New Version of LiveBinders iPad App

Our LiveBinders iPad app has been very popular and we love the input that everyone has given us on the app.  This version takes care of two of the most requested features:

1. Display the app in both profile and landscape
2. Edit/play/present binders from inside the app

We are still working on the app, so please keep those requests coming!

Nominate Your Top 10 Binders for 2012!

It’s that time of year again when we let you decide which of the great binders you used this year makes it on the Top 10 List. Last year we had 29 entries out of over 100,000 public binders. We look forward to seeing all the great LiveBinders you’ve used this year.

To make your nomination, please visit our Top Ten page.

Be sure to check out last year’s 10 winners on that page.

Feel free to enter any number of binders from different categories (educational or other) – just be sure to share with us why you are nominating the binders.

Let the praise begin!

Some Libraries You Just Have to See

Tina and I are always awestruck at the amazing binders that are assembled by the LiveBinders’ community. I know lots of teachers who search for binders first before trying to create their own lesson plans. I thought I would take a minute to showcase some of the amazing teachers, principals, educational consultants, technology coordinators, and librarians who have created whole libraries of great binders. I’m including twitter ids for the ones that I know so that you can follow them on twitter too. Please comment on any that I have missed!

I have to start with Karen Bolotin @kbkonnected who has over 75 excellent binders. She teaches at the elementary level and provides amazing resources for teachers around the world.

Toby Price is an assistant principal who has a love of Apple products. Check out his Apps for students, parents, teachers, and administrators. He also has great resources on MAPs and Autism. Follow him at @teachersharetp.

Steven Anderson is very well known in the educational technology community, follow him at @web20classroom. An expert on social media in the classroom, his binders on QR codes in Education, An Educator’s Guide to Twitter, Google+ for Educators, and Staying Safe Online are not to be missed!

Michael Fisher owns the distinction of having the most viewed binder on the site – iPads in Schools. A nationally certified teacher and instructional coach, Michael is pushing for great change in education. He has fabulous resources on student-centered learning including: The Digigogical Matrix, Curriculum Transformations, and Social Justice LIVE! are just a few of his excellent binders. Follow him at @fisher100.

Though I’ve never spoken with wisermar and don’t know her twitter name (though I suspect that it may be Mary Wiser @wisemar) I have a deep admiration for the library that she has created which includes a great binder on the U.S. Constitution, lots of US and world history resources, but also fun binders like the Halloween binder that we recently added to the featured page.

Justin Stallings’ Library is growing quickly. He has created great social studies binders including one on the 2012 Presidential Election. His other binders focus on natural disasters, including Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and Earthquakes. (Hmm, makes me wonder if there is a tie-in between the 2012 election and natural disasters.) Follow him at @justinstallings.

I’m going to mention two great librarians together here, Joquetta Johnson @accordin2jo and Carolyn Jo Starkey @carolynstarkey. Both have created great resources for their schools and resources that librarians around the world have found incredibly useful.

@2sparkley has built a library almost as large as KBConnected. She has many great resources that include both holidays and technology like Presentation Resources, Podcasting, Creative Commons, and Mother’s Day.

Ugh! Two that I forgot from my initial post: Angela Cunningham (@kyteacher). She has created a simply amazing collection of world history and social studies resources! Tia Cooper (@techwithtia) has created some of the best ed-tech resources out there with Winning Webquests, 100+ STEM Websites & Tools for Teachers, and “If It’s Not Free! It’s Not For Me!”.

I just stumbled upon another great author tonight, Shannon Long has put together some really creative binders including Angry Bird in the Classroom and the Cookie Challenge. I couldn’t find a twitter address for Shannon, but here is her blog: http://technologyrocksseriously.blogspot.com/

One more that I forgot about is Tina Holland’s Library. She has built some great science and technology binders and also has her own LiveBinder portfolio.

Ok, I stumbled across another great library tonight, Linda Kellim has also built some great science and technology binders.

Those are just a few, please let me know which great LiveBinders authors that you have found on the site!

And the winners are…

First, congratulations to all of the 29 LiveBinder entries – out of over 100,000 binders, your binders were selected as a Top 10 Contender and that’s worth mentioning!  And to our Top 10 Favorite LiveBinder winners – double Congratulations are in order!!

For Barbara and I, it was so much fun to see the good sportsmanship carried out on twitter as all of you tried to engage people to participate.  We both had a good laugh when @mfisher1000 decided to take on the 3rd graders in @mthornton’s class. Who thought it would get that heated?

I think the main point to take a way from all of this is how useful your binders have been to people.  In this day and age where the internet is getting overwhelmingly bombarded with information – its nice to have people you trust and respect sort through content in a meaningful way.  We love the polished way in which these binders were carefully created. 

To honor all of the 2011 Top 10 binders, we’ve provided badges for your home pages and mini-badges that will appear next to your binder icons on your shelves and will also appear within your binders. We will email you your website badges shortly and your mini-badges should start showing up on your shelves and binders immediately.  Below are the Top 10 Favorite Binders – Congratulations everyone! 

