Ed Tech Review

The first thing many of you teachers are thinking is that I misspelled Cricket, and some are thinking what would I do with a noisy insect.  But for those familiar with the Cricut Machine from Provo Craft you will understand why I am suggesting this machine a a gift.  The Cricut Machine is simply a giant leap up from you old diacut machines.  The Cricut works much like a printer, or more like a plotter with a blade.  You choose from a wide selection of cartridges that range from $40 to $60 that either cuts out shapes or letters.  This would be the equivalent of buying a dai set for your old diacut machines.  The difference is that the cricut can cut in a variety of sizes, from tiny letters up to 24″ tall letters if you get the larger Cricut Expression Machine.  This is perfect for bulletin boards, class activities, and hands on instruction.  Although the Cricut was originally designed for scrapbookers, they have released several cartridges that are specifically for teachers.

The best place I’ve found for Cricut Machines is CricutDirect.com . There Prices are great, and the service is fantastic. Go take a look to learn more about these amazing machines, and the wide variety of cartridges availible.

K-12 can be a rough place for computers, so Lenovo has an idea designed with students (and budgets) in mind: the durable Lenovo® ThinkPad® T400 notebook featuring Intel® Centrino® 2 with vPro™ technology. It is tough enough to stand up to everyday notebook accidents to help your school avoid replacement costs.

Roll Cage: The Lenovo ThinkPad T400 notebook can take a tumble with its durable carbon-reinforced roll cage. The material is lightweight so you can keep your ideas portable and protected.

Spill-Proof Keyboard: One spill can do a lot of damage. Protect your hard work with this special keyboard. It is sealed and contained in a tray with drain holes.

Active Protection System™: Like an airbag’s sensor, Active Protection System can detect sudden changes in motion and temporarily stop the hard drive to help protect your valuable data from some crashes that could occur due to everyday notebook accidents.

Stainless Steel Hinges: Designed to withstand frequent opening and closing of the notebook.

One-touch Rescue and Recovery: This one-button rescue solution includes a set of self-recovery tools to help you recover from a virus or other software crash, even if the primary operating system will not boot. With one touch of a button, you can get back to work fast.All of these features make the notebook tough enough to last in the K-12 environment.

I have been waiting to upgrade my windows machines to Vista for a variety of reasons. First XP works well. I just did not see compelling reasons or features that made it a must have. Second were the early compatibility issues, many of which are no longer an issue. Third is a few of my key apps did not support Vista untill reciently. Most of these reasons are no longer an issue, but a recient announcement made it clear that it is still not time to upgrade. Windows 7 is comming this year and it seems based on the early reviews it is worth the wait. Asside from the increased stability, it’s best feature is that it requires less system resources. Yes,Microsoft released a version that actualy runs more efficiently than it’s predicessor. This is critical for schools that run older and less powerfull hardware. I could be happy in running XP but there is a danger of becoming obsolete. I have downloaded the Beta and will be telling you how it goes when I give it a try.

I have been using the Activboard with the Activate from Promethean for about 1 month now, and it has had a significant impact on the way I teach.  I assume that the use of any electronic whiteboard technology would have a similar impact but I have been very happy with the Promethean products.  Promethean focuses only on the education market so their products and software work great for schools.  They have a rich database of ready made activities so preparation is minimal.  Even if I do need to create activities from scratch, the software is easy to learn and easy to use so I can create lessons fast.

The best part of the combination is the instant feedback I recieve when using the activote system.  The Activote is a remote where studetns can submit a multiple choice answer with up to 6 options, and the results are instantly recorded and with a tap of the board are displayed.  I often will do a poll on the fly just by writing the question with a marker so that I can instantly know whether or not the students understand a concept. I am converting my multiple choice tests to the Activote system because I can create the test for Activote in about half the time it takes to grade the test by hand.

The Activboard has many features beyond the typical writing on the board that make it very powerful. The layers feature makes it possible to do many cool and fun activities. The multimedia tools work well.  The orginization of the file system is it’s one caveat.  It is a little difficult to figure out how they organize things, but over all it is great.

