Tag: Teachers

Best way to optimize binders for Mobile devices

~ Tina Schneider ~ Leave a comment

Recently we received a support question from a college professor who wanted to “meet students where they are” and was asking how to best optimize her binders for viewing on mobile devices. We thought this would be a great post to share with you.

Viewing binders with our mobile app vs mobile browser:

Anyone can view a binder without needing to sign up for a LiveBinders account, however, you need an account if you are having your viewers viewing your binder from our App.

So unless you want your viewers to also create binders, we recommend letting them view your binder through the browser on their mobile device instead of using our App. They can then save that link to their device’s home screen to easily return to it when needed. The binder will always update with the latest content every time they click on it from their device. To access your binder from their device, you can email them the link to your binder or host it on your website.

The other option is to create a QR code for your binder  (available in your LiveBinders editor. See  “Content>QR Code” button options), and they can scan it and have it saved in their QR code app. 

FYI – If you are making the binder private, be sure to create a private access key so they can view the binder. 

Hiding tabs for more viewing space:

When viewing a binder on a phone the tabs will always appear to the left – regardless of how you set it – so that there is more viewing space for the content. However, you can create more space by clicking the arrow icon located to the right of the first tab that will give your viewers the option to hide or display the tabs on the left. Be sure to let them know when you share your binder.

Launching content full screen:

Any content that you link or upload to a binder tab can always be viewed outside of the binder – your audience just needs to click on the URL provided at the top of the tab so they can view it full screen. We recommend launching the file full screen for the best viewing experience.

Tab layout recommendations:

You can choose a text layout option that lets you write content next to the resource that you are adding to your binder.  When viewing on a phone device, the appearance will be vertically displayed rather than side by side.

If you choose text/media, the main body text will appear before the media file that you add or upload.

If you select media/text the media file will appear before the text content.

For a better viewing experience on the phone, we recommend adding any text in its own tab and any supporting material that you upload as subtabs so they can be viewed full screen.

Uploading Word Doc or PDFs:

When viewing files in a binder from a laptop we usually recommend clicking on the URL provided at the top of the tab page so that the file opens full screen. iOS and Android will treat each one differently.

iOS – Will give you the option to “view” or “download” a Word or PDF file. We recommend “view” unless they specifically have an App that can run both files.

Android – for either Microsoft or PDFs the file will download and will give the viewer the choice to pick an App to view the file in.

Hopefully these tips are useful for you.  If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us to help you at support @ livebinders.

Data Threat Dashboards at Your Fingertips

~ Tina Schneider ~ Leave a comment

Keeping live data where you can easily find it.

Image with the left half of the screen having a royal blue background with white font that reads: Data Threat Dashboard: Using Binders as a Portal. In grey text it reads LiveBinders Organize Success Podcast. On the right have of the image at the top right it has text that reads Special Guest below that an picture of a man with parted grey hair and glasses. Underneath the picture is the text John Dahlgren Butte College CAD Instructor. Underneath that text is a picture of a binder with a cover image of a purple pixelated lock. The text underneath that reads Data Threat Dashboard Information

In the very early days of COVID, I had initially been following stories through NHK-TV on my television. Once it became clear that COVID was spreading rapidly, I didn’t know where to get trusted information about how the virus was spreading. Then, I discovered a binder created by John Dahlgren, an instructor at Buttle College and an avid user of LiveBinders. John had put COVID resources into a public binder called COVID-19 Dashboard Information that included the John’s Hopkins live data feed dashboard. It was the first binder I opened every day for 6 months watching the numbers grow by the 1000s. It became so useful for me that I added the website dashboard to one of my own go-to binders so that I could have one binder opened with all of my applications in one place.

I also loved being able to manage all of my applications from a central location – kind of like a gateway portal to my web applications, like Google, Slack, Canvas, etc. This way I didn’t have to keep all my browser tabs open all the time, taxing my computer. The online binder acts as an easy and affordable way to quickly create a dashboard for accessing my go-to applications everyday.

