Brent Warner
This is the HigherEdTech Podcast, season four episode 10 – 2022 Gift Guide for Techy Teachers

Tim Van Norman
Welcome to today’s HigherEdTech Podcast. I’m Tim Van Norman, the instructional technologist here at Irvine Valley College.

Brent Warner
And I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL here at IVC. We both enjoy integrating technology into the classroom, which is what this show is all about.

Tim Van Norman
Welcome. We’re glad you’re here with us. So last show of the fall semester.

Brent Warner
Yeah, 2022 is out the door. Pretty soon. So. So Tim, we’ve done some episodes, we’ve done an episode kind of like this before, you know, we shared some things. But we thought, you know, we wanted to do episode nine before a little bit early, give people time to kind of process what they need to do to wrap up the semester and plan. And then just kind of as last one here, whatever holiday you might be celebrating, oftentimes winter is the gift giving season. And so whether that’s Hanukkah, Christmas, any other variation, variation any any other holidays, or celebrations is is a kind of a nice time to, to think about the gifts and hopefully with this episode coming out on the 15th. If you’re kind of struggling for that techie, techie teacher or techie person in your life about a few things that you might want to get for them. We kind of planning, we planned a few thoughts out for that.

Tim Van Norman
And not all of them are outrageously expensive.

Brent Warner
No, no, just most of them. But we will say here, you know, what I prepped for Tim, and I’m not sure if you plan exactly the same way it was, I was kind of thinking, these are all things that, you know, I probably would end up paying for myself eventually. But you know, it’s kinda like, I have to buy this thing for myself, I would love this if it was a gift, right? Like, that’s kind of how I thought of these through. So. So some of these things I either have bought for myself, or were impossibly planning on buying for myself if they don’t come to me as a gift. But they’re definitely the kinds of things where I’d be like, I would be very happy to have them and I would be extra happy to not actually have to pay for. So I understand, yeah, let’s jump over and take a look. And we’ll kind of just go back and forth. Okay, so Tim will go back and forth. I’ll go first, I think I have maybe one or two more than you do on this list. So. So the first thing I thought that I would really have liked in many times, is a subscription to whatever online service I’m interested in exploring and learning with, right? These can be different prices. But I’m thinking about things like, you know, Pear Deck, or Padlet, or Wii video, or any of these things that are like, Oh, it’s an annual subscription. A lot of them are kind of in that $60 range, although I’m wondering with inflation, if those are going up to like $100. Now these days, I’m not totally sure. But something like that, where it’s like, Hey, this is something that I would absolutely use my school maybe is not paying for it, I want to give it a try. I want to I’ve played with the free version enough, I think I could use it in my classes. Maybe I’ll start getting into the subscription for it. So not a lot to say about it. But that would be a really nice gift for me on quite a few occasions where I’m like, Ah, it’s just a thing. Another thing I don’t really want to pay a subscription for. But if if I got it as a gift from a loved one that would be make me really happy.

Tim Van Norman
Before somebody buys those for you. We’ve already purchased Pear Deck. Oh, yeah.

Brent Warner
Yeah. We’ve already gotten it. But you’re right. Yeah, I’m just thinking like for everybody out there, whoever whoever’s out there. And again, those are just examples of things that people can buy individual licenses for. Right? But not necessarily, you know, if the school doesn’t cover it, IVC kindly does because you and I have a little bit of a voice in terms of what can be used and what can get going sometimes. So yeah, absolutely.

