One Washington state school district is using social-networking tools to help keep at-risk students in school and on track for graduation. Maria Brennan, graduation-success coordinator for the Everett School District, says sites such as MySpace and Facebook offer a nonintrusive way to contact students and encourage them to pursue a traditional diploma rather than settle for a GED. “Very rarely do they not get back to me when I write to them,” she said.
Steve Dembo has a great post on his blog today, Teach 42. If Presenting with your iPad is important, you might want to read Steve’s article, he has some great resources and information. I would basically put this in my Thank you Steve for doing the research for me pile!!
One of the first things I thought to use my iPad for was presenting and live demos. After all, it’s such a sleek, elegant device, why on Earth would I want to lug my laptop around at all? So I started researching ways to present from it.
First choice seemed to be obvious: Use Keynote. There are a few problems though. I’m not going to get into it, as it has been well documented in other places, but suffice to say there were enough issues that I decided it wasn’t the right solution to me. Amongst other things, I didn’t want to have to convert 5 years worth of presentations over.
Did you know that there is a Kansas Group on Classroom 2.0. It is pretty great, Kansas teachers sharing and helping each other. If you aren’t a member, I encourage you to join.
YouTube is attempting to get people to watch more videos Leanback. Basically it keeps playing full-screen clips until you tell it to stop.
YouTube calls it “effortless viewing” and users don’t have to select anything. The non-stop lineup is determined by a users, settings and preferences, including subscriptions and videos friends have recommended on Facebook. It is not really TV in the traditional sense. YouTube says it is “as easy as watching TV.” Maybe, but when it comes to watching TV, which for me is quite limited due to time constraints, I want to watch what I want to watch, not somebody else’s suggestions.
Leanback does seems to fit Google’s idea for Google TV. Not quite sure what to think at this point. Check it out and let me know what you think.
MobileMe has a new calendar and an iPad-friendly version of its iDisk iOS app.Yippie Skippy
The iDisk feature of MobileMe is pretty darn handy sometimes. If you have never used it, give it a try next time you need to share a large document, with someone or move it to another computer so you gain access. Pretty slick.
MobileMe, has been getting an overhaul over the last few months. In May, Apple re-designed the webmail for MobileMe, making it look a great deal like the Mail app on the iPad.
The new calendar interface, also look more like the iPad calendar, which I really love. The layout is nearly identical. I have always liked iCal, but this new update really is an improvement.
The new calendar will support sharing with other MobileMe members. You can publish read-only calendars that can be viewed by anyone. This means is that MobileMe will now have the calendar sharing and publishing features and for me, that mean I can STOP sharing my iCal with a Google Calendar so I can publish it on my website. FINALLY!!! Thanks Apple.
If you are not a MobileMe user, you should go to the web page and read about all the USEFUL feature. It really is worth the money in my opinion. There is even a 60 day free trial and I am betting you will continue after the 60 days.
