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hands on keyboard
Professional LearningWeb 2.0 Tool

Clip That Web Page with Joplin

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

If you need to keep track of information off the web, you’re not alone. In this blog entry, we’ll explore Joplin, a new tool with rich features for web clipping and note aggregation. Before we do that and explore its use in education, let’s take a moment to review some statistics.

Internet Stats

Why is it important to be able to keep track of information you find on the web? While it’s easy to search for content, it’s difficult to find again that poignant quote or message or must-read article. Worse, given the amount of content that appears online, chances are, you won’t see it again. Consider these 2019 statistics:

  • People publish four million blog posts every day on the Internet.
  • People send five-hundred million tweets daily.
  • There are 1.94 billion websites in the world.
  • Hackers attack ninety-thousand websites per day.
  • WordPress blogs make up 83% of websites hacked.

In simple terms, that’s a lot of content to keep track of from a lot of different sources. What’s worse, it’s changeable and could disappear due to nefarious actions. When you find something valuable on the web, how do you save it for when you need it, even if it’s no longer online? The answer can be expensive, or not.

Solutions That Save Your Content

Some of my favorite content grabbers include Read It Later’s Pocket and Nuzzle. The magic of these tools is that they work great on mobile devices, as well as on your desktop (e.g. laptop) browser. They make it simple to save content to your device. Eric Curts (@ericcurts) writes:

Nuzzel is a free service that curates content from the people you follow on Twitter. When you sign up for Nuzzel, you give it permission to see who you follow. This enables Nuzzel to read all the tweets they post.

This can be valuable because you get to see what others are reading. Read It Later’s Pocket works in a different way. You can add blog entries, web pages, and online content to Pocket so that you can view each later (it provides a simplified look to a page such as what Reader View Chrome extension shows). You can even set Pocket to read the content aloud to you with its Text To Speech (TTS) option in mobile.

joplin

Many are familiar with note tools and web clippers, such as Evernote and OneNote. The former has lost much of its glory due to diminishing features and increasing cost. The latter, OneNote, continues to add features. As useful as MORE features are however, it does require committing to the Microsoft ecosystem.

What if you wanted a simpler solution that makes web clipping easier?

joplin

Source: Joplinapp.org

A Simple Web Clipper and Note-Keeper

One of my favorite note-keeping tools is Joplin Note Taker and To-Do application. The program can be set up (get installation programs) on most platforms. That includes Mac, Windows, GNU/Linux, and mobile (e.g. iOS and Android). It is, unfortunately, not available for Chromebooks. In essence, you combine the utility of tools like these shown below into one:

  • Google Keep
  • Microsoft To-Do (which is the old Wunderlist, discontinued in February 2020)
  • Evernote with Web Clipper
  • OneNote with Web Clipper

Joplin describes itself in the following way (slight edits):

Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application. It can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. Copy, search, tag or change the notes. You can change them with Joplin or using your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format (get a Markdown Editor for your computer). You can paste in HTML code as well.

The magic of Joplin is that it can save your notes to the cloud storage of choice. This includes spaces such as NextCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, or a networked directory. Since the source files are text files, you can inspect them, back them up, or move them. This gives you the ability to grab your data and run, if you want to.

Joplin offers end-to end-encryption for your notes and saved content. This makes it a great solution for top secret notes. Or, if you’d rather use your own text encryption, you can paste that into Joplin’s note body without fear. Other GUI-oriented note keepers convert your text, adding hidden characters, which can hinder decryption.

Joplin’s Web Clipper

Joplin provides a web clipper (pictured above) that works with both Firefox and Chrome. And, if you’re wondering if it works with Chromium browsers, the answer is, “Yes, it does.” This makes it a versatile tool on your desktop browser.

Neat features that will appeal to some when you clip a web page include:

1-You can save a web page without images as markdown text.

joplin

2-You can clip a web page as an image, HTML with images.

There are several other options for web clippings. Compared to my experiences with Evernote and OneNote, Joplin does an outstanding job. You can organize your content in notebooks and sub-notebooks and add tags to make it easier to find. Of course, it works on mobile so you are never without your notes. Unlike other tools, it also saves a copy of your notes on your device. That’s great if you are somewhere and you need to view your notes with no internet.