Tim Van Norman
So for me, I’ve been doing more content creation. And so I’ve been thinking about a 4k video camera for vlogging. I don’t know that I actually want to vlog which is why I don’t want to spend a lot of money buying a really high end camera. But there’s some really cool 150 to $300 cameras that are all in one. And they’re designed for that environment. They’re not just lined for, you know, taking, hooking up a telescopic lens and stuff like that it’s specifically for this environment. And so don’t have to be really expensive but can afford K camera tends to be really good. Yeah,

Brent Warner
well, and we do have a lot of teachers, I think more and more who are like, Hey, I’ve got my tic tock channel or I’ve got my, you know, whatever stream that I’m doing and so, so for some of those people, for sure those would be really powerful. Absolutely. So Tim, I’m going to combine two together right now. So first is the expo Expo markers on your school, hopefully provide some of these for you. If you have whiteboards you and I, as everybody knows, we love whiteboards. And so we’ve got the expo two and one markers, these are these kind of cool ones that have a different color on each end. So it might have a red on one side and a black on the other. Those are just really useful for you know, whiteboard work, right? And not necessarily, you’ll see me Tim, I think you’ve seen me walking into my class a few times where I’ve got like, the Wolverine hands with three or four different markers sticking out between each of my, my fingers. And so so I do like those Expo two and one markers. We don’t have those at our school. You know, we’re just given plenty of markers expos but regular markers. And then I’m going to combine that with a sec accepts Oh, that’s also a non techie one. And this one’s kind of one that does connect to tech, which I’ve had for many years. I love this. It’s a cocoon grid, it dongles slash accessory organizer, Tim, you know what these things are, there’s like a, it’s a board that has kind of weaved elastic straps. So they’re kind of overlapping and under lapping each other. And then you can stick your dongles inside of there. So if you’ve got you know, your, as you know, with MAC’s, there’s like about 100 Different dongles you have to have for everything so so you can store them all really easily in one place. So if you’re going to plug in to an outlet, or if you’re going to plug into HDMI port or whatever else you’re doing, it’s nice to have all the accessories, remote controls, external hard drives, extra cables, earphones, whatever else it is, right. And so this is a really, really nice gift. And it’s any, it’s under 20 bucks for one of these things. And any techie person will be really happy to have this, they’ll be happy to have a second one if they already have one. So it’s a great one.

Tim Van Norman
Excellent. So for over a year now, I’ve been using rocket book for taking notes and stuff like that, I absolutely love it. I’m constantly buying new pens, because I just wear out the pens, erasable all that stuff. It’s great. But they’ve got a Orbot legal pad now. And so the difference is, instead of it being a spiral bound notebook, or they’ve got flashcards, or they got three by five cards, they’ve got stuff that you can put up, and you go back to old episodes, you’ll hear about some of those things. This is a little bit harder. Almost like a cardboard paper or it’s a little bit more for more like a clipboard that you can write on. And you take the page off and stuff like that. And so it gives you more, it looks like a clipboard feel. And it’s like 35 $40 for this thing. And it’s they’ve done such a good job in the past that this is something I’m highly interested in, moving forward as well. So the orbit, the rocket book, orbit, legal pad,

Brent Warner
nice, nice. Cool. All right, I’m gonna, I’m gonna combine again, I think just to kind of keep us balanced here. I’ve got two. One is the anchor, USB C charger. So depending on your computer, you probably have some sort of cable that connects to, to your computer for for your charger. You might have one of those big heavy bricks that goes with it. This is a real nice anchor charger that plugs in. It’s just the size of a single plug. And then it has three charges it has a USB. What’s the what’s the traditional USB see called USB three, three USB three, then it has it has two C ports. And then depending on how many you have plugged in, it can either do like higher charging with only one or lower voltage charging with multiple ones. It’s small, its compact, right? So like I’ve got my, my MacBook charger, which is still a pretty kind of little heavy. There’s much smaller than they used to be, but it’s still heavy, a little brick, right? And so this is just something you can tuck away. You can plug right into a USB and then plug into your computer and make it go. You can charge your phones with it, whatever else it is, and so it’s nice that these have kind of shrunken down in size. So that’s one And the second one, I’ve been talking about this for many years, the Logitech spotlight presentation remote. If you have a loved one who does any kind of presentations in person, they will be very happy with this gift. It is awesome. It is like the still far and away the best, you know, clicker that there is out there. And so I really love it. It’s simple. You can program it for all these custom things. There’s only a couple of buttons on it though. And it’s really smooth, easy to use. And so the Logitech spotlight presentation remote, highly recommended. I still have the same one that I bought several years ago and it’s just in flawless condition. Check it out and consider consider getting that for for your your techie presenter in your life.

