A blog about blogging! Such a sense of irony to be blogging about blogging… but it is how it is when I’m so deeply entrenched in the content. So my blogging diet is protein based. It’s like I’m in training. Sometimes I feel like I’m writing around the clock to feed the need for content – whether it is writing about blogging in my book or producing content for 2 different blogs…. but it hasn’t always been this way. I, like I’m sure many of you, dragged my feet for quite some time before allowing the blogging bug to bite. There were many reasons I didn’t do it…. I didn’t have time to write (although I was writing often enough in a notebook)No one wanted to read what I had to say, so what was the point? Anyway, in the beginning, someone else did it for me. I don’t recommend this approach. Here’s what you need to do if you want to start, but you don’t know how: Pick a platform that will meet your needs (what do you plan on using the blog for?) What fears are holding you back?
Gamification Classroom Manager Classroom control, management, and collaboration at the click of a mouse Now available for: Evaluate student comprehension Administer surveys, quizzes and tests Use keyword tracking to ensure comprehension Distribute and collect assignments digitally Listen and record language lessons Encourage collaboration Record results and progress with Digital Journals Form chat groups to discuss topics Share student work across all systems Interact via virtual whiteboard Monitor student activities Restrict website and application access Single click launch of website and applications Screen and device locking Block or limit printing to reduce ink usage Easily support teachers Message teachers 1:1 or en masse in a matter of seconds Provide teacher support through direct chats with IT Monitor and access devices Communicate & Collaborate Save Time
Sign Up Twitter spam is a drag. What if you could know for sure that your followers are truly human, and not some bot? TrueTwit is designed to help you: Verify people from robots Avoid Twitter spam Save time managing your followers There are two versions: TrueTwit Premium TrueTwit Premium builds on the follower management in TrueTwit Basic by doing an in-depth, automated analysis of your followers and their tweets, and has the following features: No direct messaging of new followers. Sign Up Premium! TrueTwit Basic By signing up now for TrueTwit Basic, all of your new followers are sent a validation request via direct message. Sign Up Basic! Feel free to check out our release notes: TrueTwit Android Premium, another for TrueTwit Android Basic, and TrueTwit iOS.
Blended learning Differentiate content in the classroom Essential Question: How can I use Pearltrees to differentiate content in the classroom? Using Pearltrees reminded me of making an interactive poster using Glogster. I could click anywhere in the poster and it would take me to a new video, picture, or note. Pearltrees does the same thing, but adds the extra element (I think, since I only made one interactive poster) of opening another webpage. Pearltree would give students a central spot to keep all of their resources in one place and therefore more organized. I believe that if I took classes in high school, like history or writing, that utilized an interactive online tool like Pearltrees, that I could have wanted to put more effort in, therefore remembering more. This would also allow integration of different content areas and teachers could do team collaboration projects that didn’t fizzle out. I think that this would be a great way to introduce younger students to an online tool that brings a project together.
44 Twitter Chat Tools For The Modern Teacher Twitter is one of the most powerful teacher professional development tools of the 21st century. The fact that that sentence is–as far as we can tell anyway–entirely true shows how much technology has changed everything. Imagine being told even just six years ago that in 2013 your best consistent source of diverse professional information would blogs and a stream of short messages in a bird-branded app on a screen you could hold in your lap. While we believe that it’s time to offer teachers professional development credit for their time invested here, that will likely time some paradigm shifts from district administrators and policy makers. For now, we can do the best we can with what we have.
Essential Questions Pearltrees Social Library – Collate and Collaborate Posted on September 2, 2013 by R Chambers So this holiday I have developed a new addiction! Pearltrees! Pearltrees is a fantastic visual and collaborative social library tool with great potential in education! You can synchronise your account with other social networking tools, namely Twitter and Facebook – broadcasting new pearls added (you have to enable this feature so you don’t have to do this) or collecting new pearls when a link is added. When you create an account and pearltrees, these are public, however there is a premium option for creating private pearltrees and private collaborations which enables you to control your privacy settings should you wish. Here are links to 3 of my Pearltrees which may be of use: 1. iPads in Education 2. I will developing these further during the academic year. Like this: Like Loading... Related Filed under: Uncategorized |
Teachers – The 10 Stages of Twitter Stage 1 Sign up to twitter following persuasion/pestering by colleagues. Follow Stephen Fry, a famous sportsman/popstar and a news channel. Read a few tweets, don’t understand what the fuss is about and mock anyone who uses twitter. Stage 2 Overhear colleagues chatting about twitter and a great article they found. Stage 3 Think about posting first tweet. Stage 4 Upon realising you have no followers ask colleagues how to get them? Stage 5 Have a mini twitter conversation with colleague, even retweet a couple of statements. Stage 6 Practise a couple of tweets that include @names and hashtags. Stage 7 Retweet any link you find interesting as people might read them. Stage 8 Thank colleagues for introducing you to twitter, impressed with the knowledge you have gleaned and your growing number of followers. Stage 9 Reflect that twitter is an incredibly positive place and everyone is full of praise. Stage 10 (the reason for this post) When seeking opinion from a range of people, ask PLN to respond.
Essential skills EduClipper Launches Its “Pinterest For Education” Back in 2007, Adam Bellow launched a site called eduTecher to aggregate and surface the best educational resources and content on the web. A high school teacher, Bellow set out to highlight new technologies and educational tools that could be used in the classroom to improve the learning experience. When a new generation of community curation tools began to take hold on the web, like Pinterest, Bellow decided to leverage the increasing popularity of crowdsourced curation to take eduTecher to the next level. This week the teacher-turned-entrepreneur officially launched eduClipper, a platform that allows teachers and students to explore, share and contribute to a library of educational content. In both function and design, it’s essentially a Pinterest for education, with one notable difference: Because eduClipper is built exclusively for teachers and students, unlike Pinterest, you probably won’t find it blocked by your local school. For more, find eduClipper at home here.