"Hooked" on Tech-Knowledge-y

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Having just sold and bought a house in what many call a miracle time frame, I feel the need to recap this entire process and everything that is inherently wrong with it.

When my wife and I decided to sell and “buy up”, many of our friends and colleagues questioned it, and with good reason. The market for selling was terrible (and still is) and we were likely to take a beating on what we could get for our house. The flip side of that was that with record low interest rates, a bad selling season (winter), and more expensive house prices dropping like flies, we knew would could potentially get a steal on the other end.
I also expressed a desire to sell my home without a Realtor. After hearing about all sorts of Craigslist scams, and being pestered about how unwise that would be by many of those who have experience in such matters, we decided that getting a Realtor was a necessary evil.

Before I paint the entire Realtor genre with an evil brush, let me clarify. I don’t think Real Estate Agents as people are evil, I think the process and the amount of money they make because they know how to “play the game” makes their role in the buying/selling process evil.
They aren’t alone.
The lenders that are out there have a multitude of issues and a feeling of shadiness. Since we were “lucky” enough to find a buyer for our house in such a short amount of time, we had hopes of closing on a new house before the New Year and take advantage of the Homestead Exemption with our taxes. I had been told that closing takes 30 days (a magic number that comes from some far off land). However, after we found our new house, several lenders came in and told us we could close with them before the beginning of the year. This was great news! Somehow they were all able to avoid the magic 30-day rule. However, I soon found out what that meant. The standard 1% origination fee applied, plus several other “soft costs” and “admin fees” would be included during closing. On top of that, there was a ridiculous $90 courier fee. Seriously?! What kind of paperwork requires $90 bucks and some sort of pony express hand-delivered treatment? Apparently, loan paperwork.
I decided to forgo the pipe-dream of closing before the new year and go with my own bank, as they had all my information and were much more stable in my mind when it came to lending money. The convenience of having all our funds, insurance and investments in one place was key, but most importantly, the fact it would cost us next to nothing to close with them ($454 final bill) made our final decision easier.

We continued to push the bank on the 30-day rule. Surely, with the magic of technology and the powerful interwebs could over come the dark magic of the 30-day paperwork rule. After pushing several buttons and even bribing our lending accountant with a nice bottle of wine, it came down to one outstanding item. They needed verification of employment. This posed a serious problem, since it was the Winter holiday and all school offices were closed. I sent out desperate emails to several folks in HR, but also sent one to the bank. While I understood their need for this, the fact that I had direct-deposited a pay-check to them for the last 8 years from a school district, would seem to verify my employment. Luckily a member of the HR office was able to get the paperwork to them and we were able to close by Dec. 30th!

While my story has a happy ending, it really made me reflect on this whole process. There is no manual or guide to buying or selling a house. It’s a nebulous process that takes on the personality of the buyers, sellers, and the real estate brokers in between. We were lucky to have a flexible realtor that even offered us back 1% of closing on our purchase, but it’s not lost on me that she made over $9000 dollars on the selling and buying of our houses in 8 days. The banks, title company, and “couriers” all make a nice chunk of change in this process as well. How much of this can be digitized in the future? It seems that there should be some sort of “one stop shop” website where you fill in your required information, your approved banks can access it, your employment is verified, your loan max is approved, and all that’s left is for you to spend the money. I feel like the process is set-up to keep people employed. The $995 admin fee by the title company goes to someone’s paycheck, not the 40 pieces of paper we have to sign (in a nice office, with oak tables and fancy coffee I might add). Speaking of signing, without a printer (which ran out of ink in this process) we couldn’t have done half of the paperwork as fast as we did. Digital signatures have to start being accepted for some of this in the future. (as of this posting, several banks and title companies do not accept this.)

While we plan to be in our current home for the next 10-12 years, I’m hopeful that the process next time around will be much more efficient, and much less costly to those trying to buy or sell. Until then, I think we’ll continue to be in a bit of an economical crisis when it comes to home-buying as I can see how this process is discouraging and frustrating and only adds to the already serious stress of moving.

Happy New Year!

I know it’s a mouthful. Here’s a link to our new District collaborative newsletter. It’s an interactive PDF that we’ll be using to showcase teachers and any new, fun stuff out there in the world.
Please allow or “trust” content to view the videos.

Thanks to all that contributed and enjoy!

Eanes Tech Connection Volume 1 <——-Click here to view

A couple of weeks ago, my wife inadvertently drove to Houston with my wallet in her car. She was planning on being out of town for a couple of weeks and I suddenly realized that I didn’t have any way to spend money. While this was a great way to save half a month’s budget, it wasn’t very practical. Also, my driver’s license and insurance were in the wallet as well. So without those, an ATM card and a credit card, I suddenly felt very vulnerable.

