Twitter Search Using Hashtags

I was talking with a colleague of mind this morning about using Twitter hashtags to find more content and contacts and I thought it would be a good idea to publish a post about this great tool for others.

I will always sing the praises of how much of a resource Twitter is not just for content, but for connections with other people.  In Twitter's main stream of tweets in your home you have your customized flow of information form those that you follow.  Just like most other social networks.  This is a nice resource to access when you want it.  However, if you want to get out there and discover new content or even new contacts beyond your regular stream of tweets in your home, Twitter uses hashtags.  For more information on hashtags, visit my Google Site page Hashtags.

This blog post will focus more on the basis of how to use a hashtag to search in Twitter.

Once you find a hashtag that is associated with your specific area of interest, you can use it in your Twitter search bar.

The results of your search will show in your tweet stream, as viewed below.

As shown here you can save your search for later access and return to that specific search by clicking on your search bar.  Below is a list of saved searches that can be accessed at any time.

For more information about Twitter, there are thousands of education blogs and sites that help with this.  However, feel free to visit my Google Site page about Twitter.  Go to Ratkacher Station (the Google Site version)

SlideShark - Online Storage, Sharing, Presenting for PowerPoint (Now Available iPad App)

SlideShark is an online service that hosts your PowerPoint presentations and allows you to share them via social networks or email and allows you to access them from any internet connected computer.  SlideShark also has an iPad app.  This app could serve as a very useful tool for those educators who like to use their iPads in the classroom as their teaching tool.

SlideShark's iPad app let's you access your uploaded PowerPoint slide presentations and present them on your iPad, either alone or on a projector via VGA cord or Apple TV.  SlideShark has easy controls when presenting your PowerPoint presentation and (I like this) allows a "pointer" simply by pressing and holding on the slide; which presents a very visible red dot which you can move around on the iPad and presentation view to assist in creating focal points.

The web application as well as the iPad application are both very easy to use.  Best of all the account and app are both FREE.  You are limited to 100MB of space with your FREE account, however I think that is plenty of space for the casual user.  For the heavy user, upload only your critical presentations.

IWitness - Video Testimonies of Holocaust Survivors

"IWitness is an online application that gives educatorsand students access to search, watch, and learn from more than 1,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses." - IWitness

As mentioned above in the excerpt from their site, there are over 1,000 video that you can use for you classroom.  The videos are individual interviews with actual Holocaust survivors explaining some of the things they went through.  You can browse through their categorized library (categorized by camp location and topic) for instant viewing of small 4min clips, or you can register for your own account and get the full interviews.  It may take up to two days for IWitness to review your request for registration.  To check out this rich library, go to IWitness.

What Really Drives Students to WANT to Learn?

This TED Talks video came out back in 2009.  I just discovered it.  Knowing who Daniel Pink is and some of what he does and has done with education, I did not know he spoke at TED.  Although this presentation is business-centered, it goes hand-in-hand with education.  The way businesses are motivating their teams is the same motivation that works in the school system.

Being a former businessman myself, I know that if your team is not intrinsically interested in what your business is doing or they do not know where your business is going, they may never be as successful and devoted to learning as they would if they WANTED to invest themselves into it.  They will not be your problem-solvers or your goto people if you need creative solutions or to be innovative.

Do students need to learn to think outside the box?  Or is creative thinking something for after school?  Perhaps they should wait to finish their standardized test before attempting this.  Write in the comments below your thoughts about this.

Mac's iLife In The Classroom

MacBook's iLife suite can help make some great productions for students in the classroom.  iMovie, iPhoto, and Garageband are very powerful tools and offer some fairly elaborate features that not only make it fun for the user, but can make a well crafted product.  Do NOT let these programs scare you.  Once you learn a few basic steps, you or your students can create a very nice product with minimal involvement.  

Using the iLife suite in the classroom for class projects or a final portfolio of what they learned, not only creates interest and engagement from the student, but allows students to learn about the content in ways that lecture or worksheets can not.

Students can create "movie trailers" as a book report; a handsome photo album of their collected images of 911; create a podcast as if they were reporting live at the Beach of Normandy; use their iTunes library to store important documents or podcasts from iTunesU.  With a little creativity you can do so much more using this collection of media producing software.  Because each of these programs are in one suite and are Apple products, they sync and work with each other.  So if I am creating an iMovie and need some images from iPhoto or some music from iTunes, I can access these right in the iMovie program.

