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I began using Xmind with the free version about a year and a half ago. It is one of the simplest mind mapping tools you can find, with a very shallow learning curve. Even with the free version you can create excellent mind maps. But for $49 a year or $44 per year for educators, you can download the Xmind Pro version which gives you the following features.

Feature	Description
Brainstorming and Presentation Mode	In the brainstorming mode use a full screen editor and timer to record responses or ideas. With presentation mode, you can present your ideas to an audience.
Security	Set a password to protect access to your Xmind mind map.
Gantt View	A tool for managing project tasks in a single view. It can help you organize your project plan.
Export	Export Xmind maps to PDF, Text, Word, PowerPoint, other map formats.
Search	Allows searching of mind maps, but also searching of the web. You can use this search feature to find images from the web. You can then drag and drop them onto your map.
Privately Share	Users can share their maps privately with users they designate.
MapShot	Using the MapShot feature, you can take snapshots of parts of your map to save for pasting into other applications.
Map Merge	Allows users to merge smaller maps together into a single map.
TaskInfo	With TaskInfo view users can define specific task elements in a map.
Gallery	Users get hundreds of high-quality images to use in their maps.
Design Your Own Theme	Users can give their maps a custom look with this feature.

Mind mapping software can be quite expensive. You can easily spend anywhere from $100 to $300 on a high quality, business-grade product. With Xmind Pro, users can get a mind mapping tool that has a wide variety of features for only $44 per year. That’s even cheaper than Inspiration, the mapping software for students. To get more information about Xmind, or to download the free version of Xmind, you can access it here.

Evernote is an excellent application for anyone who copiously takes notes of all kinds from a variety of web sources. I am an avid reader of blogs and web sites, and Evernote provides me with just the right tools to capture information and graphics from the Internet. With this software, I can capture anything I find. I can make a text note, snap a photo, or grab a screenshot and keep all of these in one place. I also use the program to take notes from my book reading. With Evernote, I can also organize my notes, and it makes anything I place there fully searchable. This means when I make a note of an article I read on a blog, whether it is two or ten months later, I can search to find that very article. Evernote is a powerful, simple notetaking tool, which brings me to my reasons for making it a must-have premium Web 2.o tool.

• In comparison to Microsoft OneNote, Evernote is simple and very user-friendly. While OneNote is loaded with many more features, for the “not-so” experienced user, the sheer number of those features is overwhelming. Evernote is extremely user-friendly, and even the most technophobic administrator or educator can learn to use it.
• You can post notes and access notes from anywhere. I have the client version of Evernote on my work laptop and my personal laptop. I also have Evernote on my Droid phone. When all these are synced, my notes are accessible in any where I might be. And if I do not have the client installed, I can access my notes through the Web. While Microsoft’s OneNote also has the potential of being accessible any where, currently there is no Droid app that I am aware of, and its web version has sometimes not worked well in my Chrome browser.
• Evernote is relatively inexpensive. You can currently purchase a premium account for $45 per year. The premium account gives you 500 MB of notes per month along with the following features.

Premium Feature	Description
Note Allowance	Uploads are unlimited to 500 MB per month in premium account compared to 40 MB per month for free account.
File Synchronization	Any file type can be synchronized in the premium account while in free account this synchronization is limited to images, audio, ink, and PDF files.
Search within PDFs	In premium account, you have the ability to search within any PDF files placed in a notebook.
Access to Note History	For premium users, you have the ability to access various versions of your notes through the note history feature.
Offline Notebooks	Premium account users have offline access to notebooks using iPhone, iPad, or iPod.
Notebook Sharing via Web	Premium account users can allow others to read and edit notes in Evernote.
Maximum Note Size	Premium account users have a maximum note size of 50 MB while free account users only have 25 MB.
Support	Premium users get premium support.
Security Features	Premium users get SSL encryption which means notes are more secure.
Hide Advertisement	Premium users can hide the advertisement in the client software.

I honestly like Microsoft OneNote’s power, but it currently fails to meet my notetaking needs for three reasons. First of all, Evernote’s desktop software can be installed on any computer I use, and I can easily sync my notes all these computers. OneNote only allows me to install on one desktop. Secondly, Evernote is much simpler to use. Much of my notetaking just doesn’t require all the power tools found in OneNote. Evernote is so easy, most administrators with the least experience with technology can learn to use it. Finally, I have access to Evernote on my Droid phone. I can access notes I have in Evernote, or I can even add notes to Evernote right from my Droid phone. Currently, to my knowledge, that is not available in OneNote. For more information regarding Eevernote, check here.