Since that time John has created another useful dashboard binder called the Data Threat Dashboard Information that I also became interested in using. It is on cyber security data threats across the globe. When Ukraine was attacked by Russia in February 2022, I was curious to see if any data threat activity had increased and where it was directed. In this binder, I could get a quick summary just by viewing the dynamic visual effects. I found it so fascinating that I invited John to join me in a podcast to explain what each of the dashboards are telling us, and I am excited to share this information with you.

Please listen to our podcast or view the episode on our Youtube channel. Transcripts, podcast and YouTube URLs are available in our Podcast binder. And feel free to open his Data Thread Dashboard binder to follow along.

Student-to-Adult Transitions-A 21st Century Guide for Parents and Teens

~ Tina Schneider ~ Leave a comment

Lisa Washington has created a online binder with invaluable resources to help teachers, parents and students prepare for life after high school.

Graphic showing the LiveBinders binder icon surrounded by a large image of earphones. The text LiveBinders appears on the left side and vertically placed by the headset. Beneath the earphones is the text Organize Success Podcast. To the right of the earphones is the text Special Guest with a picture of Lisa Washington underneath it and her name Lisa Washington Arkansas Transition Consultant Southwest Arkansas below her picture. Underneath that text is a picture of her binder icon with a graphic cover that says Student Portfolio Manual. There is text underneath the graphic that says AR Transition Portfolio Manual 06132022.
Click image to launch new podcast episode, and access to Lisa’s Student-to-Adult Transitions binder

It’s not often that I get the chance to learn first hand about the types of projects our users are working on every day, so I was fortunate to have an opportunity to engage with Lisa Washington regarding her Arkansas Transition Portfolio Manual LiveBinder.

Lisa is a student-to-adult transition consultant for the Arkansas Transition Services team at Dawson Education Service Cooperative.  Lisa and her team train teachers and consultants to help prepare parents and their high school students with special needs to transition to life as adults.

Lisa’s goal was to organize all the material into an online binder so that parents and students could access the resources outside of the school environment, and long after they graduate.

While working with Lisa, I soon discovered that although her resources target students with IEPs or 504s, they are also relevant for any high school parent and student. For this reason, I invited Lisa to share her project with us. As a mother of young adult daughters, the realization that I no longer have access to my daughters private information was eye-opening, and I believe this information would be beneficial to all parents of high school students. 

In addition to the invaluable resources Lisa provides, I also candidly share the epiphany I had working with Lisa as she tried to organize her resources into an online binder for 3 different stakeholders – teachers, parents and students.  Anyone who curates material for an audience will appreciate the challenges we faced and the realization we had when we saw that working with a simple outline can help address a major issue of going digital.

Our podcast co-host Linda Houle joins me as we have Lisa lead us through the 5 areas of preparation that a student needs to go through to start their #adulting journey.

To access the podcast link, Lisa’s binder, and the podcast transcript, please click this link.  From there, you will be able to download her resources and/or launch her website forms directly from her binder.

10 More Great ways Educators are using LiveBinders

~ Tina Schneider ~ 1 Comment

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

New Copy Features Added to LiveBinders

~ Barbara Tallent ~ Leave a comment

In response to several requests, we have added the following features to LiveBinders:

  1. No Copy Option – You now have a choice as to whether your public binders can be copied. By default, all binders can be copied.  To change your public binder to disable copy, go to  Edit Menu > Properties > Access and choose “Public – Copy Disabled”
    Public Copy Disabled
  2. Copy from Within a Binder – Now you can create a copy of a binder from within the binder you are viewing.  To copy, make sure you are logged in, then click on the ‘copy’ link located above the binder tabs next to comments.
    Copy from Within a Binder
  3. Embed from Within a Binder – You can now get the embed code for a binder from within that binder by clicking on the “E” icon next to the Facebook and Twitter icons at the bottom of the binder page.
    Embed from within a Binder

Thank you to the LiveBinders users who reported bugs and requested features.  Please continue to let us know how to make LiveBinders better for you by sending email to feedback@livebinders.com.

