Easy Publishing - Posterous.com

One of the hassles of putting your work on a website is learning how to set it up and then having to go to the site to post on it.  There are some great tools out there to minimize the hassles, like the blogs out there that let you update your posts just by sending an email. Well, Posterous.com goes one step farther, er, or easier.

I've had a Posterous account for a number of years and missed one major advantage to Posterous.  The first-time user can start their Posterous account, simply by emailing posterous@posterous.com from the email account they wish to use.  The resulting reply email has already begun the setup process and you are technically a couple of click away from immediate posting!  The video below gives a great demo for Posterous.



Once it is setup, you can simply email your text, picture, document, or video to your Posterous email account and it will get published on your site.  You can still edit and manage the post from your Posterous management page, but you don't have to.

Also, cross-posting is a breeze.  Posterous allows you to connect to your blogs, Twitter, or Facebook accounts and auto post to them from your single Posterous posting. Very easy!

Why Posterous for the classroom? Your main Posterous webpage is organized as a blog. You could have the student of the week send an email at the end (or beginning) of the day to post the day's agenda or assignment list. Since you can post via email, sharing iPad creations via an app's Share via Email options can make sharing iPad products easy without having to setup network printing or filesharing on the iPads.

How would YOU use Posterous in the classroom?  Would love to hear from you.

Make Your QR Code Talk To You!

QR codes are pretty popular these days and I've already posted a couple of times about it.  This time I'm sharing a website that you can use to make your QR Code TALK TO YOU!

First of all, why?   A number of my schools have said that they are using QR codes in scavenger hunts around the school.  What if your students are English Language Learners or early readers?  When the students get to the answer spot and hit the QR code, this time the code will congratulate them on their correct answer and give them there next direction. 

scan this with your mobile camera!

This is incredibly hard for the teachers.   You have to go to http://qrvoice.net/ and type your short sentence in the blank.  Click the small barcode enter button and you get your new barcode.    That's it!

Copy and your post QR codes for the students to scan.  On my Android phone, I did have to click 'browse' once the code was scanned and then click 'execute' to hear the voice.  My iPad played it right after scanning once.

How would you use this in your classroom?

Squeezing Extra Email Out Of One Gmail Account?

With many campuses introducing groups of iPads into the classrooms, one of the barriers to success is creating and managing campus-owned Apple ID accounts.  One great trick with Gmail email is the ability to have more than one email address for your one Gmail account.

Normally, your personal Apple ID will be used with the App Store to install free or paid apps onto your iPads. In an educational setting like AISD, the district wants to maintain ownership of all apps purchased with district money. In that case, you do not want to install apps onto an iPad using a teacher's personal Apple ID, because doing so will forever marry the ownership of the app to your personal ID. You cannot later transfer ownership of an app from one Apple ID to another one.

The problem get worse when a campus decides to create a campus-owned email account for each set, classroom or teacher that will be adding apps to the iPads.  Nobody wants to maintain a bunch of new email addresses that don't belong to a specific person.

Gmail to the rescue!  One strategy for maintaining a large number of iPads in a setting where they don't all use the same apps is to use the Gmail+ email addresses.  The campus creates one Gmail account, favoriteschool@gmail.com .  That account lives as an admin email account that one person will administer during the year.  For each set or teacher that needs an Apple ID, create the free Apple ID account by using a "+name" designation like, "favoriteschool+bluebirdcart@gmail.com", "favoriteschool+room102@gmail.com", or "favoriteschool+5thgrd@gmail.com". 

The Gmail+ email is seen by Apple as a different email account, so all of the examples above would be seen as different Apple IDs.  Being that they belong to 'favoriteschool@gmail.com', all email would go to that one gmail account. The administrator will be able to see all App Store receipts and communication for each ID.

All the teachers need to do is create the Apple ID using a designated Gmail+ address and use that ID for their iPads.  After that, all of the iPad apps will be installed using that ID and the campus will always have ownership over the app, no matter who it belongs to on campus.

