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For those school administrators using Android tablets, and phones, what I consider to be the best newsreader experience in smartphone apps became available today: Flipboard for Android.
For those not familiar with Flipboard, it is a newsreader app that allows you to choose the news you see on your device. You can also see your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Tumbler feeds. You can even download your Google Reader Feeds too. As a longtime user of Flipboard on my iPad, I was happy that I now can have that same experience on my Android tablet. From my perspective, it is one of the easiest newsreaders to set up, and one of the easiest to use. Check out Flipboard for Android in the Google Play Store.

Flipboard for Android

E-books are here, at least for me. For the past three months, I haven't purchased a single book in all my excursions to the local Barns and Noble bookstore in my hometown. I have, though, purchased several ebooks instead. In fact, there is great satisfaction for me that I can purchase a book and immediately download it to my iPad or PC. What I have discovered though is that not all ebook readers and ebook providers are created equal, even though most of the readers provide the same basic features. Which e-reader should you buy? Here's my thoughts on the matter.

Kindle and Amazon


I confess that I started using Barnes and Noble's Nook reader more than Amazon's Kindle. However, I've quickly learned that Amazon offers a far larger selection of ebooks than Barnes and Noble. For example, I recently was interested in purchasing Leading 21st Century Schools: Harnessing Technology for Engagement and Achievement by Lynne Schrum and Barabara Levin. I found the book on Barnes and Noble, but no ebook version was available. The ebook was available at Amazon. Amazon offers users a much larger selection of ebooks than any of the other providers. Perhaps Amazon has discovered the secret of the ebook market: it's not the shiny features of the ebook reader that matters, it's the selection of ebooks you offer.

Kindle App for PC Interface

Nook / Barnes and Noble


Barnes and Noble provides an interesting ereading application for the PC in its NookStudy reader. (You can download it for your PC here.) I've really found its features quite useful. For example, you can import PDFs and read them, and you can take notes as you read and then export them as a word processing file. In spite of its bells and whistles though, Barnes and Noble doesn't have the number of ebooks available that Amazon does. That's especially true for professional education books. The Nook reader software for the desktop and the iPad is extremely user friendly, but ultimately it doesn't matter to me how useful it is if they do not offer an adequate selection of books.

NookStudy Screenshot

Apple's iBooks


Apple seems to have spent a great deal of effort developing a slick, appealing application for its iDevices, but like Barnes and Noble, they suffer from selection dearth. The iBook application does allow for importing PDFs, and they also offer quite a selection of free ebooks. However, browsing for those in the iBook app for my iPad is awkward and non-intuitive. I would also add that a major shortfall of the iBook app is that there's currently no PC app to access the books you purchase like there is with the Kindle app and Nook app.

Sony E-Reader


I really have little to say about Sony's e-reader because I've yet to get it to work on my laptop. There is no e-reader for my iPad either, so I have no reason at this point to recommend their product.

At this point, I would recommend highly Amazon's Kindle reader as the best app for ebooks. Ultimately, an e-reader application is only as good as the book selection available, and Amazon seems to be the winner in this category at this time.

Every once in a while I stumble across one of those software tools, that I just can't wait to share with others. GMail Backup is one of the applications. I have two Gmail accounts, a personal and my district account, and even though I'm not quite near the storage limit, I have often wondered how I was going to be able to keep accessible copies of my emails in a location where I can access them and manage my storage as it got closer to the limit. GMail Backup is an application that gives me that option.

The software interface itself is simple to use. You do have the option to specific a certain period of time that your email backup covers. I ran the application to back up my district account, which has a substantial number of emails, and it took just about an hour. Now I have copies of my email located on my hard drive and on my portable hard drive. The software also has a restore option, which I haven't yet tried. The software is free to download, but the developer asks for a donation. Check it out here: http://www.gmail-backup.com/ .

Gmail Backup's Simple-to-Use Interface

In my previous post, I included an excellent video that I think captures very effectively how the iPad can transform the classroom into a 21st century learning environment. Larry Mitchell's students are the picture of high engagement as they tackle both normal classroom tasks and authentic learning tasks.

