Technology for the Classroom

Ebooks

2010-07-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

With the recent price drop of the Kindle and the updated Kindle DX, along with iBooks and the imminent Google Editions, I thought it would be good to address the ebook phenomenon.

A little history before I begin my post:

There have been an increasing number of ebook readers to have been released over the past few years. They began to reach prominence with Amazon's Kindle, with free 3G and a huge library of books.

Before that there was the Sony ebook reader, and since then we have seen Barnes and Noble's Nook and Apple's iBooks for iOS devices (iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch).

Now, not only are there dedicated ebook readers, but also generic ebook stores. The Kindle Store for example works on Kindles, iOS devices, and Android devices. Google Editions is supposed to launch this summer with the ability to display books on any device with a web browser.

One of the great advances was in E-Ink technology. This is the screen technology used by the Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, and others. This allows the ebook to be presented to look like a traditional book - it looks like ink on paper. This means that it an be read in direct sunlight without problem. Also, this allows for ebook readers' battery life to stretch into weeks.

All of this growth in the ebook industry is a great boon for teachers and students alike. However, in many areas, ebooks have not received the enthusiasm and acceptance that other technologies have. In this post I will outline the upsides (and downsides) of ebooks and ebook readers.

Pros:

The weight is far easier to bear - This allows students to carry more books than ever before. Most 1lb readers can carry upwards of 1,000 books in their memory. This means that students have their books with them all the time, they don't carry only today's books.
Delivery is fast, easy, and cheap - Most ebook readers have a direct Internet connection and can download books directly to the device, typically in under a minute. Because their are no printing costs and limited distribution costs, the books are often significantly cheaper.
There is no availability problem - If the store offers the book, it can be purchased instantly.
Books and annotations are backed up - If the device is broken or lost, the owner's books, highlights, and notes are backed up (iBooks and Kindle) and will be available on the owner's other device or replacement device.

Cons:

Books are not resalable - Once purchased they are yours forever.
Most mainstream ebookstores use DRM - this means that you are limited in what you can do with your ebooks. In the case of iBooks, your books can only be read on iOS devices.
The readers are expensive compared to traditional paper books.

In short, ebooks do what a technological progression typically does - where the traditional technology (paper books) was strong, eboks are weak, and wear paper books were weak, ebooks are strong.

However, they have many strengths to offer the classroom environment.

Podcast Creating

2010-03-13T19:48:00.000-08:00

In keeping with my rework of the blog, I am not going to do much more than mention a few tools and link to them, but as always, if you have questions or comments please email me or post them below.

Audio Podcasts

There are quite a few good audio recording and editing packages, but one of the most versatile and powerful is Audacity. It can easily record and edit together a professional sounding audio podcast. It is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it can export to regular MP3 files as long as you download the LAME library.

GarageBand is similar to Audacity and has a mode specifically geared towards podcasting. It is easy and integrates well with iWeb, if you are using that for your website. It can also export as regular MP3 or AAC files to be used with pretty much anything.

Video Podcasts

Video podcast depend on much because of the varying edit methods and file types and more. So, one of the biggest issues is keeping it simple.

The best way I have found to do this is using FLIP cameras. They are relatively in expensive and come with their own editing software that is the same on every computer (Windows, there is also a slightly different Mac version included). You can use this software or other software such as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.

Publishing
Now, for what makes a podcast a podcast - publishing and updating. Now viewers don't have to go to your site, they don't have to download anything manually, it all just works.

The magic behind this is RSS (Really Simple Synchronization). To do this, you must have an XML file that contains your podcast details. This is a little complicated, but thankfully, there are tools to do this for us.

The best I have found is Podcast Maker. This allow for easy configuration of servers and uploading. Unfortunately it is Mac only and I have not found a comparable Windows tool. If you know of one, please post it in the comments or email me. I will continue my search and let you know if I find one.

As always, if you have any questions or additions, email me or post a comment.

Podcasting

2010-03-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

Podcasting is something that has been gaining traction in the world at large and especially in the educational world recently. Given my recent experience with some relatively new and enthusiastic podcasters, I would like to do a short post or two about this new phenomenon.

Given my recent experience, I would like to first explain what a podcast is and is not.

A podcast is not just an audio or video file on the Internet such a embedded sound or YouTube video. It can be composed from those things, however it needs more.

A podcast is constructed from episodes. So, a video or audio file can be one episode of the podcast.