Tim Van Norman
Oh, absolutely. I’ll take one of each. Now that USB charger with USB A, A or three also can be called but it versus the C. That’s awesome. I love that it’s

Brent Warner
pretty nice charger, right? Like when I when I said I’m like, oh, like it’s yeah, it’s it’s the perfect and cancel encapsulation of like, I really don’t want to pay this money for myself to get this. But if I had it, I would be very happy.

Tim Van Norman
There you go. Yep. So I just got one to play with it work. And it’s a Samsung, XP de two lavalier mic

Brent Warner
Samsung, s o n

Tim Van Norman
s o n Yes. And so I by the way, for those of you who are listening, we’re gonna have a lot of these links in the show notes so that you can see what we’re talking about. But this is it plugs into USB on on the computer. And then you so it works on Zoom, but it’s a lavalier mic so it doesn’t hang over your ears. It doesn’t go over your head, and it’s not Bluetooth, or it’s tied in just directly to it not having to use some other tools and stuff like that for it. But basically, you plug it in, and you can start presenting. And the microphone is right next to you and it’s yours. So that means you can take it with you when you leave and you don’t have to worry about oh, I walked out of the classroom with the mic and what do I do? So, um, they’re not that expensive, but they’re, it’s really nice. I love a good Lavell ear mic. Some of them come and you can get the over ear and stuff like that if that’s what you’re interested in as well. But a lavalier mic like that, where it just plugs into USB is really quality

Brent Warner
or like that. This just a little side story to the little lavalier mics that we have in our classrooms because you mentioned walking away and forgetting it right. I did that the other day. This is the first time I’ve ever done it. So I had it clipped on I walked away and what the they beep at you after a while right? Like after you’ve kind of walked away from this the center or like the home base, it starts beeping at you. And I had no idea what it was. But it was like tucked up right under my chin and hidden behind my beard. So when when I was looking in the mirror, I couldn’t see anything. And I’m like, and I’m like I hear this beeping I thought I was going crazy because I was searching all my bags, all my pockets. And I didn’t recognize that I had walked away with the with the mic. So. So anyways, if you’re at least on IVC campus and you start hearing some weird noises, you know, pat your chest a little if you walked away with a microphone. Yeah, for sure. Cool. That’s a good option there. Okay, so my next one is, if you’ve been to Best Buy anytime in the last couple of years, you’ve probably seen these, they’re the the Bose frames, audio sunglasses. This is not really teaching related, but it’s just kind of might be a nice gift for some people, especially since you know, you are a podcast listener and maybe you want when you’re going on a walk you want to listen to the podcast while it’s a sunny day out. And so, you know, I’m not too bad fashion wise looking at those frames, they’re they’re kind of you know, meant to be a little stylish. I’m not totally sure that everyone will like the style but it’s it’s fairly clean look and then the way that these these work, they’re Bluetooth and I think you can do phone calls on them or whatever else but but they’re a little different because what they do is they have the microphone in the in the frame or not in the frames in the lighter pieces. Right and then what the the mic or the the, the audio speakers actually kind of point down at your ears and so it’s a little different. We’ll be talking about other headphones, but, but it’s a little bit different because it’s not bone conduction, it’s not in ear things. It’s kind of directional speakers that point down at your ear cavities. And so you can hear what’s going on around you. But you can also, you know, hear the music or whatever else might be playing or the podcast or the higher ed tech podcast as you might be listening to it. So Bose frames, audio, sunglasses, you know, maybe an interesting thing. I haven’t bought them, I don’t I haven’t used them. I’ve tested them briefly in Best Buy. And it’s a, I would be kind of like, oh, this is cool. And I would definitely wear them if I had them.

