Online Security in Schools: Expensive and Porous

Schools really struggle in the ongoing battle against online threats.  They want to provide "cutting edge" technology, but they lack the means for infrastructure and support.  As schools move more and more to one-to-one computer setups, they're finding the demands unreasonable.  It is not unusual for a school of 400-700 students to have only 1 or 2 tech professionals on staff.  Many try to maintain their networks with occasional help from outsource pros.

This is a formula for problems.  The basics of maintaining hundreds of computers along with in-house network software/hardware are hard enough that security is reduced to only that which comes default in the products.  This is not a security plan.  Moreover, it's not a vision for technology--a clear idea of the objectives of the technology and how to reach those objectives.  It is not enough to equip a school.  Once equipped, it needs to be shepherded in the productive use of technology.

If you've been in teaching any length of time, you've probably heard teachers and administrators write off the security threats (and misuses) as a necessary evil of having computers; the general idea being that we cannot close all the loopholes because students will always be a step ahead.  Nonsense!  They will be a step ahead if we don't properly staff the IT department and invest in the proper filtering software and appliances.

Students are generally not computer geniuses.  They get by filters because the filters are porous.  For example, a student can very, very easily bypass a filter that is downloaded on the hard drive of a computer.  It's a simple matter of downloading a live operating system (e.g. Linux) and running the computer off of RAM: instantaneous filter workaround.  Schools may not be aware that students, today, are banding together to use their home computers to create their own web servers.  

A simple search of "Lifehacker" online provides a step-by-step tutorial of how to set these up.  Students need to know nothing of programming or network technology to do this because all the software for doing it is readily available as free downloads: download WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP (web programming) for server setup, download PHProxy (automates proxy setup), setup port forwarding (easily done through the home router's login page/configuration gui), changing the name of your new server address using DynDNS (domain name server), password protect, share password with friends, done.  If starting with nothing, it might take two hours to set up.  It really only takes one or two students who want it enough to do the work and share it.  The point is, the internet is still a wide open space and it's really difficult to close access to the portions you don't want students to go.  Even if you find the most effective wireless network-based filtering, all it takes is a few students to bring their 4G hotspots to school and share their connection.  

Here's what I wish would happen, and it's going to sound heavy-handed.  I wish that the FCC would require every single internet provider to offer a la carte filtering at the point of origination.  Right now the public is relying on home and school filtering appliances and software that just doesn't work.  In the same way that the FCC regulates what can be broadcast over the airwaves, IPs should be required to offer flexible filtering at the IP level so that parents/sysadmins can check boxes for access options.

On the subject of interpersonal security threats, the whole culture of online communication is at issue.  The insulation and anonymity that the computer provides sometimes brings the worst out in people.  That filter that normally governs social behavior seems not to work as well when people are not speaking face-to-face or by phone.  "Netiquette" is a welcome concept.  That there are acceptable social behaviors online as well as in person ought to be self-evident to all internet users.  Virginia Shea offers something like a "Miss Manners" for the virtual online world: http://www.albion.com/bookNetiquette/

It would be stating the obvious to warn against online bullying.  We tend to know that bullying in any form is antisocial.  I would welcome a public discussion of the more subtle forms of bullying across the board.  This is needed for students and adults alike.  I think there actually may be more bullying in the adult workplace than in schools--it's just a bit more subtle.  All around us there are people making power plays and belittling coworkers.  Are we setting the right example?

It is true that lots of students use social media as a gossip mill and that it can get pretty ugly at times.  It seems to me, though, that the bigger problem by far is the consumption of media that glorifies using and abusing others--whether it's movies that portray deception and violence in a positive light, or pornographic material that portrays people as things to be used for pleasure.  These inputs, it would seem, go a long way to creating an environment in which we simply don't mean as much to each other as we should.

While we search for the ideal administrative fix in our schools for this sort of degradation, we might do well to remember that turning off the computer, and the television might help a lot.  We might consider not buying our junior high children smart phones with unlimited internet access, and we might consider being a little more circumspect about our children's social interactions: who they hang with, etc.  We might want to spend more time with our kids, just talking.  When it comes to forming uplifting human interaction, it comes down to fundamentally honoring persons as such, and there is no app for that.

Tools for Global Cognition, and Social Learning on Web 2.0

Global Cognition and Integrated Online Tech
 
Global cognition is the key to learning and intellectual growth.  Information and specialized skills are important to understanding and living in the world, but connecting information and linking skills one to another is vastly better for holistic fulfillment.  Integration, in other words, is the key to making education personally relevant and meaningful in the larger scheme of personal and social life.  Global cognition tools and social learning through integrated online technologies are steps toward greater educational fulfillment.

We will discuss the tools for global cognition in our particular reviews of sites later, but for now let’s focus on social learning in the web 2.0 environment.  Web 2.0 is a term used to describe the non-static applications of the web: the social media and online mashup world.  Social media, we know, is the world of Facebook, Twitter, and various media sharing sites like YouTube and Pinterest.  Mashups are integrations of existing stand-alone technologies.  For example, if YouTube links up with Prezi to provide a seamless integration of video for animated presentations, a mashup has occurred.  The phenomenal aspect of mashups is that they’re exponential.  Once one connection is made, several more seem to open up.  If YouTube could connect with Prezi, why not open up to SoundCloud for audio support, and why not create this synthesis as a sharing site in its own right, complete with profiles and followers, and, on that note, why not make products of those collaborations sharable on Facebook and Twitter, and on and on...?

You get the point.  The connections are endless, and the end goal is the integration of online technology into increasingly unified applications.  This is what we call a brain.  That’s not tech talk, that’s philosophy.  It seems that the relentless drive for seamlessly integrated unification in the acquisition, compilation, and production of knowledge is, itself, a kind of online brain.  We link to this brain to create virtual knowledge communities–a phrase which really means nothing other than “culture.”  Education has always been about the acquisition, compilation, and production of knowledge on a personal basis for a shared purpose–the very definition of culture (and cultural literacy).  What has changed is the medium, which has broadened the scope of the cultural enterprise.

Having framed the philosophical basis of Web 2.0, we can now turn to a specific example from the classroom.  I’ve used bits and pieces of Web 2.0 for education, but I’ve learned a lot more in recent study that have produced broader leads I can use in the future.  Rather than provide a litany of disconnected applications, I’d prefer to put together an integrated hypothetical unit.  So here goes.

Our hypothetical unit is “The History of Public Education in the 20th Century and Its Implications for the 21st.”  A variety of web 2.0 tools will be used in this project-based unit for university underclassmen.

Lesson 1: Create Pic-Lits accounts for students, and add them as followers to the teacher’s own Pic-Lit page.  Provide a set of pictures depicting education in the pre-20th through 21st century eras of education taken from the PicLit gallery or from other image sources uploaded to PicLit.  Ask the students to work individually to add a narrative to those pictures as an anticipatory set to the unit.

