RSS Is So Last Year...

I don't necessarily mean that, however, if for any reason you are a frequent, somewhat frequent, or first-time viewer of my blog, you will notice that my commitment to posting content on a regular basis has failed miserably.  The reason for that is because I almost never now communicate via blogs; at least these kind.  For that matter, I almost never even view my Feedly account any more (if you are not familiar with what Feedly is, they emerged and grew when Google Reader announced its closing; basically it collects and aggregates feed from blogs like this one using RSS feed).

In a nutshell, it seems that blogs and blog readers are becoming a thing of the past for many.  I share and communicate almost entirely (apart from the necessary email) through social media.  If the writer of a blog has a social media profile, I'll follow that instead of the blog itself.  Not only is social media the easiest to filter and search through, but it is easier to share content.  It is not necessary to generate blog posts with a bunch of links, material or ideas for Technology Integration.  I can do the same with small, bite-sized pieces through social media.

I primarily use Google+ and Twitter.  I do find lots of great ideas and content through Pinterest as well.

So, whether you see more posts to come or not from this blog, you can guarantee I'm talkin' on either Google+ or Twitter.  Find me and follow me.

Google+:  +Benjamin Nason 

Twitter:  @Ratkacher

January/February Schedule

Study Human Anatomy in 3-D

I was assisting a Science teacher today with her interest in doing some interactive stuff with anatomy.  Here are a couple of things I shared with her.

In regards to anatomy, if you study human anatomy, have you tried this out - BioDigital Human - great with the interactive whiteboard.  Works best in Chrome (because of GL Web requirements).
Zygote Body is another 3-D interactive display of the human anatomy; simpler version.
For the iPad, Anatomy 4D is an amazing Augmented Reality app that used a "target" (piece of paper that you can print).  Then you can manipulate the body around and view system layers together or individually.

iPad Screenshots of Anatomy 4D app

Twitter Follow Feature

Danny Nicholson is the writer for The Whiteboard Blog from the UK; worth looking at.  Also, you can follow Danny on your Google+ network at +WhiteboardblogCoUk.

Tweets by @dannynic

The Power of Infographics

Infographics are a great way to share information in a visually appealing way.  Another great thing about infographics is that because they are created digitally and designed to live digitally, you can embed them in your site or Moodle course for student to view.  Good infographics pull the viewer in by their eye-catching visual appeal, then share important information while they hold your attention.  You can embed infographics in most any site and especially in Moodle.  Put an infographic in an HTML box on a side column.

Visual.ly is one of many sites devoted to some great infographics that you can embed in to your web site or Moodle course.  If you are not sure how to embed an infographic in to a site or Moodle course, please visit this post explaining this process.

Here are some great infographics I found regarding space:

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

SMART Notebook Update for Mac - Floating Toolbar

Your SMART Notebook software for Mac has a new update if you have not noticed so far - 11.3.  Most of us should be at 11.2 currently.  Though this update is not much, it does have a couple of nice features.  The SMART Technologies package that comes with the update includes SMART System Menu, which, when launched, provides an icon in your system menu bar.  This icon acts as a hub for all of your SMART products, including Notebook, Screen Shade, and more; as well as the ability to show or hide the Board Tools.

If you are a frequent, or even minimal, Floating Toolbar user, you are familiar with the Board Tools icon that appears in the dock on your laptop.

From this application you are able to utilize the Floating Toolbar of SMART Tools to integrate with any application on your MacBook.  This is great when you want to annotate or interactively feature something on your projector from your computer for the classroom.

With the 11.3 update to Notebook, you can access the Floating Toolbar from the SMART System Menu - Show or Hide.  No longer will you see the Board Tools icon in your dock; so, don't be alarmed. It's nice having the one, integrated center to access Notebook and the Notebook features and tools.  And, the SMART System Menu icon will remain in your system toolbar when you log in to your laptop.

Student Access to Pages Documents At Home

The great thing about iCloud and the Apple apps that are associated with iCloud, is that you can access and continue to edit the content (documents, spreadsheets, notes, etc) at home without having to bring the iPad home.  Since we have not allowed the students to bring their iPads home yet, this may be a valuable resource.

Let's use the Pages app for demonstration.  Any editing or new update to a Pages document is automatically saved, and saved to iCloud as long as the student has set this feature.

(We went over backing up to iCloud with all of the students at Deployment Day and had them all back up their iPad using iCloud.  I mentioned this part because there is always one or two that may have not listened and did not choose to back up their device in iCloud)

With this auto-save feature of Pages in iCloud, students can access their documents at any network-connected computer.

Simply log in with Apple ID at

icloud.com

From there any Apple user with their Apple ID can access the iCloud features, like Pages.

Users can select an already created document for viewing or editing, or they can create a new document right from their web browser.

Users can also right-click (Mac: option-click) on the thumbnail of the document and download it either as a Pages document, a PDF or as a Word document.