Last Revised in February 8, 2011

One of the things people who know me well will tell you is that I am a major Apple geek. If Apple put their logo on a pair of socks, I’d buy them and proceed to tell everyone I know how superior they are to Windows and Linux socks.

In terms of my work in Narrative Inquiry, I wanted to make mention of a couple of the tools I discovered (or discovered new uses for) over the course of the semester. Some of these I used for transcribing interviews, coding and reviewing notes, and outlining and diagramming major themes. Maybe these can help future students who want to use some digital tools in their narrative research.

Scrivener

A powerful application, Scrivener is used by writers for everything from lengthy legal briefs to crafting the great American novel. I’ve used Scrivener for the first pass of almost all of my academic writing since starting my PhD program in 2007. Version 2.0 was recently released and there is a Windows version in Beta as I write this. In my work for this course, Scrivener was an invaluable tool for transcribing audio files and putting together a final transcript.

iAnnotate PDF

I actually started coding my transcript in hard-copy form. What I couldn’t shake was the sense that pulling the codes together at the end was going to be a lot more work than it needed to be. Using my iPad and iAnnotate, I was able to use several colors of highlighter to identify key themes that I identified in the interview. Once the highlighting was complete, I was able to export the highlighted text as a plain text file for further analysis. The plain text file includes data on the color used to highlight each piece of text.

OmniOutliner Pro

Once I had the plain text out of iAnnotate, the next step was to regroup like colors together into some kind of an outline. For years, the “non-pro” version of OmniOutliner was bundled on every Mac. I used it from time to time for class notes and the like, but doing narrative research I discovered it’s real power to import raw .txt files and simplify the process of cleaning it up and getting it in outline form. Not only does OmniOutliner save in its own native file format, it also has the capability to export outlines in the standard OPML format that can be read by other applications.

OmniGraffle Pro

OmniGraffle Pro has the ability to read files that have been formatted in OPML and turn them into visual displays. At first this was just a way for me to see how far I could push my “all electronic” system, but I really liked the way that it looked. I found that it was nice to have a graphical representation of how the coding was looking.

I’m not sure if this will ever be helpful to other narrative researchers considering how to use their Mac to the best of its ability, but I found this to be a great starting point for my work in this class.

UPDATE 2/8/2011: PDF Expert

With a UI that is far superior to iAnnotate’s, PDF Expert only lacks one feature and that is the ability to export highlighted text to a plain text email. That being said, it’s worth a look if that is not the killer feature for you. I’ve downloaded and used it for class readings when I knew I wouldn’t have a reason to export length quotations.

In order to move this process into the 21st century and take advantage of the readily available tools for collaboration that are found online, I worked closely with my Leadership Team. This did not happen overnight, in fact I started planting the seeds well before I even broached the topic of moving data dialogues online. First, I began sharing meeting agendas and other documents with them via Google Docs. It was my hope that by starting slowly, they’d get comfortable using (or at least interacting with) GDocs to collaborate and share documents. I would say 75% of them immediately saw the benefits of using GDocs over the traditional method of passing documents around and hoping you were working with the most current version.

Once I was comfortable that most of my Leadership Team were on board, I worked closely with my Instructional Coach — as I usually would with or without GDocs — to craft some guiding questions for our data dialogues. I had her create a GDoc with the questions in it which were shared with team leaders. Team leaders were then responsible for sharing it with their teams and collaborating on their responses. One of the benefits to the teams was that one person was no longer required to be “the recorder” because once the document was shared, any team member was able to type directly into the document.

Through this whole process, my AP, my Instructional Coach, and I all had access to each team’s template so we could monitor their progress any time without having to mail documents back and forth. This freed teams to move from our (extremely hot in August) media center to other locations on campus where they had the resources they needed to do their work.

The Mechanics

I knew I was in for an uphill battle if I owned the process of sharing documents one at a time with each member of the staff so here’s how I set things up…

I created a folder for each team and shared that folder with the team leader, my instructional coach, my AP, and any other special service providers who generally need access to the student data. Now, anything I place in that folder is automatically shared with the team leader whose responsibility it was to invite other team members into their team folder. So instead of worrying about permissions for 50-60 staff, I only had to worry about 7 folders and team leaders.

