I recently wrote an article for Livescribe’s Education blog about a how a colleague of mine in the English department uses her Livescribe Pulse and Echo smartpens for her Fundamentals of Writing and Women in Films classes.
I can’t wait to try out having my students take notes when I get back to teaching!
Last week I read an article (and podcast) on Livescribe’s educational blog (Applications in Education) that is very exciting and I believe will really transform helping students. There were two parts to the article, the first focused on using technology in education, and the second part was more focused on the Livescribe smartpen and notetaking.
The entire article and podcast was amazing, but the part that REALLY caught my eye was at the very bottom of the article. I have highlighted it in green below…
Are you confused as to why it would be exciting to be able to print off the special dots on the livescribe paper combined with ANY other document? As a teacher, I see this as an amazing opportunity to give my students feedback on a whole new level! Papers can be graded on the dot paper with the livescribe pen, and the students will be able to hear and see the feedback, rather than just read a few comments that the teacher put down to show corrections. I am sure there will be many more applications of this incredible feature, but I need to play with it first to get more ideas.
Let’s just say I am certainly “Staying Tuned!”
*If you have read an article or have used an amazing product that helps you as a teacher, please send me information about it. I would love to find more incredible teaching tools to use and blog about!
What do mobile whiteboards, smartpens and Bloom’s Taxonomy have in common? A great all-day workshop teaching high school teachers, and their students who are in a teacher education program, how to use mobile whiteboards and smartpens through the use of a hands-on project that focused on Bloom’s Taxonomy!
We started the day learning about Hybrid versus Blended teaching models, and then I introduced the Mobi, a mobile interactive whiteboard made my eInstruction.
Next up was a discussion about Bloom’s taxonomy.
Then, to get them ready to do their first project, we played “Blooms Taxonomy According to Pirates of the Caribbean”:
I introduced them to the Livescribe Pulse smartpen and another colleague showed them how to draw stick figures so they could create a cartoon based on the pop culture area of their choice for the Bloom’s Taxonomy level their group was in charge of.
They had a great time creating their first cartoon strip and adding sound with the Livescribe Pulse smartpen! After lunch I gave them a lesson on using the Mobi, eInsruction’s mobile interactive whiteboard. Each group got a Mobi to use to recreate their cartoon on the Workspace software installed on their computer. This time they could add color and crop images for their characters and turn it into a movie.
At the end of the workshop, we shared everyone’s finished products on the different levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy
We had a great time watching each other’s final projects! I had a lot of fun teaching with several of my colleagues for the ATLAST program, which stands for: Achieving Technological Literacy in Arizona Students and Teachers.
ATLAST is a project supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The performing unit is the National Center for Teacher Education (NCTE) in the Maricopa County Community College District. To learn more about the ATLAST project click here.
Livescribe recently announced a fantastic new player for their pencasts! Since none of the Apple portable devices are allowed to run Flash, we haven’t been able to use our iPads, iPods and iPhones to view any of the Livescribe pencasts. Well, that is not the case any longer!
Here is a link to Livescribe’s article announcing their player and how to get the free player on iTunes.
I downloaded it on my iPad to try it out. It has a great interface and allows you to download any of the Livescribe pencasts you have made with a Pulse or Echo smartpen, and you can also download any other Livescribe pencasts that are contained on their community site. Here is a screenshot of the opening menu on my iPad:
Once a pencast is downloaded to your iPad, iPod or iPhone, then you can view it as an animated movie with sound. This is a screenshot of one of my pencasts that I downloaded, and then played on my iPad.
* I just created a resource page where I will be starting to place my .pencast files if you want to download them and try them on YOUR iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone
A student in one of my Algebra classes emailed me a screenshot of her online homework question:
The question, as you can see, is written horizontally, but she told me in her email that she thinks she would understand it better if she could see it worked out vertically. So, I pulled out my Livescribe Pulse smartpen (which is never too far away) and quickly worked out the problem for her vertically and sent her a link to the pencast on the Livescribe community page.
Here is the solution I sent her:
I was asked recently to write an article for Livescribe about the Math Foundations workshops that were created by the team I was a part of this summer at Mesa Community College. To read about the transformation of Mesa Community College’s Arithmetic course, the article I wrote is posted on the Livescribe Education Blog
The article contains a link to the new Math Foundations website that houses links to all the Livescribe pencasts, Flash animations and workshop handouts created by the team this past summer. Check it out and let me know what you think!