One of the neatest things about podcasts is that they automatically update. So after you create a podcast, the next day as people grab their iPods, iPhones, Droids, and Zunes, they have automatically downloaded your latest episode. It is similar to a radio or TV show that your listeners and viewers can experience on demand - either on their computer or portable device.

In short, a podcast is an automatically updating "show" that people access over the Internet, whether on their mobile device, computer, or TV set-top box.

Technology in Education

2010-01-07T22:58:00.001-08:00

Previously here was a post on technology in education. Given it's large size, and given that it dealt more with the ideals of classroom technology rather than practicalities (which is the focus of this blog) I have moved it.

You may find it here:
http://www.ezaptechnology.com/teched.pdf

Finishing up Google

2009-11-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

I am nearing the end of my list of Google products. There are many more, but I have only one or two more with which I am familiar and can easily use in the classroom.

I am not sure what to do next. I have several ideas, but I'd like to hear from you.

What are some ways you use technology in the classroom?
What are some technologies you think would be cool to use in the classroom?
What is a current task you do or problem you have that you think could be eased by technology?

Drop a comment or shoot me an email, I'd love to hear from you!

My email is blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Thanks!

Google Translate

2009-11-18T12:22:00.002-08:00

Google Translate is an excellent app that can introduce students to the world of languages.
This app, as all automatic translators are, is not perfect - however, it is excellent when introducing students to a language. It is good for social studies and geography as well.

It can show students the variances in languages and also show the variance in alphabets.

This tool can be used to translate student-designed sites (maybe in Google Sites) into a foreign language, so that students can see their words represented to the rest of the world.

As you can imagine, this is also an excellent tool in a second language classroom. It can be used to approximate translations and help students expand their vocabulary and reading material beyond was in taught in the classroom and expose students to material that interests them presented in the language they are learning. Google Translate can be used to help the process information they they have not yet learned in class.

I am sure this also has many application in an ESL setting. If you know or can think of any, please email me or place a comment. I love to know different ways of using technology in the classroom!

My email is blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Similar Images

2009-11-18T12:12:00.000-08:00

Google Image search has always been a boon to me, whether preparing images for a class, or finding a picture to include in a report.

However, occasionally I cannot find exactly what I want.
I may want a picture of a Jaguar (car) and get pictures of the animal.

Recently Google has unveiled Similar Images.
This allows you to find one image that meets your criteria, click "Find Similar Images" and find others like that.

For instance, if I search "Eiffel Tower" I will get many results.
I can click "Find Similar Images" on one that is lit up at night, and find many pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night.

Try it out now!

Google Safe Search

2009-11-18T12:09:00.001-08:00

Google has long enabled Safe Search by default.
This prevents explicit material, especially images, from showing up in a Google Search.
However, the option has always existed to turn it off.
Now, Safe Search can be locked on - in an extremely visual way.
This allows teachers, especially of younger children, to allow student use of computers without fear.

Check out the new locking feature here.

Google Sites Templates

2009-11-18T12:06:00.000-08:00

Google announced recently that they have added templates in Google Sites.
This will allow a Google Site to look different from other Google Sites and look more professional.
Check it out by creating a new site at http://sites.google.com.

Google Sites

2009-08-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

This post is in regard to Google Sites. Google Sites is an excellent web editor. It allows anyone to easily create and publish a web site.

This tool is an excellent choice for educators for several reasons.

1. Integration with other Google tools
As you can probably tell from my previous posts - I enjoy using Google products a lot. They offer a great product at a great price (free) and make it easy to use in the classroom. Google Sites integrates well with other Google services. In sites it is trivial to insert a Google Doc, YouTube video, Calendar, Picasaweb slideshow, or form with the click of a button. No embed code or HTML - just point and click.

2. Easy Editing
Google Sites is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. This means that you do not have to know any code to create a page. It is as easy as typing a document. The structure is easily changed to different layouts and themes.

3. Collaboration
In a style similar to Google Docs, pages in Sites can be collaborative. This means that multiple users can edit the same page. An excellent use for this would be department pages. Each teacher would have their own page - editable only by them. There would also be a department pages (i.e. Science, English, etc.) where all members of the department could make changes.

4. Instant Changes
The moment you hit "Save" on the Google Sites page, your changes will appear online. This is similar to many other Content Management Systems. However, if you have ever used something such as Dreamweaver or Kompozer*, you will know that it can be a pain to set up and continually update and upload your files.

5. Edit Anywhere
This is also another benefit to using Sites as opposed to Dreamweaver or Kompozer*. Anywhere you can access the Web, you can edit your site. No software to install, no (S)FTP servers to set up. It all just works.

