Use Your Phone As A Document Camera

    Teachers are always looking for ways to save money. In an astronomy class today, I wanted my students to draw a diagram of Hydrogen Fusion. I discovered that the copies I made for them didn't' come out as I planned. Mostly because I had my weekly conflict with the school copy machine. Anyway, I had a really great diagram illustrating deuterium and tritium fusing to make Helium, but I had no way to show my students. I took the diagram from a textbook, which I only have one copy of, and I couldn't find the same one online to project. And, just like that it hit me...Use Google Hangouts!

  I took out my phone, opened the hangout app, and called my school Google Apps user on my classroom desktop. (I had a really good hangout with myself.) And viola, I had a document camera. Maybe not the best solution all the time, but was a great save for the drawing, and was a great way to project the color illustration from the text for students to draw. It was not quite the same resolution and quality as a professional document camera, but with some tweaks it could be just as good, if it is a tool you use some of the time.

   So here is what I did, in more detail.

1. I logged into Google hangouts on my android, to my personal Google account.
2. I called my Google Apps For Education User on the desktop computer in the classroom, via Google Hangouts
3. Being in a science room it was easy to find a tripod, I used a ring stand with a wire ring support, to prop my phone at the appropriate distance from the image. 
4. The other end of the hangout was running through the classroom projector onto the SmartBoard
5. Just like that,  students were able to see that illustration with ease. 

Sometimes it helps to have watched McGyver as a kid. 

Opensource OS For Education

      For some of you, Tux, over there is the lovable Linux mascot, for others it might be a new face. So why is he there? He's there, and there without citation, because he is a lovely face for opensource, and a great mascot for Linux in education.

      School budgets are tight, the push for more technology use with students is in high demand, and these tools aren't cheap. How can we make them more affordable?
     Why not use opensource operating systems like Linux?

There are a variety of distributions, or distros that market themselves as educational packages. Meaning that the operating system comes fully loaded with a variety of tools useful in education, and are marketed as free. It is good practice to leave a donation for the team who puts in the effort to make these tools, but it's like the tip cup at an ice cream shop. You could place your order, and shift your glance from the tip cup to the college kid working, and back to the tip cup, take your ice cream and leave. Or you could throw your change in there as a thanks for serving me. The moral and ethical debate about a donation can be discussed later.

      The point is, these opensource operating systems have the potential to curve that large technology budget, to leave room for other tools. With many educational tools available online, it doesn't seem like it is worth the money to buy a huge clunky OS like Windows, to get a bunch of tools the students might use once, and then flood it with malware, viruses, spyware, trojans, worms and all kinds of bad stuff that renders the OS useless, until the technology person can re-image the thing. Students could use a snappy OS to access the tools they need, with very little security issues like all those listed above.

     I have worked closely with the Technology Director at my school to take machines that were destined for the land fill, clean them up, install Linux, and doubled the size of the computer lab for the Science Department. The only cost might be the extra electricity usage for adding 10 more work spaces for students, to allow 20 students to work on a machine. On average, that only leaves about 2-4 students without a work-space, compared to the 12-14 students without a work-space. I think that's a pretty good turn around, and allows me to better integrate technology tools into my curriculum.

    If you are not so sure about diving in just yet, dig out an old laptop, or desktop, download a Linux distro, install it and start exploring. In no time, you'll fall in love and see how easy it could be to use this in education, and safe a lot of money.

Appointment Slots In Google Calendar

    Some people may have noticed that the Appointment Slots option in Google Calendar has been retired for the regular user. However, it still exists for the Google Apps for Education, and Business Domain. The Google Gooru made this really nice tutorial on how to use the option.

   The option works really well within education when students have to sign up for presentations, or schedule meetings with teachers and other faculty members. Teachers could very easily use this function for parents to sign up for conferences, or in the building for signing out things like laptop carts, certain room spaces, or even sign up for after school activity duties.