Over the past year or so I have jumped in and helped to fund several Kickstarter products which has been a lot of fun. In addition to knowing that I am able to help fund a new product I also get the advantage of being on the ground floor when the product is released. This past year I have funded the Touchtype, a case for the iPad and Apple Bluetooth Wireless keyboard, the Elevation Dock for the iPhone and the Hidden Radio. All of the products have exceeded my expectations and have made using my iPad and iPhone a real joy to use. Spending time working and sharing with educators the potential for these mobile technologies, it is great to have on hand these innovative products to show and demonstrate. The Touchtype is the perfect solution for individuals like myself that want to use a full size keyboard but want to also be able to store the iPad in convenient and light weight case. The design of the Touchtype is fantastic and is light enough so that you don't really realize it is in an enclosure. While I have used a Zagg Portfolio with my iPad, I find that it adds way to much bulk and weight for my liking. Having access to the high quality Apple Bluetooth keyboard is a real pleasure when I am typing and the innovative Touchtype design makes carrying around the iPad a cinch. The Elevation Dock makes charging my iPhone 4S really simple. The Elevation Dock is beautifully designed and the phone fits into the 30 pin dock like a glove. The dock is made from anodized aluminium and has the Applesque finish to it. The Elevation Dock looks great on my nightstand and is the  perfect accessory for charging my iPhone. The Elevation Dock is heavy enough so that when you take your iPhone out of the charging base it does not life up from the nightstand. The look and fit is really incredible! The Hidden Radio is a really fantastic Bluetooth Speaker with innovative design. Once you pair it to your device you can turn it on by simply unscrewing the top. This not only turns it on, but as you raise the cover of the Hidden Radio the volume increases. The Hidden Radio produces some great sound and the volume is extraordinary. Check it out for yourself-you will be glad you did! Being able to jump in and fund these projects has been a lot of fun and the products were worth waiting for. So if you get the urge find out what is happening at Kickstarter! who knows you just might find something fun to fund!

I have been a long time fan and user of Snagit from TechSmith, Inc for many years now and I am always amazed at the features. One of the newer features is the ability to capture video from your screen which has really come in handy lately as I am developing some eLearning modules. While many of us will  initially think of using Snagit to capture screen images the latest version of Snagit can capture video along with audio and System audio making it indispensable tool for instructors and eLearning developers who are looking for a quick and easy way to capture video off of the screen. I recently created a short video using GoAnimate and wanted to save it in MP4 format to insert into an Adobe Presenter 8 module I was creating. Using Snagit's new ability to capture the GoAnimate video was a piece of cake and the quality of the video capture was outstanding. So take a look at Snagit and see how you might use it- it is one of the best kept secret and is available for Mac and Windows. Here is the example of what was captured using Snagit      

On Monday, Livescribe will release a new and improved digital smartpen called Livescribe Sky WiFi which will forever change the way we take and access our notes. While I have been a big fan of the Livescribe Smartpen the one downfall was the synching which you needed to do with a USB cable. But that all changes with the introduction of the Livescribe Sky WiFi which lets you sync your notes directly to Evernote via WiFi. This truly is a huge paradigm shift- giving me access to my notes on just about any device that has a browser or the Evernote app installed. Similarly, I can now log into Evernote from any computer and instantly have access to my notes which is very powerful. This feature is a truly a game changer for taking notes, and will give students access to their notes from anywhere they are connected to the web. Getting started and setting up the Livescribe Sky WiFi to sync with Evernote was a cinch. I simply turned on the Livescribe Sky WiFi and tapped Scan for Networks icon which was printed on the inside cover of the Livescribe Starter Notebook. The Livescribe Sky WiFi immediately located my protected WiFi network and I was able to type in the password key to access it on my pen. Once connected to my Wifi network the Livescribe SkyWiFi  prominently displays the Wifi icon on the OLED display to let you know you are connected. Logging onto the Livescribe web site from my computer, I was able to setup my pen to access my Evernote account. The website and directions were well designed and it guided me through the process. Since I did have an Evernote account I was able to log in with my credentials to link my Livescribe Sky WiFi pen. For students who may not have an account there is an opportunity during the setup process to sign up for a free account. Once I completed the setup, I was ready to try the Livescribe Sky WiFi out. I opened the Livescribe Starter Notebook and wrote down a couple of ideas and then tapped the tip of the pen on the Sync Now icon. Once I did that I was able to watch the display as it moved through the syncing process  Once the synching was complete the OLED display read Done Syncing. Now for the moment of truth, I opened up Evernote from my laptop and lo and behold there was my note sitting in my Evernote account in a notebook configured A5 Wifi Starter Notebook. Audio recordings made during the note taking process show up in the note as green ink. When you are ready to listen to you note simply click on the note from within Evernote and the Livescribe player will open in your browser to access and listen to the recording. Livescribe has really streamlined the process making it now possible to have access to your notes from any device connected to the web. Syncing via WifFi with integration with Evernote really is a game changer for students who need access to their notes. I for one am excited with the new impossibles that the Livescribe Sky Wifi pen has to offer in terms of sharing and accessing notes via Evernote.

