To say that the road to Home Base has been bumpy is either a cliche or a gross understatement and maybe even both. The process of creating a resource for teachers forced me to explore the applications in Home Base. Home Base, for all its promise and potential, is not an intuitive system. So if a teacher wants to learn how to do something in this system, they have to be taught or they have to invest time into teaching themselves. That’s where the Teacher’s Toolbox for Schoolnet comes in – to save teachers time when learning the features of Schoolnet. It my hope that teachers will be able to use the livebinder as a quick resource on how to use Schoolnet.  It will continue to grow as long as my district continues to use Schoolnet.

Which brings me to the latest bump in this road. Will districts decide to go with Schoolnet or not? $4 a student for a system that isn’t intuitive and has only been working for the second half of this year. Not an easy sale and for many districts Home Base may be out.

@JoniAllison23 thank you for that AMAZING livebinder of Homebase

— Kevin Combs (@SciTechEdu) March 19, 2014

photo credit: Keith Allison via photopin cc

The Lenovo tablet is nice third option to have.  At the beginning of the fellowship, I used it significantly while I was tagging resources along with my iPad.  Tagging took two devices. I also tended to do most of my blogging on the tablet as well.  Currently, I more often use my tablet when I travel to workshops or conferences because it is so much lighter and faster to log on than my laptap and it runs Microsoft Office.  I also tend to use it home for the same reason.

Annotating a Word Document

One of my favorite features is the ability to write on Powerpoints and Word documents. I tend to do my best brainstorming with a pen in my hand. With the tablet, I can do that and still have an electronic version.

Not counting my iPhone, I have three devices that I use professionally.  I have an iPad with bluetooth keyboard, a Dell laptop, and the Lenovo tablet.  At work, I use my district-assigned laptop and iPad because they work on our network and with our firewalls.  But I like having the Lenovo tablet when I’m away from school.