My Top 1 List for Best Search Tools

For years we dreamed of a day- where you said to your computer:

“Computer- tell me everything there is to know about ______________.”

And the computer would then show you all details, movies, pictures, related stories and text regarding that subject. The first thing I think of is the scene in Star Trek II (or many previous Star Trek episodes), where Kirk needs to get up to speed on some data or planet.

 

I also think of Wall E, where the Captain asks the computer (voiced by Sigourney Weaver)-

Captain: “Define Earth.”
Computer: “Earth, the surface of the World...”

So this type of computer search engine is light years away right? Well, no, actually. It’s available right now! If you go to www.qwiki.com right now- it’s right there! This is qwiki.com:

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

I thought that this might be a fad, but after playing a few of these videos, it becomes quite addictive. I showed a couple of them to my 5 year old daughter, and, what’s remarkable, is she and I stayed at the computer for an hour putting in new search terms.

She said:
“I want to learn about... the heart.”
“I want to learn about... carbon dioxide.”
“I want to learn about... the blood.”
And this just kept going on for about an hour until, finally I had to put the kid to bed.

This really is a remarkable new way to get information. I showed a class of fourth graders last week, and they bombarded me with search requests about the State of Illinois. Funny, but I’ve never heard kids screaming at me to do a Google search for them.

Anyhow, check out www.qwiki.com . It’s in alpha invite phase, but you should get your invite fairly quickly if not immediately. If not, ask me for an invite on Twitter @drezac, and I’ll send one your way. I have unlimited invites.

This is my Top 1 Search Tool for the unforeseeable future.

This post was cross-posted on the Tech and Learning Advisor's Blog

Is Wallwisher Dead?

Just a quick note. Noticing that Wallwisher.com, a tool that teachers have grown to know and love, seems to be slowing down a lot. My teachers have been having trouble getting pages to load, and doing a few Twitter searches, I see this:

Search: Wallwisher

Many of the results show folks having a hard time.  If their abandoned Twitter feed is any indication, we may be putting Wallwisher in the Web 2.0 deadpool soon.
Wallwisher (wallwisher) on Twitter

Also, just for fun, I checked the Wallwisher blog. Guess what? Hasn't been updated since February 4th, 2010. Check that here.

Sorry, teachers, but it looks like Wallwisher is dying a slow death.

The End of Year Suitcase

Image from Bob AuBochon on Flickr.

Every year I like to put together a suitcase full of links and inter-actives that my students and staff may have used throughout the year.  This year, I'd like to take that opportunity to create an open document where any educator can add their tools and links that they've used with their kids, and share this document with whomever would like it. I started adding some things, and the document is still growing.

The link to the Google Document is at http://tinyurl.com/suitcasetools
Please add your favorite free tools, free downloadable software, and inter-actives to the document. Then feel free to share this link with your students. There's enough there to keep them busy all summer! 

Thanks in advance for contributing!

Dabbleboard: Too Easy

Today I did sort of an experiment. I gave my kids a problem to solve: to create a model of a Fire Escape Route from my classroom. They could use one of three programs: Google Sketchup, Google Earth, and Dabbleboard.com for their modeling. They chose the latter.

When I asked them why most of them chose Dabbleboard, I got the required response: "it's just easy." Now, I'm not going to debate in this post whether the easiest tool is the best tool, but Dabbleboard is a pretty darn intuitive tool. When you are trying to engage young kids with technology, I think you want to show them tools where there's not a lot of hassle like sign up, and give them a tool that works right out of the box.

In Dabbleboard, you can just create.

Graphic Organizers and Embeds: In my practice, I do like the graphic organizer, and although I don't use an Interactive White Board very much, when I do, I love using layovers. Each Dabbleboard is embeddable, which is important because I want the Web to be more customizable. One day, it would be nice to embed just about any Web tool into your website, so that you can create a custom Online Learning Environment. Below is my Online Bullying Attribution Chart. Add to it, if you like.




Custom Links: Lastly, I like Dabbleboard because you can create a custom link to any Dabbleboard page, and you can share and chat with any of your collaborators. One of the frustrations I used to have using an IWB, was that many of our graphic organizers couldn't be saved as a link to the web. With Dabbleboard, that's no problem. For some students, of course, adding a chat can be disruptive, but as the owner of a board, you don't have to share the chat. Check out this example:

http://dabbleboard.com/draw/drezac/citizen

The easiest tool isn't always the best tool, but engaging a student sometimes is more important than slogging through a lesson. And for Tech Facilitators who are trying to engage teachers with Interactive White Boards, please show them Dabbleboard first.