I have been using Filemaker’s Bento for a few months now and it has worked well for me.  I purchased it for $49 and although I don’t think it is worth more I was happy with the purchase.  It is basically a dumbed down easy to use Database application that tightly integrates with Mac OSX applications.  Because it does not have Professional Database capabilities it does not have a Professional Database price.  48 Days after my purchase they released Version 2.  Unlike almost all other applications, Filemaker did not offer any discounted upgrade price.  Bento 2 has a few upgrades and a lot of bug fixes, but it is not worth an additional $49.  This upgrade came less than a year since the release of the software.  There are a few that are saying it’s only $50 bucks what’s the big deal.  The big deal is that this is consumer level software which averages $20 – $30.  This certainly does not compare with it’s big brother Filemaker which has a professional level price.  It is not a professional app, and $100 in 10 months is certainly far too high of a price for what you get.  I will be using the original application for a few existing databases that I need until next summer, but new data will find a home in a different app

(Update FileMaker Response)

You can be assured that all of us at FileMaker are aware that some existing Bento users are disappointed about the fact that we have not provided an upgrade pricing path for Bento 2. We regret that you, along with these users, are disappointed.  We firmly believe that Bento is very fairly priced at just $49 and is a great value for the price.  Our decision to forego an upgrade pricing program is modeled after Apple’s iWork/iLife program, which, as you may know, does not offer an upgrade pricing program.

Kevin Mallon
Sr.  Public Relations Manager
FileMaker, Inc.

I do take issue with the ilife comparison because iLife because it comes free on every Mac so it’s only pricing is upgrade pricing.  I would be happy to pay for the upgrade if the first version came free. As for iWork they are correct, Apple also has a poor pricing policy.  But they also have educational discounts, perhaps filemaker could follow Apples lead and offer educational discounts for Bento.

Here are a few recommended alternatives for Bento 2:

Yojimbo from barebones software.  Barebones has provided great products, at reasonable prices for many years.  The retail price is $39 and they have an eductional discount for $29

http://www.barebones.com/products/Yojimbo/

Circus Ponies NoteBook 3.0

It’s not exactly the same but gets many of the Jobs that Bento is used for done.  It also has some other cool features. They do offer upgrade pricing, and if your purchases in 2008 the upgrade is free. see there are a few companies that care about their customers.  Retail $49 Academic $29

http://www.circusponies.com/store/

Process 3.0.5

Jumsoft Business Trio

This trio of applications can do anything you would want’s to do in Bento and much much more.  It is a little more $59 but you get a lot more.  They also have educational discounts, but you must contact them directly,because they do not publish the educational price.

http://www.jumsoft.com/businesstrio/

Kexi

If you need a powerful yet easy to use alternative to Filemaker or for Windows users you can’t beat Kexi.  Kexi is open source and free to use.  It has about the same learning curve as Filemaker, and just as much power.  It is great.

http://www.kexi-project.org/about.html

Panorama from Provue

If you need a Professional alternative to Filemaker that has the professional support you need Panorama from Provue is your answer.  It is easy to learn and very powerful.  and with a generous 45 day trial you have plenty of time to figure it out.

http://www.provue.com/index.html

It is clear that there are a lot of alternatives when it comes to organizing your data.  There is no need to support poor companies like Filemaker and there pathetic policies regarding upgrades.  Join me in moving to better companies, and put our money in the hands good companies that value their customers. Filemaker will not receive another penny from me until they change their upgrade policies.

I recently wrote an article about the Elmo Document Camera and it’s bennifits in the classroom.  In looking at there site today I found that they have a limited time coupon code that can save you over $80.  The code is TT02S
for use with Teacher’s Tool TT-02s Camera. Simple enter the code at checkout.
http://www.protechprojection.com/inc/sdetail/12232

I am pleased to announce my latest blog DeepThoughtsDaily.com.  Although it is not very high tech it is a great location to get little thoughts to present to the class.  I think it is very valuable for students to learn little thoughts that will help them through life and motivate success.  There are a few fun quotes that may not be worthy of memorization, but everything on the site will be clean.  Some of the funny quotes are from the well known saturday night live Philosopher Jack Handy.

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 1, 2008 — Articulate, the market leader in rapid e-learning software, has released Articulate Studio ‘09, a powerful and easy-to-use suite of e-learning development tools.

significantly upgrades popular Articulate products and introduces a new video encoder.