With any of these applications, I consider myself almost-pro if not pro.  I can assist you with creative ideas on how we can use these applications with what you are doing in your classroom.  I would even love to make a class visit and walk your students through some of the basics and advanced features of any of these programs.

Please contact me at any time - nasonb@sad1.org

Using Voice Recording Apps for Verbal Practice in a World Language Classroom

Here's an easy and useful way to have your students practice their vernacular and pronunciation for those teachers and/or students who use iPads in the classroom.  Find a reliable audio recording app that allows the user to share the final product via email.  Below are a couple of recommendations.  Student pairs can be handed the iPad device, record their conversation in their learned language and save their recording in the app; or email the final product to the teacher.  The teacher can then review the student's quality of pronunciation later at a time when it is more convenient, so they can manage the class or work with another group of students.

Not only can this be a fun and convenient way to assess a students performance, but it can be less intimidating for some students than speaking directly to the teacher or the classroom and can therefore build confidence within the leaner.

Here's another creative idea that works well with naming objects.  Some of the recommended apps below not only record audio, but utilizes your 5-megapixel camera for adding snapshots to your notes.  Have your students take pictures of objects in the classroom, hallway, or any where you would like them to.  Then have them attach an audio recording to the note in their learned language with their chosen camera snapshot .  This is another fun way of allowing them pick the objects and label them with their recorded voice.

Here are a couple of apps that I have found that can execute this job and are fairly cheep.

Audio Memos (FREE or $0.99) - Very simple interface and easy to use; one step record

• Students can email as well as store their recordings in the app.
• Students should label their recordings with their name to recall them later
• This app actually provides a URL with which you can remotely access your saved voice memos online and download them to your computer
• The only difference between the FREE version and the $0.99 version is
• You can send email up to 15MB of audio (free version should be more than enough for the classroom assignment
• The app will continue to record when you are multi-tasking out of the app
• USB file transfers
• Application lock code
• Search/filter your recordings

Audioboo (FREE) is an iPhone app, but works in the iPad device.  This is an online application that has an iOS app.  Simple operation - record and publish.  Teacher can access the published recordings from the Audioboo site.  Students will have to make sure when labeling their recordings with their name that they do NOT use their full name because the published file is on an open forum and their name will be available to public.  Students should use a teacher-given nickname or their first initial and last name.

Voice Recorder for iPad ($0.99) does the same as the $0.99 Audio Memos app; easy and clean user interface.  It, also, allows users to upload their recordings to YouTube and Facebook and allows the user to add notes to their recordings.  You can, also, trim the recordings within the app.

AudioNote Light (FREE).  The extras to this package is that it is designed as a notetaker with audio recording capability.  The notes taken are synced up with the audio recording, so you do not have to search through the audio to find key points, but you can locate them by the links in your notes.  Pretty nifty and maybe more than you need, but for the teacher who has everything, you may not have this.  There is a lot more to what this app offers and perhaps it could serve as a multi-purpose tool for the teacher as well as the students.  Their $4.99 version, of course, does more.

My Favorite All-in-one:  Noteability ($0.99) is similar to AudioNote in that it is a notetaker with handwriting capability and audio recording ability.  Noteability syncs with Dropbox and your iTunes account.  Students can record and you can either email or sync them to your iTunes library for later grading.  This app is one (as mentioned above) that will allow the user to import a photo from their iPad photo roll to the note.

Another of my favorite apps:  Evernote (FREE) is an all-in-one notetaker, data collector, bookmarker; you name it; it is designed to be your personal digital notebook.  Evernote, like Noteability, will crate notes using audio recordings as well as imagery.  You could set up notes in advance with your selected images and have your students record their pronunciation of that object.  Since Evernote is an online cloud storage system, student names are not protected or secure, so make sure you are using code names, nick names, or first initial and last name.

There are hundreds of audio recorders and notetakers with audio recording, however here are a couple more recommendations that can do these features I have mentioned:

Draw Pad Pro ($1.99 w/ $0.99 upgrade for audio recorder)

Handwriting/Notetaking apps from appadvice.com.

