They wanted mobile learning… tell ‘em to check you out now!
I’m going to keep this is brief as possible, but it’s a doozie. In true ninja fashion, I am going to put together a few different styles I’ve gone over in this blog, and I’m going to show you a way to use your mobile device to truly teach and learn. Have you been paying attention? How is your digital kung fu?
This. will. be. huge.
Right now I have the ability to speak a quick 5-10 minute lecture into my phone like I’m leaving you a voicemail, have it show up on students’ mobile phones, and then receive their responses back via text. It’s free, it’s doable, and in a minute you’re going to know how to do it too. It’s, somehow, in a weird gray area, the perfect blend of synchronous and a-synchronous teaching and learning. And kids take to it like a duck to water -no training necessary.
Here is a brief anecdote on how Master Fu (and you too!) can use this amazing new style:
Master Fu is driving down the road when something in his content area strikes him like an educational lightning bolt. He picks up his phone, and he calls the saved contact he has for drop.io. He records his educational, pontifical, amazingly serendipitous, all-encompassing epiphany in the drop.io voicemail as a simple recording. Drop.io, his most excellent assistant, records the voicemail as .mp3 and then tweets out the file’s unique URL through Master Fu’s twitter account. The URL link lands on Master Fu’s blackboard course in his embedded permanent announcement for all his students to see. At the same time this is posted in his class, students who have subscribed to Master Fu’s twitter feed via sms get the same link on their mobile phones. They are able to download and listen to the golden nugget of wisdom Master Fu has most honorably recorded. At the end of his recording, he asks for students’ responses via text or email. They text him back immediately, and everyone exchanges short sms conversations. Their names are associated with the text messages in his phone, because he has his google contacts set up with students’ names and he’s using the handcent texting app. Later that night, Master Fu can look through the text messages and log the contacts, but right then and there, Master Fu has most honorably achieved the Flying Turtle Style -a totally mobile learning experience… look it up. Flying turtle = mobile learning. Trust me; I’m a ninja.
Here’s how:
1. Create a twitter account that is solely for your students here: https://twitter.com/signup
2. Because you probably have more than one twitter account now, load Tweetdeck on your computer from here: http://www.tweetdeck.com/
3. Because you have more than one twitter account, you’ll also need something that manages multiple accounts on your phone too. I use hootsuite on my Nexus One.
4. Using a previous post from this blog, you should be able to follow the instructions and add your twitter feed from your new account to your Blackboard Announcements as a permanent announcement. I recommend using Jimmie’s method from the comments over using a widgetbox, because it just looks better. Remember 2 things: One, use Firefox to embed in Blackboard, and, two, NEVER modify embedded content; just remove it and re-add it if you need to change it.
5. When you log into your twitter account, you should see a notice like this at the top of the screen:
Get updates via SMS by texting follow Shu_ncvps to 40404 in the United States
Share that code and instructions with your students, and tell them to do this. This links your twitter feed to their mobile devices!
6. Next, create a drop in drop.io and tie it to your twitter feed. This is a new one, but I just created a tutorial for this on www.shu-ncrew.com here.
7. Take the phone number from your drop (see the tutorial above) and save it to your phone’s contacts.
8. Make sure you have saved your students as your google contacts and have their mobile numbers in your phone. I did a tutorial for this too on www.shu-ncrew.com. It’s located here. This is important, but there are ways around it like by just telling students to always put their name in their tweets.
That’s it. If you follow all of those instructions, you will be, like Master Fu, a master of the Flying Turtle Style. I have used this once in class already, and students texted that they were genuinely excited about this kind of mobile learning. Please comment in the blog and let me know what you think!
Drop.io (pronounced drop-ee-oh) is a fantastic tool! Basically, it allows you, for free, to have a URL where you can store ALL KINDS of digital goodies -files of almost any kind! You can store pics, vids, .mp3 audio, text files, pdf’s… And you can comment on them, organize them, etc! It’s a super powerful tool, but it ties into some even more powerful processes in virtual education that I’ll go over in another post. Here is a quick tutorial on how to set up a drop.io drop, how to link it to your twitter account, and how to call it so that it records your voicemail and stores the audio as .mp3.
