3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology The modern American school faces rough challenges. Budget cuts have caused ballooning class sizes, many teachers struggle with poorly motivated students, and in many schools a war is being waged on distracting technologies. In response, innovative educators are embracing social media to fight back against the onslaught of problems. Technologies such as Twitter and Skype offer ideal solutions as inexpensive tools of team-based education. Skype and Language Learning Why force students to yawn over a textbook when a real-life native speaker is only a Skype call away? "I absolutely fell in love with this program," wrote one student. Perhaps the greatest benefit of using Skype is the radical increase in motivation. Mobile Phones While many schools around the country have declared all-out war on mobile devices, Wiregrass High School took a decidedly different approach, integrating cell phones into the entire educational experience. Twitter Conclusion More social media resources from Mashable:
Popular Technology Resources for Reading & Language Arts (K-12 Women's History Month Women's History Month (March) is here! Make sure you have the materials to help you explore the varied lives and contributions of amazing American women, from historical figures (Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harriet Tubman) and the Women's Suffrage Movement of the 19th century, to the artists, athletes, politicians, scientists, and inventors of yesterday and today! Videos Interested in using different types of media in your classroom? We have a growing collection of videos, with related activities, for holidays and events, including: slavery & the Civil War, American History, U.S. Presidents, handwashing awareness, the Common Core, women's history, Memorial Day, the American Revolution, and the environment. March Calendar of Events March is full of events that you can incorporate into your standard curriculum. Coding & Computer Science Introduce your students to basic coding and computer science!
The Complete Guide To Twitter Hashtags In Education What is a hashtag? A word or phrase preceded by a “#.” How do hashtags work? Twitter can be a busy place with lots of tweets–and thus lots of “noise.” A #hashtag is a way to aggregate tweets that are appended with a hashtag. Picture it like a magnet that attracts all messages categorized by that topical word or phrase. Who can use hashtags? Anyone. What else do I need to know? Don’t hashtag spam–if your tweet doesn’t add to that hashtag’s topic, discussion, or user base, don’t add the hashtag.Use more than one hashtag if it applies to more than one topic, but choose wisely. Meeting Times Many of the hashtags have “meeting times” where educators agree to “meet and tweet”–that is, send out messages on a topic at a certain time on a certain day. If you do participate at the agreed upon time, you’ll see the tweets stream in live and participate in said conversation (via twitter) in what is nearly real-time. Updated: Added #edcamp, #ukedchat Popular Hashtags Trends General Content Areas Literacy iPad
10 New Ways Twitter Is Changing The College Lecture Continuing our theme of using Twitter in education this week , we bring you a look at the ways Twitter is causing the current lecture model to evolve. The following analysis is brought to you by our content partners over at Online Universities . Gone is the time when PowerPoint was the most impressive communication technology in the lecture hall. These days, students and professors enjoy the power of Twitter, a tool that allows for digital discussions to supplement and even guide lecture sessions. Mobile devices are welcome in the lecture hall once again : Not long ago, cell phones were met with intense hatred in the lecture hall, villainized as noisy distractions. Lectures become a conversation : Without Twitter, lectures are often a one-way street, with professors lecturing for about an hour, mostly uninterrupted. Bashful students are speaking up : More students get connected in large lectures : Students stay engaged beyond the lecture : Review sessions happen anywhere :
Cards Introduction With Twitter Cards, you can attach rich photos, videos and media experiences to Tweets, helping to drive traffic to your website. Simply add a few lines of markup to your webpage, and users who Tweet links to your content will have a “Card” added to the Tweet that’s visible to their followers. The Tweet embedded below shows a Player Card along with 140 characters: Drive engagement from your Tweets The different Card types each have a beautiful consumption experience built for Twitter’s web and mobile clients: Summary Card: Title, description, and thumbnail.Summary Card with Large Image: Similar to the Summary Card, but with a prominently-featured image.App Card: A Card with a direct download to a mobile app.Player Card: A Card that can provide video/audio/media. To learn more about how the Card meta tags and web crawler work, check out the Getting Started Guide. Drive app downloads from your Tweets Get started in 4 simple steps Ready to get started with Cards?
