The Velveteen Teacher

For those teachers that once loved or despised the classic (public domain) story of The Velveteen Rabbit, I dedicate this to you.

Download the original file here.

The Velveteen Teacher by T.C. Andrew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Game Changer

I have been looking to find a secure way to bring live chat into the classroom without having to create accounts, join social networks, or hire out to a consulting firm who will simply create accounts on another silly social network. I figured Bluetooth was the solution but not having a degree in computer science my best effort is what shows up on 'gadget blogs' or @wired.

Last night I started to think my dreams might one day be fully realized.

I don't want to be an app reviewer. The Lord has anointed several thousand of those already. I want to inform good practice with better tech by remaining old ideas in new ways.

BT Chat for iPad and iPod.

I wasn't sold on a school set of iPads. BUT we have one which means we're moving forward and it is time to manage and problem solve... Or problem solve our management system... I digress.

Each iPad has Bluetooth capacity. That's kewl, I wonder why? They're all on our network after all?

This is an app that allows two apple devices to chat back and forth without having to be part of a network. Not that useful. More useful: BT Chat allows a user to host a group chat on their tablet over a local network... GAME CHANGER.

This means I can create a closed chat room on my school network that any number of students can join. I can screencast the chat to a nearby projector and now I've got my own local twitter-roll.

Plus... It's free with very modest advertising.

I can't wait to put it through the Grade 7 CE Bootcamp.... Or chat at the next Twitter-blocked EdConference!