1. help teachers overcome their fears about using multimedia with students to develop literacy skills
2. encourage teachers to SHARE more

As I prepared for the two presentations I shared on Tuesday this week at our statewide educational technology and library conference in Oklahoma, I searched for compelling images which convey ideas about sharing. These ideals will hopefully be manifested in the new website project, Oklahoma EduSHARE. Some of these images are funny, some are poignant. All of them say, with pictures, “I’m sharing.” I love visual media which communicates in compelling ways.

All of the above images are licensed on Flickr under a Creative Commons Atribution-Only license. I found them using this search page.

Do you have a favorite image of SHARING? Consider taking that on as a professional development activity challenge in upcoming months: Working with a partner, take a photo which communicates some aspect of SHARING. Alternatively, find an image which visually represents SHARING. When you take or find a photo, post the image to Flickr and/or share it on Twitter using the tag/hashtag edushare / #edushare.

Dean Shareski is right, sharing is a moral imperative for educators!

Technorati Tags: education, share, sharing, edushare, flickr

Visualizing Sharing #edushare originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 9, 2012.

Last Sunday in our 6th grade class, students recorded an 81 second audio podcast about the theme, “Our Words are Powerful.” Since free accounts on AudioBoo.fm permit users to not only record audio using a web browser or smartphone, but also UPLOAD audio, I used it today to upload the audio from our 6th grade class. AudioBoo does not provide (as Cinch.fm does) a direct download link to the mp3 audio file for a specific Boo, however. To view and copy this link, I copied the RSS feed for my AudioBoo channel.

I pasted that link into my Safari web browser, which does a nice job handling RSS feeds and displaying them in a readable format. I then copied the direct mp3 audio file link.

I then created a new post on our 6th Grade Sunday School WordPress blog, and used special “short code” for embedding mp3 audio files in the HTML view of the post.

It would be nice if WordPress.com allowed the default AudioBoo embed code to work, as shown below, but for security reasons they don’t. On a self-hosted WordPress blog (like the one you’re reading right now) it’s possible to use this embed code, but not on WordPress.com. The WordPress.com site administrators have disabled some embed codes to “protect us” from malicious code, I think. Fortunately, this “short code” technique is pretty straightforward to use ONCE you have the direct URL to the mp3 audio file you’d like to use. There are other ways to do this too, but I like the short code method.

What other techniques do you use to embed audio on your blog?

Technorati Tags: audio, blog, wordpress, embed, mp3

Embed a MP3 Audio File in a WordPress.com Blog Post originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2012.

This session explores the uses of social media by schools and school employees. The session will address the need for digital citizenship as well as the professional uses of social media and the unintended consequences for its use.

this and filtering are two of the most discussed topics in our schools today
- how many of you have a district that have Facebook open for staff? for students?

the purpose of this isn’t to make pronouncements about everyone and every school
- it’s to share what I found as I researched what was best for my district
- what you’ll see today may make you uncomfortable

Social media: a means of communication/social interaction featuring user-generated content (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Webshots, LinkedIn, etc)

Facts and stats:
- MySpace 19.7 M per day
- Twitter – 200 M users, 110 M tweets per day
- Flickr 5 billion images
- LinkedIn: 50 M users

MY COMMENT: NO CITATION FOR THESE STATS

Social Media facts and stats on Facebook:
- 350 M users in 2010, 640 M in 2011
- half login daily
- 65 M people login on mobile devices
- 700 M business accounts
- Users 55-64 increase 88% in 2010
- most users are 18-35
- 30 Billion pieces of content uploaded monthly
- Average person spent 20 min per day on Facebook in 2010, 1.5 M posts, 2.7 M pics uploaded
- 1 in 5 couples met online, 1 in 5 divorces are blamed at least in part on Facebook
- more than 70% of Internet users today are on Facebook
- would be the 3rd largest country in the world

Constructive Uses of social media
- communication
- friendship
- relationship building
- pictures, grandkids

Destructive Uses
- identity theft (friend in Edmond shared too much)
- invasion of privacy
- bullying
- professional liability
- professional consequence

I want to share info for you to consider and prepare

We tend to oversimplify that of which we don’t understand
- we want and need teachers, parents, kids and others to be protected

Social Media in the News
- article from Cohasset, Massachusetts, April 2010: “Teacher Loses Job After Commenting About Students, Parents on Facebook”
- I’m not saying the district was right to fire this teacher for this FB wall post, but it IS reality

“Jerry Buell, Florida High School Teacher, Suspended For Anti-Gay Facebook Posts” (Aug 2011)
- teacher was reinstated

“Court rules against Ashley Payne in Facebook case. But more to come.”
- this case still in court: teacher posted picture of herself of vacation in Europe at the Guiness Brewery, and district officials fired her

There can be unintended consequences to sharing Facebook images as a teacher…

Fox News Oct 2010: “Teachers Fired For Flirting on Facebook With Students”

Missouri passed law that teachers couldn’t friend students (“Missouri Law: Teachers and Students Can’t Be Facebook Friends“)
- this law was overturned on appeal

Case law is all over the place on these issues

if you are a friend with a student on Facebook and they post things about problems, you can be held liable for that
- if victim can prove “school environment had been altered for them, staff should have been aware, more…)

MY THOUGHT: THE MAIN THING THAT HAS BEEN COMMUNICATED SO FAR IS THAT LOTS OF PEOPLE AS WELL AS SCHOOLS HAVE ACTED CAPRICIOUSLY WHEN IT COMES TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Cyberbullying Research Center: www.cyberbullying.us
- Sameer Hunduja and Justin Patchin (2010)
- over 50% of kids are using Facebook

Cyberbullying Victimization statistics, cyberbullying by gender (girls are more likely to be victims than boys)

“Another ingredient in the stew we are cooking”
- depression and sexual activity: sexual active boys are much more likely to be depressed than girls
- stats for attempted suicide

What does this mean: Take sexually active, depressed kids….

Cyberbullying victims are twice as likely to attempt suicide compared to youth who had not experienced cyberbullying
- there is a lot of hurting going on out there that many adults are naive about

The cost
- Phoebe Prince, killed herself
- Jessica Logan forwarded a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend, she went on a crusade to try and stop others from repeating (hung herself at school)
- Ryan Halligan story (2003) become friends with a bully and spread photos around school that he was gay, he committed suicide

Of almost all the research I did on these issues, almost every case had a sexual aspect to it

Phoebe Prince’s lawsuite was settled for $225,000
- in Cincinnati the board and many others were

These parents and grandparents have holes in their heart which won’t heal
- lives changed forever
- photo of six kids charged with felonies from the yearbook, and then in court

“One wonders if these kids were taught anything about digital citizenship and how to be good people”

I want to play some video clips to lighten the mood now
- example of car fire video and story

Now story of “Social Media and Forever Consequences”
- showing photos of inappropriate photos posted on Facebook

MY COMMENT: I REALLY DON’T THINK IT IS APPROPRIATE OR NECESSARY TO SHOW THESE KINDS OF PHOTOS AT A PUBLIC CONFERENCE.

You want to see why I don’t release YouTube in my district, this is why:
- I searched on YouTube for “girlfriend dancing” and it’s the 2nd clip
- this is why I don’t let anyone (teachers or students) access YouTube in my school district

[Colin showed strip tease video from YouTube]

I know where you live and now I know if you’re home…. (geo-tagged photos)
- people can go rob your house when they see you’re not there

Now showing examples of business liability
- if you see people write “Ford lied” you could make a name for yourself suing that person for Ford

Digital citizenship is a must’
- we need to teach it and practice it ourselves
- this is the tip of the iceberg, I’ve looked at thousands of Facebook pages, I’m so tired of looking at Facebook pages

We need to teach this in such a way that we don’t give kids access to Facebook at school
- it’s not about where to point and click, it’s about decorum and teaching kids about right and wrong

poor decision making and naiveté are the biggest problems we have with kids when it comes to social media
- don’t take or let others take embarrassing photos
- don’t argue online

I didn’t coin “Social media access at school is like sponsoring a dance but not chaperoning”
- if you say it’s about supervising: try supervising kids who have access to labs everywhere… I don’t have the staff for that
- I can’t afford to pay someone to watch where kids go online and what they do all day long

We need to teach kids about images
(showed disrespectful photo about the U.S. President)

We need to teach kids to be careful about what they put online
- this is your digital footprint

1:1 and BYOD advice:
- control Internet access (we already have enough problems with kids being on Facebook on lab computers, in my wife’s school the superintendent had to issue an edict to tell teachers not to post to Facebook during school hours, because patrons)
- violations of acceptable use policy (district can be held liable, if you have Facebook open for kids you have huge liability)
- social media is not designed for instruction

We have a digital locker system at our school, our kids can get to their work from any computer on or off campus

Policy is what drives the bus
- do not ‘friend’ current students until they have graduated except family and church members
- consider unfriending students you’ve friended
- don’t establish academic Facebook pages
- established academic Facebook pages: set all security settings at maximum, provide login credentials to building administration

Some issues parents are upset about could be addressed when administrators can login and see what is happening
- if a parent chooses to come against you for an alleged offense

Do not associate your Academic Pages with the district
- don’t use your work email account to setup a Facebook page

Don’t lure the lines between teacher and student
Be cautious
Don’t post during work hours
Develop digital citizenship initiatives for students

“The intent of this is not to put the thumb on anyone”
- my superintendent asked me to do this, since sharing this presentation all teachers have stopped asking for access to Facebook

I told my staff I’m doing this to protect you, and encourage you to separate personal and professional pursuits

Be careful and watch out for the kids
- we want to protect you

Make decisions based on information from multiple perspectives

“I cannot have something on my network which I cannot control, because I have responsibility for this network”
- be careful using these free things in the cloud, don’t rely upon them as you main conduit for information and communication

Story about a nearby district: Parent called about their child who has created an adult personna online and must have done it at school… tech director produced a report of that child’s Internet activity for the past month and could prove she hadn’t created those pages at school
- “if that district had Facebook open, they wouldn’t be able to control that”

Email: cwebb [at] nobleps [dot] com

Comment from Jeff Herbel, Enid Public Schools
- Enid encourages teachers to use academic Facebook pages and set them up with their district email
- Enid uses a lot of curriculum materials from Common Sense Media for digital citizenship lessons

Technorati Tags: encyclomedia, otaem12, schools, facebook, safety, colin, webb, noble

Face the Facebook: Implications and Consequences for Educators Using Social Media by Colin Webb originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2012.

Never before have the walls of our classrooms been so transparent. The Internet- digital cameras- audio recorders- editing software- and an emerging global conversation are combining to redefine the classroom. This presentation will expose participants to a range of wizardry for capturing and cooking digital content for teaching and learning. (a longer description is available here: http://goo.gl/YABIK)

Arithmetic plays a central part in our digital landscape

This presentation is different from my normal ‘linear’

We live in an information environment of sharing

One of the best things you can walk away from this conference is a group of people you can keep asking questions from

going to start with video
- starting with a video clip of a bird flying away after being perched on a ledge
- can turn on AV controls to make it play at half speed
- so this can make some things which were INVISIBLE now VISIBLE
- we can even (in some cases) make things that didn’t exist, exist!

There’s no problem with you seeing me struggle up here / relearn and learn how to do something
- your students will be fine seeing you struggle with things, and helping in that process

My expectation today isn’t that you’ll walk out of here knowing how to do all these things
- I want you to better understand that because information is made of 1′s and 0′s, it’s something you and I can manipulate and transform!

Basic skill now: look for tutorials on YouTube about different topics

example video David’s son made reversing a clip of tearing up a cup

Images:
- many of us are now walking around with cameras in our pockets

showing examples of images of things in motion/flight that are captured in amazing ways

now showing examples of HDR images in Flickr from his set “Post Processed”

iPhone app recc from David to transfer photos from an iPhone over to your computer: Wifi Photo Transfer

Pixelmator (I used to use PhotoShop Elements, but it takes a long time to load)
- using a similar pixels selection tool and varying the tolerance to remove the background

Intellectual property owners may be less likely to plagiarize the works of others

now using Audacity and showing how to do some basic audio editing
- recorded some sample audio
- using findsounds.com to import some audio files

American Memories project has all the past issues of “Stars and Stripes” from WWII

Many Eyes is a data visualization tool from IBM
- showing the “phrase net” tool
- shows relationships between words

Tag clouds are an example of tools that let us learn about ourselves NOT Through the media and publishing industry, but rather through tools we can manage and manipulate

TwitScoop is the coolest thing on the net! (alternate Twitter client that

iPad Music app reccs from David:

Music Studio (for music making – $15)
miniSynth ($2)
Virtuoso Piano Pro Classic (99¢)
NLog MIDI Synth ($5)
PocketGuitar (99¢)
MiniPiano (free)
Drum Meister Grand ($2)
Sylo Synthesiser (free)
iSequence ($5)
Rockmate (great for making music together! $3)
Pocket Organ C3B3 ($3)

Technorati Tags: creativity, david, education, ipad, otaem12, warlick, dwarlick

Harnessing the Digital Landscape by David Warlick originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2012.

Our next meet-up will be Tuesday, March 6th from 6-7 pm at The Div. (Register for free via Eventbrite) Last night we were NOT able to webstream live because of hardware reconfigurations at The Div, but we will be able to for March. If your schedule permits, come for our iPad App chat in person next month and plan to stay for the “Social About Social” at the Div which starts afterward at 7.

Technorati Tags: app, edmond, ipad, okc, oklahoma, meetup

Learning About Notetaking on the iPad at @thedivorg via @ipadwithwes originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2012.

I called AT&T and after discussing this, they added a feature to our phone package called “Purchase Manager.” Sometimes this feature is called “Purchase Blocker,” in either event it’s FREE to add. I think it should be a default account feature. Classactionconnect.com has instructions about adding it via AT&T’s Wireless customer website. We’re not sure how this recurring $10 monthly charge was added to her bill, but it could have been an online recipe site which my wife visited or something else. Buried in the “terms of use” could have been verbiage saying “by clicking download” (or “agree”) you agree to pay $9.99 this month and every successive month for a confusing “Mobile Purchase” which will be buried on your phone bill and will be extremely difficult to find or decipher. One of the lessons learned here is: Don’t give out your cell phone number on ANY website. You never know what the website owner might choose to do with your information.

By adding “Purchase Manager” or “Purchase Blocker” to our AT&T wireless account, no third party entity will be able to add a purchase or subscription to our phone bill unless we, as cellular customers, log into our account and provide a four digit PIN to authorize that billing addition. This is similar to the feature some cable TV or satellite TV customers can add to “pay per view” programs, requiring a PIN to be entered so children don’t accidentally or intentionally make program purchases with the family’s remote control.

If you’re not with AT&T in the United States for your cellular service, check with your provider and see what they call this “feature.” This seems like something everyone should have by default on cell phone accounts.