Lesson 2: Discuss, as a class, each PicLit by accessing each student’s PicLit page.  If the classroom equipment is available, students can access each student’s PicLit by navigating to it on their computers, or the teacher can access each site on his/her computer and project.

Lessons 3-5: Have students form small groups and begin to research the history of education in the 2oth century.  Provide helpful links for them through the teacher’s Delicious account.  Links would include encyclopedic sources as well as webquests such as this one http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=56931.  Students would keep track of their research collaboratively using Diigo.  There they can archive important sites, annotate and highlight their online findings, and comment on each others’ findings.  It’s the online equivalent of keeping a group set of research paper index cards and photocopies of sources.

Lessons 6-7: Students create Google groups and, using Google Docs, co-author a 500-word essay on this prompt: “Explain the main developments in education in the 20th century, and discuss their implications for education in the 21st century.”
 
Lessons 8-10: Have students use their Google Doc as narration for an iMovie or Animoto video presentation using images and video clips acquired online.  Again, links to relevant image and video sharing sites could be provided through Delicious.  The video documentaries of each group would then be uploaded to a classroom channel in YouTube (or other media sharing site) and viewed together as a class.  These could be commented online and then discussed in person as a whole class.

Now, this is obviously pulling out all the stops.  It would require a lot of preliminary footwork from the teacher, and would take up, as you can see, up to 10 or 11 class periods (virtual or actual).  The point is to illustrate the many connections that can be made through 2.0 technologies and how those connections are, or might, affect classroom planning and student learning.  I would not recommend this approach for every unit of a semester long class.  It is best used as a once-per-quarter project, and might serve well as a semester capstone project.  Students actually need to hold books, listen, take notes, have face-to-face large group discussions, etc., during the semester, that is if the class is a brick-and-mortar.  In a virtual classroom, those face-to-face meetings would be streamed.

The challenges are worth navigating for a unit project such as this.  The main challenge would be managing the simultaneous demands of the unit content with the skills needed for the online media.  Students might not know how to engage these media and would need special instruction.  Another challenge would be making sure everyone has subscribed to all the online services they would use for the unit.  This could be accomplished by having students show or send URLs for registered sites to the teacher as part of the grade for the unit.  Insuring that students have learned the requisite online skills would be a bit of an uphill climb at first, but once they are acquired they can be used in subsequent projects.  It’s likely that once the students pick up the expertise, they’ll extend them and make connections on their own.  As usual, I must add the caution that the medium can take over the message, so teachers must interact with students to help them produce content-packed media.  This can be accomplished, in part, by proportioning content as the main part of the score–with the quality of media as a secondary and even peer-evaluated aspect.

Delicious |  Delicious.com

Bookmarks on steroids

Delicious is a personalized repository for your favorite links.  It's your bookmarks on steroids--organized according to your topics and sharable with invited users or by linking to Facebook and Twitter.  It allows users to develop a profile and invite friends Facebook-style.  Once users add friends, it creates a network of link sharing.  Links can be tagged for easier searching.  A “Discover” tab allows users to view a feed of the most popular links on Delicious.  Oh, and all this is available on an iPhone app as well.

The obvious use for teachers would be to provide access to students to explore teacher-generated link sets for learning and research.  Students can “follow” teachers by being accepted by the teacher.  One can see moderate value in providing a set of links, but there’s not nearly as much tying the links together as a webquest or LMS might provide.  If a teacher wanted to leave the dot-connecting to the students, the raw form of link compilations might serve some purpose.  From a practical standpoint, Delicious’ most useful feature might simply be as an online bookmark utility that allows access to bookmarks from any and all of one’s internet-connected devices.  Not only that, but the online format is essentially a bookmark backup/cloud and organizer.  Placing bookmarks in Delicious is a snap.  When an account is created, Delicious prompts the user to drag the “+Delicious” button to the user’s bookmark toolbar.  When the user finds a site to bookmark, it is added with the simple click of the +Delicious button.

HistoryPin | Historypin.com

Pictoral history collections and wikis

To put it as succinctly as possible, HistoryPin is Pinterest for the history-minded.  It might be a bit easier than Pinterest in that photos can be searched and viewed without an account.  However, in order to pin your own photos, users must create an account.  Once an account is created, users can create a profile and begin uploading images.

HistoryPin collects historical photos.  Each photo is shown in a special display window that has tabs including comments, the location with which the photo is associated, and copyright information (if provided/available).  The site invites users to contribute to photo wikis/projects as well.  Accounts can be linked to social media sites for easy sharing.  Once projects are created they are added to existing collections, which are organized by topic and/or location.  In addition, photos are tagged for location, after which they are placed on an interactive map.

The history and geography uses for HistoryPin are obvious.  Students can access the site to get a visual history of the subjects they study.  They can also produce their own photo projects.  Many of the photos contain an extended caption that provides historical context.  Taking a “tour” might be the best way to acquire information about historical topics since the photos, themselves, tell a story about a given topic (along with captions).  It is easy to navigate the tours part of the site.  Channel surfing in HistoryPin is not nearly as convenient, though.  The channels listed give little indication of their content.  Unless users subscribe to a particular channel (YouTube-style), they would not be familiar with content.  In other words, the channel function is less structured and involves a lot of trial and error.  The typical student would get a lot more use out of the search and tour features.  Students would find this site particularly useful in putting together presentation slide shows.  In fact, many of the collections/tours are viewable as slide shows within the site.  Teachers might find this useful for bringing history to life.  It’s a remarkably useful tool for history teachers or any teacher that wants to add historical context to a unit or lesson.

Diigo | Diigo.com

Not your father’s research paper

Diigo might be one of the most interesting and promising tools for bookmarking, sharing, and collaborating around online research and information.  Like Delicious, Diigo allows users to create a profile and store bookmarks easily.  However, Diigo offers a lot more features, all of which are well-suited for teaching and learning.

Diigo allows users to store and tag highlights from articles, annotate web pages and highlights for future reference, and archive screenshots of online articles.  Pages can also be cached in Diigo to develop a personalized search engine.  Anything stored on Diigo can also be shared.  Users can select how and what they want to share from sharing everything to just sharing a tag, or from sharing with one person to sharing with the general public.  For collaboration, users can for “Personal Learning Networks” in which all members can co-submit and co-edit materials acquired on the web. Members of networks can annotate together, on or off the webpages they’ve cached.  Pricing is reasonable, with free, $20/year, and $40/year options.  Paid options allow for more utilities, storage, and caching.

Diigo is ready made for the classroom.  So long as student accounts are easy to set up, students could use Diigo to do personal research and/or group research.  Once registered, students can access all shared information in order to find information on topics.  Classes can share and collaborate in order to create information databases for the topics they study.  With collaboration enabled, Diigo becomes a research wiki.  Once information is compiled, edited, and annotated, students can synthesize the material into research papers and presentations.  For anyone who used note cards to write their research papers back in the day, this is a welcome technology.  It’s a slick repository of everything one finds on a research subject, and for teachers it’s an intriguing new way to teach good research paper writing habits.

