Digital Conferring Notebook

Sometimes things just take time to figure out. I finally received my new iPad 2 right before my spring break. Prior to having an iPad in my hands, I began to play with the idea of creating a functional conferring notebook using a combination of apps. Initially, I created some forms in Google Docs and organized them in a virtual binder tool called LiveBinders. Since LiveBinders has quite a nifty iPad app, I combined the two with interesting results. It worked pretty well except that I couldn't view the far right hand regions of my spreadsheets, which didn't bother me much. Any serious examination of data collected on my spreadsheet would probably take place on my laptop anyway. Editing the form was quite buggy though and so I continued my quest for a better combination of apps. In the meantime, I checked out the Confer App, which was very cool but pretty pricey and not very visually appealing. My most recent version uses a combination of a document I created in Google Docs as my master grid. The grid contains the links to the conferring form, a spreadsheet to hold all the student data, an appointment calendar, and a student log sheet. I used an app called GoDocs to view and edit my documents on my iPad. I plan to play with it this week and continue to tweak as I go.

This is a screenshot of what my selection grid looks
like using GoDocs. As you can see, this is a work in
progress. 

2 comments:

  1. I like the look of the screen shot you shared.

    And you're right about the lack of visual appeal in Confer. There's nothing glitzy or exciting about it. It feels like a tool. A useful tool, but nothing that will get you excited to work. (And we know that being enthusiastic about conferring is so important!)

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  2. I look forward to hearing more about your process. This year teachers at my school got iPads and started using Confer. Since I was on a leave of absence, I am a bit out of the loop. I will getting my iPad soon and start to explore over the summer.

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