In a fit of panic, I called my wife and we discussed the possibility of fed ex-ing the wallet to me, or meeting me half-way to trade off. Around the same time as panic began to overtake me, I took to Facebook and immediately posted a status update that I was without funds and got several responses and offers to lend me money within the first hour.

Then I started thinking. Did I really need to carry a driver’s license? Do I really need a paper copy of my insurance? Both of these items were actually on my iPhone. I had taken a picture of my driver’s license a couple month’s before to send as proof of identity and my bank provides an electronic copy of my insurance. If I got pulled over for some sort of offense, I could use my phone to show identification and proof of insurance. Surely the officer would accept this right in this modern era of paper-less-ness?

I “found” a hundred dollars in my wife’s spa fund piggy bank (what she doesn’t know won’t kill her right?) and decided to give it a go without a wallet.

Of course, without wife and child at home, I felt like this would be the best time to go out and share in the fellowship of some old college friends. Couple of issues: What if I got carded? And how would I make it on $100 bucks for two weeks if I went out to eat every night?

Luckily, my social network kicked in. I had several friends offer to take me out to dinner or even cook dinner for me at their house. Others took this as an opportunity to hold my attention at a local watering hole and catch up on old times. Either way, I really felt the power (and honor) of having such a valuable social network in place.

I also had a couple of apps at my fingertips that were ready to go when needed. Groupon provided me with a means of getting discounted meals around town. They even provide a means to scan the coupon directly off my phone which not only saved paper (especially good because I was without printer ink) but also meant I had several meals in my pocket just by carrying my phone. Fandango also provides an app for purchasing movie tickets and scanning them when I arrive at the theater. So with a credit card number, a free online account and app, I instantly had food and entertainment covered for my week.

Now the only real obstacle in this whole plan was gas. I think the last time I paid cash for gas was back in 1995 when gas cost around $1.37. I couldn’t even fathom how to pay otherwise. I’d heard rumor of a “pay inside” button on the pump, but when I pressed it, the gas didn’t come out. I was left estimating how much gas I might need for my gas-guzzling Expedition and then telling the man behind the counter to kindly turn on my pump. What an ordeal! Of course, when I turned to Facebook for advice, many of my “green” friends reminded me that there was a $2 transit system in our fair city that could take me to work. Upon further investigation, it would take approximately 1 hour and 23 minutes to get from my house to the nearest drop-off to my office. The drop-off was an additional mile and a half from my office, which in mid-August, didn’t seem like a good idea to walk in suit and tie.

It appears gas would derail my whole plan, luckily, as mentioned before, my social network kicked in and I was able to freeload off of friends and family for the remaining week.

UPDATE: Since this event, there are now apps for the iPhone that can patch straight to your credit card. It appears I was a month early on this mishap!

I’m constantly being asked, told, regurgitated, and generally explained that the last couple of generations are “digital natives” and since they were raised in a digital culture, they have a more innate understanding of digital devices and programs.

What’s happened as a result of that sentiment is that assumption is being placed on everyone below the age of 30 or exiting college, that they should be able to easily integrate technology into their existing classrooms. However, when it comes to education technology and the infusion of digital tools into the classroom, I have yet to find a true “digital native”.

Generally, the younger generation has less fear of technology, but that doesn’t necessarily yield educational benefit. Without some sort of training or support, the fact that they can use the tool faster than a digital immigrant is pointless (I’m reminded of the Nature vs. Nurture debates we had in Psychology 101).

When I recently guest-lectured a group of student teachers at the University of Texas, many had no idea about what kind of ed tech apps were out there for them to use. Animoto, BrainPop, and Discovery Streaming were new meaningless words to these students. Facebook, Google, and Skype were terms they were comfortable with and areas they explored and were indeed “natives”.

I think that software and web app companies are becoming keenly aware of the fact that there products need to cohere with what is already readily accepted in most cases. The “Digital Native” is a fickle creature that likes easily usable, social platforms that other Digital Natives use. Throwing a web application like Prezi.com to a teacher, digital native or immigrant, will still take some adoption and adaption. The ultimate goal, infusion and enhancement of learning, with the tool is something that isn’t exclusive to digital natives.

