Ink Stains

WARNING: This post will be more on the "techie" and "geeky" side.  Read at your own risk.

One of the problems that I knew I was going to have moving away from Lenovo tablets to MacBook Pros was going to be the loss of the tablet and inking features.  This is a particularly useful tool in mathematics as it is often cumbersome to type completely worked out solutions to math problems.  As a result, I embarked on a quest to find a user-friendly, flexible, yet cost-effective solution.  I also wanted the ability to perform a screen capture of what was being inked so that students could begin making their own video tutorials explaining math concepts.  There are two parts to this quest.  The first was to make a hardware decision while the second was related to software.  Here is a summary of my quest.

Hardware:

The hardware choice came down to either an iPad or a Wacom Bamboo tablet.  While the iPad is a little easier to ink on as you ink directly on the screen, it is also about five times the cost and requires additional software management.  The Bamboo tablet on the other hand takes a little time to get used to as you "write" on a tablet and the "ink" appears on the screen.  However, the entry-level Bamboo is much less expensive than an iPad.

A Wacom Bamboo tablet

Software:

For the iPad, I tried four different inking apps that also allowed for screen capture.  These were "Follow Me", "Screen Chomp", "ReplayNote", and "Explain Everything".  "Follow Me" and "Screen Chomp" did not work as they only allow users to export videos to their website which did not appeal to me.  "ReplayNote" allowed for users to send directly to YouTube, but that was once again the only choice.  "Explain Everything" is my favorite here as it allows users to import Keynote slides as a starting point and has a lot of useful export options such as YouTube, Camer Roll (which allows editing in iMovie), and Dropbox which then allows users to edited and share using software of the MacBook.

A screenshot of Explain Everything on an iPad

For the MacBook, I have mostly used "Ink2Go" and "ActivInspire".  I started using "Ink2Go", as it is the simpler of the two, but it has a couple of features (such as a drop down ink color palette) that require post screen capture editing to make a nice final product.  ActivInspire (which is the Promethean Board software) is a little more complicated, but is more powerful as it allows the user to bring in math specific tools and pre-build some pages on a "flipchart".  The main drawback to this software is that it creates huge files.  A five minute screen capture can be 150 Mb.

Verdict:

My class now has a class set of Wacom Bamboo tablets and ActivInspire loaded on all machines.  The cost benefit of the Bamboos plus the ability to use them for other software applications (such as the "scratch pad" on Khan Academy) makes them more versatile for what I am doing with my students.  I imagine that at some point, I will show students how to use Explain Everything on the iPad as many more students have iPads at home as opposed to Bamboo tablets.

Mac Mini Pilot: A Short-Lived but Valuable Experiment

Mike Pelleteir asked me to pilot the use of a Mac Mini in my classroom.

A brief description of a Mac Mini: Apple's innovative Mac mini desktop is a great choice for home computing tasks and creating a digital media hub. It fits everything that makes a Mac a Mac inside an elegant 2-inch-tall, 6.5-inch square--just add your own keyboard, mouse, and display. The Mac mini also includes excellent video processing power from the integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics chip, an ultra-fast FireWire 800 port, and dual video outputs--a Mini DisplayPort and a Mini-DVI port.

The idea was to have the Mac Mini at my desk as a central hub, and for connecting to my projector to, thus freeing up my lap top for me to use around the room to record students participation, show them how to access material, take pictures/video of them at work, etc. After two weeks of using this set-up, Mike and I debriefed. The following were our take-aways:

1) The Mac Mini takes computing back to a fixed teacher work station -- a.k.a. a desk. This is what we have recently moved away from by switching to IBM Tablets and MacBook Pros.

2) MacBook Pros can do everything that the Mac Mini can do, but this doesn't work in reverse.

3) This is not a cost effective model going forward. Any upside, does not justify the expense of having two teacher dedicated computers in a classroom.

4) Some teachers will find a keyboard with a number pad and a mouse/track pad useful tools to bundle with a laptop. When inputting grades, a number pad allows for much quicker data entry. A mouse/track pad allows the user to work more efficiently when the laptop is being used at the teacher's desk.

We agreed to end the experiment, but also agreed that we were able to learn a lot quickly by doing this on a micro (single classroom) scale. This model seems an efficient, cost effective way to test new ideas, technological and otherwise.

Today, "my" MacMini was removed and will have a new lease on life as part of a conference room work station. I felt a pang of regret when I saw it leave, but know we made the right decision.