Google Maps Measuring Tools - Great for Math (..and History and English Language Arts)

Today through Richard Byrne I discovered some new cool features with Google Maps.  Now, I'm sure most of you are utilizing your Google Earth application all the time when referring to a geographical location ;0).  However, Google Maps is also a great tool for maps.  Since you already are using your laptop top device as your main teacher tool, you can have Google Maps bookmarked and ready to go when your ready to display a map or two that refers to you current content or topic (in what ever subject you are in).

Here's what's new with Google Maps:

Google maps has measuring tools (great for Math, History, English Language Arts).  You have to activate this feature in Google Maps.  Locate Maps Labs at the bottom of the Google Maps site, as indicated in the image below.  From there you can activate or deactivate some extra features that Maps has to offer.  One of them is the Measuring Tool.

Once you click on the "ruler" icon (image below), you will have a drop-down menu of measurements to choose from.

The Google Maps Measuring Tools now offers over 50 unique measuring units from American Football Field to Egyptian Royal Cubit.  This is a great way to use measuring in a unique and fun way; and depending on the subject can put a better understanding on distance throughout history or historical literature.  For more info from Richard Byrne go to Free Technology for Teachers: Getting Geeky With Google Maps Measurements:

'via Blog this'

How to Do 11 Techy Things in the New School Year - Richard Byrne

Richard Byrne (as previously mention, several times) is always pulling out very practical material that helps teachers use technology in their classroom.  Below I have embedded his ebook that I think you will find very useful.  Not all of these suggestions may be available to our district, however take advantage of the ones that are.  If you have any questions about any of these tech suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

How to Do 11 Techy Things In Your Classroom

More SMART Notebook Video Tutorials

Taking advantage of YouTube's curating options and ability, I've organized and put together playlists of video tutorials for different topics.  One of them is for SMART Notebook.  After doing much search for helpful, practical and informative tutorials, I felt these were of great quality.  This playlist will be an ongoing build; like a video blog.  So keep checking for updates and newly added video.  As I find more practical content I will add them to my playlists.  Feel free to subscribe to my channel, so you can get notifications of when I do add something new.  Visit my SMART Notebook YouTube playlist

You will, also, notice, perhaps, a familiar voice in some of the videos.  I have been posting my own tutorials; short easy-to-swallow snippets about SMART Notebook.  Be sure to check those ones out as well.

Please feel free to give me your feedback on these playlists in the comment sections of either this blog post or the playlists.

SMART Notebook - Pen Tool

Latest video upload.  What your SMART Notebook Pen Tool can do.

MLTI Minute - Adjusting Display Preferences

Did you ever wonder why your computer screen and the projector display sometimes do not match when you plug in to the projector, or why they change in size or resolution?

Last year I featured MLTI's MLTI Minute and their video tutorials how to make the most of your Stickies application on your MacBook device.  MLTI Minute now has over 200 mini-tutorials posted on their site.

Today I would like to feature another one that came out last April.  This one talks about your display settings on your computer when you plug into a projector and how you can adjust them to suit your needs.  Tim Hart, Apple Rep and MLTI Integration Mentor, does a great job and making this process simple and easy to understand.

I would like to point out, also, that all of their video is downloadable.  You could store it in your iTunes app if you like.

If you have any questions concerning the use of your displays when projecting, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Apps Gone Free - Today's Feature

Apps Gone Free is a FREE iPhone app (compatible with your iPad as well) that features on a daily basis apps that have gone FREE.

Today there is a good one for those iPad begginers or those who would like to know more about your iOS device.  The app is called SCOtutor for iPad.  It was at the price of $3.99, but now it is FREE.  The app is basically an organized and categorized set of video tutorials explaining pretty much every little feature of your iPad device.  It is designed to cover the iPad2 and iOS5, however is great for anyone who has the original first iPad.  The app is amazingly easy to navigated through and to where you want to view.  I believe you will find this extremely helpful.  Below is a video demo of the app.

Get the Apps Gone Free app for more info, or just go to your iTunes store for SCOtutor for iPad.

(disclaimer - this is not my preferred demo, but it does cover it all; he's not Mr. Personality)

SMART Notebook - Infinite Cloner