instaGrok: Research with Connections

Despite the issues you all know I've had with Google especially on one notable occasion in the past, I use Google services continually, including Gmail, maps, and calendar, of course. To 'Google' something has somehow become a verb, and the reach of Google services into our lives seems to be continually extending. It is amazing.

BUT... I'm pleased to report to you a truly interesting research approach that doesn't involve starting with a Google search. I just bumped into a new research tool that resembles a concept map. instaGrok is a web resource as well as an iPad app. Here is the 'grok' of the results of a search on "apples."

Then, you can click on the central idea for info and links shown below.

You can also click on any of the associated ideas to deepen your grok and follow its associations.



Further, there is a difficulty setting so that students can choose the approximate 'level' of their grok. Here's the same search set to the easiest setting.

I also consulted with Tennye C. about the idea, and she provided couple of endorsements (see below) and recommended especially for students to see connections among ideas.

Link 1

Link 2

I haven't used this yet in the classroom, but I plan on teaming it up with EasyBib (I prefer the web resources to the iPad app) for my Economics of Personal Finance juniors and seniors. I'm thinking that the structure and detail of EasyBib (and its citation tools) will pair interestingly with the more free flowing 'groks.' They can do their initial idea exploration using instaGrok and then use EasyBib to actually gather their resources, citations, and paper outline.

Wish us luck!

On a related but separate note, my class of 19 students is considering publishing their findings in an social media setting rather than a more formal iBook. I'd be grateful if anyone has experience or ideas about this to share!

Adventures in Publishing iBooks

I've already written a bit about my goals with the Economics of Personal Finance where the students' final group project was to put together individually written chapters on finance topics and combine them into one financial planning eBook for publication to the whole senior class.

I spent a lot of time and a moderate amount of money investigating ways to publish a book readable by iBooks. I tried to consider many possible alternatives from exporting word processor files as pdf or epub formatted files to using free and online publication applications to paid iPad apps all the way up to iBooks Author on the Mac.

Converting from Pages sounded so simple and elegant, but formatting and pictures wound up going wacky in the conversion. I loved the ease and features of iBooks Author, but I wanted the students to be able to do all their work on their iPads since we were rolling out one-to-one iPads for all students this past fall. Book Creator was a simple interface and very easy to use, but I didn't think it had the text formatting flexibility the students would need for this fairly involved project. I really liked PressBooks as a free, online app, but some of its features didn't work well on the iPad.

As so often happens, it appeared that there were no real solutions, only trade-offs. (A bit more detailed analysis is at the end of this blog.)

At the end of the summer's research, I decided to try an iPad app called Creative Books Builder. After reading about and comparing pdf books and epub books in iBooks, it seemed important at the time to go with an epub format (a standard format for electronic publishing which is readable by many different readers including iBooks) to preserve the eBook reading experience with changeable font size, highlighting, notes, etc.. I knew that the user interface was a bit more complicated than some other options, but I thought that the seniors could deal with it. While it didn't have all the bells and whistles of iBooks Author, it did include various media formats and non-text type book features.

Once the students had gotten over the initial learning curve with the app, things went fairly smoothly for them to build their iBook chapter from their first quarter research. At the end of the second quarter of the course, I had two student editors take over publication. Their job was to collect all of the epub files their classmates had produced and combine them into one unified book. Of course, here at the end was where we learned (or relearned) our final lessons.

1. Students are creative and innovative. Since a fair bit of their grade was based on how attention grabbing their writing and presentation was, some of them wanted full control over the layout of their pages. This is not possible in a classic epub because of the reader's ability to change font sizes. It is, however, possible in a variation of the epub called a fixed layout epub. No problem, I thought. Creative Book Builder handles both formats, so the students should be able to have it all.

What we discovered during the final editing process was that one cannot combine fixed layout chapters and classic epub chapters into one book in Creative Book Builder. There may have been other solutions, but we wound up exporting the fixed layout chapters to pdf fomat and working with them that way.

So much for having everything in Creative Book Builder and easily combining chapters which was one of the main reasons for using the app.

2. I thought it was important to have additional features available for the students like adding in quizzes, video, audio, etc.. However, it seemed like students doing this for the first time are going to be thinking definitely inside the content box. So... I would tentatively conclude one of two things. Either I really need to emphasize using these features by rewarding their use in the grading rubric and budgeting much more classroom time for them to learn to use them, or I don't need to select my publishing tool based on their presence.

3. Finally, unless there is reason to think that the audience for the book will really use the notation and highlighting features of iBooks OR the book produced really needs the interactive parts of a full featured epub (or iBook), one might be just as well off using Adobe Acrobat to combine student pdf files into one book.