“In the new Studio ‘09, we’ve combined requests from our users with innovative features no other company has thought of,” said Adam Schwartz, president of Articulate. “It’s still easy to look great with our products, and now our users have more power than ever.”

Popular new features include branching, animated annotations, and community-developed interactions.

“How can I possibly sum up all the great improvements and feature additions in Studio 09,” said Chris Wirick, education services project manager with the IRS. “If I have to pick only one new favorite feature, I’ll go with the new branching capabilities. This one new feature alone takes Articulate Studio to an entirely new level of e-learning development.”

Studio ‘09 Professional includes four integrated tools, all with a common user interface: Articulate Presenter ‘09, Articulate Quizmaker ‘09, Articulate Engage ‘09, and Articulate Video Encoder ‘09 .

Articulate Presenter ‘09, the popular tool that creates Flash-based e-learning courses from PowerPoint, has been substantially upgraded and improved. New features include:

• Animated annotations
• Streamlined narration workflow
• Branching to different slides
• Rich, slide notes formatting
• All project files stored in one easy-to-manage file
• Quick slide preview without publishing
• Sharper, brighter images and better audio and video support
• Over 30 other major new features

Articulate Quizmaker has been completely rebuilt. Now users can switch between two development modes: a simple form-based entry screen and a powerful free-form slide editor for total creative freedom. New features in Quizmaker ‘09 include:

• Free-from slide editing that will be familiar to PowerPoint users
• Drag-and-drop question management with question groups and pooling
• Branching
• Custom themes
• Question import among quizzes
• Easy multimedia placement and timing

“Every once in a while an e-learning application comes along that simply redefines the rules of what is possible – step forward Quizmaker ‘09,” said Jim Riley, CEO of tutor2u. “Superb customization functions and a sleek user interface make creating e-learning quizzes a breeze. Now the only limit to what we can develop is our imagination.”

Articulate Engage ‘09 creates powerful interactions that can stand alone or be integrated in other Articulate projects. Articulate has made the Engage software development kit available free, so now almost any kind of interaction can become an Engage interaction. The new Engage also offers branching, a new summary screen, an easy audio editor, and several other improvements.

The new Articulate Video Encoder ‘09 quickly converts almost any video into the popular .FLV Flash video format so users can immediately incorporate their videos in any of the Studio ‘09 tools. Users can trim, crop, and polish videos and apply changes to all videos in a batch. All Studio ‘09 products play FLV Flash videos.

Articulate Studio ‘09 is available now from www.articulate.com.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — October 24, 2007 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that it is offering Adobe® Flex™ Builder™ 2 software at no cost to students and faculty at educational institutions worldwide. The Flex Builder 2 integrated development environment (IDE) is part of a powerful toolset for designing and developing rich Internet applications (RIAs), an essential part of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 technologies have spurred the development of RIAs that enable data sharing, collaboration, user participation, social networking, and more. Flex is the industry’s most advanced framework for building cross-operating system RIAs for the Web. By offering Flex Builder 2 at no cost, educational institutions will be able to improve students’ and researchers’ knowledge of RIA development. With Flex 3, currently in public beta, students will be able to extend their RIAs to the desktop using Adobe® AIR™.

I have been using an overhead projector for many years in my teachin practice.  It was great, I could face the students when I write, I could copy worksheets on a transparency so the kids could see it, and more.  Although it was great it did have a few disadvantages.  First even whan in good focus small text was difficult to read at times, Wet erase markers were big and it was difficult to write small enough, and third you had to think ahead and make sure you had transparencies made.

I reciently recieved a document camera that is connected to the HD Projector in my room.  The Document Camera is made by ELMO and the projector is an Epson.  It has been wonderfull and has a few inherent advantages over an overhead.  First it is ready all the time.  I can take any worksheet or book and put it under the camera and it is projected crystal clear on the screen.  This has been very usefull when using reference materials in which I don’t have a class set.  I’ve put encyclopedia pages up about things that came up in classroom discussion.  The picutures are displayed in full color, and the text is easy to read.  It is easy to zoom in and focus on particular items.  I was worried that writing in pencil would not show up well, but it shows up on the projection darker and clearer that it is on the actual page.  I have been very impresses with this new tool, and it has significantly improved my instruction.  I’m sorry Overhead you will have to move to make Room for Elmo.