Evernote vs. eBackpack for Student Portfolios

Student Portfolios - Evernote vs. eBackpack

	Evernote	eBackpack
Account Setup	Manual by email	District setup
Web and iPad	Yes & Mac/PC App	Yes
Sharing Portfolio	Weblink, email, share folder	Teacher only (act as…)
Viewing Portfolio	Folder Items or Presentation Mode	Folder Items
Collaboration	Can share folders collaboratively	No
Annotation	Web Version Only	iPad Version Only
Life of Account	Forever	Graduation or until district stops paying for app
Cost	Free	MLTI 7-12, Gr.6 $?
Ease of Use	Fair	Excellent
Max Space	Unlimited, but 60MB/Month upload limit	Unlimited
Input Methods	Camera Camera Roll Type directly Audio File - Mic Built in checklists Built in reminders Other Apps From Web (directly) Email	Camera Camera Roll Audio File - Mic Other Apps
Organization	Hierarchical: Tags Notes Notebooks Stacks	Folders in Folders
External Service Accounts	Not needed, everything jives	Drive, Dropbox
Spell Check	No	Yes
iOS Auto Correct	Yes	No
Notificaitons	Can set reminders	Teacher sets due dates
Privacy	Web based, private, user is the only viewer unless deliberately shared	Web based, but closed system. Student accounts can be viewed by teachers
Procedure to Input From Other App	Open In… Choose Evernote Continue working in same program.	Open In… Choose eBackpack eBackpack opens Choose location in eBackpack Save Ends in eBackpack Drive is a pull from within eBackpack
Compatability	Could not find an incompatible productivity app. Works with web browsers.	Compatible with all apps, sometimes in the “more” area.   Not compatable with web browsers.
Summary	Pros:  Extremely Versatile, works as a first choice with all other apps, including browsers.  Presentation mode, sharing and collaboration lend themselves well to student portfolios.  Easy to add a huge variety of media. Cons:  No spell check, students manage their accounts.	Pros: Closed system, privacy.  Ease of use.  Teacher can reset passwords.  No account creation needed. Built in spell check. iPad annotation feature.  Simple to use. Cons;  No sharing and presenting is basically rifling through a folder.

Where am I on my Mac?

When you search for a file on your computer and it shows up in Finder, do you struggle to figure out where it lives on your computer?  

With this quick fix, you can have Finder always display the full path of your file as shown below:



















This short document will walk you through a quick console command to make the path visible in Finder:

1.  Click Applications folder and open Utilities.
2.  Double click Terminal to open the terminal.
3.  At the prompt (assetID-computername: ~username$) type (or cut and paste) the following command:
   defaults write com.apple.finder _FXShowPosixPathInTitle -bool YES
4.  Press the ENTER key.
5.  Go back to Finder so that it can be restarted.
6.  Click on the Apple in the upper left corner of the screen.
7.  Select Force Quit.
8.  Click on the Finder application in the list of applications that pops up.
9.  Click on the Relaunch button.

Open Finder and it will be displaying the path!

Customize Your Chrome Google Apps Launcher

Figure 1
Apps Launcher Menu

<--- When you use the little grid in the Chrome browser to switch between Gmail,  Drive or other Google Apps, is the Apps Launcher menu meaningful to you?  Are the resulting choices apps you don't need?  Do you have to go searching for the ones you do need?

Well, here is a quick way to customize your Apps Launcher with Google Apps and other links that you use frequently.

1. Click this link to locate and install the App Launcher Customizer Tool.
2. Re-open or reload your Chrome browser.
3. Click on the App Launcher grid again, scroll down to the bottom and click on "Configure". 
4. Now you can drag apps to and from the right pane to add or remove them from your App Launcher menu. 

Mail Merging for Google Drive with autoCrat

I love Google Drive, but there are a few things that have still been quicker and easier for me to in Microsoft Office or iWork.  One of those things is a mail merge, which I can do in just a minute or two in Excel/Word.

A mail merge is used to pull data from a spreadsheet into a document, such as mailing labels, form letters, permission slips, or any template document that needs a unique piece of information on each one.

I used a Google Script called "autoCrat".  Here is more information about the script.

