My new iPhone

A few weeks ago I finally made a trip to Portland to buy an iphone. Since ATT is not in Bend those of us who desire to part of the cool crowd need to travel over the mountains to get one. So I hitched a ride with my VP over to PDX one cold Saturday and came back with my shiny new iphone. So far I have not been disappointed. It is as cool as I hoped it would be but has been more than just fun, it has been useful too.

I use google forms for conducting walk-thru observations (something I learned from Tim Lauer) and the iphone has integrated well into this system. I used to use my laptop for this process. This worked but believe it or not the laptop was kind of a pain to lug around. But now I can use my iphone and I can even take pictures of teachers and classes in action when needed. Whenever I enter something onto my google form it put the information on spreadsheet along with a time and date stamp. Below is a screenshot of part of my form:




While I have been getting used to my new toy/tool I have enjoyed reading about what applications other people have on their iphone and how they have been using their iphone in their personal and professional lives (i.e. The Principal Blog)

So what are your professional uses for the iphone and/or google forms? Share them here.

Finally made the move...

For a few years I have been on Edublogs. This blogging tool served me well for what I needed and wanted to do. The big draw for me was that Edublogs was free, easy to use, did not have advertisements and was safe for kids. That changed recently with the addition of advertisements. A few weeks ago I blogged about the diesel fuel problems our district buses experienced. When I went back to check on my post I saw ads for diesel fuel above my post- wtf! Oh well, they have to pay their bills somehow.

I also found myself wanting to branch out and not necessarily write about education related topics. While this will probably be my main focus I also want to write about life in Central Oregon and other things are on my mind (like my N.O.W. page). Using Edublogs for non-education topics just didn't seem right. So here I am on Blogger. I thought about going out on my own but I do not have the time, energy, patience, money, or tech skills to deal with hosting my own blog. I always knew Blogger was easy to use and I'd would have been here sooner but that little "Next Blog" thing always bugged me - especially if kids and parents were my audience. Who knows where that would have taken them. I know how to get rid of the "Next Blog" link but for now I think I will just leave it.

I don't have the most exciting blog or the most stylish but I think it will serve me well. Thanks for visiting.

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