Today the AT&T representative was very helpful and in addition to adding this free “Purchase Blocker” service, also entered refunds for the $9.99 charged to our account in January and in February by this scammer. A web search resulted in several pages (here and here) where other people reported this same scamming problem with “BULLROARE.” Hopefully you haven’t run into this in the past. In any event, try and add a free “Purchase Blocker” feature to your mobile account to hopefully prevent situations like this from cropping up in the future.

Technorati Tags: cell, phone, att, bullroare, sms, subscription, charge, fee, scam

Avoid Cellphone Text Messaging Scams with free Purchase Blocker Feature originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 6, 2012.

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A 1 page PDF flyer for iPad App Coffee Chats is available via Scribd.

FREE iPad App Coffee Chats

Technorati Tags: app, edmond, ipad, oklahoma

FREE iPad App Coffee Chats start Tuesday, February 7 in Edmond, Oklahoma originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 5, 2012.

A Ponca City mother is outraged. She says her son has been accessing pornography….on a laptop that was issued by the school….and she says school officials are partly to blame. “I was angry, I was really angry at first,” Judy Ferguson said. Judy found her teenage son watching pornography on his school laptop. “When I caught it I took the computer and turned it back in to the school,” Ferguson said.

Life is about choices, and students face a multitude of digital choices when they get online or connected with any device including a laptop, a phone, or other communication tool. This is one reason Oklahoma schools sending laptops home with students not only have parents sign an acceptable use agreement (AUP) addressing SHARED responsibility between parents, students and school officials for student use of technology equipment, they also hold parent training / information sessions when this specific issue is addressed. I’m not sure if Ponca City mother Judy Ferguson signed a form like that and attended an informational session about shared responsibility for student behavior on laptops, but she should have.

In the initial years of the Texas Immersion Pilot Project (TxTIP), I heard multiple stories from school officials about issues and incidents involving student access of pornography and inappropriate material. Any school employee involved in a 1:1 program knows this is an issue which must be addressed. The strange twist to this Ponca City Schools story was that school officials reportedly issued a laptop to the same student who previously got in trouble for accessing pornography right after Christmas break. Again according to the News4 article:

The Tech Director [of Ponca City Schools] said the software the school uses tracks every key stroke and they could see the student attempting to get into x-rated areas but their records show he was never able to access it. Ferguson became even more upset when the school gave her 9th grader another laptop after she requested he complete his assignments another way. School administrators admit that was a mistake. “When they came back from Christmas break inadvertently he was issued another laptop when that was discovered that second laptop was taken away,” Dr. David Pennington, Superintendent of Schools.

I’m wondering how school officials “inadvertently issued a laptop?” (I’m also wondering if they run key loggers on all school computers…) It would be great to see a school response with more information, background, and quotations on this than La’tasha Givins (the KFOR-TV reporter) provided for this article. It is reasonable to conclude the mother of the student saw her child accessing pornography at home: It is highly doubtful she would raise these embarrassing charges regarding her own son otherwise. Understanding this, the technology director’s response which denies inappropriate content was EVER accessed by the student on a school laptop seems unreasonable. Perhaps this was a misquote?

Responsibility for teen behavior when it comes to life online as well as offline lies primarily with the STUDENT. Yes, parents as well as educators share responsibility for guiding and supervising student actions. Ultimately, however, in our society we hold individuals responsible for their behavior rather than institutions. It would have been helpful (from a community education perspective) if reporter La’tasha Givins had provided some of this context. I’m not sure if school officials provided this or not.

When a high student chooses to have sex and gets pregnant, does the local TV affiliate run a segment blaming school officials? Hopefully not.

One takeaway from this article (and others like it which paint 1:1 laptop programs as evil / not worthwhile) is the importance of school officials “telling the story” of positive 1:1 learning impacts early, consistently, and through multiple media channels. In most school districts today, we have barely started to leverage the power of social media to ‘tell our story’ and communicate with parents as well as others in the community about the great things happening in our buildings each day. An example of why this is important is the result for a Google keyword search for “Ponca City laptop” today. Guess what link is the “non-promoted” search result #1?

A second takeaway is the importance of school officials using consistent language with students, parents, members of the community, and media when it comes to laptop learning. We must emphasize “digital citizenship” and the responsibilities which we share to help students learn to make good choices.

Should Ponca City School officials have been more careful to not issue Judy Ferguson’ son another laptop computer after the Christmas holiday, since his mom had specifically asked that he NOT work on a laptop to complete his assignments? Probably. (I say that conditionally since I’m sure there is ‘more to this story.’)

Should KOFR reporter La’tasha Givins have ignored the fact that Judy Ferguson’ son CHOSE to find and look at pornography on a laptop of any kind? Absolutely not. Too many people in our society want to ‘pass the buck’ when it comes to responsibility, and the primary people responsible for these “inappropriate content access actions” were the STUDENT and the PARENT.

Yes, teachers and school officials share responsibility for helping students learn and learn to make good choices. We don’t “pass the buck” entirely to parents and students for everything which happens during school and in some cases, even for things which happen after school. Schools DO bear some responsibility for helping inform and support “good choices with laptops” when they send them home with students. Ultimately, however, “the buck should stop” with the student and the parent when it comes to inappropriate website access at home.

I hope La’tasha Givins will investigate these issues further and write a follow-up article which provides more context for this situation and the people as well as organizations who are involved.

Technorati Tags: city, laptop, ponca, ethics, responsibility, parent

Don’t Blame School Officials if Your Child Chooses to Look at Porn on His Laptop originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 4, 2012.

Changing the cell formatting to wrap and fit was a little different from what I’ve done previously in Excel. There, as I recall I just right-clicked / control-clicked on a cell and then turned on “wrap.” For Numbers, it’s necessary to use the inspector panel and click the button “fit” next to row height.

If you use either of these CX debate flow templates and find them helpful, please let me know with a tweet or comment. Also, if you prefer a different format for flowing CX rounds using a digital spreadsheet please let me know about it. I definitely like transitioning to digital/green debate round flowing, but I’m also open to any suggestions for better ways to do it.

I used the Apple Support article “Displaying Content Too Large for Its Cell” to figure out the wrap/fit steps.

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, debate, flow, excel, numbers, iwork, template, classen, classensas

Cross Examination Debate Flow Template for Numbers in iWork ’09 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 3, 2012.

The past three weeks I’ve facilitated lessons with about twelve different 6th, 7th and 8th grade students about storytelling and puppet movies. The first two weeks we used Puppet Pals on the iPad, and last week we used real finger puppets to make some short skit videos. We published some of our work from both weeks to the multimediasandbox YouTube channel. This has been a worthwhile but challenging series of lessons. See my January 19th post, “Lessons Learned Using Puppet Pals on iPads in an After School Program,” for more background. We haven’t created any masterpieces, but we have had fun discussing the story arc and making short videos which (generally) attempt to present a coherent message. 50 minutes isn’t a lot of time to have to create and share stories, but we’ve done the best we could with the time and resources available.

One of the primary things I’ve wrestled with as I’ve considered what to teach these students in “Life Skills” lessons involving the iPad is this: None of these students own iPads or have access to iPads at home. What kinds of things should I teach them which can have immediate relevance in their lives, as well as potential long term relevance? Sure we’ve had fun making some short videos with digital and actual puppets, but these activities aren’t things they can repeat on their own when I leave with the three iPads I’ve brought to class each day. I have had the privilege of being with Kevin Honeycutt in the past when he taught incarcerated, Kansas youth short lessons (on behalf of ESSDACK) and used art as a way to both “reach” them and have important discussions about life as well as learning. I’m no Kevin Honeycutt, I have very limited drawing skills, and the kids I’m teaching in “Tiger Club” definitely aren’t incarcerated youth… but a talk with him on the phone earlier this week motivated me to share a lesson with my students on the possibilities for becoming a digital artist.

I started the lesson today asking who liked to draw, who considered themselves artists, and who thought they were creative. I explained we ALL are artists and have creative skills, but not all of us think about ourselves that way. I asked about how long people have been creating drawings and telling stories, and we discussed how that goes back to “the cave.” As humans, some of us have always been driven to draw and share stories through art. It’s in our DNA.

I shared a story with the students about our Storychasers logo, which we outsourced via crowdSPRING. 99Designs is a similar web community for graphic artists and folks needing design work.

I explained how our Storychasers group received 147 design concepts (low resolution digital art drawings) of logo ideas from 43 different designers from around the world.

Eventually, we selected one we liked which turned out to be the work of a graphic designer in eastern Europe who lives in Zagreb, Croatia. One of the designers we initially considered was coincidentally based in Oklahoma, but we had problems with them providing higher resolution versions of the logo draft they’d made. It’s pretty amazing we paid someone $500 to make a logo for us who we never met and lives all the way across the Atlantic Ocean in another country! This is a real story of outsourcing and digital creativity, and I wanted to share it so my students would at least be exposed to the idea that digital artists can now access a world of work possibilities via the Internet. It doesn’t matter where you live: Creative skills are needed and marketable.

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I showed students on our printed as well as digital handout where they could access links to FREE digital art programs like the Gimp, that have similar features as Adobe PhotoShop that costs $700 to buy. Hopefully some of them will check it out and pursue some digital art creative possibilities on their own following our “Life Skills” class series.

I next introduced my students to the iPad app Brushes, and showed them several recent creations by my 8 year old daughter, Rachel.

I showed students how the iPad Brushes app lets us “replay” a video of how Rachel made these drawings, and I showed them some other amazing YouTube examples of iPad drawings using Brushes as well. We watched these and discussed the techniques the artists used.

At this point I need to give a hat tip to Marco Torres, who was the first person to share the Brushes app with me several years ago in Maine. Although I haven’t become an acknowledged digital artist with Brushes since I learned about it, I have both played with it and shared it with many people. This is a specific example of how the opportunity to meet and hang out with creative people (which Apple specifically facilitated in my life via various means) has been life changing. “But for” my very brief chances to hang with Marco and learn from him, I probably wouldn’t have been teaching my students about Brushes on the iPad today. “But for” my opportunities to hang out with Bob Sprankle, I would know far less about podcasting, webcasting, and iPhoneography. I tried to communicate this idea to my students today: If we want to learn how to do something, we need to hang out with other people who know how to do it well. That’s how a lot of learning happens. It’s a big reason we need to choose our friends carefully.

In addition to viewing these examples of digital art with Brushes today, I also showed students this video of art created with Autodesk SketchBook Pro for iPad.

Before handing out the iPads to students, I demonstrated the basics of drawing with Brushes using an AppleTV which mirrored my iPad2 screen. Next, I introduced students to the free “Art Snacks” online community facilitated by Kevin Honeycutt and explained they would be drawing a Great White Shark today. We had paper and pencils available, and students took turns drawing on the available iPads (3) as well as my iPhone which had the Brushes app loaded. I had one stylus which students used, but unfortunately broke (the tip came off) during the lesson. Together we watched Kevin’s “Artsnacks Great White Shark” video on YouTube. I paused it several times for students to compare drawings and add to their drawings. As Kevin had suggested to me, some of the kids were really into it and were loving the chance to learn some new art techniques. Others were less engaged, but since everyone could at least draw with paper and pencil this was a lesson that was “doable” by everyone.

Here are some examples of drawings we made in class. The last one is my own. It is risky and takes some courage to share your own art with others, especially when (like me) you’re not very confident in your own art skills. I think this is a good way to model both creativity and instructional risk taking with students, however. We learn the most when we are “stretched” out of our personal comfort zones, and these are times when we try new things that we’re not entirely comfortable doing.

This lesson provided some good opportunities to talk about “important stuff” with students in addition to digital art and drawing skills. When I asked the students what they thought of my drawing partway through Kevin’s video, one of them said, “That looks horrible!” We talked about how those words might make me feel, even though the student quickly said, “I was just kidding.” We talked about bullying, and how important and powerful the words we choose are. I talked about how there are far TOO MANY people in this world who “use their words” to hurt and inflict pain on others. I told the students I sometimes mess this up, but I try to use my words as much as I can to build others up and give them POWER instead of tearing them down.

I don’t know what lessons from today’s “digital art discussions” my students will remember, but we never do when we teach… do we? I felt better about today’s “Life Skills” lesson than I have all year, and I know a big reason the lesson was a success was I used resources provided by Kevin Honeycutt and Art Snacks. If you haven’t shown Art Snacks to your own students, DO IT soon. Not all the kids in any classroom love art and will want to learn more about making art, but chances are high SOME WILL.

Teach your students how to be digital artists, even if (like me) you don’t consider yourself to have very developed drawing skills. We are all creative, and we can all be artists. To be an artist, we have to CREATE things. We need to MAKE stuff. Today, we have lots of opportunities to play with media and not only share digital art, but also sell it on sites like crowdSPRING and 99designs. Share these possibilities with your students too. Making and sharing art certainly has intrinsic value and isn’t all about monetization. Some kids may not have considered these possibilities, however. Your students could not only be outsourced digital designers for someone else, down the road they might also use digital outsourcing for their own projects like we did with Storychasers last year.

Who knows where that shared knowledge may take them and us? The possibilities are exciting.

Hat tip to Cody Birsner for sharing 99designs with me a few months ago.

Technorati Tags: creativity, edmond, ipad, oklahoma, art, brushes, create, kevin, honeycutt, artsnacks, essdack, fpce, tiger, club

Teach Your Students to be Digital Artists (and learn from Kevin Honeycutt) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 3, 2012.

The technology tools in this case, digital voice recorders, ARE important for the learning which took place in Renee’s classroom. They are NOT, however, the factor which makes the biggest difference. As I noted in last month’s post, “Remember TEACHERS Make the Biggest Difference, Not Devices,” the WAYS teachers choose to invite students to use technology tools are most important when it comes to learning and achievement. Yes, having access to digital tools IS important. We must remember to focus on the PEDAGOGY more than the tools, however, as we discuss and highlight effective uses of educational technology. Renee’s video is a beautiful example of this.

I found this video today when I was researching links to add to a new page on the Storychasers’ website: Storychaser School Clubs.

Technorati Tags: digital, reading, technology, writing, voice, audio, recorder, nwp, edtech

Use Digital Voice Recorders to Hear Student Voices originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 2, 2012.

