Getting stared with eBooks and audio books on the iPad with content from your local Utah Public Library or the state Pioneer Online Library is pretty easy - IF you have a local library card! Here’s how to get started...

First off, at your local Library, ask them for their OverDrive ID. The login that you’ll eventually need in step 11 will be a combination of their OverDrive ID and your library card number.

• My Local Library OverDrive ID:_________________
• My Local Library Card Number: _________________

1. On your iPad, open up the ‘App Store’ application, and do a search for OverDrive. You can also find it here. Install the OverDrive Media Console app to your iPad.
2. Create an Adobe ID. Overdrive uses an Adobe ID to authenticate your account. Head to the ‘Join Adobe’ page, fill out the requested information, answer the 3 survey questions, fill out the communication preferences (you can uncheck them all if you’d like), and click ‘Continue’ at the bottom of the page.
3. Once you have your Adobe ID established, open up the OverDrive app on your iPad. You’ll be presented with some options - click the ‘Sign In’ button if you have done Step 2 or click ‘Register at Adobe.com’ if you have not done Step 2 above.
4. Enter your Adobe ID that you have just created, and click the green ‘Authorize’ button.
5. Now, we need to connect your OverDrive app to your local Library to be able to browse, check out and download titles. To do this, click the ‘Get Books +’ button on the top right of the screen.
6. The screen will pivot, and you’ll see a button called ‘Add a Library +’ - tap it. OverDrive will switch you to your Safari web browser, where you’ll do your ‘shopping’ for your eBook or audio titles.
7. Search for your library by name, city or zip code. Tap on the proper library that comes up after the search, then click on the ‘Library System’ listed in the next window. It will probably say ‘Pioneer Public Library’ or something similar.
8. You’ll now be at the home page for the titles that your library offers. In order to download books or audio, you’ll need to login.
9. Click the ‘Login’ link near the top of the page on the right.
10. You may need to find your local library again from a drop-down menu. Find and choose your local library, and look for a link that says ‘(Your Library) users, please click here to sign into this system.’ Do so.
11. The login that you’ll need here comes from Step 1. Enter in your local library OverDrive ID, followed by the last 6 digits of your own library card number. Enter that now, and continue.
12. You can now use the buttons at the top of the page to ‘Browse’ or ‘Search’ for the titles that you’d like to read/listen to.
13. Once you find a title you want, you can either...
    • Add the title to your cart to check out
    • Add the title to your wish list to check out later
    • Place a hold on the title if there are no electronic copies available
14. You can continue browsing, or click ‘Proceed to Checkout’ once you’ve added a title (or titles) to your cart. At any time, you can also click on ‘My Cart’ in the dark blue bar above. Check over the title(s) that you have added to your cart, and click the ‘Confirm check out’ button.
15. You’ll now get a ‘Download’ button for each of the titles that you’ve checked out. Depending on the length of the check-out that you’ve requested, you’ll have that time to read the book. After the check-out period has elapsed, the title will be removed from your OverDrive library list. There will be a little calendar with the number of days left in your check-out period next to each title in your OverDrive library list.
16. That’s it! You are now reading freely available eBooks and listening to audio books made available from your local library without ever getting out of your comfy chair. Read away!

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Today to introduce you to some techie terminology and some basic Internet and networking knowledge, we are going to play a little Jeopardy. If you've never watched the show, I give you 'Answers' and you supply the 'Questions' to those answers... For example, if I said, "This is the best darn charter school in Cedar City." you would reply, "What is Gateway Preparatory Academy?!?" 

Make sense? OK - let's begin!

Play our Jeopardy game
http://jeopardylabs.com/play/walk-the-walk-talk-the-talk-of-a-techie

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Thanks for coming to our session today on Google Docs for the Iron Secretaries Conference. Today we'll take a good close look at how to take your documents to the cloud, and do things that you could never imagine doing in Microsoft Word. Google Docs are not a replacement for Word, but there are some amazing collaboration tools and ways to share documents with your principal, staff, teachers, students - even parents!

We'll be following the Google Docs Overview site for our agenda/instructions for this session. To get back to this online help document anytime, just click on 'Help' in the menu when you are in a Google Document and select 'Google Docs Help Center' as shown below:

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Thanks for spending some time with us today to learn more about the iPad and how you can use it effectively in your job. Please feel free to ask any questions as we go! If you'd like to refer back to the presentation used for todays session, you can view it below or also on my page on iWork.com.

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Thanks for joining us today to learn how to get the most out of your smartphone! Whether you have an iPhone or an Android-based phone, we'll go through some great things that you may not have known you can do with your phone. I'll apologize in advance - I have no experience with the BlackBerry, so if you came looking for help with this sort of phone, you are out of luck!

