Multimedia Editing with Google Drive

This post could also be titled: "What I meant to share during yesterday's glitchy demo slam..." ;)

When teachers talk about using Chromebooks as student machines, they often lament the lack of multimedia editing tools for student projects (such as the iLife Suite that has for years made Macs an excellent choice for student use and 1:1 programs). Chromebooks, of course, don't have any local applications... just a fast, secure, and feature rich browser... work is created and stored "in the cloud."

Google Docs (now Google Drive) has been an amazing web-based creation and collaboration tool for years, but now that Google Drive is a platform and an ecology of apps is evolving, more and more options are available for the "iLife like" experience on the web. Here are three Google Drive Apps that I shared during the demo slam at the Google in Education Summit yesterday.

Pixlr Editor for editing images (a photoshop analog)
UJAM for creating music (a GarageBand analog)
WeVideo for editing video (an iMovie analog)

While these web-based apps may not be as mature as their harddrive based equivalents... look what is possible on the web today! And imagine what is to come. You might browse the collection Drive Apps in the Chrome Web Store to get a better glimpse of what your browser is now capable of doing. :)

Personally, I moved almost completely into the cloud almost two years ago and have never regretted it... it's been amazing too watch how quickly the pace of change in the browser has accelerated, and though I'm no expert in this new breed of online apps, I'm excited about what they mean for the accessibility, usability, and portability of student data, media, and computing/creating/collaborating experiences. Let me know in the comments if you have other favorite Drive Apps... and please share any success stories (or challenges) you might already have experienced personally or with your students.

Autumn Through the Eyes of a Child

By Second Grade Teacher Julie Stewart

We set out one afternoon before fall break to take in the beauty of the autumn colors.  Our weather was changing fast, and we needed to get outside and snap some pictures before all of the leaves ended up on the ground.  Because we did not have a fancy tablet cover for our Nexus 7 tablets, taking them outside was something that we were a bit nervous about doing.  Our technology teacher, Beth Mossholder, came to class with a solution...Rubber bands!  You heard it right.  We could do this inexpensively and make it work!  Each child was given a rubber band and instructed to attach it to the tablet by slipping their non-writing/typing hand through the rubber band on the back of the Nexus 7.  It worked beautifully!  It was quick and secure, so we could venture outside the classroom and begin our autumn photo safari around the school grounds.  As they made their way outside, I could hear conversations about what they would take pictures of, how they were going to do it, and how they would help each other.  We were ready for our adventure!

Three Simple Steps For a Successful Autumn Photo Safari
1.  Add a rubber band and you are instantly ready to take pictures almost hands-free.
2.  Head outside to capture the beauty of autumn with a Nexus 7 tablet.
3.  Share photos with the teacher.

I have to say that the camera on the Nexus 7 tablet did a great job and did not disappoint anyone.  Even though this tablet just has a front facing camera, a student discovered that by holding it over your shoulder or off to the side, you could see the picture that you were taking.  It is not as good as having the added feature of a rear facing camera, but it worked and they got some really good pictures.  We headed back inside and shared photos and photography tips!  There was even time for peer-to-peer teaching.   One of my “expert” students showed the rest of the class a faster way to view their pictures.   (I loved how they  actually listened and had questions for her at the end!)

Autumn through the eyes of a child and a Nexus 7 tablet!  I do believe that their photo safari was a success!

“Oh, No!” Moments and Charging Multiple Tablets

By Second Grade Teacher Julie Stewart

We have had our share of memorable moments since receiving our Nexus 7 tablets.  Things like charging multiple tablets and having non-homeroom students also using the tablets was now on my list of daily things to manage. It was going to be so easy...

I did not think too much about it, at first, because I thought it would be one of those easy tasks that did not take a lot of effort.  When the tablets needed to be charged, I would just plug them in.  It all seemed so simple.  I suddenly found myself wondering how was I going to do this, and where on earth do I put them in my already crowded classroom?  The minor problem came when I realized that I did not have enough power strips on hand.  I called my teammate, Beth, and asked if she had some that I could use.  Thank goodness for the IT department for having a secret stash of odds and ends for technological emergencies!  With her spares, I had enough to set up charging stations all over my classroom on any horizontal or vertical surface that was available.

