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The Top Ten Things Library Administrators Should Know About Technology By Roy Tennant - Posted on September 12th, 2009 Tagged: Administration It's not insulting to say that those who run libraries tend not to know all that much about technology. A very different set of skills are needed to run an organization, and those skills do not often come packaged along with technical knowledge and experience. But administrators need to know some specific things about technology in order to do their jobs well, so here is my list:

Apple's slate-style computer has been released in the U.S. The iPad runs the iPhone Operating System and can run almost all apps from the App Store. Schools are interested in iPad because of those apps and the promise of interactive textbooks. * Read Learning in Blog Blog posts tagged iPad. * Download Apple's 154 page iPad manual. * View Apple's iPad Guided Tour videos.

To piggy back onto my last post about Alan November's call to make students contributors to their own learning, I wanted to share the "Skype Jobs" of my students. There is a sense of excitement in the room, when our students get ready to conduct a Skype call. I almost want to compare it to a "traditional" vision of a newsroom before a deadline. Everyone is buzzing, running here, running there to get ready for their job assignment. Don't ask why, but I have the memory of a scene in the "Watergate"movie with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in my mind

"Instagram updated its privacy policy and terms of service on Monday, which sent many users running for the exits. A change to the photo service's legal jargon makes it clear that Instagram can take users' photos and use them in advertising campaigns with the company's ad partners. It's exactly the sort of thing many users feared might happen in the wake of Instagram's purchase by Facebook earlier this year. After all, Facebook's Sponsored Posts already feature user content. "

"Hopscotch allows kids to create their own games and animations. Kids unleash their creativity with this beautiful, easy-to-use visual programming language. Inspired by MIT's Scratch, the Hopscotch programming language works by dragging and dropping method blocks into scripts. When you're done with a script, press play to see your code in action! As you get more advanced, you can add more objects and use custom events, such as shaking and tilting the iPad, to run your code. Why coding? By the year 2020, there will be a projected 1.4 million computer jobs but only 400,000 CS students. Computer Science is among the highest paid college degrees and programming jobs are growing at 2x the national average. Many of the best coders fell in love with programming as kids at the age of 8, 10 and 12 years old. With Hopscotch, kids can build and perfect their own creations while while obtaining an understanding of the fundamentals of computer science. Learn more about us at http://www.gethopscotch.com and read our blog at http://blog.gethopscotch.com. "

"The rest of this week I will be running workshops on Google Docs and Google Sites with Kern Kelley and Alice Barr as a part of Google Apps Bootcamp NH. For the Google Docs section I will be using my guide to Google Drive and Docs for Teachers. For the Google Sites section I will be using a brand new guide to Google Sites for Teachers. Google Sites for Teachers was designed as a guide for new users of Google Sites. I have designs for expanding it to include more advanced features in the future. You can view the 47 page guide as embedded below. "

"Blogging has really taken off in lots of schools already, but some schools have only just started theirs. As with anything, teachers are always looking for quick and simple ideas to help get their blog up and running. Here are some ideas to get your blog started."

With only a few short weeks before break, it's tempting to let school run on autopilot until party time. This valuable learning time doesn't have to go to waste or feel like a punishment. To make these days count instead of countdown, here are a few tips and tricks to keep the energy and learning alive while having some pre-holiday fun.

"Engage Audiences Keeps audiences involved by asking open-ended questions and running ad hoc polls. Present the same slides you were going to use anyways! Get Feedback Receive honest, anonymous feedback from people you really care about. Ask audiences to enter their email address via the mobile device they participated with. Present Anywhere Do presentations anywhere -- there's no need for a large screen! Leave a copy of your slides on participants' devices, including your contact information."

GIMP is a an attempt at answering the call for freely distributed image editing software. While Photoshop is widely regarded as the industry standard for all kinds of image manipulation, it's costly and overblown for the average photographers use (ok, so I let in a *little* comparison). Yes, Photoshop has a ton of useful tools, support and plugins available, but it was never available for Linux operating system users until the introduction of Wine. And it was those users of Linux who initially requested something to run on their operating system to manipulate photographs.

