Interesting idea - Chromebook + Nexus 7 instead of just an iPad

At EdcampCT this past week, I was chatting with Greg McVerry (@jgmac1106) about devices, 1-1 and BYOD and he made an interesting comment. Instead of a school purchasing an iPad and keyboard for all the students, what about a Chromebook and Nexus 7 for each student?

I like this idea for a lot of reasons. An iPad starts at $500 and then add the case for $50 and keyboard for around $50 and you are at $600 for one device. Then add in any apps that are not free. A Chromebook starts at $300 and the Nexus 7 starts at $200. Add in a case for the Nexus 7 at $20 and you get two devices for just over $500. That's a great deal.

Account management is very easy with the Chromebooks and Nexus 7 using Google accounts for each student. Google Apps for Education would also be a great way to utilize these devices and provide excellent resources for the students and faculty and staff.

I would have the Chromebooks stay at school. Less for students to carry, less risk of damage or theft. Their data and files are all online so they can still access them anywhere. The Nexus 7 tablets could go home with the students. They are small, light, easy to use, and can be used at home for assignments, research, communications, and more. By having the two devices, students have backup. If they forget the Nexus 7 at home, it doesn't matter because they have the Chromebook at school.

One of the big concerns I have for 1-1 programs is that if students have one device, what happens when they lose it, have it damaged or stolen, or forget it somewhere?

Google apps and these two devices also making it easy, and very inexpensive, to do all the things students need to do. There is minimal support needed for the Nexus 7 from school staff and practically no support needed for the Chromebooks.

I'm a big fan of this idea and will be sharing it with my district.

What do you think?


Related:

New Chromebooks and Chrome OS - great for education

Google for Education Resources

Android for Education Resources

On device apps/software vs. web apps - which is better for schools?

EdCampCT Reflections and Resources

EdcampCT 2012 was held this past Friday at the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, CT. Hats off to the planning/hosting team for another great event. And, of course, hats off to the food service team for the awesome lunch and those incredible homemade potato chips!

For those who don't know, Edcamp is a great series of free, unconferences for educators. The Edcamp model is unique in that attendees set the agenda the morning of the conference and the sessions are not led by one person, but are rather a collaboration of both the facilitator and attendees. It is a great way to learn, share, and connect with other educators. They are held all over the world.

The first session I attended was "Twitter as a PLN". This was started by a teacher who wanted to know more about Twitter and it's use in education. Most of the participants were non-Twitter users or new to Twitter. Dan Callahan and I shared our experiences, tips, and ideas on how best to use Twitter as an educator and part of a PLN, as well as some great resources, like Cybraryman's (Jerry Blumengarten) site. Many of the teachers left the session ready to get going on Twitter and expand their PLN.

This year, I facilitated a discussion on Evernote and it's use in education. There were about 25 people in the room and we had a great discussion. Participants ranged from never heard of or used Evernote to some who were experts in it's use. We discussed Evernote and it's use by teachers, administrators and students in school, features and products, tips and ideas, and much more. It was a great session.

The conversations continued during lunch and I made a bunch of notes and connections while eating.

The next session was on layered curriculum, a way of differentiating for different levels of students. A good resource was www.help4teachers.com.

The last session I went to was on Learning Management Systems, specifically Schoology and Edmodo. The discussion was all about best practices, what people have done, how they implement them in their class and much more.

The day wrapped up with a raffle for some prizes and a smackdown, were participants came up and had 2 minutes to share a resource with the group. You can see a list of all of the resources shared during the smackdown here.

Some other resources that were talked about that I'm going to look into in more depth include Pixlr, We Video and Freely.

It was a great day, filled with fun, learning, discussions, connections, and meeting some members of my PLN in person finally. I highly recommend Edcamps!

Related:

Edcamp - teacher run, awesome, free educational conferences

Professional Development for Educators needs to change

Professional Development Sourcebook - free PD resources for teachers

11 steps to planning Professional Development

Discouraged by colleagues who won't go to PD without CEUs.