If you have a question about Google Sites or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

--
*I do not mean to belittle these programs. Dreamweaver and Kompozer are quite excellent Web site editors. They can both do things that Google Sites cannot. However, I think Google Sites is much more usable and easy - especially to new users with little or no experience in web design.

Book and Seminar

2009-08-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

Hello again. It's been a while since I have last posted.
Given my low readership I wondered if it was worth it . . .

However, this summer I was given the opportunity to assist some local teachers in preparation for the school year in ways I think really helped. I was not giving them abilities they didn't already posses - I was merely giving them new tools to exercise those abilities.

This encouraged me, and my new goal is to write a book and design a seminar aimed specifically at teachers who want to use technology. I will be using this blog as a kind of rough draft for these projects. In the same manner, I hope not to be creating excellent teachers - many of those already exist. My hope is to provide those teachers with new tools. I hope to assist teachers in speaking the new language of today's generation. I hope to show teachers how to speak "digital".

So stay tuned. More great stuff coming soon. If you have anything you want covered - a particular product or just a situation in which you wish to use technology, just post a comment or send me an email and I'll get on it.

Google Earth

2009-04-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today I will be discussing Google Earth.
Google Earth is a program that uses satellite imagery to create a navigable globe.
You can zoom into to any point on earth and see structures, houses and more.
Following are several of the features I find most useful and interesting.

1. Address Searching
Google Earth can instantly locate and zoom in on almost any address. You can see your house or school from a satellite view. You can also look up close at places you are studying such as Songhenge or Rome.

2. Layers
These layers allow you to see relevant items in the location you are searching. One of my favorites is Street View. In certain places (like New York City) the roads have been systematically photographed. You can zoom in even further and explore a city from the street level. There is also 3D, as well as many other layers like "pizza shops" and "hotels".

3. Sky
Google Earth 5.0 (and later) incorporate a feature called Sky. This allow the user to turn around their viewpoint and explore constellations.

4. Mars
This feature turns Google Earth into Google Mars. You can zoom in and use satellite imagery or you can see early maps made of the Martian surface.

5. Planned Routes
You can set Google Earth to fly along planned routes, giving a "tour" of various locations around the globe.

6. Flight Simulator
O.K. I admit, this one actually isn't that useful, but it's a feature that I enjoy very much. (For controls, go here.)

For more info on the Mars portion, watch this tutorial from Google.

Google Calendar update

2009-04-04T19:05:00.001-07:00

This is just a quick update for those of you who use Google Calendar, Google has just release Google Sync for the iPhone and iPod touch. This will keep your calendars and contacts synced automatically over the Internet to your device.

Google Sync also works with many other devices:
Go to http://www.google.com/sync for more info.

Tutorials

2009-03-28T19:55:00.001-07:00

As of today, I will only be creating tutorials upon request.

My reason for this is that my mission is to provide information to teachers and students. Instead of spending time writing specific steps and methods, I would much rather be writing about the latest and greatest technology.

Most of the technologies I discuss are user-friendly. I believe that most things I discuss you will be able to learn easily, and that most questions can be answered by a quick Google search. However, I realize that some will still like tutorials. I have no problem writing a tutorial if I know it is going to be used. If you would like me to describe in detail how to do something I discuss in a post, feel free to post a comment or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

(Any previous tutorials will be left available)

Picasa 3 Beta for Mac

2009-01-05T17:26:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick update for my Mac readers.

Google has just recently (today) released Picasa 3 Beta for Mac.
You can download it at picasa.google.com.

This program largely matches the features in Picasa 3 for Windows, says Jason Cook, Picasa's marketing manager. This will be a boon to those who, like me, use a Mac on a regular basis.

Picasa Web Albums

2009-01-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

This posting goes hand in hand with my Picasa posting. Picasa Web Albums is a photo sharing web service (similar to Flickr) that integrates excellently with Picasa. It allows you to post photos online for everybody to see, or for only selected friends to view. If you have a Google or Gmail account, then you already have a Picasa Web Albums account. Simply go to picasaweb.com to get started.

Following are some of the features that I have found useful in Picasa Web Albums:

1. Album Syncing
This is a feature that will let you sync a particular Picasa Album to a Picasa Web Album. This is excellent because if you make a change to an album, the changes can be uploaded without requiring you to upload the entire album again.