Once team leaders had invited their team members to the team folder, everyone had access to everything in the folder. Additionally, you’ll see folders for supporting documents, agendas, minutes, and attendance. Those are used by my SAAC chair to track our monthly meetings.

Since most everyone seemed comfortable, if not completely enamored, with this new process, I decided to ask team leaders to keep their regular team meeting minutes in their team folders so that I wouldn’t get seven separate Word documents mailed to me every Monday afternoon that I’d have to open, save, and file. Now all team meeting minutes are in one place and they’re filed the instant they’re created.

Finally, I created a “Data” folder that I shared with all team leaders. Into this folder, I toss every PDF and Excel file that I receive. This avoids the necessity of emailing large data files around that clog up teachers’ email boxes. Rarely do people need to look at those emails the instant they arrive so they either sit in the inbox until they’re needed or they get filed and/or lost. Using a data folder means that everything is easily accessible and that I can avoid re-sending emails if and when data is lost.

Yes. Much of the data comes to us in PDFs. Don’t get me started.

How’s it working for you?

Knowing that this whole process was new to many teachers, it was critical that they felt supported and confident that they could take the risk and stumble. At every Leadership Team meeting, we have an agenda item that opens the floor to input and feedback about the process. During the first month or so of school, I would meet regularly with team leaders with no other agenda other than to have them get out their laptops and practice creating and sharing documents and folders.

Though it eventually tapered off, for the first few weeks I would regularly have teachers come to my office or approach me in the hall and ask for help doing this or that. I was acutely aware that the first time they didn’t feel supported the whole stack of cards I’d been building would become dangerously unstable so it was — and continues to be — very important to me that I personally worked with every teacher who was having trouble for as long as it took them to get comfortable.

I didn’t provide a “way out” or safety net. The only way to capture evidence of a team’s data dialogue and their action plans was via Google Docs. For the few who brought me paper copies, I’d say something like, “This looks great! Make sure you copy it over to your team folder on Google Docs so I can review it.”

“Don’t you just want the paper?”

“No. I’ll lose it. I’d like them all the completed documents in Google Docs so that I know everything’s in the same place and I know where to find everyone’s plans. Thanks for taking the time to do that!”

Not using Google Docs was simply not an option.

Over a year ago, I pitched an idea to one of our district-level tech folks to do a hands-on, immersive day (or series of days) where school and district leaders could just… play. We spend a lot of time debating the theory of this or the data supporting that, but too many leaders lack the fundamental knowledge and skills to move forward with using technology to facilitate communication and collaboration in their schools and departments. And unfortunately a few are afraid of looking “dumb” and therefore not comfortable in their ability to support their staff in jumping into this stuff.

They really want to know. They’re hungry to know. But some just don’t know where to start.

It’s taken me a while to bring this to reality (huge thanks to our Director of C&I for actually thinking I was onto something with this idea…), but tomorrow I will be hosting our district’s first ever Leadership Technology Bootcamp. The format for the day was inspired by the bootcamps that Scott McLeod and his posse at CASTLE present to leaders in Iowa. The agenda is very aggressive for the time we’ll have (I doubt we’ll get past podcasting), but I’d rather keep it that way and leave folks wanting more.

My biggest concern going in is the diversity of proficiency in the group. I plan to do a little show & tell, followed by some hands-on time. I’ve also dragged a couple of my fellow TSD Twitterati along to help facilitate small groups.

My greatest hope for the day is that my colleagues see a lot of different tools and, through some experimentation, find one or two that they can see themselves using in the 2010-2011 school year. I also hope that by exposure to some of these tools, they will be in a position to better support their teachers — not necessarily because they know everything about Google Reader or WordPress or Etherpad, but because they know enough to steer a teacher in the right direction when they think something might be a good fit.

And it would also be nice for all of us to continue working together to improve our skills. A true community of practice. A Twitter colleague said it better than I ever could.

As it stands, I have close to 50 school and district leaders signed up to spend the day learning and collaborating. Quite a nice start, I think.

Wish me luck!

iPhone – I know there was a world before the iPhone, but I prefer not to think about it. Increasingly, I use it more and more around the house in lieu of my laptop if all I’m doing is Tweeting or reading my RSS feeds.