Edmodo:The Total Classroom Solution In a digital world where we can easily "find an app for that" to help solve many problems, rarely do teachers have a one stop shopping place for all their classroom digital needs. There are many individual tools that can aid a teacher in retrieving student's digital work, polling/quizzing students or assigning work, but each of these tools usually requires a separate account. However, there is one, free, Web 2.0 app that brings everything together that you need for your classroom, including a social learning environment. The app that does all of this is called Edmodo. Here are just a few features that make Edmodo so great for teachers and students: A place to assign and turn in work: The teacher can attach any file they may need for an assignment (rubric, worksheet, etc.) and students can upload any file to turn in their work. Although, there are a lot more features to discuss, these are the cornerstone of what makes Edmodo so great for the classroom! Resources:
How to Teach with Technology: Language Arts Check out these tips from students and educators for high tech teaching: Video Dialogues "I think students would retain a lot more information if they made a video about the person they're studying or created an instant message dialogue in which they imagine a fictional conversation between characters, as opposed to just taking a test or writing an essay. "If every class could use some type of blog or Web page, students could post their questions and the teacher would be able to respond for the whole class to see. This means the teacher wouldn't have to answer the same question multiple times, and students would understand homework better. The class could use this blog in other ways, too. "For example, students could respond to a prompt on the blog for homework, or students could check their answers on the blog to review for a test. Read more about creating a blog for your classroom. Every Picture Tells a Story "With Photo Story, you tell a story with pictures. Global Brainstorming
Educational Web Sites Twitter Cybrary Man is a Twitterbrarian! My Twitter Friends My RebelMouse Wording by @sjunkins Sign by Maureen Devlin @lookforsun Sign by @sjunkins Social media for schools: a guide to Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional • For advice on e-safety in schools, click here The use of social media in education continues to be something of a hot topic with arguments both for and against. So I carried out a small survey of 27 teaching professionals in order to create a baseline of understanding into the use (or not) of social networking in schools, and also any concerns over some of the e-safety risks. There are many uses of social media in education - below are just a few of the ways they can be effectively used. Facebook • Using Facebook as a 'broadcast' account. Inspiration: University of Gloucestershire - This is a Facebook Page from my old university. Cambridge University - Another good example. Twitter • Twitter, like Facebook, is also being used as a broadcast account. Risca Community Comprehensive - A great example of an active school Twitter feed. Clevedon School - Another great example of an active feed. iClevedon - This is an account from the Clevedon again. Pinterest
How to Decode a Tweet When you first start using Twitter, one of the things you have to figure out is how to decode Tweets. What does each part represent? What does it mean when a word starts with a #? Below is a Tweet as it might be displayed on the Twitter website when viewed on a computer. Note that not all Tweets might include all of these exact attributes. If you are using an app or third-party service like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to read your Tweets, they might look slightly different, but the parts will still be there somewhere. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. It's good etiquette to mention the original Tweeter of a Tweet in an RT, as was done in the example above. 10. 11. 12. 13.
Education Technology Grants and Other Funding for Classroom Technology Keeping up with all the possible grants for K-12 schools that might be out there is a BIG job, so why not let Grant Wrangler do it for you? This website is an incredible starting point for finding available grants specifically targeted to your focus! Find Grant Templates for CPS and the Mobi View, a list of private and federal-funded grants, and information on federal funding sources. In addition, as eInstruction by Turning Technologies, even more support is available to assist you by providing free support and advice for funding efforts through an experienced and knowledgeable Funding Specialist. ESL Technology.com | Technology related to teaching and learning English as a Second Language (ESL)
T is for teaching Tweet about me ... Aitken Creek Primary School student Campbell Walsh raised the above question about his NAPLAN results with the Prime Minister via Twitter. Photo: Jason South CAMPBELL Walsh was sick of waiting for his NAPLAN test results. ''I wanted to know how I'd done. It had already been about four months and I still hadn't got the results,'' says the year 5 student from Aitken Creek Primary in the outer Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn. In another era, Campbell might have been told to sit down and be quiet. Twitter, which has been described as the ''SMS of the internet'', enables users to send messages of 140 characters or less. Spink then sent it on her iPad using the class Twitter account @acps456. Advertisement Welcome to the social media revolution. According to the American author and international speaker on digital media, Erik Qualman, social media has become the number one activity on the web. Despite this, Spink's use of social media in the classroom is still unusual.
The Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics and HIPAA | The Social Medic One of the problems that early health care bloggers faced was trying to figure out what was and what was not permissible or ethical in the blogosphere. Since this post is dealing with legal matters, first a quick disclaimer: The information presented herein represents the views of the author as of the date of publication. The publication is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. Wasn’t that fun? The Health Care Blogger Code of Ethics In May 2007 discussion of the need for an oath or a code evolved into The Healthcare Blogger Code of Ethics. Perspective – that your readers understand your professional perspective. If patient care stories are going to be part of your blog then I highly recommend adopting the code for yourself and join the community at Healthcare Blogger Code Of Ethics. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Answering the Where? NameAddress of residenceLocation of serviceDate of serviceTime of service