Talking Calculator |  http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/math-games/calculator/

Calculators come to life (a little bit)

The talking calculator is a learning application sponsored by pbskids.org as part of the Cyberchase show theme.  As the name indicates, it speaks numbers as they are typed into the calculator, and also narrates all operations.  If I type in the number 4, I hear, “four,” but when I follow the four with a 9, I hear, “forty-nine.”  So the calculator adjusts to the number combinations the user enters, and it will do this out to the trillions.  The right side toolbar next to the calculator offers show-themed supplemental videos and activities that help teach simple math operations.  The calculator–math activity tie-in is yet another clever multimedia educational application from pbs kids.  They seem to have the formula for entertainment and learning.  Granted, it’s not the same as sitting down with a math book and a teacher practicing variations of a math operation, but it’s an engaging supplemental offering.

Big Simple Talking Calculator |  Softpedia.com/get/Science-CAD/Big-Simple-Talking-Calculator.shtml

The Big Simple Talking Calculator is downloadable by Softpedia, a free software sharing site.  It’s, more or less, a larger version of the pbs talking calculator.  In fact, the calculator can be used in full-screen mode.  This offers a bit more accessibility for the vision impaired.  In both calculators the functions are simple, not the advanced stuff that you’d see in a scientific calculator.  The Softpedia option can narrate numbers and operations in a variety of languages as well, which could be useful for ESL students.  Aside from adding another sense (audio) to the calculator (and some engaging visuals) the calculator is a standard tool available on most computer desktops or widget layers.  However, it might offer some stimulus variety for students who have been staring at a math book for too long and need to mix things up.

Both of these could be dramatically improved by adding animation.  If we want to bring the calculator to life, let’s actually do it.  Let’s give the calculator a face and arms, and when you push the buttons, let’s have the living calculator reach down and poke his number belly.  This is more in line with the imagination of children, but as-is both of these calculators have a little more to offer than the bland ones we tuck in a desk drawer or desktop.

2Write4Math |  http://2write4math.pbworks.com/w/page/882013/FrontPage

What does a math paper look like?

2Write4Math is a wiki for math teachers (or administrators, parents, etc.), which offers basic instruction in integrating writing into math.  The principles are universally applicable across the curriculum, but the examples given are mathematical.  The examples are one of the great strengths of the wiki.  It includes a variety of examples of math in writing so teachers and students can see for themselves what a finished product would look like.  2Write4Math is a quality wiki in that it is well written, well organized, and straightforward.  Lesson ideas are included:

•    Journals
•    Solving and applying
•    Explaining math ideas
•    Reflective math writing
•    Creative math writing

Each type is followed by a practical example/suggestion (although the journal and reflective might be redundant).

2Write4Math is particularly useful in that it takes some of the pressure off teachers to lead every integration.  It helps teachers to facilitate student thinking on the issues and then lets them share their thoughts with the class.  Students, too, are asked to take some responsibility for reflecting on the bigger picture, instead of expecting teachers to spoon feed it to them.  Students often ask, “Why do we have to know this; we’re never going to use it?”, but they fail to put any effort into finding the applications themselves.  Writing in math helps avert this learned helplessness in a really positive and engaging way.

Pic-Lits |  http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx

Writing muses to kickstart imagination

Pic-Lits provides a gallery of pictures with empty fields into which users can enter text.  They are designed for short phrases that tend to end with elipses that encourage the writer/reader to use the phrase as a springboard for further writing.  Simply put, the pictures are writing muses.  Users can type their own words in the fields provided or they can use a drag-and-drop function that provides suggestions related to the picture as well as universal words, all of which are organized by parts of speech.

Teachers might not want to make this the central writing activity of a class.  However, as a supplement to provide some variety and open-ended thinking, these could be really effective.  In fact, a lot of teachers might find them handy for lesson starters–the little thought primers that occur at the beginning of class.  These are nice prompts for creative, open-ended thinking.  They require students to interpret a scene and use effective descriptions, but they also ask the student to think inductively about where to go with the scene.  They have little use, it would seem, unless this spring-board option is employed.  The function is twofold: (1) to frame the scene in a phrase (i.e. thesis/topic), and (2) to think beyond the scene to related implications and applications.

The writing suggestions are also transferrable and subject independent.  Despite the claims of Common Core, variations in subject matter do not create stand-alone writing styles.  It may be the case that writing in math has a little different flavor than writing in history, but it’s nowhere near an absolute difference.  Students and teachers do well to teach the universal adaptability of good writing regardless of subject.  A good writer is able to write, using the same writing standards regardless of subject. 

Hopefully the advent of Common Core will not negate all the work that has been done in writing across the curriculum (WAC), because schools were just beginning to catch on to it.  One caveat on the WAC issue that needs mentioning, that is, WAC doesn’t work unless classroom activities are challenging and reason-based on a regular basis.  Writing is simply documented reasoning.  If students are not in the daily habit of reasoning, their writing will never improve.  Schools that over-accommodate students or fail to challenge them for fear of parent-student mutiny work in vain to improve writing.

Webquests: My go at it and my impressions.

Sharing on webquests
Webquests are a burgeoning field of teacher lesson plan sharing.  There are multiple sites that cator to the online sharing-minded teacher: Questgarden.com; Zunal.com; and Teacherweb.com, to name a few.  I used Questgarden to give webquesting a try.  Here's my rendition: 

http://questgarden.com/160/02/9/130607155643/credits.htm

The subject of my webquest was History as a Way of Knowing, that is, history as a facet of the theory of knowledge.  


The topic is well-suited for a webquest in that it integrates multiple subject areas: history, literature, and art among others.  The advantage of an integrated topic, in the world of webquests, is that it allows users to sample multiple media online and synthesize them into one coherent understanding that they can, in turn, use multiple media to present.
 
This is what I planned for the webquest.  Students are asked to read some selections that take opposite views on history and then attempt to reconcile them according to the best principles of historiography.  Then they start to develop the human interest aspects of history by listening to some audio and watching some video clips that dramatize historical events.  

Lastly, they examine a set of famous historical photographs to start thinking about the role that other disciplines, like art, play in the acquisition and conveyance of historical knowledge.  In the end, the students produce a Prezi presentation to pull it all together and discuss the human implications of the study of history.
 
On the critical side
The difficulty with using free web editors designed for teachers is that they have pretty rudimentary editing tools.  They are fairly intuitive but they lack advanced photo editing features and layout options.  There is not a lot of freedom to really design the webquest for aesthics.  It gets the job done, but it’s a bit Commodore64, when it’s all laid out.