How it works:

1. Create a Google Spreadsheet with a column heading for each piece of information needed for the letter or other document.
2. Create a Google Document and use anchors wherever external information will be pulled from a spreadsheet.  
• Example:  Dear <<firstname>> <<lastname>>
• Note that anything contained in the <<>> tells the doc to go find information somewhere else and...
• Text within the <<>> must exactly match the column heading in the spreadsheet.
3. In the spreadsheet, click Tools-->Script Gallery and search for autoCrat.  Click the Install button. Now you will see an additional option added to your Spreadsheet
   
4. Click the autoCrat pull-down menu and select Run Initial Configuration. 
5. Follow prompts that walk through the script setup or use THIS step-by-step document as a guide.

This is very slick!  Give it a try or contact me if you want me to walk you through it.

How to Back up Your iPad

There are a lot of different ways to back things up from your iPad.  The method you choose depends largely on how you want to access your backup.  Here are some tips and directions for saving all of your iPad data.

To back up every single thing on your iPad: 

including documents, photos, videos, 3rd party application data, settings, and layout, use the iCloud Storage & Backup utility.

This method is very thorough, however, the backup is saved as a single entity.  This backup method can be used to restore your entire iPad should you have to reset it or get a new one for any reason.
iCloud Storage Backup should always be done in case of unforeseen emergencies, but should not be relied upon as a method to access specific files, photos, or videos from another device.

To make a complete iPad backup:

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap iCloud settings
3. Tap Storage & Backup
4. Turn iCloud Backup slider to ON.

To retrieve the data later:

1. Go to Settings > General > Reset, then tap “Erase all content and settings.”
2. In the Setup Assistant, proceed to “Set up your device,” tap Restore from a Backup, then sign in to iCloud.
3. Proceed to “Choose backup,” then choose from a list of available backups in iCloud.

To back up specific items to view on another device:

Here are some methods of backing up specific files.  

Use iCloud settings.  This method is simple for some things (like your Keynote and Pages documents) and not so simple for others (like your Notes, Keychain, and Videos).  This method will not back up data from your non-Apple Apps, such as Explain Everything or Educreations.  Click here for complete instructions and information.

Save files to Google Drive.   You can use the GoogleDrive App or the desktop version in Safari.  You can choose to share from many apps and move the files to Drive that way or you can upload from within Google Drive.  Files can be accessed from any computer or device.

Export files to DropBox.  Save files to DropBox from many iPad apps or upload files from your camera roll from within the DropBox app or from DropBox.com.   Here is a link to create an account if you don't already have one.

Please contact me if you want help with backing up iPads for you or your students.  sarahglatzMMS.youcanbook.me

Organize and Collaborate with Pearltrees

Recently my friend, Ms. Lyon, told me about an awesome app that she uses with her grade 7 language arts class.  I just got around to taking it for a test drive today and it is definitely worthy of sharing.

Pearltrees is both an iPad App and a web-based app that allows for organizing and accessing files from anywhere.   How is this different than tools such as Google Drive or Evernote?  Well, let me tell you what this App can do!

Like other free bookmarking or file sharing tools, Pearltrees can store many different file types, websites, photos, links, and notes.  Pearltrees also allows for sharing of topics, or "pearltrees" with specific users or groups of users.

What really sets Pearltrees apart is the visual layout.  Information is stored in a tree-like format, rather than lists, which makes it easy to categorize, sub-categorize, and follow.  Each node or "pearl" can be simply dragged with one finger to re-categorize it.

Another amazing feature of this App is the ability to add content in a huge variety of ways.  Unlike any other iPad App I've seen, Pearltrees comes with a "Pearler Tool".  The "Pearler Tool" allows me to tap the Safari bookmark from within any website to immediately and automatically add that site to my Pearltrees.    I can even specify which tree I want it added to.  If you've ever "pinned" something to Pinterest from a website, you know how slick this is.  Other ways to add content are from within the App, using the "Open In" from other apps, and emailing add@pearltrees.com

The ability to "Team Up" on a Pearltree is pretty neat too.  Teaming up allows more than one user, or a team of users to contribute to the same tree in real time.

I asked Ms. Lyon what the learning curve was for her students.  She said that it was less than 12 minutes to download the app, create an account, log in, and locate her resources.  Once the credentials are entered into the App, students area logged in forever, unless they manually log out.

I did not find much in the way of drawbacks.  It is not possible with a free account to create private workspaces.  So, that would preclude this from being storage for personal content.  The free App has a 1GB storage limit, but that is pretty generous since it is mostly comprised of links.   Private messaging is allowed between users without teacher moderation, if that is a concern for you or your students.