The simple truth regarding any technological device like the iPad is that it's only as good as the applications it is using. My next question is, "What are the best iPad apps for the classroom?" I have written several times regarding those apps that I think administrators should use, but what would be apps to include on every iPad we put in classrooms?  Feel free to share your thoughts below. I hope to share out responses at a later date.

Storage is not one of the most exciting technological parts of a geeky discussion about computers, but there are two solutions that every educator should have. One is a Dropbox account and the other is a relatively new storage/cloud solution called Syncdocs. Both of these technological solutions help make using a computer easier and make using cloud applications like Google Docs easier.

Dropbox has actually launched in 2008 and is easily one of my all time favorite technology tricks. Instructional technologists everywhere can win the loyalty of their administrators by simply introducing them to this solution. I can honestly say that I haven’t picked up a flash drive in months because Dropbox made it obsolete. The biggest selling points for Dropbox was:

• Being able to save files into a folder on my school laptop, and having access to those same files on both the web and also in the folder of my desktop at home.
• Being able to share specific folders with specific people. I don’t have to share my entire Dropbox folder, I can share individual files or individuals folders.

If you want to brighten an educator’s day today, show them the wonders of Dropbox. They will be amazed. For more information about Dropbox check out their website here.

Syndocs is a solution that takes advantage of Google Docs. Since our district converted to Google Apps last summer, this is an excellent addition to those tools to help maintain consistent storage across devices. Syndocs is an application that you install on your computer and it syncs your Google Docs items across desktops that have the software. Like Dropbox, it automatically syncs upon boot. It allows you to do the following:

• Backup your desktop files in the cloud in your Google Docs account.
• Backs up your Google Docs files on your desktop.
• Whatever folder you designate automatically syncs to Google Docs and back to any other desktops that have the application installed and that folder selected.
• It places any office suite files you save into the designated sync folder into your Google Docs account.

For more information on Syndocs and to download the program, check out the web site here.

Who needs flash or any kinds of portable storage devices anymore. Drobox and Syndocs help you take advantage of storage versatility in the cloud.

I think this video says about all that can be said about both our budget crisis in North Carolina, and the approach our political establishment is taking with budget cuts. This video was created by Career Technical Education students in a multimedia class. It is a very moving tribute to what is currently happening in education in North Carolina.



The Impact of Budget Cuts in Education from WNDR News on Vimeo.

Thank you to the students at AL Brown High School in Kannapolis, North Carolina for reminding us of the importance of education.

Administrators not engaging technology are not just in danger of becoming irrelevant, they are in danger of becoming living fossils. Engaging technology means exploring the potential of technology too, not just expecting it of teachers and students to do so. Recently, I stumbled across this video and it was a vivid reminder of just how fast our world is changing due to the Internet. Those who still hold on to the idea that the "Internet Is a Fad" are delusional. Both the Internet and its functions and uses are expanding phenomenally. My advice to fellow administrators: "Engage it, explore it, or you will be left behind." For those who are having a bit of a problem understanding how rapidly the Internet and its many uses are changing, here’s a visual reminder.



The statistics are truly overwhelming, and I honestly can't imagine that there are still school administrators who fail to see how the Internet is disrupting everything we do. I'm not concerned as much about students being left behind technologically. After watching this video, I'm more afraid of administrators being left behind.

I stumbled across this post from Matthew Ingram entitled “Future Leaders Will Be Those Who Can Manage Technology Shifts.”

According to Ingram, “The big question for businesses today is how they adapt to (technology progression) and particularly how the leaders of companies handle the implementation of technology inside their organizations, and try to help their employees evolve and succeed. And the leaders of the future will likely be those who are flexible enough to move with those changes, rather than the people who moved up through the ranks the traditional ways.”

Leadership in schools will also require this same ability to adapt and help others adapt to the progression of technology. That means having leaders who embrace technological change rather than trying to keep it outside the building. (Hence my argument regarding Facebook.) If we are going to be educational leaders in this quickly shifting technological landscape, we need to be agile in every way possible.

In the video below, Allen Delattre makes an excellent argument for needing a new kind of business leader able to manage technology shifts. Much of what he says could be applied to educational leadership as well.