Another down side is the redundancy of the model GardenQuest uses for its webquests.  There’s simply too much teacher-ese in the latter portions of the process.  It seemed to me that teachers would regularly skimp on or leave out the teacher page portion of the webquest.  The front-end user is likely to skip these aspects as well, jumping right into the bottom line, which is the student page.  On that note, the Flesch-Kinkaide formula calculation that appears above the editing fields in QuestGarden is a bit bothersome.  It purports to give the editor a “readability” factor based on the length of sentences, number of syllables, etc.  Although the site’s explanation of the formula says to take it with “a grain of salt,” it’s hardly a necessary measure.I also found the “alerts” that QuestGarden tabs above the editing space a bit condescending.  Most of the time it warns that the text formatting is too diverse, and it seems to miscalculate that number regularly.  The best thing to do with those alerts is to ignore them and do what matches your own taste.

On the bright side
By far the best thing about QuestGarden is that it allows the teacher to plan ahead in a fun and interesting way and allows students direct access to that plan.  Even more, it allows these lessons to be shared with other teachers to create a database of interactive lessons that both students and teachers can use to bring about learning.  Teachers should be cautious not to let webquests become the next worksheet, though.  They aren’t intended as fire-and-forget lessons that teachers use to keep students busy without actually engaging students in face-to-face dialogue.

Uses 
The uses for webquests are self-evident.  A webquest is a one-stop-shop for all the materials a teacher wants to pull together for a unit.  I could see using these as unit-builders.  They would seem to integrate well into LMS programs in which the various LMS tools could be linked in the webquest and vice versa.  Teachers can borrow ideas from other teachers’ webquests or simply use one in its entirety (providing it’s been reviewed properly by the teacher and fits the class objectives).

Mashups for Visual Literacy

What's your learning style?

Over the last few years, I’ve done an informal poll of my students.  There is only one question: “What type of learner are you, visual, verbal, or auditory”?  Guess what about 99 percent of them say on a consistent basis.  You got it!  Visual learners.  Now that defies logic.  Research may show that students have a tendency toward one learning mode, but nowhere near a 99% prevalence of visual learners.  What they’re telling me, I suspect, is that they enjoy visual learning, or even more to the point—“show us more movies.”

Children today are raised on multiple forms of visual media—movie clips and video games predominantly.  They’re immersed in a world of hyperactive visual stimulation.  My opinion on this is not that of a disgruntled curmudgeon, but of a 21^st century teacher who enjoys technology; but I’m noticing that the last two decades have marked a precipitous drop in attention span, in focus, and in the ability to engage students.

Plugged In teaches parents media virtues

Even when we teachers bring in video—top of the line resources from popular online sources—we fight an uphill battle.  Part of the reason for this is that the type of video that students consume is increasingly pointless.  Watch the typical teenager with free time navigate YouTube some time and you’ll see an aimless dabbling in cat videos, videos of people falling off tables, cafeteria fights, reckless stunts, and auto-tuned renditions of the most asinine man-on-the-street interviews you cold ever hope not to see.  Even well-produced video that attempts to anticipate student interests can’t compete with that.  The problem is not that there isn’t enough video in the classroom; the problem is that many students do not know how to consume video for meaning.

This is where visual literacy applies.  M. Avergerinou’s, What is “Visual Literacy?” (2008), does a pretty good job of broadening the scope of available literacy tools while narrowing the literacy outcomes.  These outcomes are identified as the ability to "discriminate and interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made, that [one] encounters in [one's] environment.” It goes on to say that the material for forming "competencies" are "masterworks."  Note that term carefully: "masterworks."

Teachers are tasked with bringing visual materials that are thought-provoking and worthy of thought.  They should elevate thinking, not indulge visual fixation and inattentiveness.  This week’s educational technology applications all have the potential to achieve this integration if teachers are willing to plan their use with an eye to real human development. 

Prezi | Prezi.com

Prezi has become well known as the possible successor to older forms of Power Point.  It’s an online presentation application that incorporates nodes, graphics, and animations.  It could definitely be used to spice up classroom discussions, but the improved graphics and animations do not change the rules of effective presentations.  A lecture is a lecture even if there is some motion in the presentation visuals.  Pictures can be imported into Prezis and this is probably the only reason Prezi (or an other presentation application) should be used for a prolonged time; that is, to put thought/discussion provoking images in front of students for the purpose of discussing those images directly.  Otherwise, it seems best to use Prezi for brief periods of time, to convey a simple, straightforward, and concise message.  The Prezi account is free, and as with most free mashup programs, the materials you create will be shared with other registered members unless specified private.

SpicyNodes | Spicynodes.com

As the name suggests, this is a mind-mapping and presentation application.  Users create information webs (mind-maps), which can be put in motion by hovering over or clicking one of the nodes.  Unlike Bubbl (which was reviewed in an earlier TeachTech post, Bubbl Mindmapping), SpicyNodes is a little clunky in editing mode.  In order to enter information for a node, you are taken out of the node itself to a hierarchy form.  Once you figure out how to edit the text, it is a bit difficult getting back to the map.  The concept is a lot like Prezi, though Prezi is a bit more aesthetically complex.  Just like Prezi, SpicyNodes takes some practicing to master, and unless it’s mastered it’s almost not worth the time.  The next step in animated presentation formats will likely be to make them more intuitive in the creation elements, as users will be looking more and more for a more efficient way to accomplish the same result.  Classroom uses are similar to those of Prezi as well.  Brevity, conciseness, and thought-provoking images should be par for the course.  Lastly, SpicyNodes can be embedded in a blog or shared on social media once saved. 

Edmodo | Edmodo.com

Edmodo is, more or less, a social network for teachers.  Like Facebook, it has apps, friends by invitation, and lots of sharing avenues.  It delivers on the collaboration ethic so prevalent in today’s teaching world.  Only this is a virtual world and the collaboration is a little choppier than if it were a live discussion.  Still, the sharing of ideas is the key factor in Edmodo.  There are free apps and paid apps, both of which can be shared in group networks.  The apps are mostly online activities like flashcards, review games, and student response systems (e.g. live interactive surveys).  Edmodo sometimes offers promotions to earn credit for the app store.  For example, I was able to earn $50 in app credit for taking an online survey.  Teachers share ideas on the Edmodo equivalent of Facebook’s “wall.”  What appears on a teacher’s wall depends on what domains they follow (e.g. computer technology, language arts, math, etc.).  In my review, I did not see a domain for administrators, so if administrators do not teach but wants to see ideas/materials for all subjects to pass along to teachers, they can follow all the relevant domains.  The problem with this is that their walls would be blown up with posts.  Needless to say, Edmodo needs an administrator domain (unless I just missed it).

Edmodo allows teachers to invite parents and students as well.  This can be done through email invitation or by providing a password for access to shared aspects of the teachers’ sites.  I am not sure whether parents and students have access to other groups on Edmodo through one teacher’s account.  I am also unsure how many invitations can be accepted on a given account.  This information is not readily evident, but could be found with a little digging.  It would take some time getting to know all the ins and outs of the program.

