from any computer I want. hey could be assignments, news articles, pictures, etc. Not only that, student could share documents with me through a public folder. This could be the last step in my attempt to create a paperless classroom. Now, any assignment I want, can be turned in to a public folder for me to grade. I'm sure there will be bugs to work out, but this could be a valuable tool as teachers look for ways to make important class information available to students no matter where they are.
Lastly, Dropbox is not for teachers only. Any person that uses multiple computers will find this helpful. Think about the times yo have wanted to work on a document, but it was on the "other" computer. With Dropbox, those problems are now gone.