It has been a difficult couple of days since Hurricane Sandy came through New Jersey. Being without power, heat, and running water has been a challenge. We are spending some time with our cousins in Pennsylvania which has been really great. When I left my home I decided to take my iPad and Apple Wireless keyboard to help me do some work and keep in touch with family and friends. Having access to wifi and Facebook has really come in handy during this challenging time. One of the downfalls of the iPad is that there are still some sites that require the Flash plug-in which will not render on an iPad. In any case, I have been using iSwifter Browser which supports Flash which has really worked well. Using iSwifter I have been able to access a number of websites that still utilize the Flash which has worked really well. If you have need to access Flash based websites on your iPad then take a look at the free iSwifter Browser. Hopefully we will get our power back shortly so that life can get back to normal- and wish that all my friends and family are safe and with power. All the best Brian Posted with Blogsy

Created with Livescribe SKY WiFi Smartpen

This semester I have had the opportunity to teach an online class for one student that needed the course to graduate. Fortunately for me, I have had access to Adobe Presenter 8 and Moodle to teach and thought that it would be a great way for me to deliver the course to my student. We are now half way through the semester and using these tools has made it easy for me to deliver learning modules to my student that he is able to work through. The beauty of using Adobe Presenter 8 is that I have plenty of PowerPoint presentations that I have done over the years which I have been able to convert to learning modules. Having access to the features found in Adobe Presenter 8 has allowed me to add video, audio as well as quizzes to my modules which really has enhanced the learning experience for my student. Adobe Presenter 8 is great at wrapping up your PowerPoint presentation and delivering them as a stand alone eLearning asset. One of the features that has really worked well for me using Adobe Presenter 8 is the ability to create a SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model)  compatible course from my PowerPoint presentations that I can then upload to Moodle. Using the Quiz feature found within Adobe Presenter 8, I am able to create a variety of different types of questions that allows me to assess what the student has learned during the session. It also provides a valuable way for my students to receive feedback after they have worked through the module. Creating the SCORM compatible file from your course is a cinch when using Adobe Presenter 8 which makes it really easy to upload to Moodle. From within the Quiz Manager select the Reporting tab and simply select the SCORM option. Now you simply have to Publish your course from within Presenter 8 and save the course using the Zip package format. Now that you have saved the course in the zip package format it is time to upload it to your Moodle course. First select the week that you would like your students to have access to the learning module and from the drop down select SCORM activity. Upload your course that you saved in the zip format to Moodle and you are done. If you like you can customize and control how many times the students can attempt the course. That's all you need to do. Now when your students access the course and take the quiz Moodle will report the students score to you and whether they passed or not. Using Adobe Presenter 8 along with Moodle has been a really fantastic experience and has allowed me to quickly create courses and provide a way for my student to receive immediate feedback. As a professor, I am always looking for new ways to efficiently develop eLearning materials and using Adobe Presenter 8 really foots the bill!

