I have posted on my primary blog host a few times about my unhappiness with many of the changes that have been occurring on the site for the last few months.  The reduction of some services, (iTalkr among my favorites) restriction / reduction of widgets and a move for many of these services to accessible to only “supporters.”  That said, overall, I have enjoyed my last 2 1/2 years  blogging on edublogs.org.   I know I have not been the most dedicated blogger on their service (or blogger overall), but I hope that I have made a bit of a difference in at least a few of my readers lives.Every time I happen to look at my cluster map I can’t help but be impressed by the numbers of people who have stopped by to look at my often rambling thoughts.  Looking at it this morning, I still l have that sense of awe. It is humbling when I think it all started with this simple post back in January 2007.

The main goal I have one this educational technology blog is to separate my personal views, ideas, beliefs and interests from direct ties to my school and district.

The views expressed here are entirely my own and do not and should not be implied or directly represent or representative of any organization with which I am affiliated or associated.

Wow! Disclaimer out the way… Let’s have some fun discussing leadership, organization, technology, staff development, and of course educational technology!

- Convergence

Gees, this is feeling like a obituary… sorry about that.  While not an obit, this post is signaling an end of sorts… for the past few months I have been exploring other blogging and website hosts.  I have played with Microsoft Spaces, SquareSpace, Wordpress.com, Blogger, Edublogs “supporter services”, TypePad, as well as self-hosted options like Wordpress MU, and Joomla… For good or bad, for one reason or another I am landing on TypePad.  They do not have the most robust storage, but there is a consistence of service as well as support that I appreciate.  Additionally, while I am still in the process of setting up my blog, I found a number of features that I really am liking: Lists (introduced to those on my spaces account, glad to see they are part of TypePad), easy easy inbound RSS setup, social links, and more.  I know some might say all of those features ar in many of those options you looked at and that is true.  I just feel for me TypePad brought them together in a good easy to use package.

So, it is time for me to make the “jump” to a new blog host, my hope is that many or (hopefully all) of you will come with me to my new TypePad blog.  Additionally, one other thing has bothered me for years… my url… it was always too long or complicated (that was a huge knock against Microsoft Spaces, but my 25GB of storage and pulling a bunch of services together (file, photo, blog, social, made it tempting…) and there is a person in Missouri that holds the rights to just about every vanishingpoint domain until2013… so vanishingpoint.com was out… The fact that he is not doing anything with them makes it all the more frustrating… so I needed to land on something I thought would work and still be relatively part of me… nothing better than your name I figure! Say hello to scottweidig.com

You will still be able to find VanishingPoint, however, it will now be at www.scottweidig.com I am working with search engines to get the new url forwarded as quickly as possible and into their search results.

I do want to say thank you to edublogs.org for hosting me and for everything that they have done for educational blogging overall. Parting is not without great hesitancy or forethought.  I will maintain vanishingpoint.edublogs.org for a while to help my readers hopefully make the transition to the new site (at least I hope you will).

I am hopeful and optimistic about this new chapter for myself and VanishingPoint. I look forward to seeing everyone at www.scottweidig.com

Note: scottweidig.com should go completely live in about 24 hours.

Zoho Sheet - Ghosting Flights

This year really has seen little difference, We are running our hardware locations from an Access database, the hardware moves are being planned on a spreadsheet, our web development is in a Project, and we have used thousands of little pieces of paper and legal pads… However, the platform has changed a bit.  Instead of using Microsoft Products for most of the main applications, this summer we are using the Zoho Suite of applications to work a bit more collaboratively in some areas.  My Internet Assistant and I are sharing a Zoho Projects 2.0 file to plan her development for both our webserver upgrade and the development of our new site leveraging the Joomla content management system.  In addition, most of the work I have done to prepare lists for our hardware moves and re-purposing have been done by leveraging Zoho DB and Reports to create quick pivot tables and then print the underlying data. (I created the filtered multi-level pivot table for our outbound inventory in about 5 minutes in Zoho… as opposed to working for almost an hour in Access to create the same thing…) One other tool from Zoho we are leveraging is Zoho Sheet for the tracking and shared updating of our “Ghosting” (re-imaging) schedule (image above).