Tim Van Norman
Nice, nice. So kind of along those lines, but I actually got these last year, and they have become my favorite toy. It’s the app, it’s now called shocks. But they used to be aftershocks, headphones. So these are the bone conducting ones so they don’t go into your ear. So for those of us who were hearing aids, this is a blessing. So they go in front of your ear. So I have hearing aids, I have glasses. And now I have this, the last thing I need is something else in or on my ear especially since half of my headphones or headphones and the clamshells and squeezing my head. These I can wear all day long. They sound decent, I can wear them and use them on my cell phone, I can use them on my laptop, my desktop, any place I’ve got Bluetooth capability. So I can walk down the hall. But I can hear other stuff going on. I can do it earlier today, I was listening to something. And I pause that and answer the phone by just putting the headphones on my ears for the phone. And I didn’t have to take them off. Although it was more comfortable with him off. It just I didn’t have to I could just keep on working. So those have been amazing for me. And I recommend them to anybody who, who needs headphones at least take a look at him.

Brent Warner
Yeah, I got those at your suggestion. Last year, I think and I totally agree. They’re wonderful. And they are such a better option. They’re convenient for me to I don’t know if you’ve ever had this, but when I so when I eat lunch, for example, if I’ve got your buds in my my left ear might when my jaw moves shrinks a little bit and pushes the earbud out. And so this is just a nice also a dumb additional reason why I like it, but it’s like oh, I can just keep listening to whatever I’m listening to, even while I eat too. And it’s not a distraction. So I will 100% back your your choice there. This shocks ones are great. Mine, my next one is kind of an extension of that. But I have to be clear. So this is something I backed on Kickstarter, and I haven’t gotten mine yet. It is the same bone conduction headset style, because I really did like it. But what it does is it also has a swing out microphone. That is according to the Kickstarter video, and again, I’m going to preface that I haven’t tested it myself, but really, really strong noise cancelling microphone. And so the way that in the video, they showed it like they were in a garage and someone was like fixing a motorcycle and had all these like noises going on. And then they kind of they click push the button and turn on the mic. And it was just the voice only the voice right in front of the microphone. And so I thought okay, that’s a really nice little feature too, if you’re trying to really isolate sound right, like I always worry if I’m working from home with the, you know, if the Street Sweepers are outside or the you know, the gardener’s blowing leaves around all those different sounds. And so I like the concept of it. But I’m not going to fully recommend it. Just because I can’t guarantee that it’s awesome. But if you’re willing to explore, it’s called the O leap pilot o l EAP. Pilot. The Kickstarter is done, but you can still get it on I think Indiegogo or something like that. We’ll have a link in the show notes.

Tim Van Norman
Absolutely. Excellent. So my debate at the moment is do I get an E bike? So I’m seeing a lot more of those other than the Yeah, so this is this is moving up the scale of it expense as well, but considerably considered considering that all the others can be bought for $500 or less total for mine. So yes. Up possible ebike I live far enough from school, but yet not too far. I could definitely ride a bike on city streets and get there and about 50% more time than I take now maybe even a little longer. And so I’m really I’ve thought about it, you know, it would be good to get some exercise in, in the mornings and at night, or at least every once in a while, and especially as because of where I live with hills. Any bike sounds interesting. I’m just a little bit confused concerned about all of the crazies on E bikes.

Brent Warner
And that’s because I when I ride around town, and I see these like, these tween kids, right and those things, and they’re doing like pop-o-wheelies, I’m like, oh, that’s what you want to do. You want to pop a wheelie?