Coming of Age is an introduction to Web 2.0 which has been downloaded at least 60,000 times (I stopped keeping track after a while, and it's available from other websites too, so I didn't have a complete picture anyway.) At last! The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book! * 87 projects. * 10 further resources. * 52 applications. * 94 contributors. * The benefits of using Web 2.0 applications. * The challenges of using Web 2.0 applications. * How the folk who ran these projects handled the issues... * ... And what they recommend you do if you run them. * What were the learning outcomes? * And did I mention that this is free?!

You should download this FREE eBook on Web 2.o Projects. Really GOOD and FREE

"The Two Top Areas for Keeping Today's Students Top Notch This is the third guest post in a series running all week featuring guest edu bloggers. By Vicki Davis Stock PhotoIn the NetGenEd™ project with Don Tapscott-students from my school and over 300 students from five countries are studying the future of technology. They are breaking down trends like Mobile Computing, Open Content, Electronic Books, Simple Augmented Reality, Gesture-based Computing, and Visual Data Analysis. But who cares?"

This podcast is a recording of a conversation over skype on May 14, 2010, with Dean Mantz in Sterling, Kansas, Dean Shareski in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, Cyndi Danner-Kuhn in Manhattan, Kansas, and Wesley Fryer in Edmond, Oklahoma. For the past several years, each participant has taught pre-service technology classes for undergraduate college students. In this conversation (which runs long, about an hour and a half) topics ranged from how course activities are selected, structured and assessed, epiphany or "a-ha" moments in teaching, changes which have been made to the course or how the course is taught (mixing face-to-face, online and blended modalities) and how to best leverage face-to-face interaction opportunities with students. LOTS of great ideas here. Check the podcast shownotes for most (if not all) of the referenced websites, curricula and resources from our conversation. This podcast is labeled (part 1) because we plan to continue the discussion in upcoming months!

So many 1:1 schools around the world have found Student Response Network to be a fabulous addition to their wireless netbooks and notebooks, but there have also been many calls from schools that invested in the more affordable Apple iPod Touch as an interactive connected device for their students to use. We're happy to announce development has been finalized and that a new iPod Touch and iPhone app is available from Apple's AppStore. Student Response Network will now run with these excellent handheld devices, working in conjunction with the teacher's Windows-based SRN Server module.  Here's a sneak peek at the iPod Touch Client for SRN in action.

"http://www.MacVideoTraining.com Do you want to quickly master the basics of using your new Mac? We'll show you how with our 50 essential training videos that will get you up and running in no time. Learn to navigate Mac OS X Leopard, the world's most advanced operating system like a pro. We cover topics like setup, installation, backing up and other useful tips; a must have for every new Mac user! It's like having your very own personal trainer right inside your Mac. "

iPresentee offers a variety of Keynote Themes for iPad you can choose from to create a new presentation. You can transfer pre-made Keynote templates to your iPad without creating presentation on your computer and build Keynote presentation on iPad. Furthermore you may create your presentation on a Mac and transfer it to your iPad. Share your great ideas effectively with iPad. Choose theme from a variety of presentation styles with coordinated fonts, colors, background textures, unique bullets and picture frames. Each Keynote Theme is available in 1024x768 and 800x600 sizes in pixels. To get the most out of Apple's Keynote choose Keynote Show only for $70. Keynote Show includes: 80 Keynote Themes, 52 Keynote Motion Themes, 33 Keynote Themes for iPad, 115 Keynote Animations and 181 Keynote 3D Stuff objects. Buy now! Keynote Themes for iPad requires Keynote installed on your iPad or Macintosh computer running Mac OS X with iWork '09. Keynote Themes for iPad includes 33 themes. Click on any Keynote Theme for iPad and see how it works! Purchase Keynote Themes for iPad only for $25. Buy now!

This is the second year of the GFW High School One-to-One iPad Initiative where every GFW High School student has access to an iPad tablet to use in their classes. Students can use their iPad: -as an organizational tool to track assignments, homework and class projects. -to access the internet to research information needed for class projects. -to create on-line presentations -to word process class papers and projects -to run a variety of applications to enhance their learning experience in class -to read electronic books, tests, newspapers and magazines

I learned of Twine from Richard Byrne's Free Technology 4 Teachers blog post. It is great to see an opensource option that one can download and run locally or remain on the web to write.