Creating MultiMedia eBooks
wfryer.me/ebooks

Snowflake Gets Lost: a FREE enhanced eBook by Rachel Fryer
meetsnowflake.com

Improving Reading, Writing and Critical Thinking Skills with Media
wfryer.me/improve

Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing (eBook)
wfryer.me/pwm

Software I run on my Mac
wfryer.me/apps

Crafting Your Professional Digital Footprint
wfryer.me/footprint

19 April 2011: iPad Training for Business Productivty
www.ipadwithwes.com

Student Media Examples
share.playingwithmedia.com

99¢ Podcasts for Playing with Media
learn.playingwithmedia.com

Mapping Media to Common Core
maps.playingwithmedia.com

iPad App Coffee Chats
1st Tuesday of each month in Edmond, OK at The DIV
wfryer.me/appchat

YouTube
www.youtube.com/wfryer

K-12 Online Conference: 250+ FREE PD videos about tech integration
k12onlineconference.org

Social Media:
twitter.com/wfryer
facebook.com/wfryer

Contact Wesley Fryer
www.wesfryer.com/contact

Moving at the Speed of Creativity (my primary blog)
www.speedofcreativity.org

iPad Quick-Edit Videography
wfryer.me/ipadvideo

Tell a Story in 5 Photos
wfryer.me/5photos

Celebrate Oklahoma Voices: 940+ videos
lc.celebrateoklahoma.us

Celebrate Kansas Voices: 220+ Digital Stories
celebratekansas.ning.com

Celebrate Texas Voices: Digital Stories
celebratetexas.ning.com

Oklahoma CCSS Diigo Group
http://groups.diigo.com/group/oklahoma-ccss

Storychasers: Empowering Digital Witnesses on the Global Stage
storychasers.org

Stuff I Want to Share at OTA – Encyclo-Media 2012 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 2, 2012.

This semester, students taught by Debbie Callison at the Yukon Middle School 6th Grade Academy have been writing and sharing their poetry online using free, interactive websites hosted by Kidblog.org. All the posts written by students, as well as comments submitted by others to each website, are MODERATED by Mrs. Callison. Students have not only been working on the quality and content of their own poetry, but also discussing “What makes a good comment?” Students are identifying specific elements of poems to highlight and providing constructive feedback to each other. Online, student publishing and interactive commenting moderated by a classroom teacher is one specific element of the new “Common Core” standards for Oklahoma students which Yukon Public Schools is currently working to implement at the direction of the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

One of the best things about students sharing their writing online using an open site like KidBlog is the opportunity it provides for parents to provide feedback, as well as teachers and students. Here is a specific example from Mrs. Callison’s 2nd hour, sixth grade English class this week.

This is a post written by Cooper last week, titled, “What is a Champion?”

Later in the day after Cooper wrote that post, Mrs. Callison shared some positive feedback as a comment on that post to accompany comments already moderated/approved. In addition, yesterday (January 31st) Cooper’s Dad logged on to the class website. He also wrote a comment, providing feedback and encouragement to his son.

It takes practice to get better at anything, and Yukon middle school students are improving their writing skills with digitally-saavy learning opportunities provided by Mrs. Callison. Kudos to Cooper for sharing his poem, and kudos to his classmates, Mrs. Callison, and Cooper’s dad for providing constructive feedback! We’re living in times of change, and it’s great to see this example of how Yukon Public School teachers are providing ways to extend learning experiences digitally beyond the “four walls of the classroom” and involve parents as partners in developing literacy skills.

Technorati Tags: kidblog, writing, blogging, poetry

Yukon 6th Grade Parents and Teachers Provide Students Feedback on Writing originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 1, 2012.

http://yesdancan.com is the website Dan Lovejoy built by hand (not with WordPress) to get a job – and he got a job!
- build websites with iThemesBuilder and focused a lot on SEO issues

Other web links for other attendees tonight:
http://www.northideas.com
http://extremevirtualsupport.com
http://www.tandswebdesign.com
http://www.edmondbootcamp.com
http://jfdoes.com
http://social-ism.biz
http://thereproject.com
http://thomasperezphotography.com
http://ignitedmediadesign.com
http://www.alertinternational.com
http://newlookmedia.com
http://www.gfellerstudio.com
http://www.heliumscraper.com (.net webpage screenscraper)

(if I missed your link and you attended please share it via a comment or Twitter)

“It’s tough to be a professional photographer today, because everyone is a photographer”

I shared a presentation on “Go Mobile with WordPress.” My links are on wfryer.me/wp

I also recorded my audio from this presentation using Cinch on my iPad

Now hearing from Dan Lovejoy on SEO and WordPress

Lots of important things to remember when writing for the web
- also important to write SEO (search engine optimized) content
- CRO = conversion rate optimization

Writing SEO copy is hard
- writing natural copy is hard
- writing conversation optimized copy is hard

SEO is optimizing your page or site for specific keywords
- standard line from web masters: if you just build it and write a lot of content on it, you’ll attract the traffic
- “being a content thought leader is a higher calling than SEO”
- there is a scientific process of optimizing specific pages for specific keywords

Avoid using a period in your phrase, but you can use a semicolon, comma, and m-dash or n-dash
- when you define SEO targets you generally want to use phrases rather than keywords
- “the longer the tail” you have using the Google Adwords tool, you can try to find keywords people aren’t ranking for but there is traffic
- you want to look for keywords in the 3 – 7% density (as of now) otherwise you can get ‘thumped’ by Google (Googe either puts a penalty on your page rank or de-indexes you)
- SEO has changed a lot even since November 2011 when I stopped doing this professionally

If you are already in the top six of Google search pages, you’re good
- people are drilling down in Google searches more now (we used to say you need to be on the top 3 pages)
- it is better to be 11 rather than 9…

David Christopher was Google SEO-guru at OPUBCO who taught Dan a LOT

My question about Bing: It looks like optimizing for Google does the same thing for Bing search

WordPress is a GREAT tool for SEO
- all the tools are available
- we use All-In-One SEO WordPress plugin

Post tips:
- make sure post titles contain keywords
- make sure post title propagates to your page title
- write a click-optimized custom page description for each (human readable URLs are very important to Google)
- the META KEYWORDS field doesn’t matter

Watch out for duplicate content, it won’t ‘kill you’ like it used to, but it can dilute the power of your inbound links

Key: cross-posting is bad for SEO, it can dilute the power of your inbound links
- if using Posterous site, set it up to be NO INDEX (change robots tags to tell Google not to look at the site)

Post titles should use an H1 tag on the title
- don’t use multiple H1 tags!
- if your theme doesn’t do this, you need to get a new theme or change it
- make sure you use semantic markup (H2, H3, etc) for internal headings
- use only absolutely necessary plug-ins (page speed matters)

Google indexes keywords that are higher on a page

Good SEO Blogs:
- http://www.seomoz.org
- http://www.stompernet.com

Google tracks how good your inbound links, Google knows what your PPC (pay per clicks) are, your keyword density, your interlinking….
- that is how Google knows about how long people stay on your site
- human reviewers also go to sites for Google (mainly checking for spam and garbage on your site)

Comment from attendee: Google doesn’t put a real person on a site unless it has more than 100,000 inbound links, they don’t care about sites with 10K or 20K links

Any time you have a person creating a real link, that is ‘white hat SEO’
- there is a sea of garbage that people create, that stuff is way down on Google results…

JC Pennys got ‘slapped’ really hard by using ‘black hat SEO’ methods

I HAD TO GO PICK UP MY SON FROM SCOUTS AT THIS POINT, SO I COULDN’T STAY FOR MORE… GREAT STUFF FROM DAN!

Technorati Tags: blog, mobile, wordpress, seo, plugin, plugins

Going Mobile with WordPress and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 30, 2012.

I’m sharing a couple sessions at OTA/Encyclomedia in two weeks in OKC and several at Heartland eLearning at UCO in Edmond in early March. These are all listed on wiki.wesfryer.com. My upcoming OKC-area workshops/presentations are:

OTA/Encyclo-Media (Oklahoma City, OK):

• 02-07 Creating Multimedia eBooks – Room 6 from 2:45 – 3:45
• 02-07 Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing – Room 6 from 1:00 – 2:00

(Remember a Google Spreadsheet version of breakout sessions is available via wfryer.me/ota12)

Heartland eLearning (Edmond, OK):

• 03-05 Workshop: Playing with Media: No-Edit Audio Recording
• 03-05 Workshop: Playing with Media: Quick-Edit Videography
• 03-06 Bridges to Musical and Artistic Creativity

Also I’m doing a full day iPad Productivity Apps workshop on April 19th in OKC, information and registration details are on iPadwithWes.com.

It’s short notice, but tomorrow evening I’ll be speaking about designing websites with WordPress for mobile platforms like iOS (iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch) as well as Android – basically using free mobile themes. This is free at the monthly OKC WordPress meetup, held at “The Div” in Edmond. More info is on the Oklahoma City WordPress User Group’s MeetUp website. I’m not positive but there’s a good chance this session may be live-streamed free via Ustream. If it is I’ll tweet it out.

If you’re in or around the Oklahoma City area, I hope to see you at one of these upcoming learning events!

If you’re interested in checking my availability for a presentation in your district or for your organization, please contact me via the inquiry form on my Speaking page.

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, otaem12, wes, wesley, fryer, city, okc, edmond, presentations, heartland12

Upcoming Wes Fryer Presentations in Oklahoma City (Feb – Mar 2012) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 29, 2012.

In the morning and for part of the afternoon, Rachel and I created an ePUB eBook with a fiction book she’s been writing all school year by hand with a classmate. (Literally since the first week of August!) She recorded each of the seven book parts with RecordPad, and I compiled the book with typed text, scanned pictures drawn by her classmate, mp3 files I converted with Switch, and Pages software. We’re getting the last illustration (hopefully) from her classmate to tomorrow to scan, and will most likely publish it on ePubBud, Amazon, B&N Nook Books, and a new website domain I registered for her and am configuring tonight. She created the main website graphic today using Brushes on an iPad. She’s going to give the book away as a free download, but offer it for purchase as a hardback! It’s precious!

This afternoon, my 11 year old daughter worked with two classmates on a science project about the Ejyafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.

Using two laptops, they continued research they had started earlier in the week and created a narrated slideshow video as their “final product,” following the instructions in their teacher provided rubric. They created a presentation using Keynote software, and wrote a project script using Pages. They found photos to use from multiple sources, including Flickr Creative Commons, and included attribution on each slide for the websites where they found the images. I encouraged them to use a minimum of text on each slide, and instead use large images to make their points. (Presentation Zen style.) They recorded their final video on an iPad using “Explain Everything.” To get the Keynote slides from the laptop to the iPad, they used PhotoSync software to transfer the images. The $3 “Explain Everything” app allowed them to create their narrated slideshow directly from the images transferred with PhotoSync. They used my iRig microphone for the recording, and they sound great!

They recorded their script twice, reading it from the screen of a laptop in Pages instead of printing it out. They did a super job, and are justifiably proud of their afternoon of work! I’ll feature this narrated slideshow soon on “Student Media Examples.”

Technorati Tags: ebook, ipad, playingwithmedia, book, volcano, Ejyafjallajokull, iceland, narrated, slideshow

A Saturday Filled with Media Creation and #playingwithmedia originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 28, 2012.

The definition of sexual abuse is broader than many people realize, it’s not just physical touching/abuse. The definition used in this series is: “Any tricked, forced, manipulated, or coerced sexual activity for the pleasure of the abuser. This can be physical, verbal or visual.”

Conservative studies show sexual abuse is at epidemic levels today
- there are 60 million sexual abuse survivors in the U.S. today
- we have 300 million people in the U.S. so that means 1 in 5 people alive today in our country are sexual abuse survivors
- 1 in 3 females are predicted to be sexual abuse victims before the age of 18
- 1 in 6 males are predicted to be sexual abuse victims before the age of 18
- 66% of sexual abuse victims won’t talk about it until they are adults
- this cuts across all economic, ethic, and racial lines

Less than 10% of sexual abusers will ever enter the criminal justice system
- so 90% of those who want to harm our children are not in the justice system for us to find them with a background check (we still do background checks in our organizations, but background checks alone are insufficient protection)

MY COMMENT: THIS REMINDS ME OF THE ‘DEFENSE IN DEPTH’ STRATEGY WHICH IS EMPLOYED FOR COMPUTER NETWORK SECURITY

Almost 90% of children are victimized by someone the child knows and is taught is “safe”
- “stranger danger” has its value, but is not sufficient awareness

It’s a myth that sexual abusers have a clear, identifiable visual profile
- many are educated, married, have jobs, look like productive members of society
- it’s also a myth that all sexual abusers are men: some are also females
- 85% of convicted sexual abusers are men, 15% are women (some point out cases against women are more difficult to prosecute, so that may contribute to these skewed numbers)
- there is NO VISUAL PROFILE to rely on

Children are not just victimized by adults, peer to peer sexual abuse is high and rising
- children are not only learning about sexual behaviors from adults, they are also learning from it through the Internet

The “abuser triangle” is used by counselors to treat sexual offenders, and it has 3 elements:
1- deviant sexual desire (adults who prefer children as sexual partners)
2- faulty thinking (ability to justify and rationalize deviant desire)
3- access (the offender having access to children)

Molesters intentionally groom both children and “gatekeepers”
- gatekeepers are the people who stand in the way of molesters to gain access to the child
- “molesters are looking for trusted time alone with a child they are grooming”

“edge of the herd” concept: the children most at risk for grooming by a molester / sexual predator / abuser:
- are often on the fringe, in need
- looking for someone to follow or trust
- from a broken family
- from a single parent home
- involved in alcohol or drugs
- interested in pornography

Every case the MinistrySafe law practice has handled involving boys and male sexual predators has involved the use of pornography during the grooming process
- predators use nudity and sexual touch for “barrier testing and erosion” with children
- often use sexual discussions and joking, playful touch and ‘accidental nudity”
- magazines and movies depicting nudity and sex

Keeping victims silent through secrecy, shame & embarrassment, and threats (subtle or direct) are also a critical part of the grooming process

Many people who have been sexually abused or assaulted report feeling some sense of guilt or responsibility for what happened to them, molesters use this psychology against victims

#1 reason kids don’t tell: No one will believe you
- often this is true, because of the way molesters groom the gatekeepers

Common grooming behaviors
- gift giving: single adult to single child
- kid-magnet activities (things children are attracted to)
- repeated time alone with the same child (unsupervised or not easily overseen)
- touchy with children, pushing physical boundaries
- sometimes using playful but inappropriate touch
- breaking the rules: providing alcohol, tobacco and/or pornography (can be other rules you have setup for your organization)

Peer abusers tend to be more opportunistic (they don’t create their own schedule and drive their own cars)
- this should be distinguished from natural sexual curiosity, and we do this by looking at power relationships between the peers involved
- power can be due to age, size, economic resources, social connections (popularity), or differing abilities

Children with different kids of disabilities are particularly at risk for peer abuse

risks are highest any place where clothes come off (swimming/bathing) and any place that is less easily seen

To reduce risks, we should always report any grooming behaviors we observe
- adequate supervisors for all activities are key (use programmatic ratios)
- avoid unmonitored, 1 on 1 interaction

MY COMMENT: THIS IS THE ‘TWO DEEP LEADERSHIP’ CONCEPT FROM SCOUTING / YOUTH PROTECTION PROGRAM

avoid individual gift giving, always better for the gift to come from a group rather than a single individual adult giving to a single individual child

Short term impacts of sexual abuse on children:
- poor self esteem
- shame/guilt
- anxiety / nervousness
- fears / phobias
- loss of trust
- disinterested in person or activity previously enjoyed (we need to ask questions to find out what has changed)
- anger
- self-mutilation
- bedwetting
- nightmares
- rebellion
- running away

Long term impacts:
- depression
- suicidal thoughts or acts
- substance abuse including self-medicating behaviors
- molesting other children (not a 1 to 1 scenario, some victims- especially boys who do not receive any kind of treatment
- drop in grades
- promiscuity / seductive behavior
- STDs
- excessive modesty or affection seeing behaviors
- prostitution (95% of prostitutes on the street were sexually abused as children)

If a child reports abuse:
- listen and respond calmly (don’t respond emotionally)
- be sensitive to vague and partial disclosures (children often test you with part of the story to see if you respond with anger or disbelief)
- it is ok to ask for more questions that simply ask for more information: “Do you to tell me more?”
- don’t ask shaming questions: What were you wearing? What were you doing in that location? These questions can make the child feel they were responsible for the abuse rather than the adult and clam up.
- report this to a supervisor immediately
- NO SECRETS

If the child asks you if you will keep it a secret, you need to respond with something like: “There are some things I can’t keep a secret: if someone is being abused, being hurt, etc.)

statutes by law vary, but generally all states not only require reporting of physical abuse but also emotional abuse and neglect. Many require reporting of “suspicion” of abuse and neglect. Entities we report to, how long we have to report, and what information we have to report varies. Generally we don’t have to investigate, but we do have to report.