Jason T. Bedell - Professional Development 2.0

Label 59 - free web based presentations and demos

Label 59 is a free, web app that lets you annotate photos with interactive labels. It's easy to use and actually pretty fun.

It's easy to use. Add your photo, add the markers for your labels, add some features, add actions for each marker and then publish it.

When you are done and publish your work, you get a direct link to share with people. You can also download a Zip folder with all the related files in the premium plan.

This is a great resource for teachers to use to create learning materials and for students to use for projects. Students can use a photo of something they are learning about and then add interactive labels based on the content. A Physics student could use a photo of a roller coaster and then add labels explaining the physics of different parts and features of the ride.

Check it out: http://www.label59.com/

Microsoft Store visit - very impressed

I recently visited a brick-and-mortar Microsoft Store. My wife and I were in the Danbury, CT area and decided to head over to the Danbury Fair Mall and go to LL Bean and, of course, I had to check out a tech store, so we went to the new Microsoft Store.

I was impressed by the fact that it was large, bright and open. There were plenty of customers and store employees. The store employees all had t-shirts on with different things like "Ask me about Windows Phone" etc. on them. They were very polite and friendly and very knowledgeable. I asked a few questions and listened in to them helping other people.

The store had products arranged in different areas and topics. Windows Phones were all over the store, arranged by brand and carrier, as well as desktops, ultrabooks, high end laptops, home use laptops, lightweight laptops, desktops, tablets, peripherals and hardware, software, games, game consoles and more. There was a huge wall-sized Kinect set up also. People were just sitting and trying out products and there was no pressure to buy or leave.

The stores have an answer desk for help and run free and fee-based training and help sessions. There are special events, including community events, music, and more. They also have a free summer program for children.

I was very impressed with my visit and really like the ability to see so many different products and be able to try them out. The selection was the largest I've seen, beating out stores like Best Buy.

I really liked some of the new laptops and found myself liking Windows Phone (not that I'm switching from my Droid any time soon). It was easy to use and the user experience is different from iOS or Android.

What is also interesting is the location in the mall - across the isle and 3 spots down from the Apple store, which is smaller. Both were very busy.

With so much being done and bought online these days, it's nice to have a real world place to go and try out new products.


(Disclaimer: I was NOT paid or compensated for this. I was just impressed with my visit).

Evernote for HootSuite - save social media to Evernote

Evernote is an awesome app that allows you to take and share notes, web clippings, audio notes, upload files, and much more. It also allows for other apps to work with it.

HootSuite is an app that you can use to access and manage your social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ Pages. Now, you can also work with Evernote with HootSuite.

Evernote for HootSuite  lets you create notes from your social media content and also manage your notebooks within your streams.

Feature Overview:

• Create notes from Twitter and Facebook content directly from the dashboard
• Select which Evernote notebook to add messages to
• Edit and add note titles, descriptions, tags, comments and more
• View a stream of all your notes or view notes for a specific notebook
• Search for notes by keyword
• Seamlessly share notes from Evernote to your social networks

It's easy to use and makes Evernote and Social Media even better.


Related:

Evernote for Education Resources

Social Media in Education - connect, share, learn, communicate and more

Great cheat sheet on Ed Tech topics and terminology

Edudemic has a great infographic and cheat sheet on educational technology terminology from Boundless. This will help new and veteran teachers with some of the terminology being used in education.

Check it out:

Google Launches YouTube curriculum on Digital Citizenship

Google has a new curriculum on YouTube that helps teachers educate students on digital citizenship, including online safety, etiquette and more. It is for students aged 13-17 and there are 10 lessons about YouTube’s policies, how to report content, how to protect their own privacy, and how to be responsible YouTube community members and digital citizens.

There are guidelines for teachers, slides for presentations and a YouTube Curriculum channel with the videos.







Related:

10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have

10 Important Skills Students need for the Future

Edmodo - awesome free social learning network - has free Digital Citizenship poster for download