My iPhone

Google Docs – Almost everything I write at least begins life as a Google Doc. Sure, it may end up in Scrivener or Pages for fine-tuning or formatting when it’s ready to be published, but for just getting something down “on paper” it’s tough to beat GDocs.

Gmail – Other than my work email (FirstClass. Blech.), all of my various email accounts are managed in a single Gmail account. I’ve been a Gmailer since it debuted (2004?) and can’t imagine not having it.

Fever – My RSS reader of choice. We all have “top-tier” feeds that we never want to miss and “lower-level” feeds that we read if time allows. Plus, how guilty do you feel when you have “713 unread” in your Google Reader? Fever is a single-user web app that you run on your own server. Basically your top feeds or daily reads are “kindling” and your secondary feeds are “sparks.” The sparks are kept out of the main view and there’s no nagging “unread feeds” indicator so you can ignore them guilt-free.

My Fever homepage / 92 feeds and zero clutter

Why have sparks at all, then? Here’s where Fever gets interesting… There is some magic algorithm that monitors all your feeds for common topics or links and then gives you a “temperature reading” of the hottest topics and links in all of your feeds. So – for once – it is actually BETTER to subscribe to more feeds as they’ll provide the sparks. Then for daily reading you just cruise through your kindling. There is also a web-based iPhone version (no native app) that looks as good as the full browser-based version. Geek Note: As mentioned above, you have to run Fever on your own server or hosted web space. There is some setup involved, but it took me less than 15 minutes. After that I was able to import my OPML from Google Reader and I’ve done zero maintenance since.

TweetDeck/Tweetie 2 – As I’ve mentioned before, Tweetie for the iPhone and TweetDeck for the desktop.

iTunes – I’m a music fanatic. I have music on constantly when I’m at my desk.

Adium/iChat – Indispensable. I wish more of my colleagues were on AIM or GTalk. I use Adium mostly because it keeps my contacts all in one list. iChat, on the other hand, supports video chatting.

Quicksilver – “Act without doing.” When I sit down at a Mac without QS, I am immediately lost.

Firefox – It’s a little pokey lately, but my plug-ins don’t work in Safari.

Skitch – This was an easy one to almost forget, but I use it at least 2 or 3 times a week. Someone wants to know what settings to use in Adium or where a certain preference is located in our district email client. Instead of writing, “Open Preferences. Click the ‘Accounts’ tab. Find the box for SSL and check it. Then enter ’443′ in the ‘ports’ field…” it’s easier to just pull up my settings and use Skitch to make a screen capture.

Dropbox – Provides access to your stuff from multiple computers as well as the peace of mind to know that your stuff is backed up in the cloud should your hard drive take a dirt nap.

ActionMethod – The best task and project manager I’ve used in a long time. Complete with an iPhone app. After trying many, many other apps this is the only one that works like I think. Plus, there are nifty paper products to complement your online setup.

Honorable Mention:

Evernote – The place to dump everything that has other place to go. Scans of receipts, software licenses, anything.

Caffeine – Not an “every day” application, but it’s nice to have when you need it. Click on the coffee cup in your task bar and it fills up. Now your display won’t go to sleep. Ever. Very useful if you’re presenting. Saves you the embarrassment of being in the middle of a presentation when your display goes to sleep or your screen saver comes on.

Essentially, each student in his class had to find, read, and summarize five articles before the next class. The summaries were consolidated using Zoho Creator, and, well, according to Wesch:

By the time of our next class, all 16 students had read 5 articles and been exposed to the main ideas of 94 articles.  This created an amazing foundation for deep conversation.

I hear the term “leverage” used quite a bit – mostly as a fancy (read: incorrect) synonym for the word “use” (E.g. “Students leveraged their cell phones to call GCast…” or “The principal leveraged technology to show a PowerPoint presentation…”). As a former physics teacher, the word “leverage” has a specific meaning in my mind. It implies compounding resources to gain some mathematical or mechanical advantage.

Leverage is like mechanical gestalt. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. You know – like having 15 students collectively read 94 articles before the next class.

Such a simple idea with so much potential for use in the classroom and in professional development.

(Don’t even get me started on the use of the word “potential.”)

The creative juices that flow as I try and design better slides has not only provided a nice outlet for me in the weeks before Christmas break…but also helped me get more creative in connections I make to the material.