Now even though I have used the Zoho Suite for about 3 years, I am still far from digging deep into each of the tools overall, and this years push for Zoho to fully integrate their applications has really increased the ease of use and simplicity for integration into typical business practices.  I would really like to leverage more of their suite into my typical daily practices, but it is hard when the rest of the environment you work in is resistant to change.  In addition, since as a group overall (typical also in many many businesses) we barely scratch the surface of all of the tools and uses for the Microsoft suite of programs as well, so where is the draw to other tools in the average company especially when we/they are paying a good sum of money for Microsoft licensing…

Overall, the biggest benefit that I/we have seen for using the Zoho Suite of tools is the automatic collaborative nature of a “cloud” application.  I love the fact that I can be anywhere with an internet connection and a web browser and I have access to my files.  Depending on platform, (iPhone or computer) I can update those files as well.  It is also exciting that I/we are always using the latest version of a document regardless of who made the latest change AND we are not limited to being on our work network (hoping another person in NOT in the file we want to update at that moment). However, the real excitement is collaborating live and real-time in the applications.  This experience was the genesis for this blog post.

Yesterday we began imaging our entire building to prepare the computers for the beginning of the new school year.  In the past we have tracked this either on paper, or in an Excel spreadsheet (typically in Excel).  While Excel is great for tracking the various stages of imaging (a simple data dump from our inventory database and we are set) it is very limiting for real-time updates or even having more than one person in that file at a time.  So for this year, I opted to NOT do the usual.  As opposed to completing the data dump, (although I could have easily uploaded the information into Zoho Sheet as well) I decided to create a Zoho Sheet and began setting up our “Ghosting Flights” – the rooms to be ghosted at one time. Then I shared this sheet simply by entering my Network Specialist and Network Technicians email addresses and we were off.  While I created the initial structure and entered the initial classroom list, my NS saw that I had some o the flights crossing vLans (crossing vLans does not work well with Symantec’s Ghost – it often quadruples the imaging time making a 40 minute image take 5 hours to complete if it does at all…) so he simply modified the flight room assignments to accommodate, and they were off ghosting with my NT always having the latest information as opposed to having saved a previous version and operating off old information.

I mentioned real-time updates… Here is the experience I had this morning.  For the past week most of my family has been ill and I am at crunch-time at work to get everything ready.  As such, I have been leaving at about 5:30am to get to work an arriving back home between 6-7pm… Needless to say it has been a it stressful in the household for my wife having to hold everything own (figuratively and literally) when I have not been there for support.  So, while Trish slept in this morning, I was giving my sons a bath.  However, two of my staff members were at school working to make a dent in the afore mentioned ghosting of the school classrooms.  Aside from feeling a bit guilty or both my work-life and home-life, I wanted to check in and see how things were going without interrupting the process.  Because we are leveraging Zoho sheet, all I needed to do was to open the shared Ghosting Flights sheet that we are using and viola! I have all the information I needed at my fingertips.  I could never have done this using Microsoft Excel (maybe next year with Office 2010 but that is a future post).  As a side benefit, Zoho Chat has been integrated into most of the Zoho Suite of apps, so I was able to have a quick chat with them for a few minutes to clarify some of the things I was seeing… All in all, PRETTY COOL!

Note: cross-posted at http://scottweidig.spaces.live.com

Over a typical summer I spend 350-400 hours working over the 10 week summer vacation… unfortunately, this also includes 1-2 week completely off for a much needed rest, so if you do the math, the remaining 8 weeks or so I am working about 45-55 hours a week…. Not so much bonding time there with the family you can imagine.  I don’t really know what made the difference this year, whether it was the fact that my family and I did not really plan a big vacation, my wife signed me up to be a coach for Joshua’s baseball team, the fact that I have two sons now, and just for sanity sake (both hers and mine) I need to rescue Trish more… of maybe, I am just getting old… But what ever it is, I am finding that I am making a connection with my family in ways I have not been able to before.

I can say confidently that there is one difference that I am very conscious of: I am MUCH happier when I do NOT have a expectation of getting “something” done.  You can replace “something” with anything you want: ‘getting all the yard work done,’ ‘finishing the painting,’ ‘going to “X” by a certain time,’ ‘reading,’ ‘working, or doing work for my job,’ ‘getting the boys to bed on-time,’ etc.  Once I have an expectation, I am NOT happy with delays or “waiting” or not being able to finish the “task” because I “need” to do something else first or someone else wants me to finish something in an order different from how I imagine it should go… whatever that expectation is that I have created in my mind becomes the overriding rule to my mood, happiness, sense of accomplishment, you pick the positive adjective here… While I know that this is happening, and I cannot consciously stop it once it is in motion, at least I am aware of it, and can leverage this to work toward being in the moment and really happy doing anything that comes before me more often than not.