Tim Van Norman
No, thanks. I would be much more. I mean, it would be interesting to get the exercise, although I don’t know that my dog would like it because that means I’m getting home later. And she would rather be not be home later. But and especially I assume I’d be tired, at least for so. But it’s something I’m looking at. There’s a lot of different options out there. And I’m hearing a lot of people getting them. So

Brent Warner
yeah, yeah, they are nice. I have I have a new bike that I got. Cheese, it’s come it’s like eight years ago or something like that. And I still use it when I when I write into school. And it’s it’s nice. The battery on mine is is dying and fading. But they are, you know, they’re popular for a reason. And I think you might like it. I’ll be interested to see if you end up getting it. Well, obviously, we’ll talk about it in a future episode if you do. All right. All right, so my last one here, Tim, nother Kickstarter back. So I’m, again, I’m waiting for the delivery on this. But I really do like this. And I showed this to you pre show. It’s called the Geminus stack to monitor. And so it’s a two part monitor that kind of folds like almost like a clamshell, but it’s on a, it’s on a sliding stand on the back. And so what you can do is you can have instead of having monitor a two monitors side by side there, top and bottom. And so they’re still the same widescreen, but they kind of fold together or they fold out or they lift up and become totally flat as a very large square with two different monitors top and bottom. And so instead of kind of doing the side to side where I’m like, you know, oh, now I’m looking at that one, because I’ve got everything set up on that side, now I’m coming back, what you can do is you can do all your kind of like your prep work on the lower screen that can kind of be tilted down at you like an angle. And then you can have your presentation screen on top or you can do it vice versa, you know, kind of depending on how you want to look at things. But I really am interested in this idea of re imagining how the monitors are placed and how they work together. And I like that these ones are by default combined together. And so when you you can kind of move it up and you can flatten it out in front of you or you can actually push it down and kind of the lower monitor kind of comes towards you like a keyboard in a certain way. Right. I got the the basic version and then they made an upgraded one with a touchscreen I didn’t know that I needed a touchscreen for myself but But anyways, general Mac guy you don’t geminal stack monitor, you know, it’s it seems like a really interesting approach to increasing productivity. And so again, same thing the Kickstarter has done so those deals are gone. But you can Indiegogo it and if you’re interested, they are they are supposedly coming out in soon, in December some time. hasn’t quite gotten here yet, but but again, take a look on the show notes, you’ll be able to go check out the links and see what it looks like. Looks like a really powerful option for trying to get more work done and, and being a little bit more organized with everything.

Tim Van Norman
If you get that let me know. It really does. I look at my desk especially at home. It’s narrower. I don’t have room for two monitors side by side, but I would definitely love a top and bottom monitor like that. So absolutely.

Brent Warner
Well I already bought it and it’s gonna come so when I do get it, I’ll bring it in. And we’ll we’ll play with it together first before I decide if I want it in my work, office or home.

Tim Van Norman
Sounds good to me. Excellent. Thank you for listening today. In this episode, we shared gift ideas for techies and especially techie teachers. For more information about this show, please visit our website at D higher ed tech podcast.com. There you’ll find our podcasts and links we’ve to the information we’ve covered.

Brent Warner
As always, we do want your feedback. So please go to the higher ed tech podcast.com and let us know your thoughts. And of course if you have ideas for future shows, there’s a link there where you can give us your topic ideas,

Tim Van Norman
or everyone at IVC that’s listening. If you need help with technology questions, please contact IVC technical support. If you have question tons about technology in your classroom, please stop by the new IVC Training Center in a 322. Or contact me Tim Van Norman AT tvannorman@ivc.edu.

Brent Warner
If you want to reach out to me about the show, you can find me on social medias. I’m not sure which ones all the time that we’re, we’re going through three changes, but we’ll say Twitter Instagram, Mastodon LinkedIn at @BrentGWarner.

Tim Van Norman
I’m Tim Van Norman,

Brent Warner
and I’m Brent Warner. And we hope this episode has helped you on the road from possibility to actuality. Have a wonderful winter, bright new year, new year and everything else!