It has been a long and tough week since our power went out last week due to Hurricane Sandy. My wife and I have been staying with family members who have had their power restored which can be a little disorienting- especially when your routine has been drastically altered. The college where I teach will be closed through Tuesday and hopefully I will get back the power before that- but who knows. Sandy has been devastating to our New Jersey towns! Trees are down all of the place and power lines are mangled and  strewn about. Being displayed in the season of the general elections is a real problem for many people and recently our Governor announced that we would be able to vote via email or fax as long as we can get the Vote by Mail Ballot to the County Clerk's Office. With this in mind I set off to download the Vote by Mail Ballot from the website which I was able to save as a PDF file. Now how would I get a good looking signature on the ballot? Actually it was quite simple, since I had brought along my Livescribe SKY Wifi Pen with me to my sister's home. Now all I needed to do was to have my wife and I sign a page in the Livescribe notebook with the Sky WiFi pen and have it automatically uploaded to Evernote. Once the syncing was done, I was able to open up the page on my Evernote account and using the Snipping tool on my laptop, I saved each signature as a JPEG file. Now I was able to go back to the ballot which was saved in a PDF format and using the Signature Tool from within Adobe Acrobat X, I was able to import the image file and use it to digitally sign the ballot. The process took me less then 5 minutes and when I was done I used my eFax account to fax the ballots to the county clerk's office. The process was very quick and straightforward. I will give you an update when I hear back from the Clerk's Office. So remember to vote this Tuesday in the General Election!

It is really exciting to see how companies can work together to bring their technologies to the marketplace. XMind has been working closely with Context Discovery to bring summarization tools to their mind mapping application. I have to give credit to XMind for thinking outside of the box and giving prospective users the ability to quickly summarize information right from within XMind Pro. The integration is seamless and now this new feature gives users the opportunity to summarize key words as well as websites based on the URL. The Websummarizer plug-in is tightly integrated into XMind and delivers fast and efficient summaries of information sitting in Wikipedia. Websummarizer can be used with the following languages: English, French, German, and Spanish. I have created a short video to show you how XMind has integrated the Websummarizer into their mind mapping application. Your feedback and comments are welcome.

Hi, my name is Christina and I am a doctoral candidate at Grand Canyon University. The title of my dissertation is "Examining the Potential of Using Technology to Improve Academic Performance: The Experience of Autistic Children with E-Readers." As a former special education teacher, I chose this topic after seeing the difference technology can make for these student. My research is focused on grades 3-6 due to the limited research at this academic level. This information coupled with the recent influx in the diagnosis of autism among young students drove me to examine the effect of one of the most recent technological tools to enter the classroom. My goal is to be able to provide one more tool that is both portable as well as inexpensive with the idea that this tool may be utilized by both teachers and parents at many socio-economic levels. I have an approved prospectus and participants for my study. The one thing I am missing is the e-reader. For my study to be completed, I need 30 e-readers (Nook, Kindles, Kobo, etc.) to be donated to classrooms so that students with autism that meet the criteria for the study can have access to them in order to determine exactly how effective they are. Unfortunately, because of the nature of this study many classrooms do not currently have access to e-readers which has really put a damper on my research project. If you have an interest in donating a used e-reader for the study please feel free to get in touch with me. It is my hope that we can put e-readers into the hands of students so that we can find out what works best in delivering 21st century education to students with autism. If you can help, please send an e-mail to christina.khan@hotmail.com Thank You, Christina

I have been using Evernote for some time now and really enjoy being able to have access to all my important stuff on any device that I may be using. As I use more and more devices that are linked to Evernote ( ie. Boogie Board RIP and the Livescribe SKY WiFi pen) it is great to see that the company continues to develop their apps to make the process that much easier to use on iOsS devices. Just yesterday, Evernote released a new version of their software for iOS devices which really streamlines the process of accessing your notes on the iPhone and iPad. The user interface is much improved in this version and makes great use of the limited real estate on the iPhone. Evernote now uses 5 dividers that run across the screen that give you access to: Premium Features, Places, Tags, Notebooks, and All Notes. By simply clicking on a divider the screen springs open to reveal the contents. By far this is the cleanest and most refreshing interface so far that we have seen for Evernote running on an iOS device. It is a lot easier to find information and navigate through your notebooks using the new interface. You can tell once you start using the new version of Evernote that a lot of thought went into the redesign. So if you haven't upgraded yet take the plunge you will be glad you did.