Before I could actually start plugging them in and charging them, my next task was to remove each charger from its box and take off the plastic bags and ties.  After I got the USB cables plugged into the charging units, the tablets were finally ready to be charged.  As I started this task, my college-aged son, Stephen, stopped by my classroom to lend me a hand.  He helped me find a few more open outlets for the power strips, and we got them all plugged in and charging in less than 10 minutes.  They were scattered all over my classroom, but each tablet had a home to charge.  My “Oh, no!” moment was no more!

I had mentioned in an earlier post that it was important that I have identification names and numbers on all of the tablets. This was done to prevent major “Oh, no!” moments.  Since my school does ability grouping for math and reading, my class decided that we should share our tablets with the other second graders who have me as their math and reading teacher. Doing this has allowed me to put the Nexus 7’s into the hands of close to 75 second grade students! This kind gesture made the other second grade classes very happy.  By assigning each guest student a specific tablet, I have made all of them accountable for using them.  This, along with adding LanSchool to each tablet, has made the students very aware of computer security.  It also prevents 25 students from asking me all at the same time as to which one they should use!

A funny moment happened one day when I heard an “Oh, no!” from one of my homeroom students when she was looking at her photos in her photo gallery.  She brought her tablet over to me to see.  One of the guest students assigned to her tablet had been exploring the camera feature while usng her tablet and snapped a self portrait. My homeroom student remarked, "Well, it is okay, Mrs. Stewart.  She took a really good picutre, and now you don’t need to show her how to use the camera. She will be an expert pretty soon."  All I could do was smile!  This is the kind of moment that makes this teacher pretty darn happy.

My next post will be showcasing some of the work the students have done out in the field using their tablets and the camera  to show their creative “wow” moments.  You will be amazed at what they did with just a few minutes of instruction on using the camera feature and being set free on their photo safari in and around our school.

Nexus 7 Rollout in 4th Grade

We're all so proud to be involved with this effort. The second class set of Nexus 7s the EdTechTeam donated for 1:1 student use was rolled out earlier this month...

YEAH!!!! The Nexus 7s arrived in Maine on Friday afternoon and we were able to give them to students just three days later. Kate Parkin (4th grade teacher) and I had spent time preparing for the devices, exploring apps, becoming familiar with various resources like Edutecher and Android4Schools and thinking about how to bring this to her students in the most productive way. Some weekend work went into charging, updating and preparing the tablets with each student's Yarmouth Google account.  

Read More on Kathy Wolinsky's Blog...

Do any of you know of any schools purchasing Nexus 7s for student use? We'd love to connect with the educators in those schools as well - to share challenges and best practices. Thank you in advance for any comments you might leave.

Meanwhile, we hope you all have a happy new year celebration. :)

EdTechTeam Values... And Thanks

Cross-posted from edtechlife.com.

This is an excerpt from something I wrote for the team back in February. It has stood the test of time well, and I'm excited to finally share it here. I look forward to any comments, feedback, or pushback from others. :)

Over the past few years I’ve found that my personal and professional values have more or less converged, so I’m particularly passionate about my commitment to these values... and I think they’re a good fit for this team. Passion We do only work that we are passionate about. Don’t accept a job from the team that you aren’t passionate about. Do feel free to send us leads you’re not passionate about, but know that I won’t move on a lead unless I am passionate about it... or unless I know someone else on the team that is. It follows that we also don’t provide or recommend products or services that we are not passionate about. Sticking to your passions is also a very positive way to ensure you never threaten your own integrity.

Flexibility

We are a flexible team. This is probably the essence of the EdTechTeam, and I often pitch this benefit to clients: “We are a nimble organization, able to be flexible and responsive to your needs... Our services can be scaled up or back as necessary, and we are experienced in developing custom services based on client requests. Because we always work on a contract basis, few of the commitments required to hire an employee are necessary for your organization to tap into our expertise.” I value flexibility over systems, rules, and precedents - and I value flexibility over checklists, goals, and plans. Flexibility is critical to the philosophy of the “lean startup” and that philosophy is key to our success and future growth. If I say “thank you for your flexibility” it is high praise coming from me.

