iPevo Whiteboard App #edtech #ipevo

One of my favorite things to do is try out new EdTech tools, whether it's an app or a website. I recently saw on Twitter about the iPevo Whiteboard app and thought it looked like a great teacher tool.

It seems very similar to Stage Pro but it's free.

Sometimes, instead of paraphrasing what it says on a product's website, it's easiest just to paste it. Their website describes it this way:

The Intuitive Whiteboard App for iPad

The free IPEVO Whiteboard app turns your iPad into a portable, wireless whiteboard. Draw and annotate directly onto real-time video from your document camera or iPad's camera, onto a blank white canvas, or onto any image from your Photo Library.

Put the focus where it belongs

Whiteboard offers a simple and intuitive set of drawing and text tools. Add text boxes, shapes, and lines to emphasize key points of interest and highlight important parts of your image. Different colors and line thicknesses, undo and redo functions, a pointer tool, and a clear all function are right at your fingertips.

Choose the image you want to annotate

Multiple whiteboards ("boards") can be created and easily switched between, each using a different image as its background. Import photos from your Photo Library or take a picture with iPad's camera and use that snapshot directly. You can even draw on the real-time image feed from iPad's camera. Or, you can use the app as a true "whiteboard" and stick with the default white background.

Harness the power of your IPEVO document cam

When combined with the WS-01 Wireless Station and your IPEVO document camera (Point 2 View, Ziggi-HDor VZ-1 HD) , Whiteboard delivers a portable, wireless teaching tool using razor-sharp real-time images from your doc cam. Project and annotate text, artwork, diagrams, math equations, 3D objects and more. Teaching and presenting have never been this smart, effective, or fun.

Textingstory.com - Create your text story in video #edtech

I did random search for #edtech in Twitter today looking for cool tools and came across this great app from TextingStory.com. What it does is give students a place to fake text someone else and record their conversation in video.

Some obvious applications to this are students in an ELA class who are learning about character development or analysis and having to pretend to be that character to prove they know how they would think, act and text. The possibilities here are endless and students will really have to know a character's ins and outs in order to convey their personality.

Another situation might be in Social Studies or History class where students need to become a historical figure and text as if they were Einstein or George Washington or MLK. It's a fantastic way to prove what they've learned in a format that students will like.

The free app is customizable in the sense that students can change the names and colors of the text.

It's free for iOS and Android with the option to unlock other features.

Game Changer for Math Teachers!

When it comes to helping math teachers and showing them the value of Google Applications we always bump into... how do I type equations?  How do I easily make tests and worksheets?  I would love to go digital but how can I with the limited tools of Google Docs?

Well the answer has been around for almost a year, but I have re-discovered and love the simple ability of this Chrome extension to really make it easy!

EquateIO Chrome extension will insert math equations from common language, Latex language, spoken language, camera, or handwriting.  It doesn't get much better than that!

I tried from a worksheet with my phone camera, from voice, and from my tablet and they all worked seemlessly.  Getting the graph on assignments was a pain until now too!

They are offering this product and ReadWrite(an ELA product) free to teachers... Teachers can apply at: https://www.texthelp.com/en-us/products/free-for-teachers/

NewseumED - Media Literacy

Ray Birks, our Instructional Technology Facilitator extraordinaire, found this fabulous site for teachers on media literacy.  What a great free toolkit of resources provided for teachers.  I spent a bunch of time in the Media Literacy Booster pack and found the lessons relevant and engaging when thinking of middle school to high school learners.

The site has the full lesson with activities, videos, handouts, discussion topics, sources, and extensions.  There are a ton of resources here for teachers.

Current relevancy is obvious when I found "Filtering Out Fake News"  This lesson had videos activities and artifacts ready to go for the teacher.

Thank you to this museum for providing these detailed lessons and resources to help us teach students media literacy.

Check it out and get your free account today at https://newseumed.org

Awesome CheckMark by @EdTechTeam Update #gafe #edtechteam #checkmark

I wrote a few weeks back about a great Chrome extension called CheckMark that allows teachers to add quick, efficient feedback to students' work in Google Docs with a few clicks. The only issue I saw with the extension is that you couldn't customize the comments so you were stuck with the defaults. But as a few days ago you can now customize the comments and add new ones too.

Although this feedback isn't as good as one-to-one and it's not in-depth, it does give a quick way for teachers to address student needs and errors and for students to see exactly what they need to fix in their work. It's worth checking out! Download it here.

Book Review - Learning First, Technology Second . The Educators Guide to Designing Authentic Lessons

As an Instructional Tech Director it is my job to bring current information to our staff and students.  Once such current book was "Learning First, Technology Second by Liz Kolb.  I was introduced to this book by the ISTE Ed Tech Coaches Network.   They were doing a slow Twitter chat with a question every day for a couple months as we read the book.  This was a great way to keep us engaged and collaborating about the book.

“Technology integration is more complex than simply using a technology tool; pedagogical and instructional strategies around the tool are essential for successful learning outcomes.”
Excerpt From: Liz Kolb. “Learning First, Technology Second.” iBooks.  

I am not a reviewer, but I feel that if something makes you really think then tell others about it.  This book was the first I have read in a while that did a great job of preaching to the choir in my case, but doing it in such a way that I can share the ideas with our teachers in an effective way.

The fundamental shift in teaching and learning will only take place if the pedagogy of our staff and the learning of students come first, and the technology tool comes second.  This book lays out a very good set of research-based ideas regarding the use of technology in the classroom and gets to the point pretty quickly as she gives practical examples for the classroom teacher.  I appreciated the chapters about the three frameworks for technology integration into the classroom and especially like the rubric with the Triple E framework that will be very practical with my staff as they create and share lessons.  We plan on using some of the lessons from the book and sharing the Triple E Framework with our staff.

The book is worth checking out if you are anyone who is interested in really impacting student learning with the use of technology.

You can purchase at ISTE, and while you are there, become a member and connect with like-minded future thinking educators.

Yellkey.com Quickly Share a URL #edtech #yellkey

Sometimes you're doing a training or teaching with kids and you have to share a link quickly to a lot of people. Or you have a link to share that's long and cumbersome or maybe has some weird characters in it that can easily be confused (I'm looking at you goo.gl URL shortener and Google Classroom).

That's where a service like yellkey.com comes in. Simply visit the site, enter your URL and yellkey.com spits out a URL with a common word at the end that's easy to share and remember.

The link lasts for five minutes to 24 hours, depending on what you choose, and then goes away.

I believe this service used to be called shoutkey.com because I was going to blog about it a few weeks back but couldn't access the URL. If you're in a pinch and need to get a URL out, yellkey.com just might do the trick.