Becoming Part of the #NerdLution

Consumed by the pressure put on me by my wife and daughter, I have decided that I will participate in the #NerdLution.  I have decided to commit to 50 days of the following activities -
1 - Drink 3 large glasses of water (I never get enough, and this might get me in the habit)
2 - Exercise for 30 minutes of some type (walking, riding bike, etc.)

The pressure of my nerd friends and the resolution to do something good for me will hopefully power me through the days when I want to stop.

Admit your "nerdiness" and join the #NerdLution.  It starts tomorrow and goes on for 50 consecutive days.

Lenmar Power Pack

This power pack from Lenmar is outstanding for iPhones and iPads.  The one that we have is the Lenmar Wave 7000.  My daughter took it on her trip to Washington, D.C. and had great success keeping her iPhone 5S charged on the bus.  Her friends all wanted one.  It was easy to charge and easy to use.  If you are looking for an external portable charging source, this could be your answer.

Office2 HD is an Awesome App for the iPad

Office2 HD is an awesome iPad app.  It does cost $7.99, but well worth the money.  It is  like buying Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, but you are getting Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, for one price.  You can edit and save current documents, as well as create new documents from scratch.  Documents can be saved locally on the iPad or saved to a server or cloud.

We have found the Webdav connection allows our teachers and students to create, edit, and save right to their server account.  It is also extremely easy and convenient to disconnect from the server, so that others can use an iPad that is shared in a classroom.  Office2 HD also connects to Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, as well as other cloud services.  This app is very versatile.

I would recommend this app for you to try.  With wifi access to files and the ability to create and edit documents and presentations, this is quite useful.  It also allows you to save as .DOC, .DOCX, .PPT, .PPTX, .XLS, and .XLSX.  I have found it to also open and view Pages, Keynote, and Numbers files, though you cannot edit.  Give it a try.

Ohio Innovative Learning Environments Conference 2013

I have the opportunity to talk to teachers at the Ohio Innovative Learning Environments Conference in Hilliard, Ohio.  It is a week-long conference and I get to participate.  How fun and exciting to get to speak about Using social networks to grow your professional learning network.

I will be talking about using Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs, Google Plus, and other social networks.  Learning together makes it so much more fun and engaging.  How can you use your friends to help gather quality information and make learning a group activity?  Check it out.

Desmos Graphing Calculator for iPad

Desmos is a nice online graphing calculator for a browser.  I posted earlier about it, but they have recently introduced a free iPad app for graphing calculator fans.  You can click here to download the free app for your iPad.

On the iPad, you can graph on cartesian, parametric, and polar graphs.  It has nice slider feature for variable graphs.  You can easily zoom in or out on your graphs.  You can graph inequalities, as well.  You can also use it as a scientific calculator - even if you don't need a graph.

This app is very easy to use and intuitive to figure out.  Give it a try.

Dublin Tech Talks

We are currently running the Dublin Tech Talks two-day workshop for teachers in Dublin.  The attendees will spend time listening to Dublin teachers share their experiences with technology in their classrooms.  They will also get to hear from the district technology support teachers, who will share tools that are useful in creating digital learning objects which can be used in classrooms and online.  Part of their day will also be spend creating digital learning objects that can be used for instruction.

I was fortunate enough to present today on how you can work with video resources to optimize them for use in class.  Below are my slides that were shared.  There is also a link to a wiki with my shared resources and some tutorials.  Take a look...


It was an outstanding day today and we are looking forward to more conversations and sharing tomorrow.

Google Calendar Gadget in Gmail

Use the Google Calendar Gadget to put a mini calendar on your gmail page.  You can see your upcoming events while answering emails.  There are a lot of little gadgets you can add to your mail page, but the calendar gadget is really helpful.  Here is a tutorial for how to do that.