2. Facial Recognition
Picasa Web Albums has the ability to recognize face in pictures and associate them with names. When a new album is uploaded, you can select to tag photos and Picasa Web Albums will automatically sort together all the pictures of the same person. This is especially useful because after tagging is done you can find your friends or students easily. If you need to find pictures of John, log into Picasa Web Albums and click John, and you will see all the pictures of John that you have.

3. Selective Sharing
Until recently, you share your albums with the whole world - or nobody. Now, you can select which albums are available to the world, which are available to only select people, and which are available only to you. This would be useful in sharing pictures of students and making sure that only the parents see those pictures.

4. Video Hosting
Though typically for photos, Picasa Web Albums will host videos. This is a great feature because you can apply the selective sharing to the videos as well, making this an alternative to places like YouTube.

5. Slideshow Embedding
In a Picasa Web Album, one can view the photos within as a slideshow. You can embed this sideshow straight into your website to make your photos easy to share with others.

6. Email Uploads
This allows you to add pictures to Picasa Web Albums via email. This can be used to allow others to add photos to your albums or to allow you to upload photos to Picasa Web Albums easily from your phone.

For more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website:
http://class.technology.googlepages.com/picasawebalbums.

If you have a question about Picasa Web Albums or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Google Books Update

2008-12-12T20:50:00.000-08:00

This is just a short post to provide an update to those of you that enjoyed my suggestion of using Google Books.

Google Books has recently reached an agreement with Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and others so that more books can be available.

Most out-of-print books in the Google Books archives were still under copyright and so could not be fully displayed. According to Google "This agreement will allow us to make many of these out-of-print books available for preview, reading and purchase in the U.S."

For more information on this agreement, you can read Google's post at http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/.

Also, Google Books has just added many magazine in full viewing mode to its archives.

As always, if you have any question please leave them in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Picasa

2008-10-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

First off, I must apologize for there being such a gap between my last post and this one. I have no excuse other than to say I have been extremely busy. I will be working to remedy the lack of posts on my blog over the Christmas holidays.

Today, I will be discussing Picasa. Picasa is a free photo organization and editing tool, made by Google. Picasa is useful for a variety of reasons. Following are the features I find most useful. This program can be downloaded here.

1. Folder Scanning
Picasa has the ability to scan folders to see if you have added any pictures since the last time it was opened. Other photo management applications require you to import new photos constantly. With Picasa, all you have to do is set Picasa to "watch" a particular folder (such as "My Pictures") and every time you put a picture in that folder, it is automatically added in Picasa. This allows me less time dealing with files and imports and more time for dealing with my photos.

2. Album Creation
Picasa also has the ability to use Albums in the same way that Gmail uses labels.
This means that you can place photos in multiple albums without duplicate photos taking up precious hard drive space. So your picture of your kids last Christmas could be put in Family, Kids, and Holidays.

3. Photo Retouching
This feature allows you to perform some basic editing on your pictures. You can crop, change photo color and contrast, add text and more.

4. Movie Creation
Picasa supports creation of movies that can be burned to DVD, posted to Youtube, and more. Picasa can create a slideshow of pictures. It can set them to music and apply a "Pan and Zoom" effect to the video. Text slides can also be added for descriptions as well as captions for individual photos.

5. Tagging
Tagging allows you to place tags on photos for search purposes. For example, that picture of your kids at Christmas could be tagged with family, Christmas, Holidays, and a tag for each person in the picture. So when you are searching for particular photos, you can use these search terms to get the pictures you want.

6. Advanced Printing
Picasa has advanced printing controls, allowing you to choose how many pictures to print on a page It also includes frame selection, and can include captions.

7. Email
Picasa supports emailing photos straight from Picasa. Picasa will (if you want) compress the pictures so that they will be small and sent quickly, and still retain quality.

8.Exporting
It also can export photos using compression. This will help you create good quality compressed photos for use on a website or other Internet-based activities. This compression can also add a watermark, such as a copyright notice. This is a great feature for photographers.

9.Shopping
Picasa can integrate with other service such as Snapfish, Walmart, Walgreens Photo Center, and more so that you can get our digital photos the old-fashioned
print way.

10.Picasa Web Albums
Picasa connects to a photo sharing service called Picasa Web Albums. This will allow you to share your photos with friends and students, as well as publishing them for the world to see. I will go into much more detail on Web Albums on my next post.

These are the features I find most useful in Google's Picasa. I think they are applicable for both personal use and for school use.