Drop.io: The Web's Swiss Army Knife

What if you were told that tomorrow the Tech Administrator of your district was going to block virtually everything: Youtube, Facebook, Blogger, Skype, Google Apps, Edublogs, Kidblog- it doesn't matter- but you are allowed to keep only one of your tools unblocked.

Which Web tool would it be? 

For me, that tool is Drop.io. 

When I ask people if they know what Drop.io is, most people say "yes," but I wonder if they really understand how versatile a tool like Drop.io is. It is virtually the Web's first Swiss Army knife, a multi-functional Web "object" that functions not only as an off-site file drawer, but also as a multi-media player, podcasting host, presenting tool, and virtual flash drive. 

A Virtual Flash Drive?

Sometimes when I show kids that they don't need their precious flash drives anymore, you get this sense of depression. They say, "but my flash drive lights up!" I know kids, but the fact is, that flash drives are a relic of the olden days of 2008. This is 2010! There's free space all over the Internet for you to save your stuff. Google Docs even allows you to save any file now. Drop.io is never publicly indexed, so I'm never worried that our stuff will be viewed by outside parties. Of course, as a tech educator, I make sure that I protect student information from the outset. As an administrator of a drop, you can turn off commenting on a drop, turn off uploading after a certain point, and even create a custom look to it. You can create a custom Drop name like Drop.io/ilovedropio or- Drop.io will create a unique drop name for you. Take those flash drives off your neck chain! Drop.io is your flash drive.

 A Podcasting Platform
One of the things that frustrate teachers who want to create podcasts, is the whole ftp transfer thing. "Do I put it on my own server or is there a free server somewhere else?" Some teachers also aren't given access to server space for fear that it will fill up (ahem). Well, archive.org is an off-shore place to put your stuff, though I feel like archive.org wasn't really created to be a place where people can just save anything, just to archive meaningful Internet history. Maybe that's just me. Yes, each drop only has a 100MB limit, but you can "create as many as you like," and for audio podcasts, I find that one or two drops is usually okay to host our class podcasts. Also, with the "Dropcast" feature of Drop.io, with virtually one click, students or parents can download all of your class podcasts to their iPod. Check out this example: http://drop.io/thefremontstorycorps2

A Media Player
One of my favorite aspects of Drop.io is that once a media file (.mov, mp3, or ppt, pdf) is in the drop, you don't really need to download to play. It will play right in the drop, and it will play at full screen! I can't stand when the Internet forces downloads on me, and this saves my hard drive a lot of unnecessary heart ache. This is great for presenting student work because we can get through a lot of presentations in one class period because- they just start playing! And, again, you can download them.





A Media Creator
One of the things that is difficult creating podcasts is having 28 students in a classroom trying to record simultaneously. Group them? Sure. But, I solved that issue with Drop.io. Every drop has it's own unique phone number so that students can call the drop and record a message. This message gets saved as an .mp3 that can be downloaded almost instantly. Our latest project asks students to interview a parent or guardian based on NPRs StoryCorps concept, and this was easily accomplished with Drop.io. We then upload those files to Garageband, do a little editing, add music and introductions, and the final product is pretty nice. You can also email a file to a drop; I once had a student who created her interview by recording it using the voice recorder on her phone. We simply emailed it to a drop so that she could download it. Too easy.

Mass Downloads

One thing I ran into when doing a Google Earth project: in order to collect all of the Google Earth .kmz files from 50 students, I used the "Create Zip Archive" feature. It downloaded all of the files in one folder, which I was then able to mass-upload to Google My Maps to create this map :
https://sites.google.com/site/fremontolympicguide/past-olympics-a-tour
Another problem solved with one click.

Embeds
If you don't want folks to just view media from the Drop.io page, you can easily embed any media into another site. Here's a digital story that was created about Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Backchanneling, Presentations and More
Each drop on Drop.io has a chat function built into it, so you can create a backchannel on any drop without going to another tool. But have you tried Present.io? Present.io is a tool built specifically for doing presentations on the Web.  I have never seen it used yet, but basically, you put in all of your presentation files, media, etc, click "go" and share the link to the drop with anyone who you want to see it. There seems to be a 10 user drop in limit, but you can pay for an upgrade. It's a presentation format that you could set up in literally minutes. I would pay for the upgrade just to engage folks in the experience.

An Easy Sell
I'm always asked about what tools I would show a teacher who is adverse to using technology. Drop.io is one of those multi-functional tools that is so easy to use, it engages the user right away, regardless of their tech skills. You want people to adopt your Web solutions? Show them Drop.io. If anything, a teacher will be excited about having a simple solution to storing some files that are easy to get at. Drop.io can be a perfect tool to invite teachers who get frustrated with technology, or who are intimidated by technology in general.

