Off to ISTE 2012 in San Diego

It's hard to believe just how quickly the school year has flown by and I am once again getting ready to travel to the ISTE 2012 Conference in San Diego, CA. This promises to be a great conference with the buzz about mobile learning and the flipped classroom. I for one am looking forward to meeting up with friends and colleagues and sharing ideas about how technology can enhance the lives of the students we work with. Of course there is always the Exhibit Hall which is packed with new and exciting gadgets and gizmo's which is always a blast to go through. I'm sure we will be seeing lots of iPad apps and accessories being hawked in the Exhibitor Hall along with interactive technologies that can help engage the students in our classroom. While I'm at ISTE please follow my blog for my thoughts about the conference and some new an exciting products that will be launched. You can also follow me on Twitter at #assistivetek

If you are attending ISTE 2012 Conference look me up- it would be great to meet and get a chance to talk!

Tweeting with ConceptDraw MINDMAP 7

While I was on vacation last week, I received a Press Release from CS Odessa about the release of the new MindTweet feature that was now integrated into to their flagship product ConceptDraw MINDMAP, and just today I had a chance to give it a try. Once you install the latest version of ConceptDraw MINDMAP V 7.1.0 you will now see the familiar Tweet icon on your toolbar. To start using the MindTweet feature you will need to authorize ConceptDraw MINDMAP to access your Twitter account which was quick and flawless. Once your account is authorized it is a cinch to use the feature to tweet directly from within ConceptDraw MINDMAP. Being able to tweet from within ConceptDraw MINDMAP is really a great idea and lets you get an overview of  what you have been tweeting. Having access to the brainstorming tool within ConceptDraw MINDMAP makes it a snap to quickly go from ideas to tweets with a click of the icon.

To get started tweeting from within ConceptDraw MINDMAP you simply type your tweet within a topic and then click on the Tweet icon on the toolbar. Once you do this the Tweet dialog box comes up where you can preview or edit your tweet before sending it. ConceptDraw MINDMAP also allows you to automatically place a check mark within the topic to give you a visual cue that it has been tweeted. If you have hyperlinked a URL to a topic it will also come over in the tweet which is handy. With ConceptDraw MINDMAP you can quickly create a dashboard for your tweets so that you can see how your campaign is coming along. It would be nice if in future release if you were able to set the date and time of when your Tweets were sent. Likewise it would be great if you could generate a ConceptDraw MINDMAP from a Twitter hashtag or from a particular person you are following. Overall, ConceptDraw MINDMAP does a great job of integrating tweeting and provides me with a dashboard for my tweets - which gives me a great overview within a powerful mind mapping application.

What Would Happen if Reading Was More Social?

It is hard to imagine my world without books yet for many students this is their reality. From a young age I could always remember my love for reading. For many, reading is a very personal and solitary activity. But things are about to change. You see it is now possible using eReaders like the Kindle to share ideas and engage others in the books that you are reading. With so many students engaged in the use of electronic and digital devices we have seen that the amount of time students are reading books has plummeted. Yet we know from a recent study ( 2010 Kids & Family Reading Report-published by the Harrison Group) that many students reported that they would be very interested in reading an e-book on an electronic device. Devices like the Kindle are very appealing reading devices because of all the built in features. Many students will enjoy the ability to change the size of the font or use the text to speech feature to have the book read to them. But from my perspective the Kindle opens up all kinds of possibilities for making reading a more social activity.

Now for a moment imagine that all of your students in your reading class had Kindles and were reading the same novel on their eReader. You with me so far? On the Kindle it is possible for the students to set up their social networks like Facebook and Twitter which would allow then to automatically post text they highlight in the book as well as notes they have taken on a particular passage. If all of the students have Facebook and Twitter accounts they can simply log into their accounts and view what their friends have posted about the book. If students use a simple # hashtag when posting their notes then it would be possible to search their Twitter accounts to see what everyone has posted. Likewise students could use a service like Tweetchat and with the hashtag have real time discussions about the book. Students would need to have access to WiFi to accomplish this, but as we move forward being able to utilize social networking to engage students in the reflection and discussion of the books they are reading can be a tipping point to more fully engage students in the reading process.Bring social networking into the reading process may just be the factor that keeps students engaged and coming back for more. I would be interested in your perspective so please leave comment.

Tweetchat- A New Twitter Service

I was reading some blogs today and Brent Schlenker had mentioned a new Twitter service called Tweetchat which sounded pretty interesting. In a nut shell you log into your Twitter account and then Tweetchat will automatically track tweets with a specific (#) hashtag. This really adds to the educational use of Twitter and allows multiple users to have an online chat in real time, discussing a topic. All users have to remember to do is include the hashtag somewhere in their tweet so that it can be tracked. The nice part of Tweetchat is the ability to quickly reply to a tweet and follow the thread of the conversation. I will definitely want to explore this new Twitter tool and see how I can use it in the work that I do to communicate with my graduate students.