Google “Child abuse reporting” for your state (example: Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Child Protective Services)

www.childwelfare.gov also has resources

We need to always create cultures of communication in our programs
- we need to open up lines of communication for policy violations that cause us discomfort also… not to create a witchhunt, but to create a culture where a supervisor can identify “red flag” information when grooming and barrier testing is taking place.

MY CLOSING THOUGHT: THIS IS OUTSTANDING TRAINING, IT’S EXCELLENT IT’S AVAILABLE ONLINE AND THERE’S A QUIZ FOR PEOPLE TO TAKE BEFORE RECEIVING A COMPLETION CERTIFICATE.

http://ministrysafe.com

Technorati Tags: online, training, video, ministry, safe, ministrysafe, youth, protection, sexual, predator, abuser, pedophile, suspicion, neglect, physical, emotion, emotional

MinistrySafe Online Video Training for Youth Protection from Sexual Abuse originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 27, 2012.

While the built-in calculator features of Google Search are extremely powerful, the syntax required to use the “Google calculator” requires some study. That process is valuable and good, but I like how Mateusz’ Percentage Calculator does not require any special syntax formatting. The layout is simple and straightforward. He has also included some helpful information about percentages on the homepage of his site.

Mateusz has also created the website Blood Pressure Chart, which provides a cloud-based / web-based way for people to save their blood pressure information so it can be shared with doctors or others the individual selects. I really like the clean look of the ‘forums’ section of his Blood Pressure Chart website, where updates are available about the project as well as other information. I’m going to try and learn what tool he used to create these, it would be great if they are powered with a WordPress Plug-in.

Technorati Tags: math, calculator, percent, percentage, web, tool

Calculate and Learn about Percentages with Percentage Calculator originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 27, 2012.

This semester I’m working on a contract basis (thanks to federal grant dollars) as an “innovative instructional coach” in Yukon Public Schools. This morning I helped one of our sixth grade teachers facilitate her first lessons using free, ad-free class blogs hosted by KidBlog.org. In this post, I’ll share some of the configuration specifics for these class blogs and a nine minute screencast in which I demonstrate each step. The teacher has six sections of students (136 in all) so the techniques described here for importing student userIDs and passwords from the district’s student information system can be HUGE time savers!

I am a big fan of free Posterous blogs for publishing student work, including media products. You’ll see multiple examples of student work shared on Posterous blogs on share.playingwithmedia.com, which I created to complement my eBook, “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing.” KidBlog is a great platform too, but it has different advantages. Posterous makes the posting and sharing of rich-media files including images, audio and video very straightforward. KidBlog lends itself best to sharing text, but it can handle most kinds of embedded media. For the teacher I worked with today, as an English teacher it’s important her students have their own directory of posts they can readily view along with their parents. KidBlog automatically creates “student pages” of all posts an individual has published. (Usually in the right sidebar, but this can vary with the selected blog theme.) Other features of KidBlog I really like are:

1. It makes moderation of both posts and comments to a blog very easy / fast
2. It shows how many comments different posts have received on the homepage, so students as well as parents/other visitors can identify posts which “need some attention” and a helpful comment.
3. KidBlog is built on WordPress, so it supports the free WordPress iOS app. One of the 6th graders this morning asked, in fact, “Is there an app for this site?” I was pleased to tell her: Yes there is!
4. KidBlog supports “broadcast” posts, so a teacher can write a single post but have it automatically cross-post (“broadcast”) to all his/her blogs. This is HUGE for teachers using KidBlog with multiple sections.
5. It supports the importing of student userIDs and passwords as comma separated (CSV) files.
6. It supports nested commenting.
7. Students can change their own display name. This is important in our district, since student’s initial network userID is a series of numbers. For the teacher’s purposes, it’s important to identify students by first name. This is also critical for peer and parent commenting, and great the students can change these display names directly.

Today in two of the classes, students submitted over 100 different comments for their peers. Even though we coached students to “be thoughtful” in their comments and not just write things like “Good” or “Awesome,” of course we had some comments like that. About half the students in the first class today had used LightSpeed Systems’ free learning management system, “My Big Campus,” in other classes. Unlike My Big Campus, however, the KidBlog sites used today and I configured for the teacher are OPENLY visible to anyone online (without a login) but all posts as well as comments are moderated.

I recorded a nine minute screencast earlier in the week when I was configuring these student blogs, which shows all the steps I performed to each KidBlog site so it was ready for teacher-moderated posting and commenting today. I encourage you to check out KidBlog. More digital text / blogging platform options are linked on the “Text” page of playingwithmedia.com.

Technorati Tags: blog, kidblog, writing, configure, configuration

Configure KidBlog for Safe, Moderated, Interactive Student Blogging & Commenting originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 27, 2012.

Great job, Google geek and dad Daniel Lee.

Technorati Tags: chrome, video, youtube, media, kids, family, share

A Touching Example of Family Digital Documentation originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 26, 2012.

wfryer.me/ota12

I hope this mobile-friendly conference session format helps you find great sessions at the conference, if you’re attending. This is the first year EncycloMedia (which has historically been held in the fall) has merged with the OTA conference. David Warlick is our keynote this year and it should be great!

I’m playing with a test installation of MobileAP to possibly create an iOS-friendly mobile conference site for breakout session info, but I still need to figure out how to import session data into the mySQL database. Not sure if I’ll figure this out or not but I’ll keep playing with it. It’s a very sweet, free academic conference app I wrote about in September 2009, developed originally at the University of Cincinnati.

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, otaem12, ota, encyclomedia, technology, library

Access OTA – EncycloMedia 2012 Session Info via a Google Spreadsheet originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 25, 2012.

Tyler’s description of GarageBand for iPad‘s ability to record songs and then make them available as transposable loops really intrigues me. I need to spend some time playing with it! Kudos to Tyler for sharing this fun project idea, and to the instructors and professors at UCO’s Academy of Contemporary Music!

I’m presenting a couple workshops at the Heartland eLearning Conference March 4-5, 2012, which will explore ways to use the iPad to record and share media. If you live in or near central Oklahoma, please plan to join us in Edmond for this great conference!

Technorati Tags: ipad, creativity, creative, music, garageband

Make a Song with Sounds from Your Kitchen on an iPad originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 24, 2012.

If you need to schedule a meeting with folks who are not all users of your organization’s calendar system, my favorite free tool to use is WhenIsGood.net.

Technorati Tags: google, howto, tutorial, calendar, appointment, slots, screencast

Use Appointment Slots on a Google Calendar originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 23, 2012.

One of my favorite lesson memories from middle school was in 7th grade math. My teacher, Mrs. Allen, gave students an opportunity to create math word problems for extra credit. We would work on these word problems the start of class each day as a bell ringer activity. I remember these would be put on the overhead projector. We could earn extra credit in her math class by submitting these problems, but we only got credit if she used them in class I think. I remember making different word problems that involved rock climbing and mountain climbing, because those were things I was interested in. The problems had to do with distances for rappelling, lengths of rope, distances between base camps, etc. I remember it was a good feeling on the days when she used one of my problems and my classmates would work on figuring out the answer. I really enjoyed these learning opportunities because they gave me an opportunity to be creative, use math, and connect math to a topic I was really interested in. I remember including drawings that accompanied some of the problems. I really loved creating these problems and having them used in class. This is one of my favorite memories of a lesson from middle school. Remembering this makes me wonder if someone has already created a website where students can create and submit their own “math word problems?” I think this would be great to do, encouraging students to creatively apply math and share their problems with others. I think it is great to find ways to help students “come up with the questions” for a lesson, especially math, rather than always just solving problems / answering questions that other people have created.

Technorati Tags: ccss, common, commoncore, core, favlesson, #favlesson, favorite, lesson

Creative Math Word Problems about Rock Climbing & Mountaineering #favlesson originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 23, 2012.

  by  paul (dex) 

The most glaring omission from the 1.0 version of iBooks Author is the ability to export ebooks in EPUB format. It’s not there.

The only export formats iBooks Author 1.0 supports are iBooks, PDF, and plain text documents.

This is by design by Apple, but in my opinion it’s a mistake. Hopefully Apple will remedy this in the 2.0 version. We (as educators) need to make our voices heard and insist (whether we’re K-12 or college/university educators) that it’s not acceptable for Apple to ignore and deliberately try to undermine the EPUB standard for eBooks. We all understand Apple is a corporation and wants to make lots of money, but far more is at stake when it comes to digital curriculum than just income for a global corporation. As educators, learners and students, we need the ability to create standards-based e-texts which are compatible on MULTIPLE devices, not just iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches. I recommend Mathew Ingram‘s January 19th post for GigaOM, “Do we want textbooks to live in Apple’s walled garden?” for more background on these issues. My answer to Mathew’s rhetorical question is a resounding “No: Not exclusively.”

In the case of my new eBook project, I not only want to distribute this FREE eBook on Apple’s iBookstore, I also want to distribute it on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and openly on the web. Dan Wineman is 100% correct in calling out the ridiculous, “over the top” restrictions Apple is trying to impose on curriculum authors in his post, “The Unprecedented Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA.”

Since I’m unwilling to restrict the intellectual property roaming potential of this new eBook to “just” Apple’s iBookstore, I chose to create it using Apple’s Pages software. I followed the same procedures I used in the summer of 2011 to write and publish, “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing.” For more background and specific steps about how to create enhanced/multimedia eBooks with Apple’s Pages as well as distribute eBooks on Amazon and Barnes & Noble’s Nook eStore, please check out:

• Podcast380: The Summer of Podfading is OVER: Let’s Talk eBooks! (17 Sept 2011)
• 99¢ Podcast: Creating Multimedia eBooks (3 Dec 2011)

These and additional links are available on my conference breakout session curriculum for “Creating MultiMedia eBooks.” (I’d be delighted to share this session with educators at your conference or other professional development event, btw!)

As educators, we have moral obligations to share. Open Educational Resources (OER) are and will increasingly disrupt traditional publishing companies’ revenue streams by allowing learners around the world to collaborate and share digital curriculum. The 1.0 release of Apple’s iBooks Author software is configured to undermine rather than support OER and the learning revolution.

Apple education executives, I call on you to change this in iBooks Author 2.0. Change the EULA so publishers are not locked into ONLY publishing on the iBookstore, and add an EXPORT TO EPUB feature like Apple programmers include with Pages ’09. Until those changes are made, I’m going to remain UNDERWHELMED by iBooks Author.

(The first image in this post was formatted with Creative Commons attribution using ImageCodr.)

Technorati Tags: apple, author, ibooks, ipad, software, ebook, epub, etext

Underwhelmed by iBooks Author Software originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 23, 2012.

In this episode of “iPad with Wes,” author and digital learning consultant Wesley Fryer explains how to create a custom digital newspaper on your iPad using the free application Flipboard. The video is 9 minutes, 17 seconds long

Referenced links in this episode include:
http://flipboard.com
http://google.com/reader

Screenshot by Wesley Fryer, Flipboard photo from photography.nationalgeographic.com

Please follow @ipadwithwes on Twitter and “like” iPadWithWes on Facebook! Mark your calendar to attend monthly “iPad App Coffee Chats” the first Tuesday of each month either face-to-face in Oklahoma City or via a free webcast on Ustream. Please spread the word about my upcoming workshop “iPad Training for Productivity Training” in Oklahoma City on April 19, 2012, in Oklahoma City.

Technorati Tags: flipboard, google, ipad, training, newspaper, reader

Create a Custom Digital Newspaper on your iPad with Flipboard & Google Reader originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 21, 2012.

This video is a 73 second interview with Laquita Semmler, principal of Mustang Elementary in Mustang, Oklahoma. Mrs. Semmler won a $2000 technology grant from the Oklahoma Association of Elementary School Principals (OAESP) at the mid-winter conference on January 20, 2012, in Oklahoma City. She is planning to use the funds from the grant to purchase a new iMac computer and mobile cameras to provide students with tools to be videographers and journalists for their school website.

Instead of Flip cameras, which have been discontinued by Cisco and do not import video in a Mac-friendly format, Storychasers recommends student videography teams use iPod Touches or iPads for quick-edit videography. In addition, an external microphone is a MUST to improve audio quality. (A $60 iRig mic, available via the Apple Store, was used in the video above.)

Congrats to Mustang Elementary students and staff, and kudos to Mrs. Seemler for applying for and winning this student technology grant!

Technorati Tags: oaesp, videography, mustang, elementary, grant, student, win, winner

OAESP Grant for Student Videography at Mustang, Elementary (Oklahoma) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 21, 2012.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out Apple’s official 7 minute, 20 second video overview of iBooks Author. I think this was shared yesterday during the official event in NYC. As you’d expect from Apple, it’s highly polished and impressive. It even features an educational leader / rock star I know, Chris Lehmann: the principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia! Chris is the co-author of “What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media” (2011) and the Co-Chair of the EduCon conference coming up next weekend.

Make no mistake: I love Apple’s products and have been transformed in my professional career as an educator not only through the use of those products, but even more through opportunities Apple has directly provided to me to be influenced by other passionate educators. I AM very excited and positive about this week’s announcement about iBooks Author.

However, as we see corporate advertising messages like the video I’ve linked above, let’s keep a critically important thing in mind: TEACHERS make the biggest difference.