My family bought me a 1GB Livescribe Pulse smartpen a little over a year ago (soon after they came out) and I LOVE IT! I use it almost every day, mostly to help my students by creating online examples for them to use outside of class. I also use my Pulse to answer student questions when they email me, panic-stricken in the evening, stuck on a homework problem. The pencasts are a great way to quickly answer their questions and email them a link, in just a matter of minutes, rather than trying to respond by typing cryptic math steps back in an email.
A few months ago I showed the Dean of Instruction my smartpen and some of the pencasts I have created, and she purchased 4 for our department to start learning to use to help even more students outside of class, as well! Then, my college’s Vice President asked me if he should purchase one, and of course I replied “Of course!” He then purchased one for all of the administrative secretaries and invited me to come and set up their new Livescribe Pulse smartpens on their computers and teach them how to use them. I spent most of the time focusing on the transcription software – they couldn’t believe what a timesaver it was going to be for them now that they no longer have to type in the notes taken by the Administration, they just have to check over the transcription of the notes!
Word is spreading quickly around my department, my college and my district! All with just a 1 GB Pulse smartpen…just think of the incredible possibilities if I get a LIvescribe Echo!!
*This blog post was written to post on twitter in hopes I can win a Livescribe Echo Smartpen!!
Today I gave a 3 1/2 hour hands-on workshop on teaching with technology, in Tucson, AZ
Looking at the screenshot of my website for the workshop above, you can see the major topics were:
To see the full workshop, along with all the materials presented, you can visit my google website for the workshop. During the workshop I presented with the Mobi, and had the participants often answer questions using the CPS Pulse clickers (eInstruction). It was really a lot of fun!
If you view the workshop website, to have it make more sense, scroll down on the HOME page to see the schedule and follow the links IN ORDER that are in the schedule. When you make a google website, the side links are alphabetical, NOT in the order I presented them in!
The workshop was in a computer lab, so each participant was on a laptop. My 13 (soon to be 14) year old son was my technical helper during the entire workshop, walking around helping anyone who had questions. He also taught the part of the workshop on Animationish! He did a fantastic job and I was very grateful to have him with me! I hope he can help me during my 8 hour workshop I am giving in October! 🙂
In just a couple weeks I will be down in Tucson, AZ giving a hands-on workshop to teachers and administrators. They will have full versions of software in a computer lab to play with!
A representative from the AZ Department of Education emailed me and asked me if I would give a workshop this summer on using technology to teach math, and I jumped at the chance!
I, however, did not write up the introduction to my workshop, as you can see below:
I am actually teaching more than the Livescribe Pulse smartpen in my 3 1/2 hours. I am also going to focus on Animationish (FableVision) and Workspace (eInstruction), along with showing Jing and Google apps. I hope to have time to share a little about Hyperstudio5 as well!
Here is a link to the conference details:
Arizona Career and Technical Education Conference 2010
Hopefully I will see some of you there!
Link to the actual Hyperstudio Stack in HTML5
I had a great time at ISTE! This is the first time I have ever been to a conference and stayed in the vendor area the entire time!
I worked with several companies while I was there. Every day I spent some time in the eInstruction booth showing folks how I use the Mobi, CPS Pulse student response clickers, ExamView and Workspace in my own classes. That was very exciting! I was so busy that I didn’t get any photos of their booth!
I also presented with Jim Marggraff, CEO and founder of the Livescribe Pulse smartpen at a breakfast on Tuesday morning. It was amazing to meet the man who invented the Leap Pad and the Livescribe Pulse smartpen! I presented the next day at their poster session as well.
I spent a lot of time in the FableVision Learning booth as well, with my friends Peter and Paul Reynolds and the FableVision Learning staff! I finally got to meet Peggy Healy Sterns, who created Stationary Studio and The Graph Club (Tom Snyder Productions). She is currently working on a new project called fab@school with FableVision and Mackiev Software (and other great folks). Photos and more information about this project if you click on the photo above!
You can see some photos of my adventure on the link below: It will take you to my Hyperstudio 5 stack on the web. If you are using a Mac, you need to use Safari, and on a PC, you need to use Internet Explorer (there is a plug-in for Hyperstudio for Safari and Internet Explorer). I had fun making it! Be sure to click on the pictures! Some will take you to other websites and some open videos! Pretty neat software created by my great friend Roger Wagner (Mackiev Software sells Hyperstudio 5), who spent some time showing me the ins and outs of Hyperstudio AND a chained Bible from the 1500s! I wish I had a photo of that
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