Game-changer.
So, I realize I’m leaning heavily toward the technology I own, and I’m not giving fair attention to apple or blackberry. Solution: Go buy the technology I have. Then we’ll be phone buddies! We’ll be phone buddies, and you’ll have cooler toys. ;) Also, I’m pretty sure you can sync your contacts in blackberry and iphone to your google contacts, so this should work for everyone!
I used to keep all of my students’ contact information in a google doc, and I tred to surf around on it to find contact info. Now I add my students in their own ‘group’ to my google contacts. I can re-import or wipe that folder and start new every semester too! Holy contact log Batman, that’s waay better! Why? It’s better because when students call me or text me, I have a record with the kid’s name in my call log. It’s also easier because I have the kid’s cell, parent’s cell, dla’s number, and home phone as well as ALL the emails associated with that kid right on my android phone. It’s KEY.
That should take you to the page where you can manage your google contacts, which are tied to your google account, which you can tie to your phone! At first I just got my contacts on an excel page saved as a .csv, uploaded that baby to a ’students’ group, and then WHAM! My students were in my phone… sort of. If you’ve tried this, you’ve seen that all the info is in the ‘notes’ section, which makes it useless. :(
The problem is that google uses a very strict spreadsheet format -very unlike google and disappointing. Here’s an easy solution though. Create a new group called ’students.’ Then, add a new fake contact. Create fields in every blank that you want to enter for your students.
Now export the document as a google .csv file. Open it in excel, and you’ll see your test info at the top of the columns you’ll actually use. You’ll see a bunch of useless columns. Don’t touch them. Delete the test info, and paste the info into that column for the corresponding student info. When you have all the info pasted into the appropriate columns, import the doc into google contacts… and WHAM! Your students are in your phone! I have a video below to help clarify this for my visual and auditory learners!
The detailed directions for NCVPS teachers with Android phones are below as well.
1. Got to the NCVPS registration page via the Teacher Boat Dock (in the handbook)
2. Enter your username and password, and then hit ’students’
3. Select ‘export to excel.’ This gives you a home number, dla name, parent name, dla email, and dla number. It’s not enough. My suggestion -use a google form to gather student cell phone info and parent cell and email info. That’s crucial contact information! When you get it, drop it all into one spreadsheet. It’s time consuming, but it’s worth the trouble.
4. Open the spreadsheet on your desktop and then go to google contacts. Create a fake contact with something in every blank you might want to use for your students. Now export the file as a google .csv file.
5. Now open the file you just exported. Copy the info into the google .csv spreadsheet in the appropriate columns. Leave everything else the same. Note: There is one more thing you’ll have to do in excel to make the columns work correctly so you don’t get ‘unnamed contacts’ in your phone. I have outlined those instructions in the blog post below.
6. Save the file and go to your google contacts here (make sure you’re signed into the google account associated with your phone): Google Contacts
7. Above the Contacts bar on the top left, hit the icon with a plus and a few heads on it. It’s the new group icon.
8. Name the group students, and then in the new screen that pops up, select import from the top right.
9. Hit ‘choose file’ and select the file you just saved.
10. Select ’students’ in the add these contacts to box, and check the box. Hit import.
11. Make sure in your phone’s settings that you are syncing your contacts with this account. Wait a while for your phone to notice the new contacts in your google account. You’re good to go!
I hope that helps! If anyone else wants to add instructions for how to do something similar to this in other phones in the comments section of this blog, that would be awesome. I had a problem with this in that it didn’t populate telling me which number is which and which email is which, but it’s still better than having the info in the ‘notes’ section of the contact info.
Shu
So, this is a cool tool you should know about in excel, but it pertains directly to the blog post above this, ‘make your students your contacts,’ which is about how to put your students in your google contacts.