Yes our students need access to digital devices.

But TEACHERS make the difference.

Yes our schools need robust, smart networks with great connectivity to a world of content and a world of connections.

But TEACHERS make the difference.

Yes, we need to shift from “adopt on a 5 year cycle,” heavy and unsearchable paper-based textbooks and embrace dynamic, searchable etexts.

But TEACHERS make the difference.

We’re in the midst of some huge changes in our society as well as our schools. There are lots of opportunities we have amidst many challenges. As we face these disruptive changes together, let’s keep one thing crystal clear in all our minds.

Good TEACHERS make the biggest difference.

Technorati Tags: leadership, apple, ibooks, ebooks, mac, macs, change, schools, mobile

Remember TEACHERS Make the Biggest Difference, Not Devices originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 20, 2012.

It is absolutely fantastic to be able to teach students with an iPad2 using an AppleTV, an HDMI-ready flatscreen TV, and an open wifi network. The mirroring feature of the iPad2 to an AppleTV is hands-down, without question, the best way to teach a class using an iOS device. (The iPhone 4GS will also mirror to an AppleTV, but earlier iPhone versions won’t and the iPad 1 won’t either.) I LOVE being able to be “wireless” and untethered from the television/display and be anywhere in the room during our lessons.

Earlier today, I helped some elementary administrators setup for a presentation at the Oklahoma Association of Elementary School Principals (OAESP) mid-winter conference using an AppleTV, an iPad and a projector. In that case we used a $40 HDMI to VGA converter recommended in this iEAR.org post and everything worked great. The main lesson learned there was to bring and use our own wifi hotspot. We downloaded all the YouTube videos used in the presentation to a laptop in advance using saveyoutube.com, and transferred them directly to the iPad’s photo roll using the PhotoSync app and PhotoSync Companion software. We did this because when we tested the setup earlier, we found the wireless performance of video playback was slow and choppy at times. This could have been due to the way the conference hotel’s router was configured, and/or because of a lot of traffic on the router. Using a wifi hotspot we’d brought along worked well, even though it wasn’t connected to the Internet. All the videos and the Keynote slideshow were copied offline on the iPad2 used for the presentation, so no Internet connectivity was required.

Getting back to Puppet Pals and our lessons learned… I’m working with 12 students and we have 3 iPads, so they’ve been working in groups of four. Last week we discussed the basics of three act structure, which I’ve drawn and described as “the story arc.” This is the first time any of these students have worked with iPads or videography like this. While everyone has seen movies and has some movie literacy, their initial tendency is to want to have characters fight and zoom around the screen. Last week each group made an initial video (each about 60 seconds long) and today we started by watching and evaluating them. These first videos didn’t have much of a semblance of “story,” but we were learning the basics of the program including how to manipulate characters, how it’s helpful to move characters when they are speaking, how to pass the microphone and speak clearly into it, and how to pause recordings if needed to discuss a plan for the next scene. Different students served as scribes today as we discussed some strengths as well as ways the initial movies could be improved.

Here are some of our lessons learned.

DISCUSS APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE FOR THE CONTEXT
Both weeks we’ve had discussions about appropriate language, considering the fact we’re in a church for Tiger Club and that we’re hoping to share these videos with other people online. Even with these discussions in advance, it’s been important to facilitate both the planning and production of videos with students. Two other adults are available for our class to help the students, but their involvement has been minimal. We want to have fun and are having fun, but boundaries are important and this wasn’t a conversation I was initially planning on having with students before our first lesson started. It’s an important conversation. For one of our videos today I actually had to edit out about 4 seconds which had some profane words which ‘slipped out.’ Fortunately it’s easy to do that in iMovie. It’s valuable to discuss with students the importance of choosing their words carefully depending on their surroundings and context. Reminds me of Ruby Payne’s book.

AN iRIG MIC IS CRITICAL TO ELIMINATE BACKGROUND NOISE
Our first two meetings we’ve just had one iRig mic to share among three groups with three iPads. If you watch and listen to some of our videos from today which are embedded below, you won’t have any doubts about which group used the iRig and which didn’t. The iRig does a fantastic job filtering out background noise in a classroom. Since we have three groups of students working in a small classroom and many are laughing/having fun as they’re creating videos, the iRig is really a must.

REMEMBER YOUR APPLE TV REMOTE CONTROL
Last week I forgot to pack and bring my remote control for the AppleTV, and as a result I couldn’t configure it to access the local church’s wifi network. Don’t forget the remote. It is possible to configure an iOS device to use the Remote app to control an AppleTV, but the device and the AppleTV have to be connected to the same wifi network for this to work. That initially requires use of the remote control.

DOWNLOAD ALL CHARACTERS FROM PUPPET PALS DIRECTORS EDITION FIRST
Puppet Pals for iPad comes in two versions, one that is free (with only a few character and background sets) and the $3 “Directors Pass” version which comes with all the characters and backgrounds. Definitely spring for the $3 version, but download all the backgrounds and characters in advance so students won’t have to do that when they are in class.

PROVIDE SOME LIMITS FOR STUDENTS IN PUPPET PALS
Even if you just have a few character and background sets downloaded and available in Puppet Pals, the choices can be pretty overwhelming for students. It’s always instructive to see how often students will copy or mimic something you demonstrate initially for them in a whole group setting, rather than striking out on their own with novel ideas. (That dynamic is why some constructivist learning advocates discourage showing students examples, I think.) It’s good to model possibilities, but I think it’s also helpful to provide limits. I asked students both last week and today to choose no more than 3 or 4 characters, and no more than 3 different scenes. We have been working to build short, 1-2 minute videos, so this is plenty. In some cases students used more characters in their groups, but generally this limitation has been helpful and students have followed it.

LET STUDENTS DO ALL THE iPAD DRIVING
Even during the whole-group demonstrations of the Puppet Pals app, it’s worked well to have different students do all the clicking and swiping on the app: They’ve “done all the driving.” It’s very good to facilitate this with oral instructions, rather than simply “do it” for students yourself as the teacher. They learn more when they ‘drive’ and they are far more engaged. Most students want a chance to participate, and there are plenty of ways to do that in an iPad lesson with Puppet Pals.

REQUIRE STUDENTS TO DISCUSS AND CREATE A PAPER-BASED PLANNING DOCUMENT FIRST
With just about any multimedia project, getting students to plan, get organized, and in some cases WRITE is the hardest part of the entire experience. It’s also the most important, however, because it contributes the most to the eventual success and quality of the project. This week students did plan and write out more details about their planned videos and stories, so they each have more of a semblance of a narrative. Remember I’ve just worked with these students two times for 50 minutes each week, and it’s challenging to do that without any prior relationship or experiences together. I’m not claiming we’ve created any masterpieces here, but we ARE definitely having fun and I think the kids are picking up some things about telling digital stories. I’m learning a lot too!

I created a new, free YouTube channel tonight to share these videos. (multimediasandbox) Here are the student planning pages for today’s videos (very sketchy and simple, but more than we did last week) and the videos they created. I am particularly proud of this first group’s video, who came a LONG way because of the planning and storyboarding they did last week following our lesson time.

What does it say that two of my three student groups made videos which primarily focused on two groups fighting? We talked about the importance of conflict and tension which leads to an eventual climax/resolution for the characters in a story, but we didn’t insist it had to be about fighting. Next week I’m thinking I’ll have students draw some characters out of a hat that they’ll be required to include in their story, along with a sentence or sentence fragment they’ll have to use and build on for a novel plot. I’m thinking I’ll add an additional guideline that their characters can’t fight. Can you think of other or better guidelines to use next week?

LAND FIGHT

PRESIDENTIAL FIGHT

SHREK 4 REMIX

(no photo of the planning doc is available)

Technorati Tags: ipad, puppet, pals, lessons, learned, videography

Lessons Learned Using Puppet Pals on iPads in an After School Program originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 19, 2012.

I haven’t decided who I’m voting for this year for President, I’m ideologically aligned with many Rootstrikers and I don’t think any of our current Presidential candidates are. Whatever your personal political leanings might be, it’s an important time to discuss the election with U.S. students in our classrooms as well as media literacy. How do you know what to believe when you see something in the media or online? What authority do you trust? Why? How can you check the facts and weigh bias? Why do these questions matter?

Go forth, fellow educator… and teach both young and old to ask questions. Lots and lots of questions. Some of them will be good ones. No one is serving hemlock today at your school, thankfully. Bring forth your best efforts to encourage critical thinking. The future of our nation hangs in the balance.

Technorati Tags: media, politics, video, youtube, pac, super, superpac, unitedstates

The Best Political Spin Money Can Buy originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 19, 2012.

While the new draft rules are available on the SDE website, I can’t find a link to submit “public comments” on either the Oklahoma SDE News Blog site (ok.gov/sde/newsblogs), the old SDE homepage or the new one. If you know where information is posted about submitting public comments on these draft rules please let me know by leaving a comment. The document itself does not provide any guidance or contact info for people wanting to submit public comments.

I haven’t read through these in detail but will in upcoming days. I’ll probably submit “a public comment” if I can learn where and how to do so.

UPDATE: Eric Hileman let me know comments can be submitted via email to rules@ok.gov.

UPDATE2: The following link provides instructions about submitting public comments for this proposed rule change: www.sde.state.ok.us/Law/Rules. The published impact statement for this rule change is also worth reading.

photo credit: HikingArtist.com

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, online, course, courses, k12, sde

Supplemental Oklahoma Rules for K-12 Online Courses originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 17, 2012.

The cost of activating an iPhone with AT&T is absolutely ridiculous. Since I have several kids, and eventually want all of them to be able to use smartphones, this is a real concern for me. Our family wireless bill now exceeds a monthly car payment, and I am not “OK” with this situation being considered “normal.” Because of these concerns, I recently figured out how to jailbreak and “unlock” an older iPhone 3G for one of my kids to use and put it on the T-Mobile network on a “pay-as-you-go” plan for $15 per month. This plan provides unlimited texting, phone calls for 10 cents per minute, and no cellular data. Since my kids primarily text and rarely make voice calls, this plan is perfect. It’s half the price AT&T would charge me to add an iPhone line to our existing family plan ($10 per month) plus activate the cheapest, AT&T-mandatory data plan ($20). Here are some of the things I learned getting that iPhone switched over to T-Mobile.

AT&T currently makes anyone using an iPhone on their network activate a data plan, and the cheapest one is $20 per month. There is a setting on more recent iOS versions to turn off cellular data entirely, and it might be possible to turn that off so AT&T never finds out you’re using an iPhone with a SIM card you activated previously with another phone. When I gave one of my kids my older iPhone a year or so ago, we activated it by switching the SIM card from their older RAZR phone and putting it in the iPhone. A few weeks after using it, AT&T sent my child a text message announcing they had recognized their phone was an iPhone and therefore activated a mandatory $20 per month data plan. We didn’t ask for that data plan, we didn’t want that data plan, but AT&T didn’t and doesn’t care. One of their objectives as a corporation is to soak everyone who is a customer for as much per month as they possibly can. This makes me angry and frustrated as a customer, and is a big reason I chose to figure out how to switch at least some of our family phones over to T-Mobile.

Different cell phone carriers use different technologies. AT&T phones use SIM cards because they operate on the GSM network. That is the same network used by T-Mobile, which is the reason an “unlocked” phone (including an unlocked iPhone) can be used with either AT&T or T-Mobile in the USA. That’s not the case for Verizon phones, because they operate on the CDMA network. The English WikiPedia article, “Comparison of mobile phone standards,” provides some good background on the relative advantages and disadvantages of these phone types. If you travel internationally outside the USA, you definitely want to use a GSM phone since about 80-85% of the world’s cell phones use GSM. If you have an unlocked phone, you can purchase a local SIM card in many countries and use it in your phone. This can be a good way to avoid “international roaming fees” which some carriers (including AT&T, depending on your plan) can sock you with if you use your ‘normal’ SIM card out of the country.

It’s remarkable and ridiculous at some level to see how “locking phones” has become normal in the United States, along with absurdly expensive rates for cellular data access. Countries including Lebanon, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Singapore require (currently) all phones sold in their countries be sold UNLOCKED. This means customers are free to use those phones with any available wireless carrier, without going through the tedious hoops I’m about to describe to unlock an iPhone 3G.

If you’re interested in unlocking an iPhone and switching to T-Mobile, I recommend you find someone who has prior experience both jailbreaking and unlocking iPhones to help you. This is something you can figure out how to do successfully using trustworthy websites as well as YouTube video tutorials, but there ARE risks as well as drawbacks to carefully weigh. Understand the following:

1. Apple does not support jailbreaking or unlocking your iPhone and doing so can void your warranty. (If you “just” jailbreak and don’t “unlock” you should be able to re-install the iOS firmware and restore your iPhone’s software to it’s original / non-jailbroken condition, but depending on circumstances this may not always be possible. Unlocking almost always voids your warranty.)
2. Unlocking can require overwriting / changing the “baseband” for your iPhone which can be an irreversible action.
3. It may be necessary to update your iPhone baseband to a version which disables certain functionality, like GPS. Weigh this carefully.
4. If something goes wrong during your jailbreaking and unlocking process, it IS possible that you might “brick” your iPhone. This means it could be unusable and essentially become an expensive paperweight. That’s why I recommend you work with someone with prior successful experiences jailbreaking and unlocking an iPhone if you try this.
5. There are a lot of iPhone jailbreaking and unlocking websites which are mainly seeking ad revenue. Some may have malware (bad stuff) they could install on your computer and/or your iPhone. Malware DOES exist for the iPhone, I have a friend who got some over a year ago via a jailbroken app he downloaded and tried. Be sure to use reliable, trustworthy websites to obtain jailbreak and unlock software.
6. According to a T-Mobile employee I interviewed, T-Mobile does NOT provide 3G or 4G connectivity speeds to any iPhone users on their network. T-Mobile limits all iPhone users to 2G or “edge” connectivity speeds as of this writing. This is a major disadvantage and bummer… It could change down the road, but at this point it might be a reason to stick with AT&T or another official iPhone carrier.
7. T-Mobile is NOT going to merge with AT&T at this point and go away as an alternative network to AT&T in the USA, thanks (apparently) to a confluence of circumstances. Read more about this from December 2011 articles in TechCrunch and Engadget. I think this is really good news for consumers. AT&T acts like a bully monopoly already, and that behavior would have surely gotten only worse if they’d been allowed to get bigger via this merger.
8. Pay-as-you-go plans with T-Mobile can’t roam outside T-Mobile’s network. That means if my child is in a rural area or out of town away from T-Mobile’s coverage area, it might not be possible to text or call.

To get an iPhone on T-Mobile from AT&T, you will need to several things for sure and possibly some others. For sure, you’ll need to:

• Jailbreak your iPhone so you can install programs not authorized by Apple on it, using Cydia
• Unlock your iPhone by installing a program which lets other carrier SIM cards work

In some cases, you also may need to install new “baseband” software on your iPhone. As previously mentioned, in some cases this could disable iPhone functions like GPS.

