Great tools for teachers... that I can't always use...

Collaboration:


Okay, let's face it.  The world is moving toward more and more online collaboration.  We need to prep our students for this.  One project I currently have simmering on the back burner is a "design team" project where student groups would "meet" online with clients to discuss the design of everything from logos to web sites.  The ideal tool for such an undertaking is Acrobat.com:

This tool is ideal for real-time online meeting, sketching ideas on the whiteboard, uploading sample files and presentations, and even sharing screens.  It's even free.  The problem is, it doesn't work on our student workstations...  It's fine on my workstation and most of my colleagues.  My students, on the other hand, always get "invalid ticket" errors.  I swear this is deep freeze, but I can't get anyone to believe me.

Here are some other possibilities that may not already be on your radar because they haven't been mentioned in a summer workshop or whatever (I find we're constantly told about the same old resources again and again). These, however, all require signup and therefore open up a whole other can of worms, particularly if your district doesn't have student email...

Free Apps you should have but probably aren't allowed to install yourself...


Okay, so if you teach computer classes in the public education system and you don't have a cool class like "Web Design" or "Desktop Publishing", you probably get pretty sick of Microsoft Office.  You also probably are not in a position to beg your district to buy you new apps.

  • Adobe Air (a world of widgety goodness and free mini-apps awaits)

  • Google Sketch-up (who can argue with 3d drawing)

  • Audacity (a little slice of near-pro podcasting goodness)

  • Gimp (open source alternative to Photoshop)

  • Inkscape (open source alternative to Illustrator)


Of course, you probably can't install these yourself so put in an IT request, beg your tech department, and bake them cookies.

Comments

  1. PBL, Creativity, and the Contextual Reality | From the desk of Mr. Walters...May 18, 2009 at 8:55 AM

    [...] Great tools for teachers… that I can’t always use… [...]

    ReplyDelete
  2. Collaboration « Donnacarroll's BlogMarch 31, 2010 at 6:08 PM

    [...] http://waltersdesign.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/great-tools-for-teachers-that-i-cant-always-use/ [...]

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3d Resurrection - Getting your Cube 3 Working again

Image
Perhaps, like us, you unwittingly chose a Cube 3d Printer  for your school or classroom, either because of it's iOS air printing capabilities or because you were sold on the fantasy of it being seamless and simple. LOL... Then, when 3d Systems announced it was discontinuing its line of consumer machines , you may have felt abandoned and hurt and confused. For us, it was a pretty low blow, considering there was no prior announcement about this and we had just purchased one of these bad boys for nearly $800.00; no small amount for a public Middle School. We may have gotten a lot of distance out of this machine, nonetheless, as we had stockpiled quite a few of the proprietary filament cartridges. If you've used one of these at all, though, you know the  filament cartridges are crap , and definitely the weakest link when it comes to this printer. The filament is terrible and you're constantly disassembling and reassembling cartridges. The filament cartridges are also this...
Read more

What happened, Classcraft?

Image
So, my last post focused on including girls in esports and my willingness to take a hard look at my own mistakes and failings. This post focuses on engaging boys in school through gamification and a company we all love's unwillingness to do the same...  on to glory! The success I decided to roll out Classcraft in all of my classes two years ago, and I have found it to be surprisingly effective. I've shared here in the past how not only do students take the health and experience of their characters very seriously, but they also strive to help their teams and classmates in general. One thing that continually surprised me was how much students crave XP (or experience points). Remember, what I do with Classcraft has had no effect on student grades whatsoever. Yet, I've been able to attach points loss / gain consequences to my behavioral and procedural expectations via XP and HP . While these points don't matter in terms of students' grades, they do matter a grea...
Read more

Adobe Photoshop and Distorting Reality

Image
I'm teaching Adobe Photoshop Elements to my eighth grade students for the first three cycles of Technology class this year, and I've been spending a lot of time examining the authentic career applications of such a product. Elements is essentially Photoshop without the Web Design and Graphic Design tools, which limits its practical application to photo enhancement and manipulation. Incidentally, I do have some moral qualms about the primary application of Photoshop in the world of publishing for photo enhancement and manipulation. This situation is nicely summed up by the " Evolution " film, available at Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" web site.   Obviously, this is a reality that I will be sharing with my students, but it begs the following questions: Do we, as educators, have a moral responsibility to equip students with the knowledge of the consequences of the technology we're training them to use? How is it that we are encouraged to teach...
Read more