Openness

We are an open team. I mean this in many ways. Most importantly, we are open with each other. Hopefully this message is a good step toward making that even more of a reality. If you have questions, concerns, or potential conflicts... let me (and anyone else involved) know. We are also open with the clients, educators, and students that we serve; we always share our opinions (and identify them as such); we always disclose potential conflicts of interest; and we always disclose any additional funding or support we might be receiving. And, of course, we always thank the people and organizations that have contributed to successful events and projects. Also, we share as much of our resources as we can. That is why all of our workshop resources and publicly posted materials (including blog posts and wikis) are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. We’re paying it forward to other educators and learners.

Creativity

We are a creative team. Creativity is a cornerstone of my educational philosophy. I believe that encouraging creativity is both a means for learning other things, and a valuable end for education to aspire to. I value working with creative people (like all of you), and our creative solutions to others’ problems are in a very real way what we are selling. We find creative ways to help people learn.

Simplicity

Simplicity is good. All things being equal, simplicity is better than complexity. Simple solutions are better than complex solutions. Simple tools are better than complex tools. Simple rules of thumb are better than complex manuals, and simple values are better than complex contracts. If in any case, a simpler tool can be used, simpler words will suffice, or a simpler route can be taken... we should always choose the most simple path to the solution we want. I feel my language in this message is simple, but I know it is still unnecessarily long and complex. I look forward to the day I’ll be able to express these things in only a few lines.

Health, Balance, and Authenticity

We live healthy, balanced, and authentic lives. I mentioned that my personal and professional values have converged over the years. These are three values (collected for simplicity’s sake) that I aspire to in my personal life, that I admire in many of you, and that we should look to for guidance as a team. We should not suggest things to clients, educators, and learners that would not be healthy or that would lead them to lead an unbalanced or inauthentic life; rather, we should encourage healthy choices, balanced behaviors, and authentic communication. I’m a fan of teaching “the whole child” (regardless of the political baggage this term may have acquired), and I think it is critically important to always deal with everyone, educators and students included, first as people. Discover their passions and their challenges if you truly want to help. The technology in our name and mission does not outweigh the health and happiness of the people we serve.

Giving

We donate 5% of our net income to put devices in the hands of students. As I’ve worked to reboot this business in 2012, I’ve wanted to ensure that giving is baked right into the business model. (Among other things, I was inspired by Blake Mycoskie’s Start Something That Matters.) When I asked myself what we could do, I kept coming back to the importance of putting devices in the hands of kids... to creating as many 1:1 situations as we can (even on an individual scale). We can’t offer any sort of 1-for-1 deal similar to Mycoskie’s TOMS shoes (it would be too expense to include the price of a mobile device with every workshop ticket... or to give away a workshop for each one sold), but we can dedicate  5% of our net profit to putting devices in kids hands. Inspired by Warren Dale, who provides some very convincing arguments for giving kids iPod Touches (which they will carry and use everywhere) I am giving iPod Touches to kids in schools with teachers (and visionary educational technologists) who will provide the best chance for the devices to be put to good use. UPDATE: The entire core team for the Google Apps for Education Summits has committed to giving away Nexus 7 devices... and I just shipped our second class set yesterday!

Synchronicity

We embrace synchronicity. Whatever cause or causes have brought all of us together, there is no doubt in my mind that this team is greater than the sum of it’s parts - that I am better working with you than I am working alone. Similarly, I trust my intuition... and I trust yours; your opinions and insights are extremely valuable to me. As a team, we should continue to embrace the happy accidents and meaningful connections that our work presents us with. I look forward to seeing how our efforts will be shaped in the months and years to come.

I feel the same way about this (sometimes dormant) blog. And on this particular day I'm Thankful for all of the happy accidents and meaningful connections I've found here with all of you as well. :)

See also a flashback "Thank You" post that still resonates with me 9 months later: http://edtechlife.com/?p=2942

What did I learn? Search Google News Archives

This is cross-posted from the EdTechLife blog.

I wrote (most of) this on the plane ride home after the Google Apps for Education New England Summit last week...

