The Right Tool Makes a Difference

All the teachers came back two weeks ago and the students last Tuesday.  Saying that work was busy was an understatement!  As a technology director there are always lots of meetings, questions, and concerns as the new year starts, but at the same time it is fun to catch up, see what people have done during the summer while you got things ready at school, and share in the excitement of the new year.

I am really thankful for a wonderful little phrase that runs around The FAIR School like an epidemic: “Let’s make a Doc.”  Yes, they are talking about a Google Document.  We have hundreds, thousands, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of these documents.  As we enter the third year of our time with Google I have to say that I greatly appreciate many of the features of a Google Applications for Education domain user.  One of them is the instantaneous collaboration created by a simple document.  Just two weeks alone we had meeting notes, agendas, shared calendars, teachers updating their websites, and our overall workshop week calendar all hosted in our GAFE domain.  Last week our leadership team was in a meeting planning the open house and we quickly made a document to share with the rest of the staff.  We all pitched in, knew what was going on, and even our assistant principal (who had to step out for a few moments) knew exactly where we were and was on the same page.  It worked out really well and the power of Google docs continues to amaze me on a daily basis.

However, not every idea we try always works out really well.  I remember the first time we sent out a Google Form to participants in our summer school program and we forgot to uncheck the box that says “have respondents login to their domain account to fill out the survey.”  Yeah, that was a bit of a mess.  Everything has a learning curve to it, but sometimes using the right tool truly does make a difference.  It could be a Web 2.0 tool (my favorite right now is an awesome little site called Schoology) or even a great piece of software (SMART Notebook 11 is improved for the Mac), but in a classroom there is a time and a place for every tool.  

It’s kind of like a box of crayons.  If you need to color someone’s hair you might choose a dark or light color depending on your purpose.  There are lots of choices, but ultimately you use the one that makes the most sense for your situation.  For sure, you do not select the blue crayon.

Doesn’t the same kind of thinking apply in our classrooms?  If we want to have students work on a podcast we probably have them use Audacity, GarageBand, or some other recording software.  We do not have them use iMovie.  That is the blue crayon and it is used for something totally different.  We have to pick the right tool for the situation and outcome we desire to see.

Sometimes this idea of the right crayon for the job is lost within the educational field.  Lately I have come across two such examples that just make me scratch my head and wonder, “Why are we using a blue crayon when the brown one is over there and it works just fine?”  

Example One: I was recently out at a high school in Minnesota doing some training and came across this board...at least it looked like a board at first glance.  Check out the video:

Yes, that is a SMART Board.  No joke, and it has Expo markers at the base of it.  Anyone using the wrong crayon here?  Seriously, how many times have I told my teachers, “Don’t write on the board with anything but the markers that come with the board.  No Expo markers, magic markers, pens, etc.”  Does that video make any one else’s head just shake?  Just imagine if that board was being used to its full potential.  What a difference that could make in a classroom! 

Example Two: I was recently part of a discussion where we needed to sign up for groups based on individual preferences.  This was a very interesting experience because the tool we used to sign up was a wiki.  One thing that you should probably know about a wiki, if you don’t already, it only allows one person to edit a page at a time.  That is correct, blue crayon use here.  It was slightly frustrating and annoying to be “stealing the lock” from other people who were putting their names on the same wiki.  There are so many better uses for a wiki than to have people sign-up for their groups and a lot of easier, more initiative tools to have people collaboratively form groups.  The use kind of made me scratch my head and wonder.

As you start off the school year, please consider which color crayon you are using.  Do not force a blue crayon into a brown crayon area.  Brown is for the hair, blue is for the sky.  Furthermore, using pencil and paper works just fine for writing a paper instead of some new, advanced, Web 2.0 tool.  We cannot, and should not, choose to use the tool only because we have this idea that it will be “cooler” or “will lead to more engagement.”  That is not the main goal in education.  We want our students to learn.  The tool comes secondary.  Keep in mind the educational goal first and then choose the tool.  However, make sure you choose a brown crayon instead of a blue one!

Summer Break Begins...Or Ends?

Summer break bring about thoughts of barbecues, warm weather, and good times at the cabin.  However, for most technology staff the summer is the busiest time of the year.  This summer for me has been no exception.  I have spent the past two weeks and the holiday hanging out with friends, family, and relaxing.  I did get a little work done at FAIR School as new equipment has begun to arrive in our building.  Actually a lot of new equipment has come in and I expect our yearly shipment of 9th grade computers today.  Here we go!  I also had the awesome opportunity to teach two graduate courses for Saint Mary's University – iPads, iPods, and iBooks Author and Google Applications for Education.  There will be a lot more on these endeavors coming soon, but for now I wanted to let you know that the vacation time from writing on this blog is over.  It is a nice change of pace to step back, take a short break, and enjoy the weather, but the time has come.  Our 1:1 programs do not get ready by themselves (roughly 300 MacBooks to get ready for grades 9-12 and 160 iPads in grades K-2) not to mention the full compliment of staff computer changes, network additions, new software coming in, and staff development trainings to conduct.  The time has come put the head down and get some things accomplished!