Vidly- Awesome Video Tool for Twitter

I had a chance today to come across Vidly- which is a video tool that can be used with your Twitter account. Using your webcam you can record up to a ten minute video with Vidly, add your Tweet and off it goes to Twitter to post your message with a link to your video. You also have the option to upload a video in several different video formats. I found Vidly easy to use and completed my first Vidly video in minutes which is now posted on Twitter. You can also get the embed code for the video and place it on your blog or wiki and share it that way. You can watch the video in the post. What a great tool to use for educational purposes. Think of all of the ways you could use video in an instructional setting- it boggles the mind what you can do- even with an inexpensive webcam! In this video, I talk about using Papershow in the college library with my class. Enjoy!

Going it Alone with my Blackberry Curve

I just got back from a short vacation in Las Vegas with my family and I decided to leave my laptop at home and fly solo with my Blackberry Curve on the Verizon Network. As much as I like to always travel with my laptop, I would only be away for a short period of time and wanted to see what it would be like to rely on my Blackberry for accessing my email and the web in case I had to get in touch with clients. With the fall right around the corner, I needed to be in reach and be able to email my clients if they contacted me. As we all know Blackberry's are great for emailing and I was able to stay in touch and respond to several key email requests while I was away. While in Las Vegas I was able to look up some of the attractions using the web browser on my Blackebrry without a problem-with fairly quick response times on the Verizon network. Using Twitter on the Blackberry to keep up with things was fairly straight forward but on occasion the application did freeze my phone. Now that my Blackberry Curve is about 1 1/2 old you can sense that the processor in the Curve is under-powered, which at times causes the phone to crash. About the only thing that I wasn't able to do on my Blackberry Curve was to complete a PDF form that I needed to email to a colleague of mine. All in all, the Blackberry Curve really performed well and makes you question at times if you really need to carry your laptop when traveling. I knew that I would not have the need to do word processing or edit a spreadsheet on my vacation so going it alone with my Blackberry Curve proved to be the way to go. I would be interested in your experiences using your smartphone in lieu of toting your laptop or netbook with you.

Off to National Educational Computer Conference 2009

Yes- it is that time again- off to the National Educational Computer Conference 2009 in Washington, D.C. I will spend the next couple of days talking to exhibitors and educators and participating in one of the most exciting educational technology conferences. I admit going into the Exhibitors Hall is like be a kid in a candy store. Upon entering the Exhibitors Hall you are overwhelmed with the sounds and visuals as each vendor tries to attract you into their venue. I will have some time to meander in the Exhibitors Hall-but I do have a pretty full schedule of interviews set up with some of the top industry leaders that I am really looking forward to.

I just got finished packing my bags and I am sure you want to know what technology I will be taking with me to NECC 2009. While I am gone I will have my trusty Blackberry Curve to stay in touch on the Verizon Network. I will also have my Acer One, my lightweight and dependable netbook with me which you can throw into any bag and not really know its there. To round out my technology attache- I will have my Apple iPod, a Flip Digital Video Camera, and my Olympus digital camera with me. I will also be taking my Livescribe Pulse Smartpen to take notes and for my scheduled interviews. It should be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to seeing all of the latest and greatest new products that are announced and being demonstrated on the floor. With the Stimulus Funding coming down the pike, I'm sure that the vendors will be in a real positive mood and will go the extra mile to make our stay in Washington, D.C. a memorable one.

So to keep in touch while I'm at NECC 2009 you can follow me on Twitter. I will use the hash tag NECC as part of my tweets which you will be able to search. I hope to do some regular postings while I'm at NECC 2009 to keep you abreast of all the happenings. And by the way if you will be attending NECC 2009 shoot me an email maybe we can connect.

Twitter Surveys with SocialToo

We just can't enough of Twitter these days, can we? It seems that with every passing day there is a another Twitter tool of one sort or another that comes out to keep us plugged into our social network. I just came across SocialToo which is a very simple to use survey tool which you can automatically link to your Twitter account. With SocialToo you simply create a one question survey and click on the Share with Twitter button and your question is automatically gets posted to Twitter- pretty cool. I tried it out this evening and you can participate in the survey by clicking here. So give it a try and let me know what you think. If you have some favortie Twitter tools please leave a comment. If you would like to follow me my Twitter name is assistivetek

TwitterBerry for BlackBerry Curve

I have become a real fan of Twitter and am using it more and more to follow my colleagues and thought leaders in various fields. I have found it to be indispensable for following and tracking the latest trends in technology. Just recently I was able to follow the tweets for the DevLearn2008 Conference that I was unable to attend to keep up with the latest news from the conference. I'm sure you are finding interesting ways to use Twitter. Today I installed TwitterBerry on my BlackBerry Curve and now have full Twitter functionality from my smartphone. I tried it this evening with great success-now I have Twitter in the palm of my hands. You can Follow me on Twitter @assistivetek Hope to hear from you- so send me a tweet!

Twitter Acquires Summize

For all of your Twitter users you will be happy to hear that Twitter has acquired Summize a search engine which lets you search through Twitter for key words. I have been using it to track certain keywords that others are twittering about to keep up with the conversations. Try it and let me know what you think. I have found the Twitter Search engine to be very quick and returns very relevant twitter posts. Give it a try when you have the chance.