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Welcome to our session today on Google Spreadsheets and Forms! We'll be using the Google Spreadsheets Overview page for our session notes and agenda. Any other specific resources or answers to questions that come up during our session today I'll note below. You can always get back to the agenda/notes page when you are using a Google Doc or Spreadsheet by clicking on the 'Help' menu and selecting 'Google Docs Help Center' as highlighted in the image below.

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Dropbox Preso.mov Watch on Posterous

Above is a video version of my presentation today on Dropbox. Please feel free to peruse this at your leisure, pausing where needed.

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via apple.com

This was a huge announcement from Apple for K-12 education. I'm ecstatic with the potential possibilities that the new iBooks, iBooks Author, and the new iTunes U app have. More to come!

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Today we'll be going through a few of the more advanced things you can do with your iPad in the classroom - for you, your teaching, and for student produced projects. We'll be covering a lot of ground today, so instead of giving you copious notes to read through, I'll archive the training session on my UStream Profile Page, which you'll be able to view below once uploaded.

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Google Apps for Education has brought some amazing tools to Garfield School District, to the SEDC region, and to all that use this service around the US. I'm constantly finding new ways that these tools can and should be used in the classroom to make both teachers and students life easier. If I were to share them all with you, it would take much more than the time that we have allotted today, so I'll try to highlight 10 of my favorite uses or applications that you have access to simply by logging into your school email account. 

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Thanks for your time, patience and energy today for our UTIPS Core training! It's a new system that is and will be a great tool for formative assessment for you - in both the current core and for the new Common Core.

Here's what we'll be covering today:

• Creating a Teacher Account (Page 4 of Manual)
  • Head to http://wash.utips.org
  • Under the login area, click on the 'Create a new account' link
  • Enter the Enrollment Code that will identify you as a teacher of your school:
    • For Tonaquint Intermediate School:
      • Use guess15 to create a TIS School Teacher account
      • Use page33 to create a TIS School Admin account
  • Click 'Continue'
  • Enter in your first and last name, and your school email address, and click 'Continue'
  • Enter in the username you'd like to use (the same as your email address is fine), and your password twice, and click 'Continue' again.
  • You are now an official UTIPS Core user!
• Add an Enrollment Code to your account   (Page 6 of Manual)
  • I've set up grade levels in your school, and created an enrollment code for each of these grade levels. You'll need to add this code to your account to place you as a teacher in that grade level. Here's how:
  • Click on the 'Settings' option on the left
  • On the bottom of the 'Settings' pane, you'll see a button to 'Add an enrollment code' - click it!
  • Find the appropriate enrollment code for your grade level below, enter it, and click the 'Apply enrollment code' button
  • Department Enrollment Codes for TIS:
    • Use care58 to add you as a TIS Language Arts teacher
    • Use verb72 to add you as a TIS Mathematics teacher
    • Use love32 to add you as a TIS Science teacher
    • Use baby93 to add you as a TIS Social Studies teacher
  • NOTE: Students will use this same process to add enrollment codes to become students in your classes.
• Create Your Class(es) (Page 4 of Manual)
  • In order for your students to be enrolled in your classes, you need to create a class first! 
  • Once you are logged in, click on 'Organizations' on the left.
  • You should see your school listed in the 'Edit Organizations' pane (with possibly more teachers and classes listed beneath it). Click on your school name above.
  • Click the '+New' button that will light up above, and select 'Teacher's Class'.
  • Add a name for your class in the pane that appears to the right. You can leave the other fields blank for now.
  • Click the 'Save' button above to the left.
  • If you have multiple classes (middle or high school), repeat the process for your classes. 
• What Enrollment Codes are, and how to create them (Page 5-6 of Manual)
• About Student Accounts (Page 19 of Manual)
  • Since UTIPS Core is a state-wide system, your students will need to have a username that is unique in the state. The way that this will be accomplished is by using your school ID number and your students school ID or lunch number. 
    • For example, Dixie Middle is school number 404 and if a student has an ID/Lunch number of 123456, then their username will be 404123456
• Adding student accounts yourself (Page 20 of Manual)
  • Once you are logged in, click on 'Organizations' on the left.
  • You should see your school listed in the 'Edit Organizations' pane (with possibly more teachers and classes listed beneath it). Click on the class name that you have created earlier.
  • In the pane that appears on the right, click on the 'User Accounts' option.
  • Click the '+New' button above.
  • In the new pane, 'Settings for New User', fill out the information for the student account, using the unique school/student number described above for the username. For passwords, it does not matter what you use, as long as you are consistent and use something that you can remember.
  • The username, the two password fields, first and last name fields are the only required fields. You do not need to add an email address (students can add their own later).
  • Once those fields are filled in, you MUST click the '+Choose a role' button - click '+Student' in the pane that appears on the right.
  • Be sure to click the 'Save' button beneath the student information.
  • To add additional students, click back on the blue bar with your class name on the far left and repeat the steps outlined above.
• How students add their own accounts (Page 23 of Manual)
  • Be sure to follow the username creation convention described above with using the school ID number followed by the students ID/Lunch number.
• Build assessments from the USOE Item Pool (Page 8 of Manual)
• How to Assign Students to a Test (Page 11 of Manual)
• How to Share Assessments with Other Educators (Page 18 of Manual)
• How student participants take a test (Page 27 of Manual)
• How to Build Assessments with Your Own Items (Page 12 of Manual, optional for today)
• Aligning Your Own Items to a Core Area (Page 15 of Manual, optional for today)
• Adding new Items to an Existing Test (Page 17 of Manual)
  • Click on 'My Tests' on the left, then click on the test that you'd like to update
  • Click on the 'Items' tab, and your test should appear on the right
  • To add a specific item on a topic:
    • Click on the 'Items' button on the top of the test on the right. A new items search pane will appear on the right
    • Search for a specific topic or word that deals with the question you'd like to add
    • You will see all of the question stems that pertain to your search. Click on the question to see the answers that go with the question beneath.
    • To add a question that you find, just click on the question and drag it into your test on the left.
    • To change the order of the questions, just hover your mouse over the question number. You'll see a little trash can (to delete the question) oran up/down arrow icon. Click that icon and drag the question up/down the test until you reach the place you'd like that question to be, and let go of the mouse button.
    • To close the 'Items' search pane, just click on the 'Items' button on the top right again.
  • To add a question from a specific core standard, objective, or indicator:
    • Click on the 'Standards' button on the top of the test to the right. A new pane will appear on the right.
    • Choose the subject, grade level and core document that you'd like to add questions for. The standards within that core will appear beneath.
    • Using the arrows on the left of the displayed options, open up the standard and objective that y9u are looking for. If you are not sure, they are listed beneath.
    • After each objective or indicator, there will be a link with the number of items each contains. Click on that link to view all of the questions within.
    • UTIPS Core will then do a search for the items you have selected.
    • To add a question that you find, just click on the question and drag it into your test on the left.
    • To change the order of the questions, just hover your mouse over the question number. You'll see a little trash can (to delete the question) or an up/down arrow icon. Click that icon and drag the question up/down the test until you reach the place you'd like that question to be, and let go of the mouse button.
    • To close the 'Items' search pane, just click on the 'Items' button on the top right.