That said, I am by no means perfect at recognition or at moderating my attitude once I become cognizant of my “expectations,” but just being aware helps me to keep from setting those false expectations in the first place… this in-turn really frees me up to really enjoy living in the moment as opposed to looking towards something else or back on what didn’t happen when it was “supposed” to…

Those “quiet times” that I am experiencing are become more and more frequent and much more rewarding for me and my family.  I still stay plugged in to the works and all of its demands on my time, and my “required” obligations, but i am getting to spend more quality time enjoying my family.

How has this translated into practice you might be asking:

• Getting back to work, I am now taking 1-2 days partially or completely off each week (often Friday’s to give me a 3 day weekend with my wife and boys).  Additionally, when I arrive home after work, I leave work behind, at least until the boys are asleep, and I have spent a little time with Trish, even if we are just sitting watching television. I work to be less strict about “bedtimes” for the boys over the summer as they are not forced to get up with me at 5am, but I still try to keep them from really hurting themselves due to lack of sleep… (Just because they can sleep til noon does not mean that I want them too…)
• In relation to my family, I am working to just “be” with the boys… to get lost in that sense of wonder and adventure that only a five year old and (almost) two year old can have and create in their minds and personal universe.  With my wife, I get lost in spending quiet time with her, and being open to sitting when I want to move, and moving when I want to sit.  I have always enjoyed going with her to stores (especially when I got my first data enabled smartphone and then my iPhone) not because I like shopping… frankly I hate it, but because I like being with her.  the iPhone just makes the waiting outside the dressing rooms more bearable (unless we are in Victoria Secret, then waiting is just fine… ;0) Ok, I couldn’t resist… I know that was wrong, but I had to include it =0)
• In relation to the educational community I am part of, and enjoy… I am finding that really to find balance I don’t need to unplug from everything I want to learn about… I just need to unplug from the community from time to time… This is not to be hurtful, or demeaning to those of you who really find solace in this wonderful group we run with… But, I am writing this as a suggestion to find a balance with your family, NOT this group…

These are only my rantings and feelings, however, many… many… people have told me and I am finding this to be a FACT not a perception… our children really DO GROW UP TOO FAST.  I can remember when Joshua (then 4) was wearing a shirt to go see Noah for the first time after Noah was born… Now Noah is almost 2 and wearing that same shirt… Where did the last two year go?  Joshua is starting kindegarten this fall.  I re,member when he was just coming for the first time to my school to attend pre-school classes when he was 3.  Joshuan is learning to ride a bike without training wheels, and Noah is trying to ride a tricycle… what happened to them crawling and needing help to do that.  Make no mistake, I am a very plugged in Dad.  I get my boys up just about every day, and I typically am the one that puts them to sleep.  I go to the doctor with them and to the movies, I play for hours with them, but I feel sometimes like they are growing everything I blink or am away from them for a few hours.

Again, this is just my perspective, but I see MANY MANY education community members who are SO plugged in… So, so, SO, plugged into this wonderful community they actually provide / pass along MORE information, write more, participate more, twitter more, facebook more, during holidays, winter – spring – summer break and other times where school is out of session.  When I inquire about that, their typical response is, “that is the only time I can get caught up on what I want to “publish, share, contribute, read, write, meet up, you insert your reasoning here.”  Frankly, intellictually, I completely understand those arguments, but I am finding more and more those “excuses” to be connected with a personal and pre-dominently virtual community to be hollow weighing it against the benefit and need of being connected with our families.  Spending time rolling down a hill with our children.  Getting lost playing “Indiana Jones” or even hide and seek.  Watching an ant hill, chasing “birdies” or squirrels. Spending time AT the store with our family as opposed to “getting through the store.” Playing during “tub-time” as opposed to waiting to get them washed… Changing plans 10 times at the whim of a five year old, and then just walking or finding the “ice cream man.”