I must say, I thought the account registration was a little intrusive.  It asked a lot of questions that seemed a bit too personal.  For example, in order to take full advantage of the account, teachers are asked to provide their credentials, including licensing number.  If a teacher does not have a license number, he/she is asked to submit an explanation.  It’s understandable that a teacher community might ask for credentials, but asking for a license number goes a bit too far.  If you have no license number, the system automatically checks to see if there are any other teachers from your school enrolled.

One last observation: Edmodo is a for-profit network.  It may have been or continue to project a non-profit profile but it is connected with all sorts of paid apps from companies that make money off of app purchases.  Edmodo doesn’t provide their service purely out of altruism.  The promotion and sharing of apps is big business, and big business (though great for the economy) don’t always know what’s best for a classroom.  A slick, well-marketed app does not necessarily equal a worthwhile and beneficial app for students.  Teachers, beware of falling for the trinket mentality, wherein apps are bought on appearance alone.

A Maths Dictionary for Kids | amathsdictionaryforkids.com/dictionary.html

I don’t know who Jenny Eather is, but she’s put together a very useful site for teachers and students to look up math terms.  What sets this site apart from other dictionaries is that it provides interactive examples.  The dictionary could be integrated as a resource link on a teacher website or LMS for homework help and even as a refresher for parents who haven’t done math for a while.  It could also be integrated in class via projection or student laptops or tablets.  Another welcome aspect of the dictionary is that it provides interaction without being hyperactive or distracting.  It’s attractive but it’s all about the business of learning math.  For each definition there is a printable worksheet for teachers who prefer to work in paper exercises from time to time, or for teachers of students who lack access to computers.

Glogster | glogster.com

If you’ve ever made a tri-board presentation for a class you can get the Glogster concept.  It’s the same idea as a tri-board, namely the visual presentation of information on a topic.  However, it’s no ordinary poster; it’s a digital interactive online poster.  Once registered teachers can provide students the means of creating multimedia “posters”—large, colorful images with embedded access points to various text and media resources they have either made, downloaded, or linked.  After they’re created, teacher and student posters can be shared with other registered users inside and outside the class.  In this way, it’s a way to learn by researching a topic and producing a poster, but it’s also a way for students to learn from what other students have created.  Teachers, too, can either learn from what’s been produced and shared, or they can borrow them by giving their own registered students access to what other classes have done.  Another mashup resource, Glogster is about exponential sharing, and social collaborative learning.

Before we get carried away, though, let’s keep a critical eye to whether this approach actually works.  Someone has to ask, right?  Now, I think there are some learning aspects that are self-evident and which don’t need a lot of rationale or research.  Those aspects that get students reading, asking questions, and making original visuals are intrinsically valuable.  However there’s a very real danger with an approach like this of students simply fulfilling the requirements of a given poster project by Google-pasting.  Teachers must, must, must, monitor and mentor these projects.  They can’t just turn students loose with the medium and expect them to use every aspect for their learning benefit.  Rather, teachers will need to build some accountability into the project by making students translate what they find online into their own words.  It takes very little brain power and almost no research prowess to find a YouTube video on a topic, use a flash video downloader to copy it, and then link it to a node on a poster.  Learning requires developing sound research questions, in-depth reading, original thought, translating original thought into effective writing, and (brace yourselves) memorizing.  Yes, memorizing is still a valid form of learning.  It may be a bad word in today’s educational environment, but occasionally students should be asked to recite facts from memory.

Glogster projects allow servers and computers to retain information for presentation, but essential facts also need to be committed to memory.  It may not be obvious how to do this with a Glogster poster, but it’s as simple as providing a node that calls on the student to recite memorized information.  This could be done by taking a video of a student closing his/her eyes and reciting, or asking the student to present live in front of the class with a Glogster visual aid in which one or two nodes bring up a text like, “Now let’s review!  What did the ancient Greek philosophers consider the four elements of creation?”  This can be followed by another node that says, “Now you try it!  What are the four elements of creation according to the ancient Greek philosophers?”  Students can be easily coached on this, but if they’re not, they’ll default to copying, pasting, and linking without ever really engaging all their mental faculties.  The medium is useful but cannot be allowed to supplant work ethic and good mental habits.

One of the best uses of Glogster posters may be as portfolios.  Students can showcase their retention of information, their writing, and audio/video journal their accomplishments.  As long as real academic skills are at the core of student work on Glogster, promoting the use of alternative learning documentation through digital audio/video recording would seem to be a major advantage to students.  If we’re ever going to move away from over-reliance on quantitative testing of students, we have to embrace other means of summative evaluation.  Glogster is a proactive reminder of this.

Jing | techsmith.com/jing

Jing is a free Techsmith offering that allows users to record and share their screens.  Users simply select something happening on their screen, say a video they’re watching, and record it (it also has a simple screenshot function for static material).  Then, they can share the recording with others.  There are some neat additional features, though, like the ability to add graphics and text to the video before sharing it.  Videos can be shared over screencast.com and from there to all the major social networking sites.  Videos have a 5-minute limit, but from the looks of things there’s no limit to how many videos you can share.

This could be tremendously useful for teachers, especially online teachers, who want to provide multimedia support for lessons.  The 5-minute length limit may actually work in teachers’ favor because it forces them not to dwell too long on what is supposed to be support for verbal discussion.  Tutorial videos, visual reviews, introductions to topics, and magnifying a particular aspect of a lesson are all potential uses for this technology.  For example, if a teacher were offering a unit on a fictional novel set in medieval times, the teacher could upload an instructional video about medieval feudalism to the lessons tab of their LMS or teacher website.  The program allows screen sharing over an asynchronous medium, which has been a long time coming.

YouTube for Education | Youtube.com/education

YouTube for Education has all the bells and whistles of standard YouTube but the videos are specifically earmarked for education.  In fact, they are compiled and organized according to primary, secondary, and post-secondary.  Many of the videos are longer than in the standard portal—some lasting around an hour.  Once in a grade level, there are subject categories.  When a video is chosen, there is a sidebar that contains other video suggestions.  Next to many of the videos are verbal descriptions of the specific topic.  There are surprisingly few videos in some sections, however.  For example, in the Primary/Secondary Social Studies domain, there were around 9 pages of videos total; that’s including 3 subtopics.  These videos can be a nice way to mix things up in the classroom, but there aren’t many planning tools to go along with them.  This isn’t necessary, but it can be quite helpful.  Once this aspect of YouTube is souped up a bit, it may become a destination for teachers looking to add variety to both their classrooms and their online presence.