Overall, this App is free, fun, very easy to use, visually appealing, collaborative, and extremely useful.   Besides simply organizing files, links, and other media, it could be used for webquests, to distribute materials to students, group projects, assessment links (google forms), collecting resources for a project, sharing bookmarks for any reason, and more!

Here is a summarized list of what Pearltrees can do:

• Organize resources in a visually friendly way
• Easy drop and drag management of resources
• Multiple resource types - Links, emails, documents, websites, photos, notes
• Multiple simple ways to add content:
•  +Add from within the App
• "Pearler Tool" (strait from web)
• Email
• "Open in" from other iPad Apps, including Explain Everything, Pages, and Keynote
• Camera
• Camera Roll
• Follow or add other people's related Pearltrees to your own
• Team Up to work on a tree collaboratively

Check it out for Mac, for iPad or Book Me for a quick demo of how it works!

Three Tools for Digital Portfolio Creation on the iPad

I spend significant time finding ways and means to do the everyday things we've always done when the iPad is the only tool, as it is for our grade 6 through 12 students.  Recently, a few teachers have asked questions about digital portfolios, and similar projects for students.  So, I dug in and tried to exhaust the resources of three tools:  Evernote, Google Sites, and Blogger.  While Evernote is, by far, the richest in ease and options on the iPad, I guess that the best tool for the job depends on what the outcome goal is.  Hopefully, my evaluation below will be helpful.

Blogger 

Blogger Pros:  The Blogger app is simple to use.  The layout is attractive and chronological.  Login is simple since it is a Google product and we already have a login (our spsdme.org email).  It is easy to add photos and type directly into a post.  I like that I can post to my Blogger by emailing it.  Attaching a hand drawn sketch or any other attachment to the email will embed that media into my blog.

Blogger Cons:  I cannot post to Blogger from other apps on my iPad.  It is also not possible to paste in the blogger edit mode, so I can't paste a link to an external location or even text for that matter.  The only way I found to do that was to email the blog.  I was not able to change settings for the blog, such as sharing to Google+ or blog email address from within the app.  I had to go out to the web version to do that.  Using the app, it was not easy to add any media other than text and photo.


Google Site

Google Site Pros:  Google sites are accessible to anyone with a spsdme.org gmail account.  Using Google Chrome app to set up my site allowed me to use almost all the functions available in Google Sites.  The layout is very attractive, flexible, and customizable.  There are a lot of options for backgrounds, themes, layouts, and more.  I set up a test site with horizontal navigation tabs and categorized my pages by subject.  Gadgets seemed to work fine on the iPad.

Google Site Cons:  It is not possible to use the FileCabinet feature or upload files, other than photos.  I could create links, but I had to use the link button first, as opposed to selecting the text I wanted to link and then choosing the link button.  I was happy to find a work around.   No apps on the iPad will open in Google Sites (ie. from Pages or other, select "open in..."), so getting content from another app would involve posting to the web to obtain a URL or a copy/paste.


Evernote

Evernote Pros:  Evernote was an extremely flexible app.  I was able to quickly add text, photo, audio, a checklist, or photo from my camera.  Many other apps on the iPad allow for opening in Evernote, including Explain Everything, eBackpack, and Pages.   Evernote is organized by creating notebooks.  Additionally tags can be added to posts for easy searching.  Notebooks can be quickly shared with others.  The email feature is awesome!  I can email my Evernote account and by using the @ and # symbols in the subject of my email, my post automatically lands in the folder I want with the tags I want associated with it.    Cut/paste works in Evernote edit mode, so adding links is also quite easy.

Evernote Cons:  Layout is not particularly visually appealing, like Google Sites or Blogger.

Add a Super-Fast Entry to Your Google Calendar

In a hurry?  Do you need to add something to your Google calendar really fast?  Try this.  It is amazing!

1. Click the arrow next to the Create button in Google Calendar to Quick Add.
2. Type what you want to put on the calendar, just as you'd say it.    That's it!

Examples:

• Soccer tomorrow at 5pm
• Appointment Monday from 1-2pm
• Meeting at school with Robert Today at 12 for 15 minutes
• ACTEM Conference in Augusta 10/4-10/5

A few more tips:

• Quick Add defaults to 1 hour unless "until" is specified.
• If no date is added, the entry will go to the next possible date at the time specified, which may even be the same day.
• If no time is specified, Quick Add will assume an all day event.
• If your location contains a date, such as "TGI Friday's", use quotes around the location.