I honor and respect every one of you.  I have learned more from this community in the past few years than I have through most of my formal schooling… but right now I am thinking it is more important for you (and me) to be teaching our OWN children and more so learning from them how to enjoy life again.  If this feels heavy handed, I can’t apologize at this time.  Maybe in the future when we are in the rat-race AGAIN I will beg for forgiveness, but as for now, I want to hear from you, I want to learn what you know, but I want it to be about empowering your own families, about great spots to spend time with your family, about what you are learning from letting go as opposed to being plugged in… Oops… time to go, there is a pillow fort / mountain that is calling my name.

~Scott

Alright here we go… since I used examples as opposed to a concrete presentation the six topics below begin to flesh out the information that we went through in the session.  Additionally, I will continue building out each topic as I have been lax in that area.  Links to the expanded information are below this post.

Now this by NO means is planned to be a complete list, an expansive list, or even dare I say it the “best of the best” but they are good solid resources that should help to guide folks in a direction. Remember there ARE and will always be alternatives.

However, I do recommend settling on a set of tools and growing with them until you really outgrow them. So, to avoid feeling overwhelmed, look to see where you feel you need a tool to help simplify what you do, enhance what you do, and or expand what you offer.

On to my choices.

[side note: while writing this post I came to the conclusion that I need to break out each of these resources into separate posts to provide more information as well as links to possible educational uses to add value to the WHY should you add these types of resources to your arsenal of learning and teaching tools.]

Additionally, I wanted to provide a category for each set of resources so if the one I mention doesn’t meet your needs you can do a quick search to find another. As an overview, I would recommend getting an online resource for: office applications, bookmarking, photo sharing, RSS newsreader, notebook / annotation, tagging, and social networking. If you look hard at this list, it becomes apparent that most (if not all) of these resources can be handled by offline Microsoft products (IE, Outlook, OneNote, Live Photo Gallery).

The main reason I recommend moving these resources online is for the flexibility it provides YOU the user. I’ll come right out and say it… I AM A HUGE FAN OF MICROSOFT, however, that said, I HATE being tethered to one machine (although you will rarely find me without my tablet). With resources floating in the ether you can access them from anywhere there is an internet connection. If you don’t think that this is important ask yourself a couple of questions: Have you ever really needed a link that you know you saved on your home or school computer and now you are somewhere else? Have you had your personal computer crash the day before a huge presentation / project was due? Have you wanted to connect with others about a topic but did not know where to begin? Well… yes you need to begin moving into the “cloud.”

Social Networking:

twitter – By far twitter has become the one tool above all else that all educators should become involved with. A brief description is that twitter is a microblog… your life in 140 characters or less in the moment that it is happening… but it is so much more. It has revolutionized and become a huge piece of my personal learning network. The amount of targeted and useful instructional information I get from my twitter network is staggering. So much so, I have created a folder in my favorites called “Twitter Links to Review” as I cannot get to everything in real-time… feel free to add me to your network my twitter handle is vanishingpoint

Online Office Suites:

Zoho.com is my choice for office productivity in “the cloud.” The folks at Zoho have created a HUGE suite of applications that well… all work! Writing, Spreadsheet, Presentations, wikis, project management, databases, an online NOTEBOOK and much more. The biggest reason that I really am taken with Zoho is both the integration of their tool set as well as their focus on collaboration. Additionally, they are continuously expanding their offerings. Did I mention that all of their apps are FREE!

RSS Aggregator (reader):

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a tremendous way to simplify your processes in searching and gathering information. In short, once a “feed” is setup, information comes to you as opposed to you hunting for it. My choice of RSS Reader is NewsGator. With NewsGator is pull in news stories from around the world as well as educational and instructional blogs. Additionally, most magazine type services (and all search engines) have RSS feeds embeded into their sites that you can tap into. This type is resource allows you to become a “grazer” of information as opposed to a hunter of information. One of my main criteria for an RSS aggregator was that it would function both online and via a mobile device. The majority of time I access NewsGator through my Motorola Q Global via NewsGator Go!. Additionally, NewsGator allows me to “Clip” a post or piece of information that I find valuable and save it permanently. This is huge as it keeps me from having to use an additional service like Furl for that purpose.