Tina and Barbara

The LiveBinders community recently nominated and voted for their top ten LiveBinders. Here are the winners:

1. Michael Thornton’s

Student Digital “Textbooks”

2. KB Konnected’s

Amazing Animal Webcams

3. Mike Fisher’s

iPads in Schools

4. Steven Anderson’s

An Educators Guide To Twitter

5. Christopher Stefanski’s

Free Online Resources

6. Michelle Green’s

12 Ways to eLearning

7. Marianne Griffith’s

Art Education ACING

8. Ann Marie Kennedy’s

Fun Math Resources

9. Toby Price’s

MAPS FOR STUDENTS and PARENTS

10. Steven Anderson’s

QR Codes In Education

10 More Great ways Educators are using LiveBinders

Everyday Barbara and I enjoy checking out the ‘recent’ Featured shelf on our website and continue to find so many interesting and creative ways in which educators are organizing their resources.  We thought it was time to highlight another 10 great binders for you to enjoy.

Virtual Summer Camp

User ‘mikefisher821′ – created the Virtual Summer Camp binder for teachers who are looking to improve their Web 2.0 skills, and look for inspiring online lectures and resources for teaching.  He also created a comprehensive web 2.0 resource binder called ‘Evidence of Learning 2.0′.  It is a fabulous collection of web 2.o applications broken down by category.

Virtual Summer Camp

Evidence of Learning 2.0

Mrs. Knight’s English Binder

Our user ‘bknight’ created a 9th grade English class binder for both students and parents.  She uses googledocs to create a syllabus and surveys.  When she updates her googledocs syllabus, it will automatically update in her livebinder.  The combination of googledocs with livebinders provides flexibility for the teacher who wants a collection of documents organized by context, and yet accessible anytime for editing without having to worry about re-uploading documents.

Mrs. Knight~S9GS

Sailing Camp LiveBinder

User ‘rlaffey’ put a complete course of information for his summer camp sailing program.  Students are able to access information online at anytime during the course instruction.  ‘Rlaffey’ organized videos and handouts throughout the binder.

AYC Sail Camp

MCA Orientation Binder

Our user ‘mcalibrary’ created an excellent resource binder for staff members who are relocating to Taiwan.  They put together a comprehensive resource on local transportation, english language support networks, television stations, tourist sites, language resources and a history of Taiwan.

MCA – Orientation Binder

Learning History by creating a Travel Binder

Speaking of travel guide, teacher ‘MrsB’ created a fantastic binder course for 1st – 5th graders where they were to team up with partners and plan a trip to a particular country.  The idea is to get them to create a scenario where they have to travel to this country and then document what they visited.  In her binder below, she provided guidelines, handouts and resources that help the students with their projects.  I’ve included her binder below plus one of the student example binders.

Book_a_Trip_Reading_Passport

Travel to India

Conference Presentation Binder

‘Dmantz7′ used livebinders as a way to present conference material in an organized format in the binder.  He addresses unique 21st century issues with examples of tools that teachers can use for their classroom.  He also provides guidelines on how to use some of the web 2.0 tools he highlights.  Its a great resource for teachers and also another example of how to use livebinders as a presentation tool.

iCiL 2010 “Simplify Virtually” preso

Everyday Barbara and I enjoy checking out the ‘recent’ Featured livebinders shelf on our website and continue to find so many interesting and creative ways in which educators are organizing their resources.  We thought it was time to highlight some of those binders to you.

User mikefisher821 – created the Virtual Summer Camp binder for teachers who are looking to improve their Web 2.0 skills, look for online lectures and resources for teaching. He’s collected a great number of video resources, online lectures and websites that caters to teachers wanting to freshen up on their skills.  It is basically a virtual summer camp at your fingertips.

Virtual Summer Camp
<div style=”width:75px;height:78px;background-image:url(‘http://www.livebinders.com/images/binder_straightened.gif&#8217;);border:0;margin-top:4px;background-repeat:no-repeat;”>    <a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=17616″>    <img src=”http://open.thumbshots.org/image.pxf?url=http://livebinders.com/media/get/MTIzMDY5&#8243; style=”width:60px;height:60px;border:0;margin:14px 0 0 11px;padding:0;” />    </a>    </div>    <div><a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=17616″>Virtual Summer Camp</a><br /></div>

Mrs.Knight’s English Binder

Our user ‘bknight’ created a 9th grade English class binder for both students and parents.  What I like about her binder is that she incorporates the flexibility of googledocs into her binders in appropriate ways.  For example, she has a welcome letter drafted to both the parents and students as well as a tab for a google doc survey.  The nice thing about using google docs and livebinders together is that you can edit your google docs remotely so that the latest updates or edits can appear on the document even though it is already linked in the binder.  It provides great flexibility for the teacher who wants everything organized in appropriate tabs, but also allows her to update her google docs from within the binder.
Mike’s Evidence of Learning 2.0

