Bruce has worked in educational technology for thirty years, but his real love is history and teaching. This BLOG represents that. In addition to technology and history, Bruce is the author of several books, including Sands of Time, Towering Pines Volume One: Room 509, The Star of Christmas, Philadelphia Story, The Insider's Story, How to Play Guitar, and How to Read the Bible.
How much time do you spend looking for files on your computer? How many times per week do you say, "Where did I put that attachment with the students essay in it? I know I saved it before I deleted the e-mail!" And then spent ten minutes searching where you *should* have put it, but obviously did not? How many different places in "the cloud" do you store your files?
If you are like the average person, you have at least two places on the Internet that you store files. You might have Google Drive or DropBox or Box or OneDrive or iCloud or <insert the flavor of the week here>, plus your computer plus your network storage at school! How can anyone keep track of all those different places to store files! Sure, you can try and be organized and create a folder structure and make sure you file things religiously -- but then what do you do when your department chair says, "I'm going to start a new series of folders for scope and sequence so we can all contribute to it on my DropBox!" -- But YOU use Google Drive?!?!
Well stop pulling out your hair, Rummage is here! Rummage allows you to search your computer in just seconds by using some simple key words or phrases -- not just by file name. In a mere few seconds Rummage delivers a list of relevant files and ala kazaam you have your file! It's that easy! Do you remember how long ago you saved it? Or who sent it to you? Even better! This well-honed tool can use anything you can think of to help search through all your folders and locations to find the file or files you are looking for. And you don't have to be a computer genius to make it work, either! Rummage is a boon to anyone who deals with multiple classes, plus administrative documents and also happens to have personal files that they need help keeping track of. Imagine being able to pull up a list of documents that pertain to that meeting about the list of courses for next semester that is coming up in an five minutes? With Rummage, you'd be able to have a list of documents that are relevant in seconds sitting in a nice, clean, easy to read interface.
As my regular readers know, from time to time I post about online learning and training. Today's post is about a company called Abhisam Online Learning. They are a little different than others that I've posted about, because they handle online training and certification for a wide variety of industries. This includes instrumentation, automation, RFID, process plant safety and more!
Their training is a rich mixture of multimedia videos that include real coursework from real people. Not just simple slide presentations. They are well written, professionally produced and serve a market that is seriously lacking in high-quality training materials that are easily accessible to anyone, any time, anywhere! Their course catalog includes:
Instrumentation, Automation and Control
Electrical Technology
Process Safety
Process Plant Engineering
RFID & Wireless
In addition to their fantastic training materials, they offer one-on-one consulting services to help you get the training you need that leads to the certification you really want! This is a professional development dream come true! If you need to brush up on your skills or you are looking to learn a new trade -- Abhisam is the place to go! And this is perfectly applicable to your school's in-house maintenance/facilities department!
Little known fact: I have also coached baseball at the American Legion, JV and Varsity High School levels... oh yea, and there was that year of T-Ball, too :). In that time I've watched how the business of youth baseball has morphed and changed over the years. I recently posted about using Coach's Eye to help elevate your players performance, and that is just one thing that we've come to rely on when we are taking care of business on and off the field. One of the big elephants in the room is scorekeeping. Youth sports have become almost as heavily followed as college athletics in some areas, and the GameChanger app for iOS is the industry leader is keeping the score, and telling all the fans about it! The app currently works for baseball, softball and basketball.
GameChanger is easy for you to get into. The App itself is free. This allows you to input your rosters, your opponents, location of game and then you keep score. It is that easy. Could it be easier? Yes -- it could, and GameChanger is all over it. Because, not only does it allow you to do all the advanced statistical score keeping that every coach really wants and needs, but it takes advantage of the touch interface to do it! That's right -- you draw on the screen to tell it what happened! Did Bobby just hit a single to right field? Draw a line into right field, then draw a line that moves Bobby to first -- that's it! It records that on a 2-1 count, with 2 outs, Bobby hit a shallow single to right field. This allows you to project exactly what Bobby's batting average is on 2-1 counts, and with 2 outs... and how often he hits the ball to right field! Did Bobby steal second on a 2-0 count? Chart that pitch, and drag Bobby to second -- it will ask if it was a Passed Ball or Stolen Base and that's it! Same stat keeping depth! And what's more, anyone can do it! They don't have to be a baseball expert to keep score! Now you are saying, "WOW! This is too good to be true! Do you mean my managers can keep accurate score of my game for me -- and it is free?!?" Yup. That's it. But it gets better. Not only that, but if you are connected to the Internet while scoring the game (and many of us are these days -- plus it does work on iPhone), it will update the score and at-bats in REAL TIME! Parents who can't be at the game can follow it pitch by pitch, and at-bat by at-bat! And after the game, it generates a box score for everyone on your fan list to view!
Is this all free? Well, no... all of that is not free. The score keeping is. For the other features there are membership plans on GameChanger.Com that really bring it all together, but the cost is low and the good will you will generate for your athletic program is priceless! Check out the video below -- and get your Game Changer!
Time is elusive for all of us. You always have the best intentions to find the time to do that professional development... but then things just kind of come up, don't they? And what about that digital content that you need for your students? You have looked high and low for something that fit your curriculum, but it just isn't there! What if you could build a library of digital classroom tools that you could use over and over? And then edit when you need to?
Time to Know is an online platform that allows you to create, manage and publish digital classroom material whether it is for History 101 or How to Use Your Interactive Whiteboard! It doesn't matter -- these tools are powerful enough to illustrate just about ay concept. If you want to check it out, take a look at the video below. If you want to know more -- check out their website and see all the awesome things you can create with Time to Know -- and all the people who are already doing it!
In addition to my time working in education technology behind the scenes, I have also coached baseball for several years at two different schools -- plus youth leagues. This experience has lead me to try and utilize new and cool technology in order to bring the tried, and true lessons of sports to the student-athletes of today. And quite often, it is awesome. I will be talking about these tools over the next few weeks.. first up, Coach's Eye.
Coach's Eye is an app for your iPad or Android tablet that allows you to record active video footage of your student-athletes. Cool, right? Yea big deal... but that's not all! Now that you have this video, you can mark it up! That's right. You can take the video of your shortstop's swing and draw on it to show where he is doing it right -- or not-so-right. You can draw the arc of the golf swing to illustrate a tweak or change that need to be made, or how a runner's stride is too short. You can show them right there -- on the field -- and then file it away. Record them again mid-season, and at the end of the season to illustrate the great strides they made throughout the season. The possibilities of such a tool in a dedicated coach's hands are endless. Add to that the ability to do side-by-side comparison and even import video from another camera to get another angle -- and wow! You can imagine that with this kind of analysis tool, you can help your young athletes learn, practice and develop the solid mechanics of their sport in ways that only the pros could do just ten years ago. And it all starts for free. Coach's Eye uses the freemium model to get you to download and use their tool, and then buy add-ins that make using and sharing your edited videos even more effective. If you coach any sport at the high school level, you owe it to yourself and your student-athletes to check out this wonderful tool for yourself!