SchoolTube & TeacherTube | schooltube.com – teachertube.com

SchoolTube and TeacherTube are both video sharing sites devoted to education.  They both offer a range of topics from study skills to the standard academic subjects.  SchoolTube seems to be a much smaller operation than TeacherTube.  SchoolTube does not offer the same quality as YouTube Education (i.e. big name speakers, higher production value videos).  TeacherTube offers YouTube quality videos but offers something even YouTube does not offer, and that is related documents for supplementing videos, as well as audio and static images.  Of the three education video sharing sites (YouTube/education, SchoolTube, and TeacherTube) TeacherTube seems to offer the most ready-made lesson support if you don’t mind searching the site for documents that correlate with videos.  Teachers still need to connect the dots, but the materials are more classroom-ready.  If TeacherTube were to make these connections for the user, or be more solicitous of lesson support from video contributors, the site would be a lot more popular with teachers.  In other words, if the site were to ask for written lesson materials on the video upload page, teachers could pull up lesson support/ideas when they tune in to the video.  A video of a children’s book might have a few discussion questions or an assignment.  The assignment might have a few external links or embedded resources to expand the lesson.

Storytelling, Collaboration, and Virtual Lesson Aids

Online educational technology offers the potential to create global cognition opportunities.  There are a number of new applications that promote learning over multiple cognitive domains and which integrate the whole body.  Here are a few.

ComicLife | comiclife.com

As the name suggests, ComicLife is a software program that produces comics from user photos.  It is offered as a 30-day trial, after which the cost to register and continue is $30; not bad for big name software package these days.  It provides for a variety of caption bubbles, easy drag-and-drop of photos, and a lot of templates.  The program can be used in the classroom to summarize a topic from teacher to student, vice versa, or student to student.  For example, a 5th grade World History class might use ComicLife to make a summary of the explorations of Ponce de Leon.  In each frame of the comic, character dialogue can indicate when, where, why, and with whom expeditions were conducted.  Major events would also be depicted.  The storytelling aspect of ComicLife would allow students to consider the expeditions from multiple points of view.  The storytelling aspect of education is a bit lacking today, with such emphasis on standardized testing, ComicLife would offer an alternative form of assessment and improve student ability to tell stories.  Stories are global cognition exercises in which facts must be tied together in an interesting way.  The artistic aspect of ComicLife enhances the creativity factor as well.  All in all the program looks to be an engaging way to explore and report on just about any concept.

iSpeech | ispeech.org

iSpeech is a text-to-speech (TTS) and advanced speech recognition (ASR) application.  Once downloaded and installed, it can turn any text into speech, freeing users for other tasks or offering assistive technology for the seeing impaired or for LD students with oral support accommodations.  Because it also has speech recognition, it can be used to make transcripts, record interviews for student projects, and supplement audio journaling to name just a few of the many possibilities.  For students who like to record their ideas orally for projects and papers, iSpeech would be quite useful.  Imagine taking a mobile device to the library and speaking titles and bibliographical information into it for later reference in text form, or—instead of typing in quoted passages from a book for a research project, reading it into the mobile device and having it for the paper later.  This used to require borrowing the book, or typing a copy of relevant passages on site, or using a copy machine.  True, students can (and do) take pictures of such passages, but with ASR the typed version is ready to go.  These two technologies, TTS and ASR, have been around for a while but they’ve been unreliable.  The latest versions have far fewer bugs, and the mobile option makes the technology so much more convenient than ever before.  Teachers need to be ready for the inclusion of mobile devices, at least in the form of tablet computers as programs like this one become more and more transportable.

VoiceThread & VoiceThread for Education | voicethread.com, voicethread4education.wikispaces.com

VoiceThread is part of a burgeoning cloud collaboration market.  It allows multiple users to upload documents, presentations, and media for collaboration, but also allows real-time spoken and text conversation between multiple users over the cloud.  Since it is in the cloud, it consumes much less local storage and is accessible through any internet capable device including mobile data devices (for which there is a mobile app).  VoiceThread automatically integrates with LTI (learning tools interoperability) learning management systems such as Angel, BlackBoard, and Moodle.  It offers automatic user feed updates as well as analytics that allow teachers to see how many users have visited, when, and whom specifically.  This is obviously helpful for attendance and grading, but also for reflective teaching, wherein factors like the popularity of an activity and the time of day students access material outside of scheduled collaborations would provide insight.  The technology can be used to conduct brainstorming sessions, review artwork, watch and peer critique a recorded group presentation, or peer edit a paper. 

Voicethreads can be recorded and exported into popular media formats for sharing with others and/or for embedding in websites.  This sharing aspect is where Voicethread4education.wikispaces.com comes in.  With the wiki option, teachers from all over the world can share their voice-threads.  Once shared, people outside the original collaboration can comment and compare notes.  If I might coin a term, this kind of multi-level collaboration could be referred to as “exponential collaboration.”  Voicethreads-4-education wiki provides ideas and support for use in the conventional and virtual classrooms.

Storybird | storybird.com/teachers

Storybird is one of the most creative, teacher-friendly online applications in the flood of interactive online teaching tools.  It's a program that allows students to easily make digital books.  The layout is intuitive, and the artwork is spectacular.  Teachers can create classes without student email accounts, an important feature for teachers of younger students and students whose only email contact with teachers occurs through a closed LMS account.  Once books are created, they can be shared via all the normal social media routes.  Interestingly, the books can be monetized so that parents, families, and other interested parties can buy them online as a fundraiser for the school.  What an awesome reward for work well done.

Storybird is another program that encourages storytelling.  Students can use the images to generate stories or they can tell a story and choose images to support it.  Students can also import their own images, which makes the medium appropriate for all ages.  Many of the images are more suitable for children's books, but there are also more sophisticated images that would work for older students and adults.  If the image offerings were limited in any way, users could find their own public domain images.  For monetized books, users would need to be careful not to use copyrighted images.

While the books generated by Storybird are mostly fictional, there is certainly no reason to limit students to fictional writing.  The program is flexible enough to use for non-fictional materials as well.  Students can use Storybird individually or in groups.  Teachers can open access to all students for peer editing and collaboration.  Storybird is a boon for every student and adult that has wanted to produce digital books, but have been held back by an inability to illustrate.  The program has just about thought of everything; and to top it all off, Storybird is affordable.  A pro account is only $69/year--offering the whole gamut of available features.  If your needs are modest, it gets cheaper for lower tier accounts, with the cheapest being free!

Scribblar | scribblar.com 

Scribblar is an online whiteboard collaboration program.  It allows teachers and student groups to work together on material in real-time, with chat and multiple editors.  It will upload images, on which can be added graphics, freehand drawing, and text.  Scribblar offers a free demo, but for an ongoing account there is a monthly fee.  Monthly fees range from $9-$49 depending on how many rooms and users the administrator wants.  Scribblar paid versions look pretty stable, which is a concern for teachers looking to support their classes online or who want to run a stand-alone internet class.  Aside from features, functionality is paramount.  Setting up and maintaining rooms must be easy or they're more trouble than they're worth.  The last thing an online teacher needs is to plan a collaboration and then spend half of it addressing technical access issues.  Like any technology, teachers need to test it and evaluate before they go live.  Multiple free or inexpensive online whiteboard options are available HERE.