One important step is taking info from a roster and dropping it into a .csv file you upload. The problem is that google wants you to have a column of first name, space, last names… but your roster has first and last in two separate columns. And, by the way, we’re waaay too cool to sit there and do it manually. Thanks Catherine for reminding me to put these in! Here are the steps:
1. Get your two columns in excel as first and last name and insert another column beside them.
2. in the new column, type =concatenate… as you type it, it should pop up in front of you. If your first and last names are in columns A and B, and you have a header row along the top, your formula should look like this (in column C2):
=concatenate(B2, ” “,A2)
The reason I reversed A and B is because I always have the last name in the first column but google expects first name first.
3. When it works, grab that bottom right corner down through the column to the bottom, copying it for all the names.
CRUCIAL STEP:
4. Highlight and copy your new column. Insert ANOTHER column beside it.
5. Right click on the new column and select ‘paste special.’ Select ‘values.’
What this does is it tells excel to ignore the formula and only paste the result. Now you can copy that column to the spreadsheet going into the google contacts spreadsheet.
North Carolina Virtual Teachers interested in Verizon:
This email just came from Beth Wolz, another esteemed colleague (aren’t we NCVPS teachers an on-top-of-it group!?)
Hi Mike, FYI on what I found out about Verizon’s discount for educators:
The first time I approached Verizon for the discount, I was referred to their web site for discounts, www.verizonwireless.com/getdiscounts – you put your email address in and it searches. Our NCVPS current email doesn’t show up. Then I tried my f2f county, but it didn’t work either. Someone needs to tell them about our new email addresses…
Sat there thinking, and then I tried my old ncmail.net address — it worked! SO, I received a forwarded email in my ncpublicschools.gov inbox from them with a link good for 72 hours to sign up. The promotion is for all state employees…
It’s a 20% discount per month on access plan fees & data fees and on any accessories you buy. In addition to phone cases and chargers, they carry memory cards, readers and stylus’ etc.
No discount on phone purchases.
I just called back to ask if a mobile broadband card line would apply; they said yes, but you have to apply separately. I’m on my way!
Spread the word — old email works, until Verizon updates to our new one.
We learned a lot of new tools and toys in the 2010 Symposium this year, and this is one I’m especially excited about. I LOVE mobile teaching and learning, and, using twitter, I can update right from my phone! The great part about this new trick is that what I update to twitter will now appear in my course’s announcements!
Basically, I’ve gone to www.widgetbox.com and created an embeddable widget that shows my twitter feeds. Then, I’ve embedded the widget into my course as a permanent announcement. Now, when I’m in the Wimba classroom, I can tweet that out so students know I’m available. Those with Twitter accounts can follow me, and those without can see the notice in the announcements! Below is a tutorial on how to put this together:
Going full time online is a leap of faith, no doubt. So far in your career, you’ve enjoyed total job security, benefits, and predictability. You’ve probably not enjoyed getting up at 5:30am, all-day trainings hosted by people who know less about the training than you, other teachers who are downers, behavior issues, etc. If you want to go full time online, you’ll lose all of that -the good and the bad. For me, it was a no-brainer. Here’s how I did it.
First, if you’re serious about this, join iNACOL. http://www.inacol.org/
It costs $90 for a year subscription, but there’s no way around it. I joined, and I got involved in the forums, and then voila! I had a second job. They email you job openings
iNACOL is THE place to get info on online teaching jobs. The event they host every year (2009 was in Austin, and 2010 in Pheonix) is one of the best opportunities I’ve ever seen for making connections and networking. Go if you want to teach online full time.
Between the job board and the event, you should be able to land that full time online job with no trouble -especially if you’re currently an NCVPS teacher. We have quite the excellent national reputation, thanks to our administration’s national leadership in the industry. You rock Doc!
I was able to land a half time position in another state. I’m pretty fortunate with that, as it’s unusual. For most folks, you’re going to have to learn to live without state benefits. In my next few posts, I’m going to cover how to live without job security, benefits, and predictability.