Update

This morning I downloaded Evernote 2.0 for Android, and it is a much better app. It works faster, and the main screen is much more accessible. I can access all my notes, or a specific notebook. I can access any of my notes much more quickly with this update. The upgrades on this app make having a premium account even more desirable. For Lifehacker’s take on Evernote 2.0 for Android, check here.

 

Another must have web tool for administrators is Dropbox. With this tool, I basically have both a virtual briefcase and document library that I can access from any where. I have Dropbox installed on my laptop at work, my personal laptop, and my Droid phone, which means I have access to it from any where. The files I place in it include: working documents, school handbooks, and any other file that I might need at any time. For example, a parent once caught me outside the office with a question about our curriculum. I have an electronic version of our school curriculum guide in my Dropbox. Since I have access to Dropbox on my Droid phone, I pulled up the document, and immediately found what I needed to answer the parent’s question. Add the fact that you can access these documents from a web account as well, and the files can be accessed from any place with a Web connection.

Currently Dropbox basic with 2 GB is free, with the ability to add more space by recommending others to use the product. I currently have a basic account, but as soon as use my free space, I will upgrade to the 50 GB account which is currently priced at $9.99 per month. Here’s the big pluses for using Dropbox.

• Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across multiple computers automatically. This means that any files I am working on at the office are saved to my Dropbox folder where I have access on any computer either with Internet access or with the Dropbox client program.  You can sync files of any type too, which allows me to sync specific program file types. For example, I was recently working on an Xmind map. I saved it to my Dropbox folder, and I continued working on it at home.
• Dropbox allows you to share files with others. You can collaborate on specific documents or presentations through Dropbox. You control who has access to these folders, and you can see their changes to these files immediately. I plan to use Dropbox when our school begins working on our new school improvement plan next spring.
• Dropbox automatically backs up the files online. That means I don’t need to worry about making sure there is a backup of these files. No need to worry about backing them up on a flashdrive. I simply save them to my Dropbox folder, and the software takes care of the rest.
• Dropbox has what it calls “military grade” encryption. That means that I can be fairly confident that the files are safe. Only those I want to have access, do.
• Dropbox has mobile access through the Android, iPhone, iPad, and Blackberry devices. Like I said earlier, you can place those files in a place where you can immediately find them.

This has to be one of the best tools I began using this year. In fact, because of it, I haven’t even picked up a flash drive in a month or so. It’s just too easy to use, and I am positive when I get to the end of my 2 GB storage limit, I’ll purchase the 50 GB storage. This is my second administrator must-have web tool. For more information or to download the software check it out here.

With all the free Web 2.0 options available, it is sometimes tempting to totally rely on these tools. Yet, there are some of these tools that are well worth the cost of the upgrade so that you can fully utilize the product. In the past several months, I have been trying out quite a few of these tools, and I have come to the conclusion that there are currently 5 that I believe are worth the cost of upgrading. For the next few days, I am going to post my top five Web 2.0 tools I’m willing to pay for. Today’s tool is Diigo, the social bookmarking site.

Diigo

The social bookmarking site has expanded to the point that it now does so much more. The ability to bookmark Web pages, highlight text, and annotate that text makes it a fantastic tool for anyone collecting information from the Internet. I use the Chrome Diigo extension which gives me immediate access to these tools, and it allows me to quickly share these resources using Twitter and Facebook. The cost to upgrade to premium is only $40 per year. I will admit that I have not yet upgraded. my plans are to do so when some of the premium features are available for the Chrome web browser, my browser of choice. Here are some features you get by upgrading to premium.

Feature	Description
Full Text Search	With this feature, all cached pages are indexed and become fully searchable. Any time a feature allows searches, the functionality of digital information expands enormously. For complete description of this feature check here.
Cached Pages	This feature allows users to fully archive pages forever, which allows for the first feature. For more information on this feature check this help page.
Capture	With this premium feature, users can click a “Capture” button on the browser toolbar, and store an image of a webpage, then annotate it with shapes and text. Currently this feature is only available for users of Internet Explorer and Firefox. The web site says it will be available for Chrome users soon. Check out the help page for a more complete description of this feature.
Collect Images	This feature allows users to collect images from Web pages by simply saving those images to Diigo. This is an excellent feature for those collecting specific images, and for providing a place to organize those images. For more information, check out the help page here.
Text View	This premium feature allows users to read their cached Web pages in a straightforward, uncluttered manner. This feature works especially well with longer articles. For a more detailed description of this feature, check here.

As I indicated earlier, I do not currently have a premium account with Diigo, but I will add this to my paid-for Web 2.0 tools as soon as these features are available for the Chrome browser.