10 Great Ways that Educators are Using LiveBinders

~ Barbara Tallent ~ 12 Comments

It is so much fun to go to the LiveBinders site and see all the new ways that educators are using LiveBinders to curate content.  Every day that I go to the site I see a new interesting binder, so I thought it would be great to highlight some great examples in this post:

  1. ePortfolios – I think Jackie Gerstein created one of the first ePortfolios on LiveBinders and it continues to be one of the best:
  2. Computer Lab – Are you always finding more sites that you want to share in the computer lab? If you keep them in a LiveBinder, the students will always have access to your latest finds, like this one created by ‘dboyd’:
  3. Administration – Sometimes there is an event at school (like state testing) where the information changes constantly. In this case, it is helpful to have all relevant information in one place, where everybody can access it. This binder from ‘mstoraasli’ is a great example:
  4. Library – This is a great Library Media Center binder from ‘joquetta’ who has clearly done an excellent job organizing all this information:
  5. Student Assignments – One class grouped together all of their drawings in a LiveBinder for an interesting puzzle cube assignment:
  6. Collecting things to read – How do you organize all those great links from tweets so that you can find them later when you need them?  Mary Johnson organized her reading material in this LiveBinder and was kind enough to make it public so that the rest of us can read these great articles, too:
  7. Preparing for lessons – ‘xmath’ put together this great binder for teaching kids about upcoming Veteran’s Day:
  8. Posting course materials – This binder on the “Introduction to Internet” from ‘peterclearly’ organizes all the course materials neatly into tabs and subtabs:
  9. Sharing resources – A group of 25 teachers were all collecting separate links.  By using the same account, they combined all their links into one binder, so they could quickly gain access to all the latest sites.
  10. Best resources on a subject – Teresa McGee’s ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ binder, Colleen Young’s ‘Wordle – educational uses’ Binder, and Sheeler’s Edgar Allan ‘Poe’ binder are all excellent examples of collecting the best resources on a subject:
  11. Fun – Ok, I know I was going to stop at 10, but who says binders are all work and no play? I loved Nancy Devine’s collection of ‘Pumpkin Recipes’:

Here are some more examples.

A Library of LiveBinders for Teachers

~ Barbara Tallent ~ Leave a comment

Educators have been creating some great LiveBinders that are excellent resources for other educators. We thought we would pull them together in this wiki as a Library of LiveBinders organized by subject and grade level. We would love to hear your input on other ways to organize these great binders.

Please take a look at this wiki and let us know your thoughts.

Also, here are some tips and tricks for those of you who are building LiveBinders to share with others:

A Feature for a Teacher

~ Barbara Tallent ~ Leave a comment

We have a teacher who is using LiveBinders in her class with her lesson plans and websites projected up on the screen. She asked that we create a way to show a binder without all the information around the binder that might distract her 5th grade students. So we added a ‘full screen’ mode to LiveBinders. From the shelf, click on Options > Show Full Screen and the binder will open up without toolbars or binder information.

This feature is also useful for PR people using LiveBinders who want to present the media coverage to clients.

Go here to try it out.

LiveBinders Saves Time in the School Computer Lab

~ Barbara Tallent ~ Leave a comment

Ms. Kellogg also had another a great suggestion for using LiveBinders in the computer lab.

Step 1. Create a LiveBinder with the pre-approved sites for the school, something like this one:

Step 2. Drag this binder to the desktop of every computer in the computer lab.

The students then click on the binder to get to the websites. Anytime you add to or change the binder, the changes are automatically on everyone’s desktop!

You could even make separate binders for upper grades and lower grades if desired.

Thank you Ms. Kellogg for sharing your insights with us.