District Administration - April 2012 - (Page 57)

a wireless or 3G network, and the screen is big enough to read lengthy emails and attachments. In addition, the email client groups messages by subject so that you can see responses to an email subject by responder. This is really handy, as you can often avoid a response if somebody else has had the final word already. Also, it seems to be more socially acceptable in meetings to keep your iPad open to scan email than pulling out your phone constantly. Most administrators are part of multiple teams. We share drafts of documents to produce a final product. Individual team members often work on the document in isolation and pass it on to the next person on the team by email or over shared drives in a local intranet. This is an inefficient way to share a document because the process is too linear. It does not allow for people to capture ideas spontaneously. Location is often fixed; the best idea might emerge outside the office or work hours when you don’t have access to documents on the office computer or local intranet server. There is a better way. Adopting the Cloud Innovative educators have identified a lot of time-saving ways to use the cloud efficiently for shared projects. As secondwave adopters, we can learn from them. Products like Apple’s iCloud and Google Docs are free applications that allow you to store documents in the cloud. As documents are stored remotely on the Web, they can be accessed anywhere from any device with an Internet connection. Documents are relatively secure and require a login. The applications for busy administrators are numerous. Any document hosted on the cloud can be modified by those granted access to it. This is a great way to collect data from multiple sources and to work collaboratively. For example, the administrators at Los Alamitos High School in Los Alamitos, Calif., created a form on Google Docs to record data from walk-through visits of classrooms. As the form is in the cloud, team members use iPads or smartphones to fill www.DistrictAdministration.com out the form as they visit classrooms. They look for things such as levels of student engagement, student-teacher interaction, and evidence that teachers are meeting teacher and school goals for the year. Grant Litfin, principal at Los Alamitos, says that this free tool is just as good as commercially produced products. He shares the data gathered with school leaders to identify patterns and improve practice. It is nonevaluative and helps staff identify what is really happening at the school. Cloud-based tools have a lot of potential for collaboration. At some schools, notes from meetings are kept on Google Docs or other such tools. Members can go back to add to the notes, expand ideas, or clarify details after the meeting. The document can become a chronological record of the group’s work on a project. A school team might create a cloud-based docu- ment for multiple contributors to work on. This is a great way to gather input for grant applications, accreditation studies and awards. You could keep school goals on a cloud-based document and have team leaders record progress toward these goals throughout the year. The tools are not as robust as full suite software and can take some getting used to, but the flexibility afforded for collaborative work outweighs these drawbacks. I work on documents at work and at home. It is hard to keep track of the most recent version. Many simply email the latest version to themselves, or they carry it on a portable USB drive. This is cumbersome and can lead to multiple versions of the same document. If you add a smartphone or tablet device to the mix, this will compound the problem. Is there a simpler way to work on the document on each RESOURCES EverNote Keep notes and much more on a variety of synced devices, including tablets, www.evernote.com GoodReader This application by Good.iWare Ltd. allows you to annotate PDF files. itunes.apple.com/us/app/goodreaderfor-ipad/id363448914?mt=8 Google Docs This set of productivity tools is hosted in the cloud by Google. www.google.com iAnnotate This app turns your tablet into a handy tool for reading, annotating, organizing and sending PDF files. www.branchfire.com/iannotate iCloud, Apple’s cloud-storage solution handles music and photos as well as documents.www.apple.com/icloud Microsoft OneNote This easy-to-use, powerful note-taking app is part of Microsoft Office. OneNote Mobile lets you create and view notes and lists whenever you need them. itunes. apple.com/us/app/onenote/id410395246 April 2012 57 http://www.evernote.com http://www.branchfire.com/iannotate http://www.apple.com/icloud http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goodreaderfor-ipad/id363448914?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onenote/id410395246 http://www.google.com http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onenote/id410395246 http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - April 2012

District Administration - April 2012
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Special Ed Update
Facilities Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Robust and Safe BYOD
Success Breeds Success
Funding Building Projects in a Tough Economy
Widening Participation to an IB Education
Why All the Chatter about #EdChat?
Supervisor’s Opinion
Going Mobile
New Directions
Crisis Response
Student Counsel
Product Focus
Online Edge

District Administration - April 2012