For more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/picasa

If you have a question about Picasa or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Google Chrome

2008-09-01T22:44:00.000-07:00

This is a deviation from my normal theme of classroom related technologies, but I think it is something important that will change the foundation of the World Wide Web which in turn will affect everything I have discussed so far and much of what I will continue to discuss. However, feel free to ignore this post. It is more technical than most of my posts, and I will not build upon this post or reference to it extensively later, however I did wish to inform for those that were curious.

Earlier today it was leaked that Google would soon be releasing their own web browser (a program like Internet Explorer or Firefox) called Chrome. Google has many web applications, including almost everything I have discussed up until this point, so they realized that people need a browser that would be their main application which would in turn run the web apps they would use.

Google approached this from a completely new angle writing the entire browser from scratch. Google realized that the beginning of most browsers had been written over a decade ago. At that time web pages were static and not particularly interactive. Now entire applications can run right in your browser. In the beginning of most current browsers, malicious software such as viruses and malware were not a threat. Now they permeate much of the web.

Google recognized this and built their browser with this "new web" in mind. It is structured much differently than the browsers we are now used to. I will list some of the more important differences below.

Javascript is a technology used to power much of the web we know today, and is used heavily in web apps such as Gmail and Google Docs. Current browsers handle this using "single-threading." This means everything works in a line, one thing "handing over" the website to the next process that needs to run. So if Javascript experiences a problem the whole system locks up because the next process can't run. Google separates all processes and tabs meaning that is something does lock up, nothing else is affected and the rogue Javascript is easily closed.

This also means less memory bloat. Typically, when you close a tab, fragmenting occurs leaving a small piece of your RAM reserved but unused. This means that after extended periods of time your computer will have much RAM reserved but unused. In Google Chrome, when you close a tab, you are closing every process associated with that tab meaning all RAM is reclaimed.

Of course, Chrome will be used on millions of web pages so it has to be tested extensively on many pages. Google used an infrastructure already in place to test Chrome - the same one used to index pages for the Google search engine - to test Chrome using millions of pages.

Chrome also places Javascript in a virtual machine. This means that if a problem occurs it can be quickly and easily eliminated. Also "garbage collection" is made much more efficient meaning your web-browsing experience will be much faster.

Google also made some changes to the "standard" browser interface. Its tabs are on the top of the window and every setting in a tab is unique to that tab. This also allows for tabs to be easily moved in a window and between windows. The address bar (in Chrome called the omnibox) not only accepts standard web addresses (i.e. www.ezaptechnology.com) but also searched your history and popular pages making it easy to locate the page you need quickly.

Chrome also has a nice default home page for new tabs that is a nice balance between nothing (loads fast) and a full webpage (is useful). When you open a new tab it displays your nine most visited pages and the pages you search the most.

In addition Javascript is contained to its tab. This means that there is no way to force a pop up on you. It will be confined to the tab it came from and from there it can be closed or (if you want it) you can just drag it out.

Similar to the separate process approach is "sandboxing." This means Chrome will completely contain all things running. This means it is pretty much impervious to malware, viruses, spyware, etc. Something bad may be running, but it will completely die when that tab is closed.

In addition to malware, etc, there are phishing attempts to steal your information. Chrome is constantly updating a list of malicious sites and will alert you if you are about to visit a site that might steal your information.

Finally, Google Chrome is open source. This means that anyone can adapt portions of Chrome to their web browser. Google did this because as a search engine and web app provider, it is in their interests to have the entire web grow and mature. So they decided to open source their browser so that other could make use of it.

To download the windows beta go to www.google.com/chrome. This link does not yet work, but I am told it should work by Tuesday night (Sept. 2).

For more information go to http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html

If you have any questions please comment or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Google Books

2008-09-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

I had intended for this post to be about Google Pages (a website creation tool). However it appears that Google is no longer accepting Google Pages sign-ups and will be shifting all of Google Pages to the new Google Sites by the end of this year. So, I will now begin experimenting with Google Sites and will be bringing you a post about that shortly, in the meantime however, I will discuss Google Books.

Google Books is Google's search technology applied to books. This is a useful service when writing a research paper or something similar. Google has scanned over a million books since the project's inception in 2004. Google Books has 4 main features that I find useful.

1. OCR Scanning
When Google scanned the books they used OCR technology. This means that Google can search the entire text of a book, not just the title and author. For example, if you were to search "may it haunt their houses pleasantly," the search would return A Christmas Carol since those words are contained in that book.

2. Partial View
Using most book search engines, even the ones at your local library, you can't be sure if the book is relevant to your topic without finding the book and checking. With Google Books however, you are shown the page containing your search terms and usually surrounding pages. This is usually enough to determine whether a book is relevant or not.