Xtranormal | xtranormal.com

Xtranormal is a 3-D video maker that is as simple as 1-2-3-4.  Choose a background, choose characters, type in text for each character, and choose voices.  This technology, like some we've discussed earlier in this edition of TeachTech, makes the creative process accessible to the average person.  The quality is not exactly Pixar, but if a teacher wants to engage students in a storytelling through a visual medium, Xtranormal might be the way to do it.  Tools like this allow teachers to use multiple assessment strategies.  What if instead of filling out the review questions at the end of a textbook chapter, students created a 3-D video; and imagine that it only takes around a half-hour.  It's NOT a replacement of good old fashioned reading, writing, and arithmetic, but it's a nice change-up to keep the students' creative juices flowing.

A basic Xtranormal account is free, but charges a la cart for characters and sets.  These are included in the educator and professional accounts, priced $10/month and $50/month respectively.  Since users can share their videos, you could imagine that some of the videos are a little salty.  However, the educator account filters all but those appropriate for kids.  The educator account provides a teacher dashboard that lets teachers manage student accounts.

The potential downsides are twofold.  First, the voices and animation are a bit jumpy and are definitely computer synthesized.  You can record your own voice, but syncing could be a challenge.  If you're not worried about the artificiality of it, there should be no problem.  Second, this technology runs the risk of over-reliance.  Students' creative impulses should not be co-opted by this or that software.  Sometimes a good live play or a collaborative video in the real world is a better option.  Videos are useful for conveying information and planning, but videos lose some of their educational value if the students aren't up and moving, being spontaneous.  They need to use their voices and hear each others' voices.  The real world is a better alternative, but as long as technology such as Xtranormal is used moderately, it should generally support creativity.

Virtual Manipulatives | nlvm.usu.edu

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives has provided a java-based set of manipulatives interactives for grades K-12.  I thought I would not like this approach, because--let's face it--how manipulative can manipulatives be in the virtual world?  Well, it's not exactly stacking blocks, but it does provide such a variety of manipulative approaches and math games that for SUPPLEMENTAL purposes, it could become a go to site for Math lessons.  For teachers looking to shift gears in class to break up monotony and get students thinking in another way, NLVM is perfect.  

Again, moderation is called for in this approach.  It would be a shame to see kindergarteners never actually handle the real block manipulatives.  There's something about the motor-intellectual connection that manipulatives provide in the real world that reinforces whole-body learning.  Variety is also key to keeping students engages, though, and NLVM provides a bunch of alternative operations.

What's even more impressive about NLVM is that it offers simple manipulative approaches to the basic math operations in the younger grades all the way up to the thousands place.  Imagine trying to line up that many manipulatives in the real world!  It also offers simple games in specific operations in the higher grades.  There are sets of activities/manipulatives in algebra and geometry in the higher grades, for example.  It can be run online and also can be downloaded.  I would recommend that it be used via projector and smart board--that is, that it mostly be used as a teacher-led activity.  It could be used at home for homework but it does not come ready made with the teacher administration tools that allow teachers to check progress, scores, attendance, etc.

An Experience With Power Point

Power Point, by today's standards, is old technology.  Today, Prezi is starting to garner more attention than Power Point, because the animations are quite a bit more organic and slick.  However, the old standby is still effective if used for the right purpose.

Teachers, heed my words!  Power Points is largely ineffective when used to present an outline of notes.  Stop doing this!  On the other hand, Power Point is highly useful for putting up a diagram, artwork, architecture, photos of geographically significant sites, historical photos, or space photos (to name a few).  In other words, it works well to display visuals to be discussed.  Power Point is a discussion tool, not an outlining program intended to replace a whiteboard.

I don't claim to be a Power Point master, but I'll provide an example of a Power Point that has worked well for me the last couple of years.  This Power Point was made for junior and senior level Theory of Knowledge class.  The class uses a diagram to communicate the epistemology of the International Baccalaureate's TOK approach:

The assignment was to examine the diagram, put it into narrative form, consider the alternative diagrams provided by IB, and then revise one of them or come up with one of the students own diagrams.  The activity was followed by a brief set of observations made by the class (last slide).  This last slide was added after discussion, the next day, as a means of summarizing the take-aways from our discussion.

The best elements of the presentation are the diagrams and the side-by-side comparisons.  The simplicity of the slides was helpful to the students.  There wasn't a lot of text, but mostly images for the students to think about, discuss in small groups, and then bring back to whole-class discussion.  The follow-up slide was useful for capturing where the classes thoughts had gone in discussion.  Students remained engaged throughout the discussion, partially because the images provided a framework and springboard for discussion.

There was one minor drawback to the presentation: namely, that it was up on the screen too long and the lesson was too dependent on long term use of the screen.  The better option, it would seem, is to begin and end each phase of the activity with the corresponding slide, but to turn the screen off while the students are working and let them work off of images provided in the lessons domain of our learning management system.  This way, the groups turn to each other and that flow is not disrupted.  Once enough time has passed with the images and we're ready to draw together in discussion, then the screen can go up again for discussion.

The Power Point can be extended by having the students send their revised versions, produced electronically in Word or Draw, and adding them to subsequent slides for follow up.  I like doing this part on the real whiteboard, though, as it gets the students up and drawing.  The real whiteboard also allows us to interact and revise on the fly with the group at the board.

My advice, as a teacher who's used Power Point ever since it first appeared on the educational landscape, is to moderate the use of Power Point so as to avoid two pitfalls: (1) making PP an outlining backdrop to lengthy lectures, and (2) using PP as the primary tool for student presentations.  Both are disengaging to students and teachers.  Moreover, the latter approach stifles presentation skills.  Students have become overly reliant on PP for presentations, seemingly thinking that the medium replaces authentic knowledge and memory of the concepts presented.  With the right mentoring--coaching students on brevity and simplicity, and on the fact that PP is a visual AID, not the heart of the presentation--students can learn and retain good presentation habits.

A long way since wordprocessing: DTPs, Assistive Tech, Online Productivity Apps, Webquests...

The Old Days...

Lots of prospective college freshmen look forward to getting a new laptop or tablet computer for college these days.  When I entered college in 1989, I was excited to have correctable type on my electronic typewriter.  Back then, it wasn't Apple that caught my eye, but Smith Corona.  It was considered fairly high tech to have a typewriter that could hold a sentence of text that could be corrected on a 5X1 cm LED display before pressing enter and having it typed onto paper automatically.

There were other wordprocessors out there at this time, but they were too expensive.  I could sign up for an hour of computer use in a crowded lab, but after waiting in line and getting booted before I was done, I realized I was wasting time.  So I broke down and bought an outdated IBM XT--a metal-shrouded dinosaur with a green monochrome display.  I got a cheap dot matrix printer, complete with perforated sprockets.  This sufficed for about two years; then came Word for Windows 2.0 (1992), which actually made typing a paper kind of fun.  My papers were done more quickly, and frankly, they were better written because I could compose more freely.