Bookmarking:

I have used Del.icio.us for about a year, and have been very happy ALWAYS having access to my bookmarks and important links. Additionally, with del.icio.us’ use of tagging, I don’t really have to remember the exact name for resources … just a “category” or idea that I have “tagged” the site link with, and poof it is there… even better, I can pull ALL the resources I have tagged with a certain word at one time… and I can share them, and receive links from others in my personal network. The idea of social bookmarking is not new (we have all shared bookmarks and links with friends in the paper world… del.icio.us brings speed and efficiency to this process. Lee Lefever has a great video that explains social bookmarking well.

Recently there has been a TON of twitter traffic about Diigo. While I have not used it at all, I am beginning to investigate it and its possible uses. Kristin Hokanson wrote an excellent blog post called Dig-ging… Diigo today about the power and value of Diigo which provides compelling reasons to switch and consolidate a number of resources to Diigo… Here is a link to my new Diigo profile.

Photo Sharing:

I absolutely LOVE Flickr! Flickr like others allows anyone to upload photo and share them with family, friends, and or the world. I use the camera in my Motorola Q Global daily, and mms my photos immediately to flickr (and a number of other folks) through my phone. This way my family around the world can see my kids and the things I am getting involved in well… daily! My flickr account is even linked to my blog… look to the left to see what pictures I took today

NoteBook:

If you have used Microsoft OneNote, or have wished that you could move ANY type of information into a digital notebook that you can annotate, enhance, or share, you really need to look at Zoho Notebook. Think of it as a digital three-ring binder that you can put ANY information, resource, tool (live or static) into. You can then collaborate with other on it, or share the entire notebook, a page, or even an object with anyone! You can even publish it for the world to see. Here are a couple of examples from notes that I took during a conference sessions at IL-TCE 2008. Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 (Example 3 shows quite a bit of the capabilities of Zoho Notebook).

This post has grown exceeding long and I an exceedingly tired… If you have thoughts or comments, I am welcome to all views!

Scott

Photos from Flickr: Dazed81, just Mike is fine and Lady Ying

Related Posts:

• In the Cloud Expanded – Part 1 Professional Social Networking
• In the Cloud Expanded – Part II RSS Aggragators
• Digital Notebooks for Research, Clarity, and Organization

Right now here is the partial agenda / topics I have for the session:

• Overview of the differences between XP and Vista
• How to choose a Vista Version
• New helpful features in Vista
• How to find and organize your data in Vista
• How to move your old files and data to your new Vista PC
• Demonstrating new entertainment and sharing applications

Session Notes and Information will be maintained in a Zoho Notebook.  You can click here for the notebook (still in development).  Additionally, I will be embedding the notebook on the presentations page of this blog and into the VP Wiki.

I am still going back and forth on building out my own information or leveraging most of Microsoft’s own website.  Also, I am a bit concerned about copyright violation even just screen clipping from my Vista installation…

Finally, I will be uStreaming the entire session at: VanishingPoint (Not sure if I will have chat capabilities through the Mount Prospect Public Library so I may be streaming via BYOB through my Motorola Q Global.)

~Scott

We had a few goals for the sessions:

• Concept Exposure: We wanted to introduce a number of concepts (and tools) to them, and we really wanted to stress that when leveraging technology in curriculum DO NOT focus on the tool… focus completely on the concept and skill you are introducing and let that drive your “tool choice.”
• Investigation: We needed to provide both time and the incentive for participants to learn the concepts and then encourage (sometimes force) them to explore and experiment with various tools that might fulfill the concepts…
• Direction and Commitment: We did NOT want this to be a typical  “sit and get” with little or no follow through to actually put what you learn into practice. i.e. really make at least one of these concepts truly integral to their personal professional learning or to their classroom.
• Repository: We wanted to have a repository for the participants not only to reference, but to provide practice and to help build out as a future resource… enter: Web20School

I can’t speak for the participants, but I can speak for Mike Bachrodt and myself and I am happy to say that the last four days have been a joy and we have one more left!  I can also say that all of the wonderful teachers we have attending the sessions have gone from amazingly overwhelmed to focused, passionate learners each with a different concept and tool set that they are excited to find all of the nuances of bring into their lives and classrooms.

Here is some of what they have discovered and created:

ToonDoo was a hit!  Here is the first comic of Karl Craddock (scroll left and right)

Samantha Serrano and Jim Nowak blogging

This really has been an amazing week!  I am looking forward to tomorrow and a bit sad at the prospect of the week ending.

Live Blogged: Please pardon the incomplete thoughts, omissions, and or errors.