If the handout or the notes here are missing any important steps or instructions that you need, please leave a comment below, along with your name and your school. I'll get those instructions written up for you, send them to you and add them to this posting.

UTIPS_Core_Manual.pdf Download this file

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UPDATE!

Not more than an hour after the second presentation of the day, I participated in a Faculty Lounge presentation from UEN on apps for the iPad that will allow you to create those Khan Academy-style recordings and podcasts. With just one app, you have everything you need - even the tablet to write on! You might want to look at a stylus to make writing easier, but this solution is MUCH less trouble and expense (unless you don't already have an iPad!).

Here are my two favorites from what I saw:

• ScreenChomp from TechSmith (Free): Basic app that gives you a white board and a pen to sketch out your ideas. Bring in images from your camera roll and records your actions and voice. Recordings are saved to their site, but you can download the videos from there.
• Explain Everything ($2.99): A more full-featured screencasting app that allows you more flexibility for your lessons like bringing in documents for annotation, multiple slides, and far more sharing and exporting options.

Presentation available here:

Podcasting_for_SUU.mov Watch on Posterous

• iTunes U (link will open iTunes on your computer)
• Khan Academy
• Introduction to the Atom on Khan Academy
• Camtasia Studio (PC)
• SmoothDraw3 (PC)
• Wacom Bamboo Tablet
• Screen Video Recorder (PC)
• Microsoft Paint (PC)
• Screenflow (Mac)
• Paintbrush (Mac)
• BaiBoard (Mac)
• Jing Pro (Mac & PC)
• Screencast.com
• Jabra Bluetooth/USB Headset (from Amazon)
• xTag Wireless Microphone (from Amazon)
• Debut Video Capture (PC)
• ipadio
• YouTube
• YouTube information on requesting longer video uploads
• Posterous
• How to turn a Posterous site address into an iTunes Podcast feed link
• USTREAM
• My SEDC Tech Training USTREAM Channel
• Blabberize
• Examples of Blabberize in action

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via theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com

Some great ideas here on how to use any cell phone in class for educational 'Phone-Casting' for both teachers and student projects. The highlight? Learning that creating a phonecast with iPadio of ANY recorded speech will be automatically transcribed into text!

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An art teacher wants to use her iPad during class to show students' work on the screen.  But, she doesn't want the iPad to have to be stationary (like a doc cam). Is there a way to connect the iPad to her computer wirelessly in this way? WiFi or Bluetooth camera?

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