One additional feature of note that adds functionality for Diigo is the Android app, Power Note. This app is free. It allows users to add text notes, bookmarks, cached pages, pictures, and text messages to your Diigo My Library. You also gain access to your Diigo library and to your “Read Later” bookmarks. To get additional information about Power Note, check this web page.

 Next Premium tool to review: Dropbox.

Several months ago, I wrote to the North Carolina Democratic Party, the National Democratic Party, and even the Whitehouse to express my concern of the heavy-handed rhetoric coming from the administration regarding teachers. This was just after Secretary Arne Duncan and President Obama applauded the firings of the teachers at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. The kind of response I received from all three of these entities is demonstrative of why the Democratic Party suffered the great election losses this past Tuesday. They have lost touch with those who voted for them. I received not a single response regarding my concerns, except for requests for campaign contributions. Some would say, “What do you expect? They can’t write every single person who sends them correspondence.” Then how is it that the Republican Party so responsive to those who express concerns?

Over the years, I have written a number of politicians at the state and national level, and I always received some kind of acknowledgement about the concerns I expressed. What’s more, those who have always responded have been Republicans. Republican officer holders from the state level to the US Senate have always responded to any correspondence I sent to them. I wrote to my state representatives, both are Republicans, and I received a personal email from one and a letter from the other. I wrote to the Congressman who represents my district at least three times, and every single time, I received a response. I even wrote our two state US Senators, and both sent a letter acknowledging my concern. What party did all of these belong to? Republican.

I am by no means trying to sell one political party over the other, but the Democratic Party has a serious problem to overcome. It is certainly more complicated than providing a simple response to those who express concern over the direction of their policies. Simply put, “They need to get back in touch with people.” Over the past two years, especially in education policy, there has been too much “prescribing” and not enough “enlisting” of stakeholders in the discussion. You can’t simply dismiss those who disagree with you as “supporting the status quo.” You have a responsibility to try every means necessary to convince them to get on board with your reform. Innovation is not something done to people. According to researchers Peter J. Denning and Robert Dunham in their new book The Innovator’s Way: Essential Practices for Successful Innovation, “Innovation is the adoption of new practice in a community.” Without allowing deliberation and discussion, there is going to be little true adoption and by default no innovation.

One of the most important decisions administrators can do is regarding what software is purchased. I have know many well-meaning administrators who have spend hundreds of dollars on software, only to have it sit idly on some lab computer or laptop on a teacher’s desk. I’ve often wondered how many schools have expensive software packages installed in their schools, and no one is using them. That is a tremendous waste of money and resources. What exactly can an administrator do to maximize the purchase of software for schools? Of course, the easiest way is to pass this task to someone who knows and then trust them to do the right thing. But it is a much better solution to have administrators who neither foist unwanted software on teachers, and who can be involved in making sure scarce technology money is spent wisely. Here’s six things administrators can do to be more involved in making decisions about software purchases in his or her building.

1. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions. Who will be using it? For what purpose? What kind of licensing options do we have? These are only a few questions an administrator can ask. There are certainly more. Administrators can both protect their schools from getting scammed from great sounding sales pitches, and also make sure their teachers are getting the appropriate tools for their classrooms by not being afraid to ask the hard questions.

2. Be wary of salesman bearing major promises and benefits. I am a skeptic through and through, and that means when someone tells me a benefit for a product, they had better show me the money. For example, saying a software program is user-friendly is one of the most common sales pitches. User friendly to whom? Let’s face it, the word “user-friendly” is meaningless. The only way to find out if something is user-friendly is by allowing the users who will be using it to try it out. They’ll tell you whether it is user friendly or not. Sales pitches make a large of boasts. Before I will buy hundreds of dollars of software, the salesman better be able to demonstrate those boasts.

3. Consider the software from the users perspective, not your own. How many times have we seen a piece of software demonstrated, and thought to ourselves, “That’s fantastic!” The temptation is to go ahead and sign on the bottom line and make that purchase based on our personal experience. It might look useful from an administrator’s perspective, but if you are purchasing it for classroom teachers, you need to get their take as well. You may find yourself either having thousands of dollars of software sitting on computers without users, or forcing teachers to use it, which is never an effective practice. Still worse, you may find yourself with thousands of dollars of software and some teachers in a lab somewhere are forcefully subjecting students to a product that is actually killing their desire to learn rather than enhancing it. Both are good reasons to get the end user’s perspective before making that investment.