If I'm going to blog publicly, I can ask myself... what did I learn this weekend? I usually learn something new at each summit... from dropping in on sessions, or from good questions asked in my own sessions... or, of course, from new tools or features released since I last ran my sessions. :)

Thanks to an attendee question, I relearned how to search the Google News Archives using the new interface. If I post this to my blog, I'll have to re-record a new video of it. It's awesome. In short, though, you can now access the Google News Archives by simply visiting Google News, and clicking on the drop down arrow in the search box. One of the options is to search in the archive – and you can limit your search by date as well.

Here's the video... my first screencast using my new Linux laptop. I used RecordMyDesktop to create an ogv file and then uploaded it directly to YouTube. I forgot to turn up my audio input first... and YouTube seems to have crunched the resolution down pretty far, but considering I wasn't up for a second take, I'm pretty happy with how it gets the point across. :)

Given my difficulty in articulating what else I've learned this weekend, I think another take away is this: I've got to make it more of a priority to spend substantial time in the other sessions in order to learn something new each time (and to take advantage of where we are, and who we are with). It will also help me have an even better idea about how each presenter runs their sessions and how the events are going. Right now I stick my head into every session (when I'm not presenting) to see how it's going. I busy myself taking pictures (as unobtrusively as possible)while I get a sense for how the energy in the room, but I don't usually stick around for the content. Most of the content is of course familiar to me, but I still pick up nuggets here and there, and there's no doubt in my mind that the speakers at these events have vastly different experiences and expertise from mine - that I could benefit from if I put more time into listening.

That being said, I did learn A LOT this weekend, but not necessarily about educational technology. I continue to learn a lot about business... and about people (and organizations)... and about myself. These things just might not be appropriate for an educational technology blog. Depending on the reflections, though, they might work here (it is an "and life" blog too after all), or they might work on a separate blog – or perhaps on an anonymous blog. Or perhaps only in a private file – in a hidden directory on an encryped drive. I've been doing some journaling too. ;)

Nexus 7 Tablets Given a Test Drive by Second Graders

By Second Grade Teacher Julie Stewart

Anytime a class set of items enters a classroom, there needs to be an organized method to monitor them.  I realized that our new tablets could be managed just as easily as anything else in my classroom.  I would just use the classroom student identification numbers I assigned the students on the first day of school.  This would ensure that each student would always get their own tablet.  (I will let you know why this is so important to me in a later post.)  I made labels with their last names and ID numbers.  I took a photo of each box with their last name and number.  I then attached the labels to the back of the Nexus 7 tablets.  After attaching the label to the tablet, I took a simple colored dot with the ID number written on it and attached that to the box.  (This was cheaper than using label tape!)  This allowed me to store the boxes and remember which tablet belonged with which box and have a file stored with this information.  Beth and I also opted to leave the clear plastic film on the tablets to help protect the screens for as long as possible.  We figured that this was better than nothing for the time being.  We shall see how long this packaging film lasts as our cheap screen protector!

After getting the tablets marked with ID numbers and handed out to their new owners, we were finally ready to get started!  I gave the students a brief overview of the Nexus 7,  how to turn it on, and basic care and handling.  Since the students had already set-up their Google accounts the week before the tablets arrived, it was so simple to have them enter their information after turning them on. Oh, there were a few who had to try it a couple of  times, but it really was easier than I thought it was going to be.  The only minor glitch was when it came to the step where the wireless security code needed to be entered into the tablets to allow for an internet connection.  I realized that I had to put that information into each tablet myself!  It happened to be our lunch and recess time, so I was able to get it all done by the time the students got back to class.   Needless to say, they were pretty happy that I had every tablet ready to go.  Their excitement was pretty high at this point.

After all of the start-up steps were completed, they were ready to take their tablets for a test drive.  The first thing they wanted to do was visit was Google Earth!  It was a simple and easy first task. Their first couple of stops on their virtual trip was their house and our school.  Then one of the students suggested that we visit different countries.  It was not long before most of them were gathered around the world map in our classroom and found the places they wanted to see.  By the end of the class period, I believe that every continent had been visited by my classroom travelers.  This proved to be a very exciting virtual field trip.  I think the most exciting moment that I captured in a photo was when two students found out that they could visit Paris!  It was a great teacher and student moment!

We definitely had a great first lesson with our new tablets.  Our test drive was a huge success!