I recently had a co-worker (a digital immigrant for the sake of this argument) dabble into Prezi, and was motivated, excited, and inspired by what different ways she could use this tool for presentations and classroom lessons. The fact that she is not a “digital native” had never influenced her use of this tool. There is no age limit requested when registering for it. The only limits were the imagination and creativity of the user. The same can be said of almost any app or program out there.

With all the innovation that exists in the world of technology, we are still left asking ourselves, “Is this useful” and “Can I infuse this into my teaching life?”

That, my friends, is a question that neither a digital native nor immigrant can answer. Experience and experimentation are the tools used to answer these questions.

And those two items are NOT exclusive to the “Digital Native.”

Sophie and her iPod – A link to my daughter and her ease of use with a device

I just received my “official” iPad.

Lookee what just arrived!

Now what? How is this going to be utilized in our schools?

The eReader part of it is a given. The view-ability and usability of it compared to it’s smaller cousin the iPod Touch is glaring. Reading books and magazines will be easier than ever before. Heck, looking at all my social networking content just got easier with the introduction of the Flipboard app earlier this month. Typing may take some getting used to (I had a couple of demo ones to test out with before getting this one) but I think my hands and thumbs will eventually adjust.

Educationally, there are TONS of apps available for the early reader and writer. There are even some for the artist and creator. So where do I start? I’ve scanned several blogs and websites for the top 10 iPad apps, but how many of them are must-haves?

In an educational environment, I feel like we’re just scratching the surface of what this can be used for. The default answer of the techie nay-sayer is, “it can’t produce content like laptop” or “it can’t do flash”. This would seem to be a big hindrance in an educational environment that pushes for content creation (i.e. turn in your homework paper). Some tech departments are even a little bit concerned about the lack of enterprise control over the OS. I personally am concerned with the inability to work with Google Apps, but I’m told Apple and Google are begrudgingly working that out.

I think the future for this device is far greater than we can even begin to fathom. Imagine a classroom full of these! Teachers become “Content Negotiators” – They find the sources and distribute to the kids. Or, better yet, the students find the content and collaborate while the teacher moderates their interaction. With this kind of accessibility and mobility, the level of interaction would increase remarkably. This all still hinges on the teaching style and philosophy of the teacher in the classroom.

We’re only now starting to reach a point where cell phones aren’t completely banned. Some forward thinking teachers at our own Westlake High school are utilizing smartphones to communicate globally (“text someone in the world this math problem”) or to interact directly with polling websites like Poll Everywhere where students can text their answers. With this feature, the iPad becomes a student-response system instantly.

So does this content-collecting, eReading, artistic, student-response gizmo have a place in EVERY classroom?

Is this new digital backpack?

With so many possibilities out there, my question to you, my loyal readers is two-fold:

1. Where do you seeing these being used most effectively in the coming year?

2. What are the “must-have” apps that I should download?

After attending both ISTE and BLC the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed that they keynotes and presenters that “wowed” me the most were those that freely flow from their Powerpoint (or other presentation software) to various multimedia throughout their lecture.

With a big push to student-centered learning, the increased interactivity, even in a lecture format was a welcome change to the sessions of old. Effective presenters openly shared their presentations BEFORE presenting so all could follow along or jump ahead during the session. Imagine that! Trusting adult learners to set their own pace in order to increase engagement!

One other glaring component to me was the use of multimedia within the presentations. With so many powerful video clips available, the presenters that really pushed their messages through to me, carefully selecting a YouTube clip to accentuate their point. No one leveraged the use of this “Multi-sensory presentation experience” more than Dr. Michael Wesch during his keynote address at Alan November’s BLC conference in Boston. His quintessential video explanation of Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us
exemplifies the power of video to engage your audience and craft your message.

The amazing part of this video, besides the more than 11 million views, is the fact that it is a completely global collaboration. As
Dr. Wesch explaned in his keynote, he may have created this in the basement of his Kansas farm house, but the soundtrack was a global collaboration created from a creative commons music creation platform called Jamendo.

Throughout Dr. Wesch’s presentation, the audience is brought on this multi-sensory journey with such fluidity, the crowd feels as if it’s watching a summer Blockbuster on the silver screen. It’s that kind of entertainment that really sells the message, and Dr. Wesch is certainly the Spielberg of the Digital Presentation field. He utilizes his knowledge of the human emotion to make a connection with every member of the audience. In the end, it feels as if this performance was completely created for you, the individual viewer.

That’s powerful.

And, back to my point about the presentation not just being about the presentation software, a great majority of his keynote was not just a Powerpoint with fancy themes and backgrounds. In fact, the opposite was true. When he did want to present bullet points, they were shared with a simple solid background and solid “plain” font. This contrast between plain text and his use of video clips, further enhanced the experience, almost slapping you in the face with “It’s the message, not the software!”