3. Full View
If a book is in the public domain (such as The Iliad, or the works of Shakespeare), then the entire book is available to read on the Internet.

4. Purchase/Borrow location
Google Books also has a feature which allows you to locate the books you find on Amazon, Barnes&Nobles, and other locations so that you can quickly purchase books you find relevant. It also offers an option to find your chosen book at nearby libraries.

In summary, Google Books is an excellent web application to search within the text of books for research, as well as view the text of older books in the public domain.

For more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/googlebooks

If you have a question about Google Calendar or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Google Calendar

2008-08-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today I intend to discuss something that is extremely useful to me. That is, Google Calendar.
This is a web app that integrates very well into Gmail and other Google Apps. This is a great tool that can do anything from remind you of appointments while you're sitting at your desk to texting your cell phone so you remember yo pick up milk on the way home. Below I will outline some of the most useful and unique parts of Google Calendar.

As most people are familiar with the concept of a calendar, I will not linger on this subject. However, as I did with Google Docs, I want to let you know of some of the unique feature of Google Calendar.

1. Google Calendar/Gmail integration
One of my favorite parts of Google Calendar is its integration into Gmail. For example, if a friend emails me saying, "Let's meet at Fazoli's tomorrow night at 7 P.M. for dinner." Google Calendar would automatically know where on the calendar this falls. So, if I received this email, I would just have to click to Google Calendar button to add it to my calendar.

2. Alerts
Google Calendar has SMS alerts. This is a feature where Google can send a text message directly to your phone to remind you of an upcoming event. Google can also pop up a reminder if you are logged in, or send you a reminder email anywhere from 5 minutes to 1 week beforehand.

3. ICal and CalDAV support
Google supports some of the common Internet calendar formats, making it easy to integrate Google Calendar into Outlook, iCal, iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, and much more. This also allows you to access your calendar while not connected to the Internet.

4. PUSH support via nuevasync
This isn't exactly a Google service, but I have found it very useful with my iPod Touch as have my iPhone-owning friends. www.nuevasync.com allows you to set up PUSH calendaring and contacts integrated right into Gmail.

*Update*
4. PUSH using Google Sync. Sync allows you to set up PUSH calendaring and contacts integrated right into Gmail. This works with iPhone, iPod Touch, iCal, Outlook, Blackberry and others. For more info, go to www.google.com/sync.

For more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/googlecalendar

That is all for now. I hope this is useful to you. Stay tunned for more great, free stuff that is useful in the classroom.

If you have a question about Google Calendar or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Google Docs 2

2008-07-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Before I begin today, to avoid confusion, I'm going to explain that (at least for the purposes of this blog) Google Docs is Google's office suite including a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application. When I say Google Docs, I mean the entire suite of applications. I will call the word processor Documents, the spreadsheet application Spreadsheets, and the multimedia presentation application Presentations.

Now that that's out of the way . . .

In today's post I plan to continue discussing Google Doc's. It is not as full featured as other office suites, but I find that it does everything I need it to. Also it has some features that others can't offer.

Today, I will discuss some of these features that have been most useful to me. However, as most people have used an office suite at one point or other, I will not be focusing to much on document editing features. I will be focusing mainly on features that are exclusive to Google Docs.

1. Document Publishing
This will post your document as a website so that others can view your work. Once you publish, you will be given a link that you can send to others to see your file. This will allow you to easily post your files on the Internet allowing others to easily see your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

2. Forms
This is a feature in Google's Spreadsheets. It allows you to create a spreadsheet where certain fields can be filled in from an email or from a website. For example, if you are creating a database of friends (or students, family members, whatever) you can create a form that asks name, phone number, and any other information you want or need. This form can be emailed to your friends or posted on a website.

3. Presentation Sharing
You can share presentations just like documents and spreadsheets however, you can also share them in a way which allows you to remotely present. For example, if you have a friend in London and you are in New York, you can email or IM them a link to your presentation and when they click it, they will see your presentation. They will see it on their screen in London it will be controlled by you in New York.

4. Common file format support
This is a feature that allows you to convert your old documents to Google Docs and to send your documents to you non-Google friends. It supports Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and generic formats such as rtf, txt, and csv.

5. PDF support
This allows you to upload and share PDF files with you other Google documents. Unfortunately, PDF editing is not supported (yet).

This is going to be my last post for Google Docs. As I stated earlier, since most people have used an office suite, I don't want to spend to much time here. I wanted to draw your attention to it and point out some unique features.