The individual pdf files could then be created in the tool of the student's choice: Pages, Word, Book Creator, Keynote, or any program that will output as a pdf file. The possible apps list is huge. The process would also be much simpler at the end since more students know how to use pdfs. The one drawback for us is that we would likely have to export to a desktop computer to do the compilation. I've not yet found an easy app on the iPad for that - though it may well be out there for write-up in a future blog.

At any rate, after all the epub and iPad fuss, I'm seriously thinking about moving back to pdf format for this coming semester. Ah, well. I guess that's what a pilot is all about. There are still specific reasons I might want to upgrade back to epub or iBooks in the classroom, but the present form of the finance project doesn't call for that, and there are simpler alternatives.

I wouldn't presume to choose which tool would work best for your particular project, but, for what it is worth, here is the nutshell summary of what I explored last summer, and I'm guessing there are more apps out there, now. If you've found something great, please share!

Happy Publishing!

My Digital Publishing Explorations

All have same basic functions… export iBooks, ePub, and usually PDF. Basic text formatting, add photos, video, audio. There are also quite a few photo album/scrapbook apps that do allow PDF export. Watch out, though. Most really downsize your photos on adding (like ScrapIt, Skrappy, and unfortunately all the ones with really cool scrapbook tools) so the print quality is lousy. I'm beta testing for Photo Album, and they're trying to correct this, but the PDFs wind up a lot bigger. For onscreen viewing, though, they're good, and will generally export to photo roll, too.

iBooks Author $0.00 The ultimate in interactive widgets and great user and reader features. Easy to use -- Of course, VERY Apple. :) Requires Macs to work with. All the bells and whistles as long as you're happy with their templates. http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/

Book Creator $4.99 Great user interface. Easy, intuitive manipulation (2 finger twists to rotate, etc.) Fixed layout books ONLY. Exports nicely to PDF. Text manipulation is VERY basic. No interactive widgets. To me, this was mostly a picture book with attached video and audio. Fine for what it is and really easy to use for simple layouts. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/book-creator-for-ipad/id442378070?mt=8

Creative Book Builder $3.99 On iPad! Allows fixed and classic (flowing text) formats, addition of HTML and markup as well as LOTS of different kinds of add-ins. Documents, video, charts, quizzes, equations, and all kinds of things. Nice previews of PDF and ePub forms, lots of ways to access files to add, lots of ways to export and publish. Standard ePub which reads on multiple platforms. User interface isn't as easy as Book Creator, but it is fine, and it does a LOT more. You don't have a few of the widget types in iBooks Author (3D, interactive graphics, popovers, HTML5 widgets, we think).It offers quite a bit, though not all the interactive iBooks stuff.  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/creative-book-builder/id451041428?mt=8

eBook Magic $4.99 Don't know if this is user error, but I really couldn't make this one work at all. No response from their customer service. Too bad, because it looked good on the description. If anyone figures it out, tell me. :P https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ebook-magic+-epub-pdf-photo/id424877762?mt=8

Writer's Studio $4.99 Simple interface for ePub production. I wasn't impressed with the layout tools, and you can't see the boundaries of a page. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/writers-studio/id371303544?mt=8

PressBooks: http://pressbooks.com/ A purely online eBook creator - a spin off of the popular blog service WordPress. Medium rich feature set. Can add in photos, movies, audio, but there are strict limits on sizes and kinds of files. Nice, easy to use user interface. Easier to rearrange content sections than in Creative Book Builder. I really like this tool! The only drawback besides the lack of interactive elements that I've found is that PressBooks doesn't play that well with iOS Safari. Safari's interaction with PressBook's rich text editor is wierd, so some editing functions are a bit hit or miss. This is the tool I used to build my eBooks Publishing Guide, and I'm definitely going to use it again for other projects.

Rethinking Classrooms with Showbie

I've sometimes wondered if there are real, paradigm shifting uses for technology in the classroom or if what we really do is substitute technological tools for 'bricks and mortar' ones. Certainly, the substitutions are the easiest to implement, but I found myself exploring a true shift in how I think about teaching as Showbie, my current 'killer app', made a new way of teaching functional for my Economics of Personal Finance students. I talked about Showbie earlier as a companion for iAnnotate in managing classroom workflow. However, now that my semester Finance course has come to an end, and I've seen the student evaluations, I realize that what I initially thought was just a work flow tool became central to how the course was run. So, here's the back story.

Last spring, I had this 'wacky' idea of turning a classroom into a multiplayer simulation game where students worked together as a group towards a major goal (in this case, a financial planning iBook which some of you saw briefly in chapel last week) while gaining 'experience points.' The idea was that they would have certain 'required quests' that covered core concepts and could earn additional experience points by doing other quests on topics that caught their interest. I had hoped that the students would be able to practice their research skills and become more self directed learners as they explored the world of economics and finance. (I later learned that it wasn't such a wacky idea and that there is a body of research out about the gamification of the classroom.)