For more on creating Apple IDs that are not connected to any credit card, see this article.

Searching Google Docs For AISD Content

The more we use Google Docs in AISD, the more we will find some of the advanced features more important. For example, I create the world's greatest Literature Group lesson in Google docs and have shared it with AISD.  Later, I meet Mr. Smyth at a meeting downtown and he said he would be interested in seeing my lesson. How will he be able to find it quickly?

Make It Visible
To the right, you see how I made my Doc visible. I chose to not make it viewable to the entire world, but just to all 7,000+ AISD employees and 80,000+ students.

By marking the top AISD button, any teacher/student will be able to search Google Docs and find my document. 

*WARNING: This is a good and bad thing. Don't share any confidential material like this as someone could search and find it by accident.

Now that my document is saved with some unique name and I marked the document as visible by all AISD searches, my colleagues can find this document and open it WITHOUT  me having to share it with them specifically.

Use The Advanced Search

The more documents you have in Google Docs, the more you'll use the search box. Typing and searching for keywords will quickly go through your own docs and show suggestions for your search.



Basic Search



However, I can also search the vast amount of docs that live inside the AISD Google Docs domain. By using the advanced search drop-down, I can use the 'Search AISD' link at the very bottom. My search results now will come from my Docs as well as all other user-created docs in AISD.

Using this with students can be quite useful.  For today's problem statement, I want my students to open up my document, add their thoughts and submit at the end of the week for a grade.

1. Create a Google Docs and name it something unique, like "MartinP5PhysicsandPolitics". Share that document with AISD, as above.
2. Students will login to the Cloud and do the advanced search for that file name, and open the file.
3. Because I want this file to be a template, I didn't give anyone edit rights.  So my students' first action will be to go to the Google Docs File menu and 'Make a Copy' of this document. They now have their own copy and can edit it to their heart's content.
4. By the end of the week, they can share their document with me. (They won't change any privacy settings because they don't need anyone to find their work.) The share with me, giving me edit writes so that I can leave comments on their work.

There are a number of different ways to share with others, but I'll put that in a later post.  Leave a comment if you have done this with your students. Did you find it useful? What did you do differently that worked for you?

iPad Support and Tips

Every time I turn around, seems that I see another website out there with lists of iPad apps that you just can't live without. As an educator, those are sometimes nice because you just don't have the extra time it could take to window shop in the iTunes store looking for useful apps.  We are putting out hat into the ring in order to address that request from teachers.

The AISD iPad User's Group has been started as a place for educators to find resources online, share lists of apps, and join into a discussion about using iApps in the classroom.  This resources has been divided into two segments, 1) a website that you can view and add your ideas to a growing list, and 2) an email group that users can use to ask questions, seek support, or share successes from like-minded educators.

iPad User's Group Lists/Resources: https://sites.google.com/a/austinisd.org/ipad_users_group/  This website has a small group of links in the left margin for viewing and adding to lists.  The lists are all Google Forms that allow any user to add their useful ideas to the collection.   Each page has a link to the form and then a link to the list.

iPad User's Group Email Group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ipads-in-education  At the bottom of the iPad User's Group website, there is an embedded view of the email group found at this link. Either way, anyone can view the comments being shared by the group.  You are encouraged to join the group by visiting the Google Groups page and registering. Membership allows you to reply to a post, start a new post for discussion, and get the discussions email to you automatically.  (Your email addresses will not be shared, sold, or made into holiday crafts. This list is just for creating a dialogue among teachers about iPad use in the classroom.)

Subscribe to iPads in Education

Email:

Visit this group

So join the iPad User's Group (IUG) here in Austin and help us all benefit from the collective experiences of many teachers.   We can learn from each other.  For example, in the IUG is a tip on how to make iOS 5's keyboard split into two pieces.  By holding down the keyboard icon in the lower right, you can select 'Split Keyboard' and have two small keyboards on each side of the screen, right where your thumbs are is you are holding it with two hands!  Nice!!