I’m been recently tasked by our Superintendent of showing our administration how to “effectively” use Powerpoints. Following my visits to conferences and Dr. Wesch’s Keynote, I know now that it’s not the Powerpoint that makes the presentation, it’s the presentation that makes the Powerpoint. I wonder if they will hear that same message? I guess it’s my turn to create Multi-sensory presentation experience for them to digest as well….

I’ve discussed this quite a bit with collegues, but we are on the verge, if not already past the point of Web 3.0.
A brief history: the original internet landscape (Web 1.0) provided us with a way to gather data. Essentially a uni-directional web of information. Eventually, it became important to communicate back into this web and collaborate using the internet as our means of travel (Web 2.0 is born).

Now, Web 3.0 is a taking that bi-directional communication and adding on a third layer. The web gives us information, we communicate back, and as a community, the web gives us a recommendation. Say for example you were wanting to go somewhere fun to eat Mexican food. You wanted to meet a large group of friends for this gathering and need to find a suitable place.

While Web 1.0 can easily provide you with a list of places, you want to delve even further. You want to take into account the travel time of the people in your party, so you use Google maps to pinpoint a centralized location. Then, using the Web 2.0 layer, you glean over reviews of which restaurants have the best atmosphere and cater to large groups easily. You’ve just added that third layer to the Web. With this ability and with new technologies like Yelp’s Monocle or the Layar app for the iPhone and Blackberry, you can now scan the landscape, using your phone, and see what deals are out there.

Web 3.0 will only increase in usability the more we put into the 2.0 side. Eventually, the web will even begin to give you more ideas of locations and events based on your previous browsing history. Kind of scary in a big brother sort of way, I know, but not that far from a Reality. Wouldn’t it be interesting if while you were at that restaurant with friends if your phone texted you to inform you that a movie you’ve been checking trailers out for on Youtube is going to start playing in an hour only a few blocks down the street. Now is when we see both the power, and danger, of Web 3.0 and the future that it holds. We all input into this machine as a collective group and it interprets that data the best way possible to give us some choices of what we should think. As I said, a scary thought, but at least we have a choice!

Where do we all stand on this now? Several years ago, there were 1-to-1 laptop initiatives popping up everywhere. It was nearly universal in belief that in order to succeed with technology in education that these $700-$1000 devices be purchased for every student.
Well, a lot has changed since those initial pilot programs in 2003. We now have smaller, faster, more durable, netbooks that can do all the same things those laptops could do (albeit on a smaller screen) and for around half the cost. The central premise behind the 1-to-1 initiative is access. That access can come in many forms and we’re now discovering with the Smart Phone boom in the last couple of years, that maybe these devices aren’t always necessarily going to be laptops. Different devices serve different purposes. You may not need your netbook for science lab, but a digital microscope would sure come in handy. Using a desktop in gym class doesn’t seem like a very feasible way to record running times, when an iPhone has an app for that.
It’s time to start thinking smarter. Since we work with a diverse group of learners, it would only make sense that we would have a diverse group of devices.
Now, if we could only decide on what that ever-changing variety of devices is……

Hello faithful readers,
With the new job in full effect, it’s taken some time to get into a routine of updating this blog on a regular basis. I’ll attempt to update it on Monday’s from now one, but let me shoot for every other Monday at first.

With that being said, here are a few of the cooler websites I’ve discovered either through Stumble-upon or our friends at Makeuseof.com

Cloudo – This is a big one for me since my life has been in the virtual world and in the “clouds” so to speak with Stone-ware and the new Eanes ISD Web Network. Cloudo offers a beta test of their online OS. It’s design is slick and very “Mac-like” and seems to run fairly smoothly. If you save a document, it’s there when you log back in. It has several games and a few productivity tools and widgets. With our own Cloud coming soon, I’ll be curious to compare this version with ours.

PDFVue – With Adobe Acrobat Pro being so expensive, while useful, you really usually use the editing portion of it for most of your work with PDFs. PDFVue offers an online, free alternative that allows you to fill in forms and edit PDFs however you see fit. A quick, simple way to edit without the need for bulky programs.

Egg Timer – This is an ultra-simple concept, convenient for anyone with web-access. Simply add the amount of time you wish to display after the URL. For instance, http://e.ggtimer.com/3minutes will put a plain and simple 3 minute countdown clock on your screen. The website offers an input bar to put in your times as well. Great for a classroom teacher looking to keep kids on task!