Teachers get health benefits and retirement benefits. That’s it. We’re spoiled, and sometimes, now that I know what I know, the benefit is more about being able to be lazy and not learn about these benefits than the benefits themselves.
NPR recently did a story on Access Healthcare in Apex, NC. I happen to be friends with one of the Nurse Practitioners at Access, and Stephanie Brinson is incredible. She says that using insurance is a huge pain in the butt, and it’s the insurance that makes healthcare more expensive. She’s able, at Access Healthcare, to offer a doctor’s visit for $40. Last time I was there with an ear infection, she spent over 45 minutes with me talking about a few other small issues I was having. When was the last time you spent 45 minutes with a doctor in the doctor’s office?! Never. Period.
So here’s what you do. Call Blue Cross Blue Shield. Get a plan with a HUGE deductible that protects you in case you’re in a terrible car accident. It might set you back $5,000, but once you meet that high deductible, BCBS will cover the rest. You can afford $5,000. $300,000, however, is just too much and would put you in debt for the rest of your life. That’s what insurance is for!
Now, what about retirement? That’s up to you. You’ll have to make more money when you work from home. You can’t not save. That’s all there is to it. My wife and I have a 15 year loan. We have no debt. We’re buying our second house and will rent it out this year. We will do that every year for the next 10 years, and we’ll make our retirement grow in that way. You don’t have to do it this way, but you do need a plan. Be proactive. You can do this.
There is a simple concept here that’s outside the realm of awareness for many teachers -it’s just not something we’ve had to consider much. Because teaching is so secure, it makes sense to keep all of your eggs in that one little cushy basket. Sure it’s hard work, but you’re guaranteed retirement benefits and a small pension that will keep chicken and biscuits on the breakfast table through eternity. Nice.
When you go full time online, though, you lose tenure. NCVPS is very outright in telling people that it’s there for the kids -there’s no guarantee that you’ll have students next semester, and you might lose those students with no warning. That’s shaky ground, and it makes me nervous, as NCVPS is my main bread winner. But if this Fall I had no students, I’d still be able to feed myself. I wouldn’t be living as well, but I wouldn’t suddenly be homeless either.
This is important:
Most professionals are in this situation -few careers have tenure!
The trick is to diversify and network. I have evaluated courses for Colorado, trained teachers in Pennsylvania, taught online in NC, and taught part time in Washington. If any one of those eggs broke, I’d be ok and would then scramble to replace it. So if the question is job security, the answer is spread out the income.
But then again, take a look at job security from the perspective of someone who isn’t a teacher. My friend Matt Swanner, a web designer and local photographer who is integral in keeping this blog running (www.heatherswanner.com), says that you don’t have to worry about job security if you’re doing a good job. He also adds that with online education’s national enrollment growing by leaps and bounds, so long as you keep working hard and remain ethical in your practices, you will be fine. Really, you should be wildly successful if you’ve gotten on board with an industry that is growing so fast.
So diversify your income, work hard, and be confident -you rock!
At NCVPS we have a weekly update letter posted in a google doc. I don’t get it via email (although my email is listed correctly in blackboard) for some reason, and sometimes I forget about it. If I can drop something like this into my reactive pile, it’s one less thing for me to remember and chase down.
If you use RSS feeds (I recommend Google Reader, especially on your Android phone), you can just use this link in your reader to subscribe: http://page2rss.com/rss/48a4fdaf6515305c4766a2bba928883a
Here’s the interesting part though. How it was done:
I used the URL that the teacher letter is posted to, and I used this site:
http://page2rss.com/
Basically, this service takes ANY site online and turns it into an RSS feed. When the site updates, you get a notification in your reader. If you check your reader often, then you’re good to go like Taco Bell. You can take this information and use it in a lot of different ways. In the English IV Honors page, we use google docs (if available) for student writing projects. If they make their writing public and give me the URL, I can RSS it and then get updates as they work on their products! How else might you be able to use page2rss.com? I’m interested in seeing your thoughts in the comments below.