At any rate, initially, I had planned on using Google Drive as a way to share documents with the students and receive their work. Within the first month, though, the students and I were getting frustrated. It was hard for us to keep documents organized and accessible, and the whole sharing scheme seemed pretty clunky. Just when I was resigning myself to a semester long struggle, in came Showbie.

Showbie is an app (and somewhat more limited web tool) that has been specially designed to handle student submissions and streamline the path towards a paperless classroom. Someone mentioned the app to me, and since it had a free (as well as an upgraded pro) version, I decided to check it out. If what I described isn't enough detail for you, or you have questions, definitely contact me.

They've kept the interface neat, clean, and easy to use. Once you have your account, you add classes and students (by sharing the class code with them). Then, you add assignments to your classes. Students and teachers can then share documents with each other, have written and verbal dialogues about the assignment. It works smoothly with all kinds of files and different apps. What's more, they keep upgrading the app with new and useful features. (I'm still waiting for the one that would allow us to form student groups and allow students to share files with their group or the whole class...) I've already written about how it streamlines workflow.

What I didn't realize when I started to use it as an organizational tool was that it would transform my Finance class into a hybrid course with parts of it taking place face to face and parts of it taking place online. I was able to use class time for presentations, group meetings, simulations, peer critiques, and other activities requiring face time and have them doing research, reading, and writing on their own. Student evaluations confirmed that Showbie was much easier than Google Drive for anything not requiring real time collaboration and that most students really appreciated the time management flexibility that the system provided.

As I learned  how different kinds of files and formats can be handled by Showbie, I felt the freedom to try new things and experiment in ways that I had hoped for but could not achieve with Google Drive. I truly did turn into a real time 'dungeon master,' able to control the environment for the students. I still need to explore how the app can change my classroom, but I sense that this one is a game changer. By truly freeing us from a lot of paper, it is also freeing us from some of the classic restrictions of how and when students can learn as well as how we develop class activities. Next semester (Oh, my, that is in just a few days!), I plan on using Showbie to help me more closely integrate the experience points part of the course with the money management simulation as well as help keep the topics of the in class activities closely connected with the ever changing list of currently available quests.

Showbie is free to try the basic app, and the Pro version can be acquired by 'Iolani teachers. Students use the app for free.

Sago Mini Doodlecast: Screencasting even for our youngest students

I think we've all seen apps a little like this one. The user draws on the screen while narrating the drawing, and the result is saved as movie file to share. It is specialized as an app for very young kids, and it admirably fills that description. It has a simple, clean interface completely suited for pre K and K. The drawing tools palette has 3 width choices, 9 color choices, and an eraser. I don't see this fairly limited selection of tools as a weakness since the focus here is on the narration and discussion as the drawing is created.  It also provides a selection of starter prompts to get creative juices flowing.

This is my five year old responding to the prompt "What lives in the forest?" on her first try with the app.

The promotional materials emphasize how wonderful the app is for parent/child creativity and interaction, and it is great for that, as anyone who has watched a child talk as they draw understands. However, I think there are some classroom possibilities as well for the young target audience as well as for older students.

1. Create your own prompt using another drawing app, Pages (below) or Keynote. While you can't directly import it into the app, you can certainly display it as a drawing prompt. 

2. Use the app as a way for single students or small groups to discuss/sketch about something you're discussing in class. It could be a great way to capture a pair of students drawing and talking about, say, what kind of place a penguin (or Eskimo or mermaid or Superman) would live in. The app will allow more than one line to be drawn at the same time (though you will be using the same tool), so multiple kids can be drawing on the screen at once.

For older kids, this is a faster way of capturing sketches and brainstorming sessions than mind mapping or full scale presentation apps like Explain Everything because of the simplified interface. If you like the idea but are interested in a richer toolset, the developer offers their full scale Doodlecast Pro app. (Note: Explain Everything is already available for all of us, though, and it is awfully good.)

3. For Asian languages, this could be a way for students to illustrate drawing complicated characters and explain stroke order for either drill or presentation.

4. Quick math problem animations.

The strength of this app is how easy it is to use to capture simple drawings with audio. It has a handful of parent controls like file number and size limits that can be accessed from inside Settings on the iPad as well. Like some others have noted, I'd love to see the ability to import a photo as the background so we could create our own prompts, but it is a fun, flexible app for kids and adults. Maybe we'll see new features in a future update. 

This is a paid app (though I got it for free when it was on sale last week) with some really interesting classroom possibilities, even for older kids. Normal app requisition procedures would apply.

Link to 3rd party review 

P.S. From Carrie Miwa in the library, some folks are finding that doodling helps productivity. Article