Kelly Doubek  and Anna Beard

How to evaluate software or tools by breaking them down to along literacy goals.

Reading to learn: Reading and writing across content area

Project CRISS, PowerUP, etc

What are your District’s current reading Initiatives? How is technology supporting reading initiatives?

• Data Tools
• Online Assessments
• Student Practice and Skill Reinforcement
• Others

All tools must have a data component to be useful. 

Phonemic Awareness and Phonics (20in)- MUST HAVE MEASUREMENTS AND WHERE THE KIDS ARE GOING.

(Interesting note: data shows more than 20 minutes is not having and more of an impact on student achievement.

• If you are looking to have a tool to assess you need:
• Letter symbols and letter sounds?
• Is there a sound component?
• Is there a continuum of skill included?
• Is there a pre/post assessment included?
• Are student responses, time on task, etc. reported?

Free Tools – Kidspiration, PowerPoint, Kid Pics

Do teachers know how to take student data and then look at the assessment data and beable to find a site or lesson to support the kids?  Is your staff Development supporting this?

Fluency (has not been a focus in the past) (10-15min only)

Is is practicing rate or just accuracy… does it involve comprehension? Expression and phrasing? What software have a sound component?

PowerPoint – Can be used as a fluency tool.  You can record SOUND for fluency

Vocabulary

• Syllables, spelling patterns, high frequency words, word origin
• Is it building "Tier 2" (More descriptive) words? What are they measuring

Tablet PC’s

"Color Shock… using color to dissect the words.How are they using the technology at hand?

Comprehension

Is the text appropriate? If there a variety of genres? Is it measuring both literal & inferential comprehension? (Often there is LOW level comprehension questions…

Kelly will be doing an Administrator Academy on "Going beyond RTI" I will try to keep apprised of the session and get the dates and times in the future..

What tools are out there for free…

Anna Beard – Wireless Generation http://free-reading.net

Literacy is Priceless Blog

Free-Reading – Open Source early education will be K-3 by early summer Has a population of 273K users in 173 countries. Based on a mediawiki platform

Currently showing that teachers can upload lessons and place comments on the materials to build community.

Artists and musicians are now communicating with free-reading.net and providing art and music to align to literacy and vocabulary.

Check this out! It is a song by a group called Flocabulary on the free-reading site.  It is a vocabulary lesson rap about a Chipmonk.      

Related Posts

SOoooo… you know how you learn things by doing? That is what happened. here. I hope that you find my stream of consciousness appealing: (17min – 4mb)

Show Notes

• Idea of apathy and involvement
• Crushing feeling of being overwhelmed by classroom, parent, and community initiatives /
• Teacher Professional Development – Lack of personal initiative
• It there a linkage between student apathy for learning and lack of teacher intrinsic value in personal life long learning?
• Is there a linkage to the need to provide a “reward basis” for student learning with the need to provide a “reward” for educator professional learning?
• When will we move beyond the excuse of “lack of time”?

References made

• Darren Draper & Robin Ellis
• OpenPD
• Steven Covey – The 8th Habit
• Dean Shareski
• “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” – Richard Carlson

What I learned

• Hold the phone like speaking on a phone to greatly improve quality.
• Have quick sheet for focus of thought
• Think of linkages to other topics / best practices / leadership
• Possibly speak more slowly?

Related Posts

from tag staffdevelopment

• Charlotte Danielson’s framework on changing staff accountability

from tag professionaldevelopment

• Raise Your Hands (Techlearning blog)
• Ustream.tv – OpenPD
• PD 2.0: It’s All about Building Community (Techlearning blog)

from tag learning

• Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Digital World — Open Education
• CASTLE – Home
• eSchool News – SIIA: Get K-20 vision in focus
• The Blog Police Hits the Blogosphere
• eSchool News – Experts: Ed tech must change its message

(more..)

I left a long comment and it got me thinking about my use of Zoho’s myriad of applications and how they might be better used in conjunction with embedding, for classrooms projects and collaborations.  For those of you who do read my blog, you already know that I am a big fan of the folks at Zoho and all they have done "in the cloud." But, I am also a big fan of Microsoft and all of it’s products and the interoperability of their tools set.  I am a huge fan of Office 2007 and OneNote 2007 is about the the best resource any individual and group can have. However, Greg’s post stirred my creative thoughts, and I am currently warring with a paradigm shift my brain is trying to undergo.