And with that, I say:

Keep your hands off my Drop.io!

Ning: Lesson Learned (and how to avoid future disenfranchisement)

It can't be that surprising. 

Ning says today that they are cutting free networks and laying off staff. The outrage on Twitter from teachers (who rely on free stuff) is understandable:

The writing was on the Ning wall; just look at the past. Michael Arrington from TechCrunch predicted Ning was dead four years ago.  They improved a lot since then, but I know that you know, that you know that I know- that I'm not the only person to think that Ning is lacking some critical element.  Some folks are pretty blatant in their distaste for the tool. I dare say the largest reason we are using Ning is because...it's free. Shouldn't your first reason for using a tool be- because it's good? Now, whether this poll below states that is another thing.

Replace audience response hardware with Poll Everywhere

How can we avoid this disenfranchisement in the future?

The Problem: You're an educator, or a school district, and you're cash-strapped. You want to find free tools online that you can use with your students.  You'd like to create a community, and Ning.com was a free piece of that puzzle. However, something like Ning required a large buy-in, meaning, it's not a tool that you can use simply for a day like Wordle.net, or drop.io, but one that, if it is to grow (like IEAR.org has been doing lately) the people in your social community have to put in real time- writing, sharing, creating profiles, adding links, and uploading images and videos. Ning requires a huge buy-in, which means that if it fails- there could be a huge disenfranchisment to the community. There could even be trust lost in the Internet, it's tools, and people might think twice before they start joining more networks next time because their time and effort may be wasted.

As I look on the Web, one can already see educators looking for more "free" tools and alternatives, but will that solve this problem? Will buying into another free tool like Ning be worth it?  Here's a model that I think represents this problem nicely.  The problem with free web tools can be summed up with this sentence model:

Web 2.0 is to free, as a wolf is to a sheep.  (Or a wolf in sheep's clothing.)

Web 2.0 tools have really one goal these days, and if you follow what's happening in the venture capitalist market, it's really- to get bought.  It's a wolf in sheep's clothing- it looks all cute and fluffy, but soon as you get to reliant on that wool come sheerin' season- look out- because that wolf wants to eat your entire social network. How can you ask teachers and educators to buy into a product, when that goal as a company is not to grow, but to get a pay day? I'm not sure if that was Ning's goal, maybe it is to grow, but we must tread lightly before we buy in that deep.

So how do we prevent this from happening again? How do we prevent from losing our learning environments? Three possible solutions.

1. Always look at the fine print. There is always a price. Before you base an entire community on one tool, you need to look at who is creating the tool. Are they a small operation of 1-2 people, who are trying to get sucked up by a bigger company? Or are they an established organization or company (like Google), who you know are going to be around for a while? We should not be surpised. Look at the creators and make a decision about your buy-in based on that common sense. Read TechCrunch or Mashable. It really will help.

2. Lobby ISTE to create an educator tool. Can ISTE provide some leadership in creating a network that educators could use, which could be free or have a very small fee? Wouldn't it be nice knowing that the organization that provides leadership in the Ed Tech community is actually nurturing their own network of educators by creating their own tool? I think they have the resources to pull this one off. What do you think?

3. Just Pay: The Web 2.0 market is just that right now- it's a market. It's burgeoning market, and in order for the tools you like to survive, they have to make money. We know that we don't want our students to see ad-based content, so we have to lobby our schools to pay for these tools or pay for them ourselves. I've paid for many a subscription out of my own pocket, whether it was for Voicethread.com, Edublogs.com, or others. It's not much, and personally, it's worth it to allow my kids to use such cool and progressive tools. ISTE has grants, and so do most state educational organizations. Having the right tool is going to help your learning environment, which will pay off for you down the road because the products that your students will create will be the most cutting edge stuff that is out there.

Back to hosted?
Someone on Twitter mentioned that perhaps we should go back to a hosted solution, like Buddypress (from Wordpress). I disagree with that option. The best tools are going to be in the cloud, and I don't think that it's time to go backward right now. Some cloud tool will eventually win us over. This problem won't be solved until the Web 2.0 market has grown and evolved enough that there are some real competitors in the social networking arena. Right now Facebook is at the top, and Myspace is falling drastically. It's no wonder that Ning is suffering. With social networking, people would rather have one place to go to- not three or ten.  If Facebook created a Facebook for Educators, now we'd have a real solution.

Mark Zuckerberg could probably afford that.