Pet Peeve: One of my complaints with other note-taking tools is they are internet hungry. They are also resource heavy and sluggish on some devices. Joplin is neither.

Sharing Joplin Content

Wondering how you can share clipped content? You can take the notes Joplin has saved in your cloud storage and then serve them up. Even if you lack access to Joplin while on the road, you can view your markdown files. Navigate to a note and open it. Here’s the view:

You can open Joplin notes with the editor of your choice. On Windows 10, two of my favorites include MarkText and Typora. It works great with markdown and HTML conversions, but makes content easy to edit. Give it a try if you need a no-cost text editor with GUI aspirations.

If you’re wondering how expensive Joplin is, “No worries there, mate!” It is a free, open source tool available at no cost. Give it a try, you can’t go wrong with it. See their tutorial online at their website. You can learn more about Joplin at this TCEA blog.

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content curation
Web 2.0 Tool

Content Curation on Steroids with Wakelet

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Wakelet is a new, free ed tech tool that I think you should take a hard look at. It allows teachers (and students) to save and organize online content in any way you want. You can easily embed articles, videos, Tweets, podcasts, images, and pretty munch anything with a URL into a Wakelet collection. Why does this matter? Because with all of the information available to us today, it’s more important than ever that our students practice good content curation. Below are some ways you can use Wakelet in and out of the classroom.

Assignments

Educators are using the tool to set assignments for their students across many different subjects and courses. The students search the web to find relevant pieces of research and content to create a story or a narrative. They can add social media posts, videos, images, podcasts, and articles, as well as their own notes, which makes it the perfect platform to tell a story with content to back it up. You can see an example here.

With a Wakelet project, students are usually graded on the strength and depth of their research, and how well they have managed to create a narrative in their collection.

For Research Projects

It’s a great way to teach students the importance of research and encourage them to showcase information in a modern, logical, and visually engaging way. Their bookmarks can be organized and easily found using Wakelet’s filters. The tool can also be useful in helping students make sense of their research and get the big picture, as well as the details. Here’s an example of a Wakelet used for a research assignment.

Portfolios

Another use for students and teachers is using Wakelet as a portfolio. They can save all of their work and achievements into one place and showcase it to the people that matter the most. This can include any published articles (for journalism students), photographs, podcasts, videos, and even assignment documents. They can effectively create a digital CV using their Wakelet profile. Here’s a good example of a journalism student’s profile.

Share Tips and Resources with Others

In addition, if you’re a department head or an instructional coach, you can use Wakelet to create collections of related resources to share with your peers. Everything is easily organized and ready to use. Here’s an example of a collection by a kindergarten teacher that she shared with other K teachers and parents.

You can create a free Wakelet account with an email, Google, or Facebook account. Saved items can be reordered and text can be added to each of them. Collections can be kept private or shared with the world. There’s also a Chrome add-on as well as an iOS app. It’s all just so simple!

Some of the writing for this blog was done by James Davis with Wakelet. 

 

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Generation Z
Educational TrendsGood Teaching

Creating Snackable Content for Generation Z

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the current generation of students that we have in our schools, known as Generation Z, prefer their content in snackable chunks. They are looking for bite-sized nuggets of information that can be quickly consumed, understood, and shared. While we older folks may want to make fun of and perhaps even ignore this need, there is some research that shows that small bits of knowledge often create deeper meaning through references to shared stories or experiences. In other words, it works for them and their learning.

What Does That Mean for Today’s Teacher?

So what does that mean for teachers? How can you take the massive amount of knowledge that the standards say must be given to students and break it into manageable chunks that they will want to learn? And do that on top of everything else that you already have to do?

With a little planning, this isn’t too difficult. First, we need to really understand what is meant by “snackable.” Students are looking for content that looks like:

In other words, it’s something whose meaning can be grasped very quickly.

Old School Generation Z
Textbook Text message
Building slowly to a climax Attention grabbing
Dry Emotional
Takes time for the main point to sink in Meaning is grasped almost instantly

Creating Snackable Content for Generation Z

Once your students are somewhat familiar with the specific content/standards you want them to learn, then it’s easy to have them create their own bite-sized content and share it with others. But you have to first get them to that point. So here’s a possible process to follow to break a big lesson or idea into chunkable bites. I’m going to use the study of the Battle of the Alamo for my example in a Texas history class for seventh grade students.