At one point in his post Greg made the comment:

Today, I had a chance to try to embed a Gdoc (word file). No luck. Google doesn’t give you an embed code, only a link to a webpage. I wasn’t happy with this  as I want everything inside the security of Moodle. So, I tried Zoho.com, and they DO provide an embed code, not only for their writer, but also their spreadsheets (they may do this for other types,  I haven’t tried it out yet). My co-teacher was really excited about the spreadsheet because when you embed the spreadsheet in a Moodle web page, students can enter data right there online, and there is a link to download to excel right there.

Regarding Zoho… ALL of their apps have an embed feature. every darn one of them!  Anything that you can create in Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show, Creator, Projects, DB, Notebook, Planner, and Chat can be shared, collaborated upon, and embedded into other resources … That is an amazing set of interoperable tools that are all "in the cloud."  Additionally, last December (2007) Zoho leveraged  Google Gears giving Writer the ability to edit offline as well as online.  This allows you to take 15 documents offline, edit them, and when you are back online, they will sync back to Zoho’s servers. 

I  really like the ability to move into and out of all of the applications with ease, as well as the ability to bring some Zoho apps into other Zoho apps…

With Zoho Show you can even conduct remote presentations where your clients / viewers can "login" to the presentation anywhere in the world and you can conduct a presentation controlling the slides for everyone at the same time. Pretty cool.

Let’s look at a some educational opportunities:

With Greg looking at Moodle for security options I will use that as a springboard for the ideas below.

Think of this for a class activity. Have your class collaborate in groups in Zoho writer… then they can embed the doc in Moodle… Now what they are collaborating on is a review guide for each of your units… each person in each group takes turns updating each day and if they want they can be in the doc at the same time. Now at the end of the unit, all groups have a tailored review sheet. The best part is:

• With the shared doc you can see the additions/edits/changes by each with history…
• With the embed each time there are changes the entire group sees it immediately
• If you want you can set up the groups to restrict or allow access to the others “view” to compare.
• With the google gears link they don’t even have to be online to access/update. Next time they are online it will automatically update.

Note: you can do the same thing with a Zoho wiki when you show them RSS etc… (no Google gears yet but they do allow backups to local drive)

Now, do that with presentations as well… with the embed you can watch the presentation grow and then make the Moodle page active when your students are active presenting… no “projects” left at home / bad disk / etc

Now, considering a digital portfolio for your kids for the year? Step into the world of Zoho Notebook… You can embed all of their docs, presentations (Show), sheets, plus text / video / audio / ENTIRE LIVE WEBSITES / research for building each of those… EDIT AND UPDATE Writer, Sheet, Show RIGHT FROM WITHIN THE NOTEBOOK!

What to hear a really cool twist. Once everything is in a Zoho Notebook, you can “share" the notebook with read or read/write access (group editing / review)… and you can embed the entire darn notebook into Moodle! How about that for digital learning, archiving, portfolio management… and the best part update any of the originals and poof the Notebook and all else is up to date!

Here are a couple of examples of Zoho Notebook’s capabilities.

My Notes from IL-TCE 2008 Lucy Grey’s "Going Global" Presentation Notebook

Here is a Notebook I created: Think of the Possibilities

Can Google Docs do that? 

Zoho Rocks… oh and some of the Zoho apps have Skype and or chat capabilities built right in… You need any help or ideas/thoughts just drop me a line.

Scott

Related Posts

RSS in Plain English from Common Craft

As you can see, RSS keeps you from having to hunt for information … especially from sites that you frequent often to gather information. This saves time and energy and focuses your attention on evaluating information and choosing whether to delve further into researching a specific topic or simply moving on to other more relevant information.

At this point it comes down to a choice of which RSS Aggregator is the right fit for you. As I mentioned in my previous post:

My choice of RSS Reader is NewsGator. One of my main criteria for an RSS aggregator was that it would function both online and via a mobile device. The majority of time I access NewsGator through my Motorola Q Global via NewsGator Go!. Additionally, NewsGator allows me to “Clip” a post or piece of information that I find valuable and save it permanently. This is huge as it keeps me from having to use an additional service like Furl for that purpose.

