We teach intuition.

I'm angry. I rarely get angry, but something set me off the other day that really upset me.

You see, my daughter is learning to tie her shoes. I saw this as an opportunity. A chance to learn a new way to tie shoes, perhaps find a different, more intuitive way to tie shoes. This is, after all, the 21st century. Surely we aren't still tying our shoes with the old "rabbit round the tree" method. Surely there was a better way. I looked online and found two videos of a smoother, I think more intuitive way, to tie shoes. Here's the first one. Here's the other one of them:



This is a big moment in a father's life. This is one of those life skills that allows a kid to be more independent, more free in their routine, and actually frees up more time for the kid and the parent. Like Google Instant, I figured I could save a couple thousand hours of time in my child's lifespan by learning this new way.  So this was my big chance. Let's learn a new way. And let's learn it together.

So, we studied our videos together. We got out our shoes to practice. We struggled a bit. And then....
 
We got distracted.

I can't remember exactly what happened, but before I knew it, I was in the kitchen and the kid was outside with our elderly neighbor. Oh no! Our neighbor was showing her....how to tie her shoes! Surely, our old neighbor was not going to teach her the new, streamlined method that we have just been studying! This is a total fail!

So, before she came back inside, I practiced our new method a whole bunch. I wanted to make sure she saw how simple and easy my method was. When she came in, she sat down, and showed me what she had learned. This is the result:


She tied her shoes! She had learned how to tie her shoes!

But she did it... the "old way."

Intuitive #Fail
She succeeded, but the opportunity to learn my new method fell on deaf ears. I tried to show her the new method, but she said she was "getting confused" between the two, and wanted to keep doing it her way. Game over. When I look back at this episode, I'm actually angry. I'm angry because I this is what I teach- intuitiveness. I use technology, yes, but the reason I gravitate towards technology, is the same reason I moved my clothes dryer to the right of my clothes washer. Some things just make more sense. And when you're drying clothes, one shouldn't have to climb over the dirty clothes to get the clean clothes. It just makes sense. Home decorators call this feng shui, but it means the same thing.

My goal as a teacher, and many of teachers that gravitate to technology, is to teach kids and teachers the methods that make sense, that help them save time. This isn't about doing things the easy way. It's about doing things- the right way. I'm Google Certified, and I do praise Google a lot for the tools that they put out. Because they're intuitive. They have digital "feng shui." Google tools, among many other Web 2.0 tools, know what I want to do- before I do it- and that's the key.

So, I think I have a reason to be angry. I don't blame my neighbor. It's not really their fault. Should I really be complaining- my kid knows how to tie her shoes!  But the opportunity to teach a new skill, in a new way, to a young child, can sometimes be fleeting.

I don't like when they pass me by.

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!