Step 1: The teacher examines the standard that the students must master, making sure that she is very familiar with what is necessary to know about it. For the Alamo, although there is a lot students could know about the battle, the most important things are roughly when it occurred, why it occurred, and why it still matters today.

Step 2: With those specifics in mind, the teacher creates the first chunk. Start with an interesting data point, something that will grab their oh-so-short attention span. I created a quick graphic with my leading question for the unit (below) using Canva, a free graphics tool. The image is easy to view and the text is minimal, but emotional. It should grab their attention.

generation z

Step 3: The next step would be to get them into the unit. I would start by having them answer the question above using a collaborative tool like TodaysMeet or Padlet.

Step 4: Now, give them the content. Break them into groups and assign each a group a specific concept to cover. For the Alamo, this could be The Armies, The Leaders, Why They Fought, The Results, etc. I would provide them with information pieces like the ones below that are heavy on images and emotion. The students would also be able to search for their own graphics as well. The key to this step is to be sure that each group knows exactly what they need to end up with in terms of the content to know.

Step 5: After each group has presented their content (in whatever snackable format they wish), then give individual students an assignment that will assess whether they understand the key learning concepts you want them to know. This could be a formative assessment, a quiz, a project, a piece of writing, etc.

Step 6: Don’t forget about having students reflect on their learning and the learning process after this unit. I might go back to the original question of what they would be willing to do for and ask them to apply that question to a current event going on.

Some Final Tips

The time required to prepare this lesson is spent mainly in the planning part where the teacher must determine what is the critical knowledge that every student needs about that particular standard or concept. Once this is very clear, then it becomes easy to determine how to break that knowledge into chunks.

Notice that there was no direct teach going on by the teacher during this lesson. Direct teach would come in if a student or group of students needed additional help to understand the concept. This frees the teacher up to wander around the room helping as needed while the students are doing the teaching and learning.

To learn more about Generation Z, check out this blog about their characteristics and this blog about the use of explainer videos with them.

 

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questions
Good Teaching

Who’s Asking the Questions?

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

I saw a recent statistic that startled me. Teachers ask more than 400 questions a day (source). That’s a lot of questions! But it’s the accompanying statistic that really floored me. Ted Wragg’s 1993 research found that an average of just one spontaneous question each lesson came from the students, and that was more likely to do with procedure than with learning (source). So the “experts” who already know the content matter appear to own the learning as they control what questions are asked about it. That just doesn’t make sense!

There are a million reasons why students don’t display more curiosity in class. We’ve trained them to passively wait for the information we want them to have; they’re afraid of looking stupid in front of their peers; they don’t care about the content enough to ask; and more. That doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that the students should be directing the learning by trying to find answers to THEIR questions about the content. Which means that THEY need to be asking the questions!

In the Old Days

questionsIn the past, good teachers tried to get students more curious about the learning by having them complete a KWL chart. At the beginning of a new unit, this chart has a student make a list of what he already KNOWS about the topic, what he WANTS to learn about it, and then, after the unit is over, what he LEARNED.

While this was a good first step, it didn’t go far enough. And usually, once the first two sections were completed, the student didn’t look at the chart again until the unit was over. More importantly, the teacher often didn’t look at the questions the students had about the content or make changes to the teaching and learning activities based on those questions. So it became a pointless activity.

How to Get Students to Question

Today, we see the re-emphasis on student curiosity popping up in the maker movement and in Genius/Passion Hour. These educational trends show that, as educators, we recognize that students should be driving the learning and that this happens through the questions that they have about the content. So what can we do to get them more actively and continually question what they are learning?

