Digital Tools Galore!

Chapter 2 of Beach's book was exciting and frustrating at the same time. I find myself wanting to know more about digital notetaking, mapping, storing, etc. I'd like spend days immersed in the latest ideas and resources contained in the book's wiki. At the same time, I am frustrated by the frantic pace of life and how each week comes so quickly that I have barely started chewing on one topic before we move on to the next one.

Digital Notetaking
In this chapter, the digital notetaking intrigues me because I like to take notes on my computer, using plain old Word. I’ve used Google Docs to collaborate on minutes and notes from meetings. Now I’d like to try Google Notebook to be able to capture and link websites to my notes.

In that same section of the chapter, the Tablet PC example where students take simultaneous notes reminded me of an incident that happened this week during a workshop on equity. The presenter asked everyone to close their computers because she didn’t want people doing emails or hiding their face behind a screen during uncomfortable conversations about race. A group of administrators challenged her thinking and explained that they were using their three Tablet PCs to take notes for the other administrators who stayed at their building but were following the workshop through these notes. They were exchanging information and opinions in real time, while collaborating on a synthesized version of their notes on Google Docs. Wow! They were extending learning outside the workshop. The presenter highlighted their work as a great example of opening up communication within their team. The computers stayed on.

My Favorite Survey Tool!
In this same chapter, Beach talks about collecting research data through surveys and polls. Tools like SurveyMonkey lend themselves well to multi-question surveys. But these tools are not free and the surveys can get quite lengthy. For elementary kids, there is a one-question survey feature on the student blogs of Think.com but those can only be accessed by people in the class.

If you want to extend a question to those outside the class, my favorite tool is Doodle. Doodle lets you create a poll (the survey question) in any of 21 languages. There is a yes/no/maybe option called making a choice that works very well for a quick survey. You enter a possible answer and, for each potential answer, people tell you if they agree (yes), disagree (no), or are neutral (maybe). You could use it to ask kids what their favorite fruit is, to check if they understood the meaning of a vocabulary word, or to find out who is working on pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and who needs to conference with you. Students could answer the survey by rotating through 1-2 computers at school. Families could be polled by emailing them the link to a particular survey. I’ve used it to figure out what toppings people wanted on the pizza we ordered for our CoP, as well as finding a meeting date & time for people around the metro area. It’s super easy to use!