Shelf of 2sparkley

MCA Orientation Binder

Dean Mantz’s iCiL 2010 “Simplify Virtually” presontation -
<div style=”width:75px;height:78px;background-image:url(‘http://www.livebinders.com/images/binder_straightened.gif&#8217;);border:0;margin-top:4px;background-repeat:no-repeat;”>    <a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=16713″>    <img src=”http://open.thumbshots.org/image.pxf?url=http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYJccUMtDzncZGZ2OHgyYl8yMzJmbWd4cjdjYw&amp;hl=en&#8221; style=”width:60px;height:60px;border:0;margin:14px 0 0 11px;padding:0;” />    </a>    </div>    <div><a href=”http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=16713″&gt; iCiL 2010 “Simplify Virtually” preso</a><br /></div>

Sailing binder

AYC Sail Camp

Science Links

‘Jmayo’ put together a great collection of science virtual worlds and interactive online programs in the subject of live sciences.  There are some very fun and immersive environments that students will enjoy exploring and coming away learning something about the world they live in.

Science Links

Poetry Pathfinders

User ‘arosheim’ created a lovely binder for kindergarten to 5th grade students to learn more about poetry.   Each tab is organized by grades and includes sub-tabs with links to poetry examples and exercises that are grade appropriate.

Poetry Pathfinders

LiveBinder Shelf of 2sparkley

User ’2sparkley’ has created an enormous resource of  great information for teachers in all subject areas.  Instead of focusing on one binder, we are sharing her entire library of public binders in this link to her livebinder public shelf.  Resources include useful links to math and english subjects, safety on the web, word clouds and virtual worlds.

http://www.livebinders.com/shelf/search?search=&terms=2sparkley&type=1

Here are some more examples.

Sending Links to Customers Never Looked So Good

Thanks to some excellent feedback, we have a new release that includes several improvements to LiveBinders.

As you know, LiveBinders is like a 3-ring binder for the web – allowing you to capture a variety of web links into a tabbed format which we call LiveBinders.  Instead of bookmarking links – you can add them directly into livebinders.  Your LiveBinder icons can be embedded on your web pages or sent as links in email.  It’s a great way to share multiple links for yourself or with other people.

Here are some of the highlights in this release:

Upload Your PDF files to LiveBinders

Many of our users have been creatinglivebinders for customer documentation.  With our new upload feature you can upload your own PDFs and include them in a livebinder along with your website links.

Better Looking Binders

We’ve given the livebinders a more polished look.  At the top now is the LiveBinder logo and the username/ login line.  Underneath that is the contents of the binder including the name of the binder, the author’s name, date created, and the number of views for the binder.  If you are the author of the binder,  you will also be able to see the ‘edit menu’ button to the right which allows you to make changes to your binder’s contents and properties.

Bookmark While You Browse

Although many of you can still create a blank binder from scratch, new users will be asked to install in their browser the ‘LiveBinder It’ bookmark tool.  This allows them to create binders while they browse. It is a quicker and easier way to create binders on the fly.  You can find out more about the bookmark tool here: http://livebinders.com/create/bookmark?type=bookmark

LiveBinders was created to help people make their searches more useful.  Before Livebinders there was no easy way to combine multiple links into a document format that you can easily access online.  If you’ve found LiveBinders to be useful for you, let us know.  We have more improvements on the way.

Thank you for using LiveBinders!

Twitter for business uses

Twitter has been in the paper recently with talks about trying to find ways in which to monetize their popularity. (Doesn’t it seem like a common theme with many of our venture funded startups this quarter?)

In addition to advertising, one avenue they are looking at is to see how useful the twitter application can be for business.   How does a tool used for announcing your whereabouts and general attention grabbing convert to a serious business application?   Well there are some fans that have come up with initial suggestions that have been compiled here in this LiveBinder.

To view just click on the link below and go through each of the tabs in the binder.

Enjoy!

Business Uses for Twitter

A New Way Start Your Research

What is the first thing that you do when you start researching a potential purchase or new project? I do a Google Search. Google always gives me a pretty good start to my research. Well, what if you could put those first eight sites that Google finds in a LiveBinder to get started? Well, now you can.

Our new Google search feature pops those first eight results into tabs in a binder. Then you can just delete the tabs that you don’t want and add more tabs as you browse.

At LiveBinders we are always trying to figure out ways to make it easier for you to organize information and share it with others. Creating a binder with a Google search is just another way to help you pull together the information you need into one convenient location.

Try it out and see what you think.

What is really fun is building a quick binder for someone else. Next time someone asks you for information on something, build them a quick binder with Google search and send it to them. They will think you spent a great deal of time pulling the information together just for them!

I had a friend ask me, “just what is cloud computing”. I sent him this binder and he was very impressed, he thought I’d spent a lot of time researching it. But in reality, it took me three minutes to build the binder. For laughs I had to add Larry Ellison’s take on cloud computing in the last tab:

Cloud Computing