  1. Before starting any new unit of study, show a short teaser video to get students started thinking about the content. YouTube is your friend here!
  2. Then break them into small groups (2 to 3 students per group) to brainstorm things that they want to know. Please note that the first few times you do this activity, the questions will be few and fairly limited. Questioning is an active skill that requires lots of practice to master. To help them practice, give them topics that are of great interest to them (like the latest action film, a new musical group, or a nearby attraction) and have them brainstorm questions they would like to ask about those topics.
    1. Make sure they know that there are no bad questions and that everyone’s questions may be different because the learning is different for each person.
    2. Emphasize that, while some questions will be easy to find answers to, others may still be stumping experts. And that’s okay!
    3. Also, be sure to share with them questions you still have about the topic. This lets them know that questioning is a lifelong pursuit.
  3. The next step is to help students learn to prioritize their questions so that they are actively searching for the most important answers. Generally speaking, there’s simply not enough time in the school day to answer all of the questions they may have, especially once they get rolling.
  4. Post the prioritized questions somewhere where everyone can see them throughout the unit. This could be on the board, on chart paper, or digitally.
  5. As the questions are answered over time, make sure to mark them off on the list and celebrate their answers. Recognize the student(s) who discovered the answer first and have him/her share how they did it. Then give the students a chance to add another question or two that may have come up since they started studying.

Learning should be a celebration of finding the answers to the questions that each of us have individually and collectively. As educators, we need to take a more active role in the classroom in teaching students how to ask good questions and in helping them discover their own answers. That may mean that we ourselves are talking a lot less and that, in fact, there may be more silence sometimes in our classrooms as students ponder what their own questions are. And isn’t that what learning is all about?

 

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MySimpleShow
Good TeachingWeb 2.0 Tool

Easily Creating Explainer Videos

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Having students (or teachers in professional development learning opportunities) create short videos that explain a key concept can be very powerful in terms of content mastery and retention. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to get lost in the video creation process with much less time and thought spent on the learning being showcased. MySimpleShow can change that.

What is MySimpleShow?

MySimpleShow is a free website that builds a simple slideshow of three minutes or less for you. You begin by answering a few questions so that a Storyline template can be found for you. Then you create your script. Next, the Explainer Engine automatically generates a storyboard for you to fine tune, along with recommended illustrations. (During this phase, you can also import a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation instead of writing, making it the perfect tool for flipped lessons.) And finally, you select your video speed and then publish to YouTube or download the video as an MP4. It’s just four simple steps, with the first three of them focusing on the content and not on the video itself.

MySimpleShowThe video is done primarily in black and white with hundreds of simple cartoon-ish illustrations provided. But you also have the option of uploading  your own image, logo, or text, if you wish. When it’s time for the voice over, you can upload a recording of you talking that is then automatically synchronized with the story or use the very sophisticated text-to-speech function that provides a voice over in seconds. This is a great resource for students with speech disabilities.

The finished product will have audio narration and some light background music, and your images will be timed exactly to the script, brought onto the screen by a pair of hands. In between slides, the hands will come back to sweep everything away and clear the screen for the next slide.

There are several examples available on their website. Here’s one introducing carbon dioxide. To use the site, a free registration is required, which means students will need to have an email address or a Facebook or Google account. And did I mention that MySimpleShow works on any device with Internet access?

How can MySimpleShow be used?

The possibilities for the use of explainer videos in school are almost unlimited:

  • Use them as part of a blended learning or flipped classroom strategy.
  • Introduce a new unit and grab students’ attention.
  • Encourage students to create them about things they’ve learned in a makerspace or during Genius Hour.
  • Have pairs of students create very short (one minute or less) videos as formative assessment to demonstrate what they already know about a topic.
  • At the end of a unit of study, learners can demonstrate their mastery through a video of key concepts, adding it to their portfolio.
  • Do a book review or character analysis with video.
  • Create a short video outlining common classroom procedures, such as using standard lab equipment or how to select a center activity.
  • Introduce students new to the school to what they need to know by having other students create videos that they can watch anytime.
  • When doing a book study or mastering a new technology skill, teachers in learning communities can create videos showcasing what they’ve learned. These can then become part of their portfolio.

What will you do with MySimpleShow? I’d love to hear from you!

 

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iPad apps
iOS Tips and Tricks

Must-Have iPad Apps for Content Creation

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

With more than 1.3 million iPad apps now available in the App Store, it can be difficult for a busy educator to find the best ones for a particular lesson or purpose. But don’t worry; with TCEA, you’ve got this! Below is our list of absolutely must-have iPad apps for when students (or educators) need to showcase their learning with content creation. The apps take a variety of inputs, from audio to stories to digital images, which is great for differentiation. And they’re all free!

Adobe Spark Video – Pick from over 25,000 beautiful, iconic images to show your ideas and Spark will automatically add cinematic motion and a soundtrack.

