Hardware-based classroom response systems are expensive to buy and expensive to maintain. A web-based service called Poll Everywhere aims to bring conversation back to the lecture hall through the use of a device that is already in your student’s pocket. (more…)
Probably the technology I am most excited about and want to see flood the classroom is podcasting. If you haven’t listened to one, a podcast is a series of audio or video programs you can subscribe to (usually for free) on topics that cover the gamut of human endeavor.
At six and a half inches square and only two inches tall, Apple’s newest server doesn’t take up nearly the space of the servers of old and at $949 (education price) it doesn’t cost what servers have in the past either. (more…)
Evernote is one of a very short list of apps I use everyday. It is part of my strategy for maintaining in-box zero and its ubiquity means that I am never far from adding to or reading my notes. (more…)
My first posts have all been targeted at tools that students can use. This gadget, while handy for anyone who uses it, is most likely to be found in the hands of the classroom teacher.
The eBeam Whiteboard, made by Luidia Inc., has been an amazing tool for group meetings and brainstorming sessions. (more…)
My first two posts have been targeted at student teams and software or gadgets that would make their lives more productive. While this product does have a sharing component, I haven’t used it so I am going to focus on how it might be used by a single student.
As an undergrad, I was dutiful about attending lectures. I much preferred going to class than reading the book and it was a method that worked for me. I would sit, always in the second row, and take notes. Early on this was done using pen & paper and later straight into my laptop. The thing that frustrated me about taking notes into my laptop was it wasn’t easy to add a diagram on the fly and, let me tell you, Dr. Wells economics course was full of diagrams. |X
The Pulse Smartpen is an amazing device from a company called Livescribe. At around 5/8″ thick, it is larger than your normal pen but, for me, fits comfortably and isn’t hard to use continuously during an hour-long meeting.
What makes the Pulse the perfect tool for students is that everything you write into its special notebooks (more on those later) is captured by a tiny camera in its nose. The result is a perfect digital copy of your notes – words, diagrams and everything – ready for download into your Mac or Windows machine as soon as you dock the pen.
To be clear, the software included with the Pulse doesn’t convert your writing into typed text. It displays exactly what you wrote – how you wrote it. But the LiveScribe desktop software does do handwriting recognition and so your notes become searchable. Even with my chicken scratch, the software is regularly able to find terms using the search. (more…)
My undergrad is from the Eller College of Management. Like any business school, there was a significant emphasis on team-based learning. My junior and senior years were a montage of going to class, going to work and going to meet-ups to work on the latest team project.
One of the challenges during that time was picking the spot for a team meeting. Eller’s own computer labs were full of our fellow students and their teams. We would occasionally sneak off to some other college’s lab – Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering has a really nice one – only getting glared at occasionally by students as they worked their equations while we talked about profit margins.
Today many coffee shops have “Free Wi-Fi” signs plastered next to their doors but the $4 coffee and, like any public access wi-fi, the security concerns make this a usable but not ideal choice.
The MiFi™ is made by Novatel Wireless and is available on both the Verizon and Sprint networks. I am a Verizon customer so I will limit this post to talking about that specific implementation of the device.
So… What is it? The MiFi is a portable wireless hotspot. Walk into a room without Internet connectivity, push the power button and, as Emeril would say, Bam! you’ve got a wireless connection to the Internet for yourself and up to four of your teammates. Better yet, the device supports WPA2 encryption so your bits are safe as they fly through the air. (more…)
For the first review here on EduTech Tools, I can think of no better tool to talk about than Dropbox.
Available from http://getdropbox.com, the service allows you to keep any files you drag into the Dropbox folder in-sync across all your computers. Files are also available via the Dropbox website, so if you are away from your own computer, you can download a file, work on it and upload it again. (more…)