With rapid improvements in WP software and the storage advantages they brought, Word became a staple for home lesson-planning.  It would be several more years before teachers could use Word in the classroom because classrooms didn't have computers in the early 90s.  With the advent of Desktop Publishing (DTP) software for PC, teachers could begin to produce attractive materials for students and parents.  Using DTP with students was years away as computers were not universally accessible to students.

Nowadays, students and teachers both have easy access to DTP, which frees teachers up to make create collaborative activities for students to research and report concepts.  When I got my first Mac, I discovered Pages--a neat, template-friendly DTP.  Take a look at the difference between a parent newsletter I did on Word and one on Pages:

The latter sample, from Pages, offers a major advantage over the standard Word document because it catches the eye and generates more reader interest.  Pictures and detached text boxes provide a magazine feel.  Not only are the aesthetics better in the Pages document, but the writing is a bit more concise.  The layout alone encourages conciseness, as placeholders limit the amount of text.  It got me out of the mindset of academic writing and into the mindset of a messenger.

Now, when I post information on our school's LMS, I use DTP tools to make it more visually appealing.  Since I can post online, I can use all the color I want (no print limitations).  NETS technology standards for teachers (#4) recommends this kind of modeling.  That is, if teachers want students to fully utilize DTPs, teachers need to practice the technology effectively themselves.  DTP really gets fun when you start to make your own graphics for it.  I would recommend GIMP image editor, which can be downloaded for free online for Windows, Mac, and Linux.  It takes some practice, but it has a lot of artistic filters that can dress up all those pictures we "appropriate" from Goodle images.

Desktop Publishing Software

For someone who's on a publisher all the time, PagePlus X6 might be the best option for desktop publishing.  For around $100 an average Joe can begin producing professional looking documents from nearly 500 templates.  It has an art gallery, hundreds of fonts, and digital photo editing.  For the more adventurous, it also provides logo design.

In fact, it may have too many features--many that could go untouched by the average user.  For day-to-day desktop publishing the most up-to-date word-processing software (Word or Pages) has about all that most users need: templates, font variety, gallery, embedded video, picture editing, linking, masters, and a host of other design options.  Documents can be easily exported as PDFs as well.

While they do not rival the design capabilities of Word or Pages, there are two free open source word processing software downloads available that are worth downloading if users can't afford commercial options.  Open Office is a feature-rich basic word processing application.  In fact, it offers a suite of office applications including presentations and spreadsheets.  Another free download, LibreOffice, is almost identical to OpenOffice.  Both programs are fully compatible with Word (and, by extension, Pages).

For users who have a comprehensive word-processing program but would like to add a simpler secondary word processor, try Jarte.  Because it uses Wordpad, Jarte opens really fast.  I use it for simple text copying, pasting, and printing.  It offers all the basic formatting options, offers multiple file saving formats, and can print.

Assistive Technologies

GPAT: Georgia Project for Assistive Technology

GPAT is a treasure trove of information about assistive technology (AT), which it defines as, "Any item, piece of equipment or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of children with disabilities." In less legalistic speak, AT is simply technology used to help children with disabilities.

The major operating systems, Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu, etc., offer assistive functions that make reading and navigating easier.  Text-to-speech (TTS) and magnification are examples of some of the simpler accommodations. GPAT recommends Dolphin Easyreader, an audio e-reader application with text and images.  Georgia (GPAT) offers the software free to GA public school students with bona fide learning disabilities.  Many AT-conscious schools offer Dolphin, as well as many college and university libraries.

DSpeech

Dolphin is certainly not the only AT software available.  DSpeech offers TTS as well as automatic speech recognition (ASR).  The great thing about DSpeech is that it offers all the advanced features of modern AT reading aids at no cost.  It is available as an online download in .zip format. The program provides for customizable voices and it can produce multiple audio file formats, including .wav and .ogg (Mac).  Teachers can provide access to audio files produced in programs like DSpeech can upload tons of files to Soundcloud.

Powertalk

Powertalk is an automated speech program for Power Point.  Once downloaded, Powertalk is activated by right-clicking in Power Point and choosing the Powertalk utility.  It can verbalize all visible text on slides, but can also speak words hidden behind pictures so that images can be narrated too.  Powertalk can be downloaded, free of charge, thanks to Open Source Assistive Technology Software (OATS).  OATS offers other assistive technologies such as virtual keyboards with features like dwell-click (hovering = click selection) and word/phrase auto-completion.

ReadTheWords

ReadTheWords is another TTS program.  This one allows users to create and edit their own audio files, and then upload them in ReadTheWords online storage.  It is a paid program that ranges from $40-$100.  One of the unique features of ReadTheWords is the Firefox toolbar that allows ReadTheWords to read text on websites at the click of a mouse.  Another advantage of the ReadTheWords is that it works as a media sharing site complete with profiles and social support. 

Online Productivity/Collaboration Source: Zoho

Zoho
Zoho is an extensive online suite of business, collaboration, and productivity apps.  The business side of Zoho focuses on contacts, email marketing, sales tracking, team management, and record-keeping.  The productivity and colloration apps are more applicable to teachers.  Productivity apps include online word-processing, presentations, spreadsheets, calendar, and a wiki-like collaborative notes/writing app.  The collaborative apps include online meetings, chat, documents, online discussions (forums), and project managment.

Zoho could be useful to teachers in many ways.  From a basic practical standpoint, since teachers work on materials at home and at work, it helps to be able to access their materials from any device with online connection.  If students are provided access to the collaborative tools--especially chat and online discussions--Zoho could offer nice classroom support.  

For more ambitious teachers who wish to work with students outside of class, the online meeting function would be worthwhile.  This function could be used especially well in online summer school courses and even in conferencing with parents.  Some schools are offering best practices discussions with administrators and teachers via online meeting applications.  There is a monthly charge for the better online meeting options (more people, no time limit), but teachers could experiment with the limited version for free.  If you want a free online meeting option without the strict limitations of Zoho free option, check out AnyMeeting.  I practiced with this as an online class tool, and was pleased with how well it worked.

Online Lesson Planning Source: WebQuest

Webquest is an "inquiry-based" lesson format that is based primarily on information gathered online.  The WebQuest website needs improvement.  Many of the lesson searches I conducted came up dry.  The brights spot on the site is QuestGarden.  QuestGarden is a search engine that directs teachers to shared lessons by grade and subject.  The search turns up a bunch of lessons that all follow the same template of links: intro., task, process, evaluation, and conclusion.  The idea behind this service is that teachers work better when they share ideas.  Teachers who want new lesson ideas, that happen to also include technology, QuestGarden could be useful.  It could also help out a teacher who's a little behind in planning and needs some quick help to avoid lost instructional time.  Most teachers have been in this position once or twice.