Week 19 and 20 #NerdyCast Reflections

It has been a crazy couple of weeks for me. I have been sick for about two weeks and I have had the busiest two weeks at the same time. I wrote about being sick and being a teacher and had so many great responses. It is nice to know that I'm not the only one that deals with the dilemma of deciding how sick is sick enough to go to work.

We also had a visit from Kid President!

I will go into more detail in a later post, but his visit was awesome and I'm so glad I had a chance to see a friend again and meet the one and only Kid President. It was a great day and I was happy I was able to share it with my students.

My students also wrapped up their Mock Trial and they all did an amazing job. I'm so proud of my students and everything they accomplish. Seeing their engaged faces in projects like this makes all of the hard work worth it. 

Here is the video reflection. I will have more posts soon to cover some of my thoughts more deeply. 

Nick

InFocus JTouch and LiteShow 4 Review #EdChat

I'm excited to share with all of you a new addition to our growing Makerspace in my school. The InFocus JTouch and LiteShow 4. 

The JTouch 65" Interactive Touchscreen Display is an excellent addition to the classroom looking for a more interactive experience for students. At the special educational price of $1,999, it is a great deal. 

Here is a short video that explains more about the display. 

The one thing that jumps out to me is the clarity of the screen. It is crisp! I hooked up my Mac directly to the screen and the image was very bright. This is key because we plan on keeping this in the library with our Makerspace equipment and we will not be able to turn the lights down just for that area. A clear screen will help all of the students in the room. I also connected our document camera to the Mac to see how it would look on the bigger screen and everything looked great. The connection to the Mac was simple and quick. I would have liked to see more than one HDMI port so multiple items could be connected, but I can always go online and purchase a dongle that will allow me to connect extra HDMI cables if I need to. 

We were not able to mount the display on the wall, so we needed a stand. The stand provided by Chief was the perfect solution. It has wheels that allows us the flexibility to move the display around the space and configure the room how we need it depending on the use of the day. I think that is so important for Makerspaces. The stand hides all of the wires and allows for the display to be moved up and down. This is great for students that might be a bit shorter than others. That would not be possible if it were mounted on the wall. If you are looking for the flexibility of moving your display around, check out Chief for some great deals on stands. 

Here are some shots of students using the JTouch with different interactive websites. 

I did not tell the students anything about how to use the display. I just pulled up a site and said use it. The students quickly got the hang of the touch screen and were able to move around the site with ease. Students have been drawn to the nice sized screen and have been asking to spend more time with it. It has definitely changed the library space in a very positive way. 

The display is strong and no delay could be detected when watching the screen and the movement. Sometimes there can be a delay that can cause problems during use, but everything worked very smoothly. I was very happy to see how quickly I set up the display and was able to navigate around the Mac without any delay or choppiness. I really felt that the JTouch was everything advertised and I couldn't be happier to have it as part of our new Makerspace. 

The direct connection to the Mac was nice, but that could prove a pain if we wanted to move the display around often. It means the computer has to come with it. That was no longer a problem once I connected the JTouch to the LiteShow 4. 

The LiteShow 4 is a wireless receiver that allows you to connect your computer to the JTouch without all of the extra wires. This awesome devices allows for complete wireless control of the the Mac. The computer can now be set up in the corner and the screen can be moved to anywhere in the room. By freeing the display from the computer, it allows for a more flexible learning space. That is a huge plus for me. 

The LiteShow 4 also allows mobile devices to connect by using the MirrorOp app. Now I can have students send their image to the screen by using this free app. Little details like this always make a huge difference in the classroom. Now I can have students work independently, but then share their work with the group quickly by sending it to the screen. 

You can even have multiple computers connected and shown on the screen at once.

As my students start to design and create, this is a great option that will allow students to compare work and choose the best direction to head in for a project. This was not a possibility before. Another excellent part to a great product. It is worth adding to your space if you are looking for wonderful ways to share work and collaborate. It is $399 lives up to all of its promises. 

The  JTouch and LiteShow 4 have been an excellent addition to our growing Makerspace and I would highly recommend them to other educators looking to add a wireless and interactive display option to their classroom or other learning space.

I was sent a JTouch and Liteshow 4 from InFocus for the purpose of this review.

Welcome to PD Without Borders! #EdChat

I'm really excited to announce a new project  that was born over the summer with two of my Google Teacher Academy friends, Dominque Dynes and Jeffery Humphries. You can find them on Twitter at @DominiqueDynes and @itechteach.

PD Without Borders is a project designed to provide a short video with an expert user on cool tech tips for the busy teacher. These videos will be short and to the point and show something really valuable a tool can do for a teacher in the classroom. We hope to have 3 new videos a month and are always looking for suggestions and collaborators.