That’s what it’s all about! If you enjoy creating your slides (I do!), you’ll enjoy presenting them. And if you enjoy presenting them rather than making them just a bunch of notes that you have to “get through,” your audience will enjoy your delivery a whole lot more.

My enthusiasm for your presentation, which I shared with a number of members of my staff, has made me into the resident presentation guru in my building.

Nice. I’m glad to have had this kind of impact!

My principal has asked me to do a presentation on presenting at our upcoming PD and I wondered if you had some advice on how to attack it. My audience would be a frightening mix of the computer savvy and folks who refer to “The Google.” What would you recommend in terms of content? I could see the scope being very broad and touching on why design better slides, how to do it, where to find good images, etc. Or staying narrow and looking at the how part.

First off, I love The Google!

Second, and this is just my two cents, if you’re thinking of presenting on presenting to your staff, you need to provide the context. If that’s how we should be teaching kids, it’s surely how we should be teaching adults.

I didn’t look at my presentation to staff as a “How-To” with respect to PowerPoint (although that’s what some of them came to the session expecting…), I planned it as a “Why-Bother” with the intent of raising the level of awareness of what we’re putting on the screen. If it gave at least one teacher pause before they projected the same, tired slide show for yet another year, I felt my presentation would be worthwhile.

See, the “Why-Bother” actually motivated the “How-To” with about a half-dozen of my attendees. It put it into context for them. Rather than telling them how to do something, I shared with them first why they should care.

And it worked! They stayed after my presentation wanting to know more. “OK – I like how you did that. Now show me how to make my slides look like that.” They’re hooked.

A “How-To” without context may be everything that’s wrong with the way we present professional development to teachers, but that’s for me to tackle down the road. You know – that and this whole “global warming” thing.

Not necessarily educationally related, but I loves me some stats! Now you can see all the statistics on your Flickr photos if you activate your “Flickr stats.”

[via Around the Corner]

I’m truly humbled by all of the positive attention my “Presentation on Presentations” has received since I published it one week ago. I’m especially grateful to those who have linked it on their own blogs and increased the potential reach for this work.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating that there is nothing in that presentation that I didn’t learn from following in the footsteps of those who have covered this stuff in far greater detail (Dan, Merlin, Guy, Seth, Garr…). I have merely synthesized from the work of others and distilled it down into a presentation that I gave to a group of faculty.

My goal was to whet their appetites. Not to “convert” them to “my” way of thinking, so much as to show them that there are other (better?) ways to use presentation software — to share the possibilities.

I had a limited amount of time and there is a LOT of information out there. I didn’t know if I’d have another opportunity to share this material with them so I wanted to be sure to include as much as possible in the hour that I had. I wanted to leave them hungry to learn more and to some extent I think that I was successful.

Thanks to all who have commented and linked!

Embarrassingly enough, until I started reading and researching about presenting, the only rule of thumb I followed was, “Don’t read directly from the slides.” Although that’s great advice and a wonderful start, it’s only the tip of the iceberg as it relates to creating effective presentations.

The more time I spent at staff development presentations where presenters were telling administrators and teachers about “effective delivery of instruction,” but not practicing what they were preaching, the more frustrated I continued to get. You can’t stand in front of a room full of educators reading your slides bullet-by-bullet and not expect to hear mass snoring.

The most rewarding thing to me was that six of the attendees actually stayed after the presentation with their laptops open and asked me pretty detailed questions about how I designed my slides and how they could improve some of their dated presentations. We ended up hanging out for about a half hour and I am planning to schedule some time to follow up with each of them in their classrooms to maybe watch and provide feedback on their presentations.

• The PDF (11 MB) – I embellished a little on my presentation notes to make it closer to what I actually said rather than just my outline.
• The Keynote (12 MB) – The full presentation in Keynote.

Update 12/16/07: Now posted with audio at Slideshare. Enjoy!

First, have you seen this? I thought I’d seen some complex organizational schemes, but this one is incredible. Elegant in its simplicity, yet amazingly comprehensive. [via 43F]

Second, if you’re in graduate school and you use a Mac, you need to check out Schoolhouse 2.1. All I can say about this app is, “Wow!” I’m using it to track assignments and the like in my two doctoral classes this term and I’m thoroughly impressed.