Doodle Buddy for iPad – A longtime TCEA favorite, this app lets you finger paint with thousands of colors and drop in playful stamps. It has lots of cool drawing tools: paintbrush, glitter, chalk, text, stencils, smudge, and more. You can also draw on photos and drawings of your own. The free version includes ads.

Popplet Lite – With Popplet, you can capture your ideas and sort them visually in real time. This app is great for mind mapping and brainstorming, along with creating galleries and class notes. The lite version limits you to just one popplet at a time saved.

Puppet Pals HD – Create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time! Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later. The free version includes one background/theme. There is also a newer version of the app called Puppet Pals 2.

Quipio – Create amazing messages in a poster format by adding your own photos or drawings and text. Very simple to use.

Shadow Puppets EDU – Easily create videos in the classroom. Students as young as five can make videos to tell stories, explain ideas, or document their learning.

Sock Puppets – Sock Puppets lets you create your own lip-synched videos and share them on Facebook and YouTube. Limited backgrounds are included; additional may be purchased.

TeleStory – This fun app lets you create your own TV show with a theme, script, digital costumes, animation, voice recording, and more.

Toontastic 3D – Toontastic is a creative learning tool that empowers kids to draw, animate, and share their own cartoons through imaginative play. Making cartoons with Toontastic is as easy as putting on a puppet show – simply press the record button, move your characters onscreen, and tell your stories through play! Once you’re done, Toontastic will play back your animation and voice as a cartoon for you to share with friends and family around the world. The free version contains one background/theme.

Trading Cards – Using the on-screen questions as prompts, students can create trading cards of real or fictional people, places, objects, historical events, vocabulary words, and more.

VoiceThread – Create and share dynamic conversations around documents, snapshots, diagrams, and videos — basically anything there is to talk about. You can talk, type, and draw right on the screen. The app is free with additional in-app purchases available. Five VoiceThreads may be made with this app.

And one more that’s not strictly educational, but certainly is fun and engaging and gets your creativity going. Let’s Create! Pottery HD Lite – I love this app! Making ceramics has never been more simple and fun. Become a true artist and create “one of a kind” pottery items and share them with your friends. The lite version contains fewer add-ons and decorations.

 

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Announcements/Important Dates

Planning Your TCEA 2017 Experience

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

If you are one of the lucky ones who’ll be attending the TCEA 2017 Convention & Exposition, it’s time to start planning your learning. With more than 1,000 sessions and workshops, waiting until the last minute to decide what to attend can be a big mistake. The good news is that there is a tool that can help you.

First, decide what your emphasis will be during the convention. While it can be fun to go and hear about a million different topics and resources, that can also result in haphazard learning and a feeling of being overwhelmed. Instead, determine where you most need to grow or what new technology implementation is coming to your campus and focus your learning on that. For example, if your campus is about to add Chromebooks to the classroom, then concentrating on that is an excellent way to tackle the convention. If you need to know more about Problem-Based Learning, then that’s what you should focus on.

TCEA 2017Once you have your focus planned, then it’s time to do some research. The TCEA convention offers in-depth learning opportunities on almost any topic in the edtech world that you might be interested in. But you have to know how to search out exactly what you need. To do that, you’ll need your computer and this TCEA website or the TCEA app.

There is a search feature on both the website and the app. Go there and type in the topic that you are interested in. I used “Chromebook” for my example. On the website, you’ll see all of the workshops, session, and poster presentations on that particular topic, followed by the exhibitors who match that keyword as well. On the app, the order is reversed with the exhibitors showing first, followed by the sessions. Clicking on any of the session titles will give you the description, date and time, presenter, and whether it is open to Premium or Basic registrants. In addition, if you log in, you can click to add the session to your schedule (this does not guarantee you a spot in the room; it simply puts it on your calendar) or share it with all of the other attendees or via Instagram or Twitter.

TCEA 2017

If there is a particular speaker that you desperately want to hear while at convention, you can also use the Presenters button on both the website and app and find out all of the times he/she is presenting.

Planning your time at TCEA 2017 will ensure that you make the most of all of the learning opportunities that are important to you, whether they are formal presentations, networking with new and old colleagues, talking with poster presenters, or visiting with exhibitors. So get busy making your schedule now for the best convention experience ever!