You can check out our new site at PDWithoutBorders.org, visit us on Twitter at @PDWithoutborder, or visit our YouTube Channel to see the great videos we are sharing.

Here is a one video of a few we have already created and posted for your enjoyment.

SMART amp In The Classroom

I recently had a trial for SMART' amp. Here are some thoughts on how it went with my students over the course of a few months.

What is it?

Here is a short video that explains amp.

Amp is a cloud based collaboration tool that works with Google Drive. At first, I was not sure how amp was going to fit into my ecosystem of technology, but it turned out to be a crucial tool for many of my students. 

How I Used amp

After getting all of my students signed up and joined into my class, I created Workspaces. Each Workspace is blank slate where I can place anything I want.

Students were taken to a Workspace that I had shared with them. This workspace was already set up with a Notebook file I had created and wanted all of the students to see.

The students had access to the the entire notebook file in the cloud. Students can look ahead if they wanted or I can control the page from my device. The best part is that students can leave comments or answer questions right on the document. I will show that in a moment. One of the issues with Notebook that some parents and students have said is that putting the software on their computer was not easy for them. With amp, that is no longer a problem. Since this is cloud based, all students have access to the same file without having to download anything. They can access it from their desktop, laptop, or their mobile devices.

What Can It Do?

Amp can do many things. Here are some of the ones that stood out to me over the past few months.

Add Web Based Content

Being able to add web content is huge. It's a web based and cloud based tool, so it might seem like common sense, but there are plenty of collaborative tools out there that do not all embedding of web based content. With this feature, I was able to embed a video and have students watch it at their own pace and leave comments on the document or the messaging system. I could respond to students and others could collaborate based on the video they watched. By allowing students to move at their own speed, there was less pressure for students to pretend they understood just to keep up with the class. Collaborating together over one video in a shares space became much easier with amp.

Assessments

This might not be a major feature for some, but for others this could be a big plus for amp. Instead of thinking of assessments as a big standardized exam, think of it as a simple way to check for understanding. Assessment questions can be created and used an exit ticket for students. The information is only shared to the teacher who will receive instant feedback. Practice exams could be created on workspaces and shared with students to use at home to prepare them for class. It is important for teachers to know where students are and this is a great tool to do that.

Communication 

Messaging is a great way to have a backchannel while using amp in the classroom. Questions can be asked and answered by other students while the larger class discussion is going on. Teachers can have students watch a video on amp and then post questions in the messaging area that can be addressed the next day in class. It would be a wonderful tool for flipping the classroom. It is important that students feel like they can reach out when they are stuck and the messaging feature is very helpful in keeping that communication open. 

Sharing

I've got this image off because it has all of my students' names and I did not want to share that. Since amp is connected to Google Drive, all of my students' information is dropped into amp and they are ready to go. When I am ready to share a workpsace with my students, it is dropped into a folder that is already shared with them so they can find it and use it when they come to class or get home. I also love the Hand Out Copies feature as well. It allows me to send a copy of everything we have done on the workspace to any or all of the students. Just like Google Drive, sharing is important for amp as it makes collaboration much easier than ever before. 

Zoom

You can zoom in and out as much as you need for amp and that is a nice way to organize information on the workspace. Things can be zoomed in our out depending on the lesson created by the teacher on the workspace. Other students could work on different parts of the workspace at different times and this feature allows the users to freely move around the workspace to see the different things people are working on and who is working on it. 

Here is a screen shot of an uploaded Notebook file and a template for note-taking. With multiple students able to access the page, note-taking can be a collaborative effort. 

Other Cool Features

Follow Me

Follow me allows the teacher to take control of the workspace and all of the screens viewing the space. This is great for my guided lessons. 

Pass Control

This allows the teacher to pass control to a specific student who can now control the workspace. This control can be given to one or multiple students. Small groups could be created and each group could have a turn addressing different questions on the workspace and then the teacher can pass control to the next group when they are ready. 

Device Neutral

I love that amp is device neutral. I have used it on a PC, Mac Desktop, Macbook, iPad 2, iPad mini, and a Chromebook with a single problem. I know that students have used it on their android devices without issues as well. 

Overall Impression:

I loved using SMART amp in my classroom with my students. It is a cloud based tool that allows for more collaboration. This is something that I am always striving to bring to my students. There is a bit of learning curve on figuring out how best to use it in the classroom though. I think that is true for any tool and I know that I need to spend more time with amp to get the most out of it. Again, that has been true for any great tool I use in my classroom. 

SMART amp is a subscription based service and it does offer free 90 Day Trials that are worth exploring if you want to create a large collaborative environment for your students that uses Google Drive. I highly recommend trying amp out and seeing where it fits into your classroom model.