There are several excellent sources of information about jailbreaking and unlocking which I recommend. Beware of Google searches for “jailbreak” and “unlock iPhone.” You’ll find tons of ad-supported websites with those searches, and in all likelihood some malware sites too. Here are the jailbreak and unlock information websites I use and recommend:

• Official blog of the iPhone Jailbreak Dev-Team: blog.iphone-dev.org
• The iPhone Wiki: theiphonewiki.com
• JailbreakQA: jailbreakqa.com

In my specific case, I inherited (from a relative who had upgraded) an iPhone 3G running iOS 4.2.1. The iPhoneWiki has a direct link to the IPSW (iPhone iOS installer package) which I needed to use to jailbreak, along with instructions that I had to update my baseband to 06.15.00. Those instructions are clear that the process will disable GPS on this iPhone permanently. In my situation that’s not a big deal, because my child who will be using this iPhone won’t really need to use Google Maps or GPS features of other apps. It would be a big deal for my wife or for me, however, and it’s definitely important to know about in advance.

JailbreakQA has a good list of jailbreaking tools which are available for different iPhone models running different versions of iOS. I ended up using two versions of redsn0w to jailbreak and update the baseband on the iPhone 3G. I initially tried using the latest version to jailbreak (posted by the Dev Team at the end of December 2011) but it kept crashing. I used the older redsn0w 0.9.6rc19 to jailbreak but disabled the option to also install something to show battery usage. redsn0w is one of several tools available to jailbreak your iPhone. Again the one you can use depends on the hardware model as well as the iOS version installed on your iPhone. In the past I’ve jailbroken my iPhone with the PwnageTool, the jailbreak.me website, and greenpois0n.

When you jailbreak, it’s vital you do NOT update to the latest iOS version when it comes out. Recently I waited to update my iPhone4 to iOS 5, because the “untethered” jailbreak for it didn’t come out until last month. A tethered jailbreak means you have to restart your iPhone by physically plugging it into your computer and using jailbreak software to start it again. Untethered jailbreaks don’t require this, you can restart your phone when it is disconnected from your computer.

While I had jailbroken iPhones before, until this recent iPhone 3G jailbreak I hadn’t updated iPhone baseband software or unlocked an iPhone. Both processes proved to be very straightforward once I learned what to do. Upgrading the baseband is an option in redsn0w, which I learned how to do watching this YouTube tutorial. (The accent of the speaker makes his English a little hard to understand, but it’s thorough and helpful.) You can opt to jailbreak and update baseband at the same time, but I did them separately. I jailbroke first with the older version of redsn0w linked above, and then used the most recent redsn0w to update the baseband. It’s a little confusing because in this case, the check box is to install ‘iPad baseband’ and I wasn’t using an iPad. The video linked above confirmed this is the right step, however, and the process worked for me.

After updating the baseband, it was time to actually unlock the phone. I did this by installing the application “ultrasn0w” in Cydia. I had to run Cydia twice, however, and run the available updates before ultrasn0w became available in the search interface.

I should mention also that all this software is available FREE and without charge. There is no charge for redsn0w or ultrasn0w. I have never paid for any jailbreaking software in the past few years, and I have jailbroken (at different times) an original iPhone, an iPhone 3GS, an iPhone4, and an iPad1.

Once these three steps were complete on the iPhone 3G for my child (jailbreaking and installing Cydia, updating the baseband, and unlocking by installing ultrasn0w) I was ready to head to the T-Mobile store. I had visited a few weeks ago with some employees to get information about the process and available pricing, so there were no surprises for us at this stage.

It is possible to keep an existing phone number you have with AT&T and “port” it over to T-Mobile even with a “pay-as-you-go” plan. When we activated the iPhone 3G on T-Mobile, we paid $10.45 for a SIM card and the activation. I had to provide my AT&T wireless account number to the T-Mobile rep, who had to visit with customer service on the phone to make it happen. It can take up to 24 hours for a phone number with another carrier to “port” over, and during that time a temporary number with T-Mobile is available for use. Once the number “port” is complete we’ll need to purchase some voice minutes for the phone, and we’ll be able to recharge those minutes in the future either online, by using a SMS code, or purchasing a T-Mobile minutes card. We’ll be paying just $15 per month for this line (instead of $30 to AT&T) and mainly using it to text. The iPhone 3G works great on wifi for Internet access, but it won’t have any cellular data access.

Assuming this T-Mobile iPhone experiment continues to work well, I plan to switch another of my kids who already has an iPhone with $30/month in AT&T add-on account charges over to T-Mobile. I’m not sure if at some point I’ll switch my own account with AT&T over, but I’ve thought about doing that. I might use the same $15 per month pay-as-you-go plan, but also activate a MiFi card which I could use for true 3G and 4G network connectivity not only for my iPhone but also iPad and laptop. I’d just need to make sure I had enough monthly bandwidth to meet my needs. Currently MiWi is my favorite and most important iPhone app because it lets my phone become a mobile hotspot for laptops, iPads, and other devices. This is an important function I want to maintain, but a MiFi card could do that as well.

I hope the information I have provided in this post is helpful to you. Again, please work with someone who has had prior successful experiences jailbreaking and unlocking iPhones if you want to try this yourself. Also be aware of the risks and don’t take them lightly. I understand carriers like AT&T want to keep us all “locked in” to excruciatingly expensive contracts, but am thrilled consumers have options like those described here to go with an alternative carrier like T-Mobile. I’m definitely holding off on a new iPhone 4S for now, and when I do purchase a new iPhone I’ll seriously consider just buying an unlocked version.

Have you had experiences, good or bad, with jailbreaking and/or unlocking an iPhone? If so, what are some of your lessons learned?

Avoiding AT&T’s Ridiculous iPhone Data Fees by Switching to T-Mobile originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 17, 2012.

More photos are available in this Flickr set. Also check out the ten minute video I posted from the weekend, “7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, Bushwhackers, and Jayhawkers (Kansas in 1861 – 1865)“.

What fun!

Technorati Tags: kansas, trapper, trappers, rendezvous, scout, scouting, campout, iphone, documentary, newton, troop

Trapper’s Rendezvous 2012: An iPhone documentary originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 15, 2012.

This evening I uploaded two large, high definition videos to YouTube from this past weekend’s Trapper’s Rendezvous campout in southcentral Kansas. The first was a 788 MB, 10 minute “no-edit” video about Kansas during the Civil War years of 1861 – 1865. The second was a 1 GB, 13.5 minute edited video (an “iPhone documentary”) I created with iMovie ’11. During the upload of both videos, my high speed cable modem Internet connection went down for awhile and came back up. I’m guessing the upload stress of my continuing CrashPlan backup (260+ GB worth, running for more than a week) along with Netflix streaming by other members of my family caused the interruptions. Whatever the case, the fact that uploads to YouTube using the latest Chrome browser now RESUME when you cancel an interrupted download and choose to upload the same file is GREAT. But-for this YouTube feature, I don’t think I could have successfully uploaded and shared these videos online tonight.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to ditch Internet Explorer, whether you use a Windows or Apple computer. IE is slower, has poorer support for web standards, and frankly… just isn’t cool to run on your computer anymore.

Added to these persuasive reasons, now you know IE doesn’t support recoverable and resumable YouTube uploads. Remember, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Use IE!”

Technorati Tags: youtube, upload, firefox, chrome, resume, recover, recoverable

Recoverable and Resumable YouTube Uploads with Chrome and FireFox originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 15, 2012.

More photos from the 2012 Trapper’s Rendezvous are available in this Flickr set.

Technorati Tags: kansas, history, civil, war, civilwar, jayhawker, bushwhacker, jayhawkers, bushwhackers, quantrill

7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, Bushwhackers, and Jayhawkers (Kansas in 1861 – 1865) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 15, 2012.

Tomorrow my wife is teaching a preschool Bible lesson at our church, and wants to show the students a YouTube video she found. She does not have reliable wifi access in the classroom where she’ll share this video, however, nor does she have an AppleTV and a HDMI-capable computer which can mirror her iPad2′s screen. She does, however, have an iOS Apple Composite AV cable which will plug into the classroom television. To make an iOS-friendly, offline copy of the YouTube video on her iPad2 tonight in preparation for tomorrow’s lesson, these are the steps I followed.

1. Use saveyoutube.com to download a mp4 YouTube video version

There are many different video formats, and not all of them “play nice” on an iPad. Generally mp4 videos will play on an iPad, however. I used the website saveyoutube.com to download an mp4 version of the desired video tonight. I did this by simply adding the word SAVE in the website address after “www.” and before “youtube…”

Then I right clicked (or control-clicked on a Mac) the link and chose to save it to my computer’s desktop.

2. Use PhotoSync Software to Transfer the Video

PhotoSync is a fantastic $2 app in the iTunes app store which lets you directly transfer photos and videos between iOS devices and desktop/laptop computers. After installing PhotoSync on your iPad you also need to install “PhotoSync Companion” software (free) on your Windows or Apple computer.

Launch PhotoSync on both your iPad and your laptop/desktop computer. On an Apple computer, simply drag the downloaded mp4 video to the PhotoSync dock icon to transfer it to another device.

A prompt should open on your computer asking you want device you want to select as your transfer TARGET.

If you use this app on a school or other organizational network, it’s possible routers in use and/or the network configuration may prevent these apps from working. On a home network, however, ports should be open and work fine. This PhotoSync support article indicates the apps use the “Apple Bonjour Protocol” and specifically its “Multicast DNS implementation (mDNS)”. Ask your network administrator for assistance if you don’t see a device you want to transfer media to, and direct him/her to the PhotoSync connectivity support FAQs.

This evening I used the PhotoSync feature to create a new album directly on the iPad from my laptop, so the transferred video would have its own category.

The complete transfer of the 17 MB YouTube video took less than 30 seconds to finish on my home network. I love PhotoSync!

Today in the elementary principals’ meeting I attended, the assistant superintendent showed several YouTube videos directly on his iPad using the mirroring functions to an AppleTV. If you have an AppleTV but need a conversion solution from HDMI to VGA for your projector, definitely check out the recommended setup and purchase links from Tim Kamps listed on the iear.org post from October, “Apple TV may revolutionize the use of a teacher iPad in the classroom!” I just ordered those items last week and they arrived today, and I’m eager to try them out later this week in a lesson I’ll be teaching to middle school students using Puppet Pals Director’s Pass for iPad. If you have an iPad2 and are using it with students, I’d say an AppleTV is now mandatory classroom equipment thanks to its mirroring capabilities. Remember you can (and should probably consider) adding a passcode to your AppleTV for mirroring mode when you use it in class. If you don’t, anyone in wifi range with an iPhone4S or iPad2 (and on your wifi network) can ‘take over’ your AppleTV and play any video they want.

Do you have other favorite ways to download YouTube videos and transfer them to an iPad for later sharing with students? If so please share those links and ideas.

Technorati Tags: youtube, download, ipad, copy, appletv

Temporarily Copy Offline YouTube Videos to Your iPad originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 10, 2012.

One effective way to do this is to add website links for sites where you regularly (or periodically) post using the Google+ Authorship program. (It’s free.) Some reasons to do this include:

• Customizing posts from this site in Google search results so people can identify YOU as the author
• Increasing the likelihood that when people search/Google for YOUR name, some of your ‘claimed’ web content on these sites will have high Google page rank and show up on the first page of search results

In this post I’ll explain how to do this.

If you have not already, create a free account on Google Plus.

Click on your name in Google Plus to show your profile and click EDIT PROFILE in the upper right corner. Then click on the right sidebar area titled, CONTRIBUTOR TO.

Type the title and paste the web links/URLs for websites you want to “virtually claim” on your Google+ profile.

According to Google’s Webmaster Tools help:

Google is piloting the display of author information in search results to help users discover great content.

While there is no guarantee this pilot initiative will eventually be fully embraced, I’d put my money on this program expanding. “Claiming your content” online using websites like about.me (about.me/wfryer) and ClaimID (claimid.com/wfryer) is an important part of crafting your digital footprint, and the Google+ Authorship program is a site which should be added to that list. If you’re publishing content on the open web, you likely want more people to find it. Google+ Authorship settings can help. Google Analytics Labs is also supporting metrics for content you claim which is indexed.

Technorati Tags: google, digital, footprint, search, author, authorship, claim, blog, site

Claim Your Online Content With Google+ Authorship Settings originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 10, 2012.

The disk is full trying to write to Macintosh HD. Free some space on this drive, or save the document on another disk.

Some troubleshooting revealed this was problem with Microsoft Word, NOT a full hard drive. The teacher had over 200 GB of free space on her laptop’s drive, and could save files fine to the hard drive using other applications like Keynote. We ran “Fix Disk Permissions” using the Disk Utility application, and it found a lot of errors, but that did not fix the problem. It turns out a corrupted Microsoft preference file was the problem.

Initially when Googling for an answer to this problem, Google was returning old results from 2006 on the first page of hits, which were about Word 2004. To show more recent results, I clicked the PAST YEAR link under the “ANY TIME” left sidebar choice. This limited search results to more current items.

From those search results, I found this article from Yahoo Answers posted a year ago, which suggested deleting several preference files. Unlike those instructions, in our case today we did NOT have to delete a “.plist” file in Preferences. The file we deleted was:
- in USERS’s home folder
– in LIBRARY
— in PREFERENCES

The folder we deleted was named “Microsoft.” We quit all MS Office programs, and then dragged that folder out of PREFERENCES to the desktop. When we launched MS Word again, it rebuilt that preference file and the program saved documents fine / without an error message to the local hard drive. We then deleted the old/corrupt “Microsoft” folder on the desktop. It’s possible the teacher will have lost some preference settings she’d saved in MS Word and other Office programs, if she changed program defaults. She will need to re-select those, but at least this got the immediate problem fixed quickly of not being able to save files to her local hard drive.

Situations like this one highlight why it is extremely helpful and important to develop good Google search skills. If you have a technical problem with your computer, chances are extremely high someone else has had that problem and someone has posted a solution to it. FINDING a solution amidst millions of documents indexed by Google can sometimes be easy, but like today it can sometimes require some “interative” search strategies.

“Iterative” Google searching and effectively using the “additional search tools” in the left sidebar of Google is one of the most important things I learned from Lucy Gray in 2009 when I attended the Google Teacher Academy in Boulder, Colorado. If you’re interested in even more strategies along these links, see my notes in the post, “GTA Boulder Notes: Afternoon Part 3.”

An Iterative Google Search (with advanced options) solves a MS Word File Saving Problem originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 9, 2012.