New equipment about to be processed

One exciting change is that we will working with JAMF Software and the Casper Suite for this upcoming school year to manage and oversee all our Apple devices district wide.  I have seen with this software package in action, tested it out for a few months, and I can truly say this will make the job of any technology director, integrationist, or your normal technician a lot easier.  It has some high level functionality (remote wipe, scripting commands, and inventory control features) as well as basic functionality (package imaging, deployment of apps, integration with Configurator, and self service) that I am really excited about.  You know that only a geek looks forward to installing a very complicated software suite!  We got to a point in our district that overseeing and deploying over 1,000 Apple devices was a bit much for three people to manage on a daily basis.  So we looked at a mobile device management (MDM) solution and landed with JAMF Software.  Outside of their great product, I enjoy the fact that these guys are local (Minneapolis, MN), so if I have a question or something is not working I can go knock on their door.  Honestly though, this company is leading the way in the area of MDMs and I look forward to deploying this solution later this month.

Even though I took a short break from writing, my mind has not stopped working on some great upcoming posts.  Here are a few of the topics:
-2 Years of iTeachers: My personal reflections on a running and working with our 1:1 iPad program.
-The Role of a SMART Board Today: What can we do with one in today's world that we cannot do with an iPad?  Where do we find SMART Boards located?  Why should we still buy them?
-The Twitter Craze and Why You Should Get Involved: A reflection on what I have learned about using Twitter over the years and the reasons for getting a Twitter account.
-Should We Start Differentiating in Graduate Courses: A close look at teaching a recent Google Applications for Education course and the need to flip and differentiate the instruction.

First Drive: SMART Notebook 11

First drives are always so much fun.  Do you remember the first car you ever test drove?  Mine was a big boat of a car, but it ended up getting me from Point A to Point B.

If only SMART Notebook could be as much fun as test driving cars!  Sometimes it seems like a terrible x-girlfriend that you cannot get rid of.  Our school, like many, purchased a number of these boards over the years and we have had mixed results.  Some of our teachers love them, use the Lesson Activity Toolkit, and all the features.  Then on the other side of the spectrum others use it strictly as a glorified overhead projector.  I can't help walking by, shaking my head, and wondering why we spent the extra few thousand dollars for the interactivity.  Regardless, now we have the boards and the training is ongoing.  Like any other piece of technology it requires users to become familiar with the features and how they can actually integrate it within their classrooms.

Speaking of, shameless plug, if you know anyone in the Duluth, MN area that wants to sharpen their skills check out this SMART Board course I am co-teaching this summer.  We extensively cover integrating the software into our classrooms heavily in this course.  It's all about you, your classroom, and a SMART Board.

Throughout the years I have not had a great experience with SMART and their software for Macs.  It has gotten better, but there was an incident earlier this year when the software got updated and the board drivers did not.  This caused major issues and most of the staff had to be manually reverted back to the old version of the software (not a fun time in the IT department).  Some times the software works great, but at other times it seems to crash.  If there was ever a reason to buy a PC emulator it might be for this software to run properly.

Well, as technology continues to change so does SMART Technology and their software.  I downloaded this new version of the software the day after it was released and had mixed results.  Here is a quick video showing some of the new features in Notebook 11:

After spending a few more days testing out the software I have noticed a few things:

1.) The software overall seems a bit slower to react.  It is slower to load, close, and overall pull up things.  It does appear a bit larger on my HD, but still it should be easier and not harder to complete work.  And yes, it still pulls up a blank presentation every time you open it up.  One more thing to fix!

2.) The adaptable toolbar is a nice addition.  It is a common complaint when I am teaching the software that there are so many buttons.  The new interface makes that a lot easier to navigate and get to the important items when you need them.  The intelligence also makes a whole lot more sense in this app compared to the MS Office suite, which is a bit convoluted at times.

3.) It has not crashed yet.  Seriously.  I am not kidding!  I am a constant Command-S user in this program, but now I feel a little safer.  I will keep you updated on this one, because I am not convinced yet.  I did have one problem closing out of the program when I was done that required a Force Quit.  Regardless, it appears to be a bit more stable over previous versions.

4.) There also appear to be a number of new features that I have not tried out yet (the browser in the slide, the activity builder, etc.), but the one that I have used heavily is the new Ink Layer.  They have completely redesigned it from the ground up.  What we are used to with one Ink Layer over the top of everything has now been changed into an individual Ink Layer over each individual window – now called Ink Aware.  The interface is a bit hard to get used to and the controls are also complicated to understand.  In addition, the floating toolbar is essentially rendered useless in this new version of Notebook.  In my limited test drive I found this to be the one overwhelming reason of why NOT to update at this time.  Check out SMART's website and the links below for more discussion on this topic.  Essentially they took the layer out and tried to make it a smart and aware layer.  The verdict is still out on this one!

I will continue to experiment and try new things out.  However, if you are interested in updating your Notebook to the new version check this URL out.  If you want a quick overview of the new features from SMART check out this URL. This is also a great resource for an outside look at the new update from TeacherTechnology.

Have you tried out the new Notebook 11 yet?  

What things have you noticed?

Do you have an opinion on the Ink Layer vs. Ink Aware?