4. If salesmen is making promises about things such as increased academic gains, ask him or her to show you the studies. If they are making such claims, then there should be peer-reviewed independent studies backing those claims. If they offer testimonials to support their claims, check with those testimonials and ask to see the data. Never purchase software based on testimonial alone, especially when a software company is making boisterous claims of academic achievement increases. If their product raises student achievement, then make them prove it to your satisfaction. Remember, your school is the customer. They need to convince you.

5. Test the software’s utilitarian use versus the amount of labor and training it will take to utilize it. How many times is software purchased without any consideration regarding hours of extra work it adds to an already busy schedule? (And I would be skeptical of promises too!) Any software you purchase should not force users to become inefficient and expend greater energy in its use. If its use can’t be seamlessly integrated into the school’s routine, then perhaps it’s utilitarian value is not greater than the headaches and labor that must be expended to use it. Software should enhance the school environment not complicate it.

There are quite a few companies trying to get us to purchase their product, and they may actually have something that will help us raise the academic achievement of our students, or help make our jobs easier. But in these very tight budget times, we need to be very careful on the products we purchase. I provide these 5 guidelines in the context of software purchases, they could, just as well, be used for purchases of any instructional product or program.

1: Android can Run Multiple Apps at the Same Time

2: Android Keeps Information Visible on Your Home Screen

3: Android Has a Better App Market

4: Android Gives You Better Notifications 

5: Android Lets You Choose Your Hardware 

6: Android Lets You Choose Your Carrier

AT&T truly is the iPhone's weakest link. The iPhone's success turned the country's fastest 3G network into a staggering mess of dropped calls and dodgy data connections. If you lust after an iPhone and live in an area with poor AT&T coverage, you're stuck struggling with low signal quality, slow data speeds, and missed calls. Android devices are available on every major cellular carrier (although AT&T only offers a single, somewhat underpowered, Android phone). Verizon has the Motorola Droid, Droid Eris, and Droid Incredible to start. T-Mobile has the Nexus One, MyTouch 3G, Behold II, and will soon carry the MyTouch Slide. And Sprint has the Hero, Moment, and plans for the very promising Evo 4G. No matter where you live, Android lets you pick the carrier that's best for you.

7: Android Lets You Install Custom ROMs

The iPhone can be Jailbroken for some additional functionality, like installing apps that aren't available in the App Store, but the overall experience is the same. You're still stuck with the same exact interface. Similar to the Jailbreaking movement, Android has a small community dedicated to building custom ROMs for Android devices. Not only do Custom ROMs bring the same functionality Jailbreaking does, but they also bring an additional level of customization to your phone. There are ROMs that port custom UIs from one device to another. Other ROMs strip down bulky features and optimize for speed. With Android, nothing is out of reach.

8: Android Lets You Change Your Settings Faster

Smartphones have been gaining more and more functionality over the past few years: Wi-Fi, GPS, 4G, Bluetooth, etc. While these are all great and necessary additions, they have very adverse affects on battery life. In attempts to counter poor battery life, users have taken to toggling system settings like turning on Wi-Fi or 3G on only when they are needed. iPhone users are stuck digging around in the system settings every time they want to use the internet or a Bluetooth device. Android lets you use widgets to manage your settings directly from your home screen - and for those lesser-used settings that might not have dedicated widgets, you can also create shortcuts on your home screen to take you directly to the setting you want to change.

9: Android Does Google and Social Integration

With Smartphones giving us constant connectivity, it's not surprising that the majority of our computerized lives are moving online. We have email for our messages, Flickr for our photos, Google Docs for our documents, and Facebook and Twitter for our social lives. Android offers the ability to integrate all of this natively. Your Gmail account can be automatically synchronized with your phone. Photos taken with your phone can be automatically uploaded to Flickr. Your phone can even be linked to your Facebook account and can sync your phone contacts with your Facebook friends - complete with profile images, email addresses, and phone numbers. The iPhone can do this only through use of third party apps, and is nowhere near as seamless to use as the Android alternative.

10: Android Gives You More Options to Fit Your Budget 

If you've ever thought about buying an iPhone, you have probably noticed the price tag. The older iPhone 3G costs $99 with a two-year commitment and performs sluggishly with the latest OS updates when compared to the 3GS (which will run you a whopping $199 with two-year agreement). Because Android is an open source platform, it is very cost effective to implement which means savings for the end user. Every major cellular carrier (except for AT&T) has at least one Android phone available free with two-year agreement. Of course these are lower end Android devices, but they are still comparable in performance to the iPhone 3GS. The most expensive Android phones (which significantly outperform the iPhone 3GS) are  $199 with two-year contract.

Source: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/10_things_android_does_better_iphone?page=0,0