This afternoon my kids and I spent a few hours playing with the iOS application Collabracam, which permits multiple cameras to be used simultaneously in a video shoot. We found the application buggy and in need of an update, but the idea of the app is GREAT and we ended up creating a reasonably cool 3.5 minute video for “The Zebra Print.” In this post I’ll share some of our lessons learned using Collabracam.

Collabracam allows you to use up to five iOS devices at the same time to make a video. One iOS device is used as the base station, in ‘director’ mode. The other devices (up to four) can be remote cameras, connecting to your director base station device via wifi. We used two remote cameras and a base station for our video.

Initially we tried using an iPad2 as the base station, and another iPad2 and an iPhone4 as the remote cameras. The Collabracam base station / director app gave us errors, however, so we read some of the app documentation and learned it’s best to use the SAME MODEL of iOS device. We didn’t have 3 of the same device, so we changed to use the iPhone4 in director mode, and both the iPad2′s as remote cameras. Once you have the app installed a device can take either role (director / base station or remote camera.) While we got our setup to work, I want to test the app and see if the errors we ran into are eliminated if all devices are the same iOS model.

The screenshot below shows Collabracam on the “director” device. You can see the live video from both iPad2s.

We ran into problems when we started, stopped, and started over with the app. The director / base station device in most cases didn’t “see” the remote cameras when we started over. To fix this, we found closing every instance of Collaboracam on all devices (double clicking the home button, holding down a finger on one of the apps so they started to ‘jiggle,’ and then clicking the red X in the upper left corner) fixed the problem.

We found the connections between cameras and the director / base station device work best when you:

• Open the iOS devices which will serve as remote cameras FIRST, and select the camera option on both.
• Secondly, open Collaboracam on the device you’re using in “director” mode as the base station, and then you should be able to immediately connect to the remote cameras.

We ended up doing thirteen different takes, at least in part, for this 3.5 minute webshow. The episode we finally took was number twelve, but I had to edit it together on my computer. That’s not how Collaboracam is supposed to be used. After you finish shooting a video, you should leave all the remote camera app devices open. The director / base station app will transfer the videos from each remote camera to itself, so they can be put together in a final video file. For some reason, however, in our “take 12″ our Collaboracam setup recorded and saved one scene on both cameras. As a result, the app didn’t know which one to insert into the final video so it was omitted. (That’s the one I had to insert on my laptop using QuickTime Pro 7.)

The most confusing and frustrating part of using Collaboracam was figuring out how to switch between our different cameras during the live show, and having the apps malfunction. According to the documentation, on the director / base station device to you start recording you should:

• Click on the desired camera and press the REC button. It should turn red.
• Click on the secondary / standby camera you want to use next. It should turn blue.

When you want to change to the standby camera, on the director / base station you should click the REC button, and then select the next standby camera.

Perhaps because we used two iPad2s and 1 iPhone4, and not all identical iOS devices, our remote cameras did NOT change status from “recording” to “standby” as they should have when cameras were changed on the director / base station device. The colors (red and blue) changed on the director app, but for some reason that communication didn’t reach the remote cameras to display properly. The remote cameras recorded fine, but the “remote / recording” status light didn’t change as it should have.

Overall this was a good experience and I REALLY love the concept of Collaboracam. If you have a classroom cart of fourth generation iPod Touches or iPad2s, this would be a super app to use with students to create a recorded webshow. We tried using a Glif iPhone4 tripod mount initially when we were using the iPhone as a camera, but ended up not being able to use it since the iPads were our remote cameras. In the future I’d like to find and use some kind of iPad2 tripod mount, but I haven’t seen anything like that yet. It’s challenging to hand-hold the iPad2 for long periods of time shooting video, but switching cameras makes that a little easier on your videographers.

Unlike a television studio’s cameras, there are NOT red lights which light up on an iOS device when its camera is “live” with a Collaboracam setup. We tried having the videographer wiggle a finger to show their camera was in use, but since our “status” signs in the app weren’t working correctly I ended up just pointing to our actresses to show which camera was “live.”

Collaboracam is a $5 app, but its iTunes Store page indicated it is currently half price. I’d recommend waiting till the the app is revised and some of these bugs are worked out to buy and use it. (It’s in version 1.2 now.) The idea is GREAT, however, and if you have access to enough similar iOS devices to use it it can add a whole new layer of complexity and possibilities to your web shows!

Stay updated on new Zebra Print web shows by following @thezebraprint on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: webshow, Collabracam, video, playingwithmedia

Playing with Collabracam for The Zebra Print Webshow originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 7, 2012.

More classroom teachers and other educators are using Google Sites to create websites these days. Google Sites is free, flexible, and well integrated with other “Google Tools” like Google Docs and YouTube. Certainly Google Sites has limitations, but its FREE price tag combined with flexibility (especially when a school is already using Google Apps) make it an outstanding choice for “virtual construction” in schools. I used Google Sites for my “Technology 4 Teachers” and “Computers in the Classroom” courses for pre-service teachers in Spring 2010, Fall 2010, and Spring 2011. Google Sites doesn’t give us the creative latitude of a web authoring tool like iWeb, but it offers many other features (like collaboration) that make it a better choice for many educational contexts.

In this post, I’ll describe some techniques for optimizing a Google Site for mobile accessibility as well as gathering metrics / statistics about site visitors utilizing Google Analytics. Finally, I’ll explain how a Google Site can be “mapped” to a shorter address using an existing domain you or your school already owns and manages.

Anyone using Google Sites should choose to automatically optimize their site for mobile devices like iPhones / iPads / iPod Touches (iOS devices) as well as Android-based smartphones. This support page from Google explains how. The owner of a site, after logging in, can enable this feature by choosing:
- More actions
– Manage site
— General
—- Under “Mobile” click the checkbox beside “Automatically adjust site to mobile phone”
—– Save changes

This is a screenshot of my workshop/presentation handouts wiki (wiki.wesfryer.com) on my iPhone BEFORE I enabled this option. You can see the text is small and not very easy to read on the iPhone’s small screen.

After enabling mobile optimization, this is the same page on my iPhone:

This process does NOT require you to select or change your existing site template or page templates. This is a quick process and should be enabled (IMHO) for every Google Site. More and more people (including students) are accessing Internet websites on mobile devices. Anyone publishing information should do everything possible to increase accessibility, and this is an easy way to do it.

When it comes to WordPress blogs/sites, I use and recommend two different free themes which “mobilize” sites. The first one, and main one I use (on this blog in fact) is WPtouch. A pro version is also available, but at this point I’ve just used the free version and really like it. The other one I use on a few sites is Carrington Mobile. I use it on Learning Signs and Eyes Right.

In addition to “mobilizing” your Google Site, it’s helpful to create and add a free Google Analytics site code to gather metrics/statistics about your site visitors. These statistics are more comprehensive and insightful than information you can glean from a tool like ClustrMaps. (Though I do love and use ClustrMaps too.) To add Google Analytics to your Google Site, you need to first create a free account on Google Analytics if you haven’t already. After you create your main account, you’ll be adding a new “property” to it. This will use the web address of your Google Site.

After creating your “property” in Google Analytics, click to view your “Property ID.” Copy this number and use it in your Google Site.

After you enable Google Analytics on your site (this Google support page explains how) you’ll be able to view extensive and interesting metrics about where people are accessing your website, what kind of web browser they’re using when they access it, how long they stay on your site, and more. There are GREAT statistics included in Google Analytics reports, and this would make a great project for your students to analyze, discuss and share.

You might have noticed in the screenshots above, the web address of my Google site for presentation handouts is very short (wiki.wesfryer.com) instead of a longer version preceded by “sites.google…” (http://sites.google.com/site/wesfryer/). The reason for this is I’ve “mapped” my Google Site, for free, to a subdomain of a domain I own using something called a CNAME record. Of the techniques discussed in this post, creating a CNAME record in DNS to map a Google Site to a custom domain is definitely the most complicated, but it’s free and can make a BIG difference in the ease of accessibility for your site.

As an example, I’m doing a lot of work in Yukon Public Schools in Oklahoma this semester. Today we used this CNAME record / domain mapping method to shorten the address of the district’s professional development site from sites.google.com/a/yukonps.com/professional-development to pd.yukonps.com. That’s a MUCH easier / shorter web address to write on a whiteboard, include on a business card, put in an email signature line, or just remember. Relatively few schools using Google Apps and Google Sites are taking advantage of this FREE feature, and many more should!

The Google Support page, “Mapping your site to your own URL,” explains the steps for doing this. You can map a Google Site or a Blogger site to a custom subdomain with a CNAME record. If your district uses CPANEL, you should be able to use the “Simple DNS Wizard” to add a CNAME record. Enter your desired web address (like “http”//pd.yukonps.com” in the first field) and the address “http://ghs.google.com” in the second field. Then create the record. That’s step 1.

Step 2 is adding the mapping address in your Google Site. Again, if your school is using Google Apps you’ll have to request that your site manager do this step, but if you’re using a Google Site with a “regular” Google account you can do it directly. I LOVE the ability to create and map subdomains! A few of the ones I use now are:

wiki.wesfryer.com
wiki.powerfulingredients.com
365.wesfryer.com
audio.speedofcreativity.org
faithstories.speedofcreativity.org
eyesright.speedofcreativity.org
learningsigns.speedofcreativity.org
share.playingwithmedia.com
learn.playingwithmedia.com

Of those examples, only the first two are a “mapped” CNAME record subdomain hosted by Google Sites. The third site is a CNAME mapped Tumblr blog, and the rest are WordPress “add-on slot” sites I have with my web host. It is HUGE that mapped subdomain sites on Google Sites are FREE, where other wiki providers like WikiSpaces and PBworks charge for this service.

If you use some of these suggestions and tweak your Google Site, please let me know with a comment or Twitter reply to @wfryer. Good luck! Encourage other educators you know to spend time in “digital construction” online using virtual spaces like Google Sites! Creating hyperlinked documents with digital text is an important part of Playing with Media!

Technorati Tags: google, sites, cname, custom, domain, map, tutorial, app, apps, school, education, wiki

Optimize a Google Site for Mobile Accessibility and Metrics originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 5, 2012.

The best way I can describe videoconferencing with BlueJeans in a few words is this sentence:

Bring your device and meet me in the clouds.

By “clouds” I don’t mean cumulus or stratus versions… I’m talking about cloud-based computing, where asynchronous data as well as live, synchronous communication channels “live” on Internet-connected web servers.

BlueJeans videoconferencing is qualitatively different from “other” kinds of videoconferencing options because it supports diverse videoconferencing platforms which are NOT otherwise interoperable. In addition, BlueJeans does NOT reduce call quality to “the lowest common denominator.” For me this month videoconferencing with BlueJeans, this meant I could teach with a Tandberg H.323 videoconferencing codec (which supports great computer screensharing) and participants could connect with their choice of either:

• Skype (on either a desktop/laptop computer or mobile device like an iPad or iPhone)
• a H.323 videoconferencing endpoint (from a vendor like Tandberg/Cisco, Polycom or LifeSize)
• Google Video on a desktop/laptop computer

This month I had workshop participants connect with both Skype and H.323 video endpoints. I taught primarily with a H.323 video connection, but one time taught over Skype. (The BlueJeans H.323 connection screen changed and I didn’t remember how to properly use my remote control to enter access codes…) I created a series of instructions for people videoconferencing with me using BlueJeans to explain the process. The screenshot below shows the webpage display for a Skype connection with BlueJeans. Skype videoconference participants have to download and install Skype, login with a free user account, and then click the CALL button on the BlueJeans webpage for the meeting which is emailed to them in advance.

For people connecting via H.323 endpoints, an IP address is provided (the conference bridge IP) and after connecting, a “pairing code” is displayed which participants enter into their web browser using the emailed meeting link.

Once the call is underway and participants are connected, as the meeting host I had a browser-based control panel where I could view call quality information for each person/endpoint and also change call layouts if desired. This permitted me to be the only video image received by participants, or let participants see each other with my screen showing up larger than the others.

Last spring I used BlueJeans several times for professional development workshops in the Tulsa area when the service was still in beta and free. This time, however, I had to pay to use the service and it took awhile for me to figure out what model was best. At the end of November 2011 when I signed up for a paid BlueJeans ‘plan’ there were four available options.

I actually created a simple spreadsheet and tried to figure out what made the most sense for me, planning to offer multiple workshops during the month. BlueJeans has a very different pricing model than other videoconferencing services, because if you’re not on an ‘unlimited’ plan you are charged for EACH INDIVIDUAL MINUTE EACH PARTICIPANT uses in a call. This means if I teach a 45 minute workshop over a BlueJeans videoconference and connect 15 minutes early with two different participants, as THREE separate callers for sixty minutes we’ll consume 180 “BlueJeans minutes.” The best way I figured to cover my costs for videoconferencing this month was to bite the bullet and pay $200 for the (now old and no longer available) “unlimited plan” which permitted an unlimited number of videoconferencing minutes during the month with a maximum of five participants in a call at the same time. That five seat maximum included me as the host. During the ten videoconferences I hosted on BlueJeans this month, participants and I collectively consumed 1661 minutes of BlueJeans time.

When I cancelled my BlueJeans monthly plan last night (since I don’t have scheduled videoconferences in January) I learned they have changed/simplified their billing plans. Now there are two options instead of four. The “unlimited” option still costs $200 per month, but is limited to THREE total call participants instead of five.

Overall I was very pleased with BlueJeans videoconferencing and would like to use their service again. I used EventBrite to handle online billing/payment and registration for my videoconferences, along with the CILC. The main “curve ball” I ran into with BlueJeans happened about 3/4ths of the way through the month, when they changed the H.323 login screen and I was unable to connect. Their tech support team called me back and explained the new procedures, but I ended up connecting and teaching over Skype for that call which turned out fine.

The instructions which BlueJeans provides to participants in an automated email sent after you schedule a meeting online are very thorough. No one had much trouble connecting to the calls with either Skype or H.323 video. In my videoconferences this month as well as the sessions I shared during the BlueJeans beta period last spring, I had participants in calls which used Skype and didn’t have access to H.323 endpoints. This meant they effectively couldn’t have participated in the videoconference “but for” BlueJeans bridging. I think the opportunity to connect with good quality to people using different videoconferencing systems is FANTASTIC. I really hope BlueJeans “makes it” as a technology company and remains financially viable. Although Skype and iChat both offer multi-point videoconferencing, no other service I’ve seen, read about or experienced supports a unified videoconferencing experience for participants on Skype, H.323 endpoints and Google Video. BlueJeans is alone in the industry with this capability, as far as I know. It works slick, it was very reliable, and I LOVE it. I plan to use it again.