 

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iOS Tips and Tricks

Drawing to Learn on the iPad

by Diana Benner
written by Diana Benner

In a recent free-to-member workshop on integrating iPads into the classroom, I talked about the power of using drawings and illustrations to help students master both simple and complex concepts. When I think back to my time in school, I never took an art class, which is where most drawing activities would occur. However, today, drawing can be incorporated into any subject area. 

 

The Benefits of Incorporating Drawing into Your Classroom

There are so many benefits of incorporating drawing or sketching in your classroom. For example, it helps:

  • Develop students’ visual literacy skills
  • Develop students’ observation skills
  • Encourage creativity
  • Reveal student understandings and misconceptions
  • Make connections between observations and ideas.

 

iPad Drawing Activities

During the workshop, we used the free Doodle Buddy app in order to participate in some of the drawing activities. Any iPad drawing app can be used; however, the Doodle Buddy app is a favorite among the TCEA Professional Development staff. (Peggy Reimers explains her love for Doodle Buddy in the Get Your Picasso On blog entry.)

One activity we did centered around drawing conclusions. The participants in the workshop were to gather all available information as I read to them, reflect on past experience or knowledge to see if there was a connection with the present information, make inferences, and use the sum of what they knew to make a judgment about the situation. They then drew their conclusions using the Doodle Buddy app.App-Tasktic Cards

I created “App-Tasktic” cards for each of our activities, which contained the teacher lesson, as well as the student activity. You can view the sample cards of the drawing conclusions activity here. I think these will spark other activity ideas for you.

 

iPad Drawing Apps

As I mentioned earlier, Doodle Buddy isn’t the only app you can use. There are several iOS apps that can be used to incorporate sketching or drawing in the classroom. Below are a few:

 

TCEA iPad Resources

Don’t forget about some of the other iOS resources that TCEA has available for our members such as:

  • iPad App List – Find recommended apps for every subject area and concept.
  • iPad in the Classroom Group – In the TCEA Social Community, you can become a member of the iPad in the Classroom Group. Then, each day, you’ll receive an email with educational iOS apps that have gone free or on sale that day. You can save hundreds of dollars a year with this great member benefit.
  • App Evaluation Rubric – This rubric will help teachers evaluate apps they are considering for the classroom and is available to everyone.

 

What are some lesson ideas for your classroom that incorporate drawing apps? Please share in the comments below.

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iPad with keyboard next to a glass of tea
iOS Tips and Tricks

Sharing Via Your iPad Made Easy

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin
Are you and your students creating exciting content on your iPad, but encountering challenges to sharing it with others? Are you sick and tired of creating great video projects on your device, but then not being able to get them off of it? Find several rock-solid, proven approaches to getting content off your iPad, collecting student work, and easy ePublishing in this blog!

Join the ongoing TCEA Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) SkypeChat via your mobile device or online. Explore and share concepts at the intersection of teaching, learning, leading, and technology!

Approach #1 – Readdle Documents

You have to pay for almost every app on the iPad, but some of the best apps are free. One of those is Readdle Documents, a free, no-cost file manager solution. This versatile, all-in-one app provides ebook compatibility so you can read Google Docs ePubs (more about this below) that your students create,  the ability to access cloud storage (e.g. OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox, to name three popular choices), set your iOS device up as a server for easy access from your computer or other mobile devices, and a music player. You can also save web pages to PDF, get and save media files that Safari cannot handle, compress multiple files into one file with zip compression, and edit text files. It is a must-have app for iOS users!

“Documents is a robust document reader, media player and file manager for iPad. Why should you install Documents on your iPad? The application is super useful. A child could use it, but it can do so much that there is a 20-page guide to cover everything. With all this power, Documents is completely free (with no ads or in-app purchases).”
So what happens if you’re the teacher, have a computer, and want to quickly download a student project? All that person has to do is turn on Readdle Documents WiFi, then connect via the IP address or iPad name. Here are the settings you need to adjust:
General Tab: This tab covers security and protection. You can leave settings as is or enable Passkey lock or TouchID, as well as iOS Data Protection to encrypt your data. This is great if you’re saving confidential data on your mobile device. I like to think of it as a safety deposit box on your iPad to which only you have the key.
Wi-Fi Drive: Switch the “Enable Drive” setting to ON. If in a public environment, turn on “Ask for Password.”
Sync: If using iCloud, choose the appropriate Automatic Sync setting (e.g. WiFi) or disable it. Set “FastSync” for WebDAV to ON.
File Manager: Switch the “Show Photos” to ON. This will allow you to make copies of photos/videos you have in your Camera Roll/Photo Library. You may also want to turn on “Show Filename extensions,” “Show Recents,” “Show Photos,” and “iTunes Files.”
That’s all! Tap on “Close” to finish adjusting settings. When you or your student(s) connect, you will see a window like the following:
Once you are connected, you will see all the files on your iPad online in Readdle Documents. You can then download those files to your computer.