As always, for more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/docs2

If you have a question about Google Docs or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Google Docs Intro

2008-07-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a little over a month since I have last written. I apologize for my lack of new posts, but I have been in Mexico and was very busy. However, I used the time to think of my next post. In my last several posts, I discussed Gmail. I by no means covered all of it, but I covered the parts that I hope will be most useful to you in the classroom. Today I am continuing with Google, but not with Gmail.

You may or may not know, but when you signed up for a Gmail account, you received access to Gmail, but also to Google's entire suite of applications. You may examine all of these at: http://www.google.com/options/.

I intend to continue in the Google arena for some time as everything is free, accessible from any Internet-connected computer, and easy to learn. Today I shall begin with Google Docs - accessible via http://docs.google.com.

Google Docs is an entire office suite, similar to Microsoft Office, but accessible from any web browser anywhere. This means that you can edit your files from anywhere in the world.

In my first Google Docs post I will discuss the basic layout and features.
1. Google Docs is a full office suite
Google Docs is a suite with three "applications:" Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations.
These are similar to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint respectively. The Google apps are not as full-featured as the Microsoft ones but they do everything that the casual user needs - and some!

2. Document Collaboration
Google Docs, being an Internet-based suite, is geared toward multiple users. This means that you can work on a document at the same time as a partner, or several partners! The collaboration also features chatting, similar to chatting in Gmail except only document collaborators can chat. This means that if you have a project you must do with a friend or colleague you do not have to be in the same room to work together.

3. Templates
This is a fairly new feature, Google recently added templates to their Google Docs. This means that you can create a nice looking invoice, photo album presentation, resumé, and more in minutes!

4. Google Gears
Google Gears is not exclusive to Google Docs, but it definitely worth mentioning. Google Gears is a technology Google developed recently which enables users to access web applications offline. So, if you are out of WiFi range or an a plane, etc, you will still be able to access your documents. Your documents will then sync back to Google Docs the next time you connect to the Internet.

This concludes my intro to Google Docs. I will continue by focusing on some of the specific applications in Google Docs begining with Documents.

As always, for more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/docs1

Gmail 3

2008-06-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

This is my third and final Gmail post. In it, I intend to highlight some of the features that are useful to me on a daily basis.

1. Web Clips
This is the place at the top of your inbox where you may receive news headlines and other RSS feed-type info. It is a useful way to keep up with your favorite headlines while also checking your email. As a technology specialist, I have technology news like Digg-Technology and Slashdot come into my email so I am kept up to date on relevant information while checking my email.

2. Integrated Chat
One of Google's many services is one called Google Talk, and this one is integrated right into Gmail. You may chat right from your Gmail inbox to other Gmail users that are currently logged in. You may also chat from the Google Talk client, which also includes audio chatting. You may also use Gmail's integrated chatting to chat with your AIM buddies.

3.Contacts
Contacts is a feature that anyone who is used to email has probably used. However, Gmail's contacts section deserves a closer look. It allows you to import contacts from other email accounts and applications. It allows for group creation - allowing you to send an email to up to 500 people at once. It also keeps much more than just email accounts and names, it can keep addresses, phone numbers, pictures, and more. It can also export your contacts to be printed or used with another account.

Also, you do not have to go to the contacts section to choose which contact to send your email to. All you must do is begin typing the desired recipient's first name, last name, or email address and Gmail will pop up a list of all possible matches that narrows as you continue typing.

4.Gmail Labs
Gmail is a project conducted by a team at Google. Gmail team members often have ideas that are not incorporated into Gmail immediately. Gmail Labs is a recent (at the time of this writing) addition to Gmail. It will allow you to test new features that are being considered being added to mainstream Gmail. Gmail Labs also allows you to communicate directly with the person in charge of each feature so you can, if you wish, send comment, criticisms, and suggestions.

As always, for more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/gmail3

This finishes my "Gmail series." I plan to cover some free web apps next. As usual, if you have a question about Gmail or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Gmail 2

2008-06-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

In my last Gmail post, I talked about some of the great benefits of moving to or choosing Gmail. In this post I intend to discuss some of the features that make Gmail easy to use and will help in daily life.