The main disadvantage of BlueJeans Network videoconferencing is the cost. There are no free calls, other than the free “30 day trial” they offer. This is really bad for K-12 classroom contexts. When your school purchases a H.323 videoconferencing codec, the unit itself is expensive but “calls” you make after that are free unless you connect to a content provider who charges a fee. In the case of BlueJeans, the cost of the connection is borne by the content provider. For me, that worked this month since I scheduled so many different calls and had enough participants that I didn’t lose money. (I made a little, but not enough to really impress my wife. Sort of date money, really…) In the future, if I want to use BlueJeans I’ll need to schedule multiple calls in the same month to make it cost effective to pay the monthly fee. While I theoretically could “pay by the minute,” I don’t think that will be a cost effective solution. It also discourages connections 15 or 30 minutes in advance for participants, which are really essential for videoconferencing.

My main suggestion for BlueJeans overlords is to come up with an educational pricing scheme that would be VERY affordable and generous for classroom teachers. I think a flat, annual fee rather than a monthly cost would work better for schools, and some kind of limited conferencing option which didn’t involve “by the minute” charges.” It was too difficult to figure out how many “BlueJeans minutes” a particular call was going to “cost me,” when in most cases I wasn’t positive how many participants I’d have in the final call until a few days in advance. A flat fee structure for classroom use which provided something like the following might work better for classroom settings:
- Free educational account: 1 hour long conference per month, max of five participants in each
- Starter educational account: flat $20 per year, max of 3 hours / 180 minutes of videoconferences per month, max of five participants in each
- Intermediate educational account: flat $50 per year, max of 5 hours / 300 minutes of videoconferences per month, max of five participants in each
- Pro educational account: flat $100 per year, max of 10 hours / 600 minutes of videoconferences per month, max of five participants in each

There could be other options for schools and districts which would want to use BlueJeans bridging more extensively. I don’t know if the prices above would fly for BlueJeans, but they certainly would be more reasonable for classrooms. Any cost for videoconferencing is challenging for classroom teachers and schools, but the current cost model of BlueJeans is completely off the chart to be reasonable there. I hope they’ll continue to tweak their pricing models and come up with education-specific pricing similar to commercial services like VoiceThread.

As a final lesson learned, I’ll share that Screenflow software worked great for me to record my videoconferences this month on BlueJeans. This was not a true “conference recording,” but that was beneficial since the screen resolution was much higher than a call recording could have been. BlueJeans does not presently offer call recording as a feature. Last spring I experimented by using Call Recorder on a separate computer connected to a bridged BlueJeans call using Skype, but the quality wasn’t great. I have access to a Codian bridge for videoconferencing and recording, but I only know how to dial INTO the bridge. The BlueJeans bridge can’t call out, participants have to call IN. So, my call recording experiences were good this month but they were not directly done using the BlueJeans connection. Screenflow Software is Mac-only and costs $100, but in my book it’s worth it. To see a free example of a recent, edited screencast I created with ScreenFlow, check out the video tutorial on the post, “Create Clever Information Traps with Zoo Tool, Posterous, & ifttt.”

If you’ve made it to the end of this lengthy post, here’s a closing treat for you. I’ve created a new, 100% discount code for any of my 99¢ “Playing with Media” videoconference podcasts/screencasts. Use this link to select a 60 minute podcast you want, and apply the discount code “2011bluejeans” to your shopping cart. This discount code will work for the first twenty people who use it, and will expire at midnight EST on December 31, 2011. Beware the file size of each podcast is over 1 GB, so depending on the speed of your Internet connection it will likely take over an hour to download each one. If you download one or more, enjoy! And Happy New Year!

Have you used BlueJeans Network connections for videoconferencing? If so please share your experiences and perceptions. Do you think the pricing suggestions I’ve made for K-12 classroom teachers and schools are reasonable? I’d love to see more students and teachers collaborating more regularly using network services like BlueJeans, but for that to happen their pricing model will need to keep evolving.

Technorati Tags: bluejeans, network, videoconference, videoconferencing, tandberg, cisco, polycom, lifesize, skype, google, googlevideo, h323, codec

Lessons Learned Videoconferencing on the BlueJeans Network (Dec 2011) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 30, 2011.

• 60 images
• 1 second per image (total of 60 seconds)
• The video tells a story

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Fryers in Oklahoma City!

(cross-posted from Learning Signs, our family learning blog)

Artist: Steven Curtis Chapman

Buy “Declaration Of Dependence” on: Android Market, AmazonMP3, iTunes

Technorati Tags: video, youtube, 60×60, 2011, family, challenge

2011 in 60 Seconds [60in60 video] originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 29, 2011.

Although some negative reviews of the free Hulu Plus iPad app in iTunes might lead you to believe the app has “a lack of AirPlay support,” I’m pleased to report iOS 5‘s support of mirroring on an Apple TV permits content from Hulu+ to stream GREAT to an a HDMI television from an iPad2. This means with a free trial or paid Hulu+ account, an updated iPad2 running iOS 5, an Apple TV and a HDMI-ready television, you can watch Hulu+ videos directly on your TV.

According to the current English WikiPedia article for iOS 5, only the iPad2 and iPhone4S support AirPlay mirroring via Apple TV.

My wife and son are addicted to the Fox television series “Bones,” and have watched all past episodes available via NetFlix. To watch episodes in the current season, however, they figured out they either need to:

• Buy the new season in SD on Apple TV for $10
• Buy a subscription to Hulu+ for $8 per month

Neither of these options sounds particularly appetizing. Here are the reasons:

• We already pay NetFlix $8 per month and don’t want to add more recurring bills for TV media.
• Hulu+ includes advertisements and after almost a year of mostly Netflix video programs (which don’t have any ads) our family REALLY doesn’t like being subjected to television advertising again.
• From what we’ve read and heard in the past, Apple TV is slower than Hulu+ for making new television program episodes available when you “buy a season.”

At this point my TV-watching family members are using a free week trial for Hulu+ and enjoying the access to current season episodes of “Bones,” and putting up with the ads. I think we’re going to cancel our Hulu+ subscription at the end of a week, however.

Have you purchased a current television season on Apple TV / iTunes? How quickly did new episodes appear / become available for you? I’m curious to know what others’ experiences with this have been.

The Apple Support article “Setting up and troubleshooting AirPlay Mirroring” provides good tips for configuring an iOS device to mirror with an Apple TV. Basically, just double click the HOME button and swipe to the right to show the media controls. Between the “skip to the end” button and the volume control on an iPad2 running iOS 5, you’ll see the AirPlay button. Select the name of your AppleTV and change the Mirroring setting to ON. Then any app you want to show (including Hulu+ videos) should stream directly for playback on your AppleTV-connected television.

Can you guess which of my children was AirPlay streaming a Hulu+ program last, based on that screenshot?!

If you’re considering signing up for Hulu+, please use my referral code. (Full disclosure: I’ve used it as a link previously to “Hulu+” in this post too.) That will give Shelly & Alex an extra two free weeks of “Bones” watching on Hulu+ before canceling our subscription.

Technorati Tags: apple, ipad, hulu, plus, hulu+, tv, appletv, stream, airplay, app

Stream Hulu+ to a HDMI Television with Airplay Mirroring, an iPad2 and Apple TV originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 29, 2011.

Using this “Flickr Advanced Search” option, I was able to readily find photos I took each day for the past two months. There were a few days I didn’t have photos and had to use images from adjoining days, but for the most part this method allowed me to photographically re-represent the past sixty days. I turned off the “autopost to Twitter” feature of my Tumblr blog during this process, since I didn’t want to inundate my Twitter-stream with sixty image posts in rapid succession. This was a worthwhile and fun process, since it helped me identify as well as archive some of my favorite images from the past two months. I used Tumblr’s browser-based option to “use a URL instead” and directly posted images I wanted from their Flickr pages. Here are a few of my favorites I re-discovered.

For my Photo365 project in 2012 I’m planning to use Instagram instead of Tumblr. If you haven’t tried posting a photo per day with a smartphone (and you have a smartphone, which really streamlines these processes/steps) I strongly encourage you to give it a try in 2012! Photo365 projects provide great ways to regularly practice photography, further develop “a photographer’s eye,” play with a variety of smartphone photography apps, and document your life experiences for posterity. See my December 15, 2010 post, “Tumblr for my 365 Photo Project in 2011” for more background on how I got started on this project.

Update 5:20 12/27/2011: I’m pleased to learn Instagr.am permits cross-posting to Tumblr in addition to Twitter and Facebook. As a result, I think I’ll try sharing my 2012 Photo 365 images with the Instagr.am iPhone app and cross-post from the app to Twitter, Facebook, and my Photo 365 blog.

The app could also cross-post to Flickr, but instead I’ve created a task/recipe with ifttt.com for Flickr cross-posting which will add some custom tags.

Technorati Tags: photo, date, meta, flickr, photo365, tumblr, instagram

When Photo Date Meta Info is Handy originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 27, 2011.

Here in Oklahoma, where our newly elected state superintendent for public instruction established our state’s first charter school, we are living in the midst of tumultuous and dynamic times for public schools. Recent state laws, enacted so Oklahoma would be eligible to apply for Race To The Top grant funds, have enabled new cyber charter schools like Epic One on One Charter School to operate with public funds. Rather than require parents to pay for a specific online curriculum option, Epic provides parents with a variety of choices. As Ali points out in her TEDx presentation, however, all of these curriculum companies (as far as I know) are FOR-PROFIT corporations. The purchase of commercial curriculum resources by schools isn’t anything new, but the “gold rush” which Ali describes for cyber schools and online curriculum IS. The questions she raises about public funds, public schools, and the ways limited tax dollars are (in some cases) now supporting single-curriculum vendor cyber charter schools are challenging.

Check out Ali’s presentation and follow her on Twitter. I found the way she approached these topics in her speech quite disarming as well as effective. These are controversial and important issues. I need to learn more and Ali has challenged me to do more research.

Ali’s October 2010 TEDxTalk, “Gaming to re-engage boys in learning,” was posted to Ted.com in January 2011.

Technorati Tags: school, charter, schools, ted, tedx, tedxpsu, curriculum, companies

The Dangerous Nexus of Cyber Charter Schools & For-Profit Curriculum Companies originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 26, 2011.

1. Narrated Slideshows
2. iPhoneography
3. Tell a Story in 5 Photos
4. iPad Quick Edit Videography
5. Creating Multimedia eBooks

Use the following discount code to download a podcast FREE: freepodcast

After adding an eBook to your cart, enter the discount code and click UPDATE CART. The discount should apply to your total. You will NOT have to checkout using Paypal or Google Checkout, but will have to fill out some information about yourself including your email address.

Be aware these podcast files are large (over 1 GB each) and a high speed Internet connection is recommended for download. Depending on the speed of your connection, it may take over an hour to download each one. The screen quality is outstanding however, if you can put up with the geeky presenter’s voice.

This discount code will apply a 99¢ discount to your order total, so if you want to download more than one free podcast you’ll have to “check out” online multiple times.

To purchase one of my eBook versions for “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing” at 50% off, use the following discount code: halfoff

Three eBook versions are available for iPad (the enhanced/multimedia version, normally $14.99), the .mobi version for Amazon Kindle, and the standard ePUB version (works on other eReaders including Nook.) Remember you can now download the enhanced or standard ePUB version of my eBOOK directly to an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. If you want to download to your computer first and sync your iPad using iTunes, instructions for that process are available from Apple. More help and tutorial links for syncing eBooks to different kinds of eReaders is available.

Remember bulk/discounted pricing is available for “Playing with Media” if you’re interested in ordering ten or more copies for educators at your school, conference, or professional development event.

Have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday!

Technorati Tags: ebook, playingwithmedia, tutorial, christmas, podcast, discount

Merry Christmas: Download #playingwithmedia Podcasts Free, Buy eBook 50% off Dec 24 & 25 Only originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 24, 2011.

I recorded and edited this video on an iPhone4 using iMovie for iPhone.

Posted via email from wesley fryer’s posterous

Nook Tablet Plays Enhanced eBooks originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 23, 2011.

1. Karen Montgomery on Twitter: @klmontgomery
2. Alice Barr on Twitter: @alicebarr
3. Wesley Fryer on Twitter: @wfryer
4. Technology Shopping Cart Podcast Archive
5. Technology Shopping Cart Archived Episodes and Show Links (on PBworks)
6. Educational Collaborators
7. Yarmouth High School (Maine)
8. Yukon Public Schools (Oklahoma)
9. iCreate vs. iConsumption by Scott Meech
10. Klip.me: Send content to Mobile Devices
11. If This Then That
12. Post and screencast: Create Clever Information Traps
13. Starbucks iOS app (load money on the app)
14. Pizza Hut iOS app for ordering
15. Gmail iOS app
16. Red Laser iOS app: Scan barcodes for more info in stores
17. Amazon iOS app: Amazon remembers
18. Best Buy iOS app
19. Kindle Keyboard (in between Fire and low-end Kindle)
20. iPod Touch
21. Apple TV
22. Apple Airport Express access point to extend home wifi network (Bandwidth / Networking – QOS at home / Netflix story)
23. Netflix iOS app
24. Flick Kick game app
25. Amazon Whispersync for eBooks
26. Handbrake (convert DVDs for iOS / iTunes)
27. RipIt (convert DVDs for iOS / iTunes)
28. Amazon Prime Membership
29. Time Machine iPad app
30. VoiceThread iOS app
31. BlueJeans Network (used to bridge our videoconference for this call)
32. Call Recorder for Skype (used to record this call)
33. Levelator (used to normalize audio for this recording)

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Podcast387: TechShoppingCart Episode 11 – Christmas 2011 Apps and Gadgets originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 23, 2011.

1. Grand View Public Schools (Oklahoma) Digital 1:1 Project
2. Grand View Public Schools, Oklahoma
3. Michelle Barnes, 2011 OTA Technology Leader of the Year
4. Michelle Barnes on Twitter: @MbarnesGV
5. Grandview Tech Blog
6. Mrs. Barnes’ Class on Twitter: @MrsBarnesClass
7. LoTi: Levels of Teaching Innovation
8. Implementing 1:1 Prepare Our Students for Their Future… TODAY! (Nov 2010 ILI presentation by Cheryl Beaman and Michelle Barnes)
9. NewNet 66: Delivering Technology to Oklahoma Schools (Grand View Schools’ networking partner)
10. K20 Innovative Learning Institute (Norman, Oklahoma)
11. K20 Center at the University of Oklahoma
12. Fuel for Educational Change Agents (Wesley Fryer’s supplementary podcast channel)

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Podcast386: Implementing 1:1 Classrooms in Grand View Schools, Oklahoma originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 22, 2011.

This video is a great example of fair use and legal video remixing. Show this to your students and discuss it. Is this legal? Are the creators going to be sued by Lucasfilm? Why or why not? See copyright and fair use resources from the Media Education Lab at Temple University for more on this. I also have helpful links (and a free chapter of my eBook) on the copyright page of playingwithmedia.com.

Hat tip to Dawn Pearce for sharing this.

Technorati Tags: star, wars, vader, parody, video, youtube, starwars, luke

Vader Did You Know? [video] originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 20, 2011.