There are a number of other RSS Aggregators (Readers) out there. Some carry a $ cost with them others are free. Below is a brief list of a few of the more popular Readers (all free):

You also have other RSS Reader options. Most “portal” sites like Microsoft Live, iGoogle, MyYahoo, Pageflakes, and Netvibes (among others) have RSS Aggregators as a part of their functionality. I believe that Facebook and mySpace even have RSS widgets. Most likely the email client you already use has RSS capabilities… Additionally, the MAC OS and Microsoft Vista have desktop widgets that allow for RSS feeds to be displayed… get the idea that that RSS is all over out there, you just need to be open to a better way of pulling information to you as opposed to going to get it?

Now all you need to to is create an account with one of these services, and then start gathering “feeds” into your RSS Reader. Here are a couple of criteria that I like to use when trying to choose RSS Readers:

• How easy is it to use?
• Can I organize the feeds into folders or categories?
• How easy is it to add a feed? Does the service have a “wizard” of some sore that helps me find a feed on a page? (NewsGator does this well – all I need to do is put in the site URL and NewsGator hunts the site to try to automatically find and subscribe to the feed.
• Can it be used online and offline (this is key for me in case I have time but not a connection to the internet?
• Can it be accessed vie a mobile phone… either via the web or an application? This was the sell for NewsGator for me. With the link to NewsGator Go! I always have my RSS on my Motorola Q Global. When I read in either format, the service automatically updates both NewsGator and NewsGator Go! I can even add RSS feeds from my mobile.
• Is there a “toolbar” feature that makes it easy to subscribe and get to my feeds? (see picture below)
• Is it visually appealing? (vain, but if I am going to be looking at something repeatedly, I want it to be nice )

On to educational uses.

First and foremost, it should be something that you use for a while to get the feel for it and develop a good comfort level. Plus you may change readers a couple of times. Be careful, as Lee Lefever said, it does get addicting. Also, be comfortable with simply marking “All Posts Read” to get caught up and pay attention to recent updates… (I think I have 1600+ unread in the last couple of days… I will never get through that, but important issues will again bubble up to the surface for review.)

How about this for a classroom use: Think about how you have students research the internet right now… Typically, a teacher schedules 3 days in a computer lab all devoted to “research.” (Or two days of research and one for pulling it all together) Students do a lot of things with that time… some of it is even researching their topics, however, there is also a great deal of just gathering information without any true evaluation of the source or even the material they find. Additionally, often students take the path of least resistance and only click through the first five Google links. Then they cut and paste this information into a PowerPoint or some other tool. Finally they read from the screen along with the rest of the class when presenting… Sound familiar?

How different could it be if this was how the research went like this? Two weeks before you are set to begin an inquiry based project you schedule one (1) (<- see that ONE) day in the lab for research. The students would have had an RSS Aggregator set up in the beginning of the year or you take the first five minutes of class for them to register with your favorite. Now you have the students begin researching current relevant topics through news agencies and blogs… using delicious and technorati as search vehicles… doing google searches and ONLY grabbing the RSS feed for the topic. Now all of the information that is returned is NOT REVIEWED AT THIS POINT but, put into the RSS Aggregator to be allowed to continue to collect for the next two weeks. Perhaps you have them work a bit to create folders to categorize some of the information on the fly like:

• Background information / Google search RSS
• Relevant News Stories
• Blogs and other first person accounts
• Misc.

Then when the hour is over, you all go back to your regularly scheduled classes for the next two weeks. However, during this time the RSS Reader is chugging away gathering more and more information related to the topic of the students choice. When it comes time for the inquiry based project to begin, you bring the students back to the lab, and they now begin to use and develop their skills at “grazing” information, evaluating the relevance of the information in their reader, the credentials of the source of the information, digesting the information and what type of impact it would have on their project. They would also begin the process of evaluating presentation vehicles… how will they present this information so all of their peers, parents, and teachers best understand and be impacted by the message they are working to get across…

How much different of a learning experience would that be for your students?

Other Thoughts:

On an aside while you can do group work with RSS through Google Reader, with each having their own account account, there is the potential that a group RSS Reader would need to be set up, or to expand this you actually use a Ning or a tool like Diigo to build in a social aspect and greater collaboration. Or even a tool like a shared Zoho Notebook for data gathering and presentation.

Hope you are thinking about other ways to embrace RSS for your personal learning environment as well as the advancement of student learning and achievement.

Scott