1. Archive
Gmail, as stated earlier, offers over 6.8 GB (and counting) of storage for your email. This is a huge amount of storage just for email. To put it in perspective, a single email is about 10 KB. So, Gmail has the storage capacity for about 70,000 emails! I, after using it daily for about four years, have used only 7% of available space. After reading any email instead of deleting I click Archive and my emails are stored in All Mail for me to look at later. This is great in conjunction with:

2. Search
Google applies their great search technology to your inbox, allowing you to access the message you need quickly. Any word in the email, subject, the name or address of the sender or any recipient will find the email you want.

3. Labels
In Gmail, labels take the place of folders. They are basically the same except that an email can be in one folder only. A Gmail message can be in as many labels as you want. For instance, an archived email in All Mail can also be in Personal and Family Reunion. I find these particularly useful in conjunction with:

4. Filters
Filters in Gmail cause messages matching certain criteria to perform certain actions. For example an email from your boss or colleagues could be automatically labeled as Work, while anything from your family is classified as Personal. Filter also allow for automatic forwarding, deleting, archiving, starring, and more.

5. "Conversations"
Email messages in Gmail are also called conversations. This means that emails are kept in a very precise form of who sent what. For example, If I send you an email and I you reply, when I open it, my original message will be in a green box and your reply in a red one. This goes on as long as the conversation does with as many participants as you want.

For more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/gmail 2 .

Well, this wraps up my second Gmail post. I plan to have only one or two more and the move on to some excellent free web apps. If you have a question about Gmail or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Technology for the Classroom Website

2008-06-12T12:19:00.000-07:00

As I was reading over my Gmail 1 post, i realized something, it was really long. As a long time Internet reader, I know that if someone has to scroll down too much to read a post, they won't finish the post at all.

So I have decided to launch a companion website.
This website is located at class.technology.googlepages.com.

This means that my blog posts will talk about what you can do with something, and my website will discuss how to do it.

So, from now on, if you are interested in a subject I talk about, click the link at the bottom of the post for more information.

Then, if you still have questions, please feel free to email me, or leave them in the comments.

Stay tuned for Gmail 2, where I'll talk about some of Gmail's great features!

Gmail 1

2008-06-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

Before moving on to bigger and better things, the first thing one needs to do is have a good email account. Email, in today's world, is the center of communication. While social-networking has taken over in many areas, email is still the hub of all professional communication. Businesses use it, colleges and universities use it, as well as many other websites and services.

I know most (if not all) of my readers already have an email account. So, you're probably thinking, "I've got a perfectly good email account, why should I change?" as well as, "I'm open to change but all my friends and colleagues know my current address, I don't want a different one!"

I intend, in this post, to answer both questions with my favorite email service - Gmail.

"Why should I choose (or change to) Gmail?"

1. It's portable
Many people use the email give to them by their ISP or their company, and thus have a @comcast.net, @mtsu.edu, etc. address. While this may provide excellent email service, if you leave the company, change ISPs, or move, your email address will most likely change.
With Gmail, your address stays with you as long as you want the account.

2. Great archiving and search
Gmail has 6+ GB of storage and it is increasing everyday. This means that instead of ever trashing your emails, you can archive every one of them. You can also search through your archives using Google's famous search engine - built right into your email.

3. Great web interface
Gmail has, out of my experience, the best webmail of all. It has all the features I need, and it is definitely the fastest email I have ever used. Also, if you prefer a desktop application such as Outlook or Thunderbird, Gmail offers free IMAP so that they work as well.

4. Integrates with other accounts
As I mentioned earlier, many already have accounts. I, for instance, am required to have a @mtsu.edu address for communication with my university. However, I would prefer to use Gmail. So, instead of checking 2 email accounts all the time, I tied the two together. Now I can check both accounts and send from both accounts within Gmail.

For more details and instructions about the topics discussed in this post please visit the companion website: http://class.technology.googlepages.com/gmail.

Well, this wraps up my first Gmail post. There are a few more to come that delve into the uniqueness and power of having a Gmail account. If you have a question about Gmail or would like me to go into more detail on a particular section, please leave a question in the comments or email me at blog@ezaptechnology.com.

Introduction

2008-06-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

For my first post, I intend to establish the purpose of this blog as well as my "credentials."

I have been a technology enthusiast for about ten years.
I have taught general technology at the high school and middle school level.
I have also been a longtime student.
I also own and operate a computer repair service, EZap Technology.

With these skills, I have learned quite a bit about technology that is useful to both students and teachers in the classroom. I have learned many different technologies, from advanced video editing to simple word processing and everything in between. I have also learned (possibly my favorite and most useful skill) how to do something very professional looking for free!

I also intend to answer any questions (or research if I don't know the answer) that my readers may have.