Approach #2 – Sync products via WiFi to iTunes

This approach works for apps such as iPen or ScribblePress that don’t allow you to easily copy their products to the Camera Roll, cloud storage, or email. Here’s how to do it:
  • Unplug each device without synching.
  • Provided you are on the same network, you can then open and close files on the class set from your computer.
Thx to Julian Coultas (Digital RoadTrip)

Approach #3 – Printing

There are not a lot of low-cost options for printing from an iPad app and saving that product (e.g. PDF) somewhere you can get to it. That’s why apps like Readdle’s Printer Pro, which is a must-have iPad app if you have to print, are raking in the dollars. I’ve tried several apps, and this one just works.The only workaround is to take a screenshot on your iPad. To do that, simultaneously hold down the On/Off switch at the top of the iPad, then a half-second later, press the round Home button. You’ll hear a “camera click” and the picture will be saved in your Camera Roll. At that point, you can take the image and use any of the other approaches shared above to get the image off your iPad.

Approach #4 – AirDrop

AirDrop allows you to “wirelessly send photos, videos, websites, locations, and more to a nearby iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac.” Apple has a nice tutorial online available.
While some may prefer AirDrop to the other approaches listed, my go-to remains Readdle Documents due to its ease of use and the ability to share with any device, including Windows computers and Chromebooks.

Conclusion

“Mr. Guhlin,” asked Ms. Rodriguez, a second grade teacher, “how can I get those videos off my children’s iPads?” Now you know several ways to help a peer. Remember that there are many ways to get videos, photos, and files on and off student iPads. Find the approach that works best for you!

Sidebar: Create eBooks with Google Docs ePubs Feature!

There’s now a new, free ePub creator in town that many of us have been eagerly awaiting: Google! In a recent blog entry, Google shares the following:

To make it easier for authors, publishers, and academic institutions to create works that can be consumed digitally, today we’re launching the ability to export Google Docs files as EPUB publications. Simply go to the File menu > Download as > EPUB Publication (.epub).

These Google Doc ePubs are easy to read and work great in Readdle’s Documents app, as well as on Barnes and Noble Nooks. You can also open them on your Amazon Kindle with the Aldiko app (how to load it onto your Kindle).

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Texas Gateway
Content AreasGood Teaching

Online Resources for the Classroom with the Texas Gateway

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

The Texas Education Agency recently announced the opening of the Texas Gateway, a free website filled with classroom-ready instructional resources for students in grades K-12 and self-directed professional development opportunities for teachers. The Gateway includes material for ELA, reading, math, science, social studies, and ELPS (English Language Proficiency Standards). While the content is aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards, the resources can be used by teachers anywhere.

The site is organized extremely well with a very powerful search engine, allowing the user to find needed content by subject area, grade level, content type (resource, binder, or course), or strand. You can also search by keyword. If you register for a free account, then you can also save your favorite content and create your own resource lists in the Gateway Dashboard. This allows you to easily sequence activities for the whole class or create differentiated learning paths for your students: RtI, PBL, small group instruction, and IEP goals. You can also subscribe for updates to the content and new professional learning opportunities.

Much of the content can be assigned to students through sequenced binders of instruction. This can include videos, activities, interactive exercises, quizzes, PDF documents, and more, making this resource even more valuable. All of the materials are organized around the Five E’s instructional model (engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate), which makes it easy to incorporate the right activity into the most appropriate part of your lesson plan.

This portal is a tremendous tool for any teacher, whether from Texas or not. And parents may also find it helpful as they work with their children on difficult topics. So be sure to take a look at the Gateway today. There is an excellent Getting Started Guide to help you.

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