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"I teach in a small rural school, and more than half of my students arrive and depart by bus everyday. So how do I maintain strong communication with parents when I rarely see them face-to-face? I send home a monthly calendar, and you may have read past posts about using clipboards with weekly sheets and Twitter, but my quickest and easiest tool for disseminating information quickly is Facebook! After posting daily to my classroom Facebook group for two years now, I've gleaned a few tips that I'm happy to share with you."

""I want to integrate making in my classroom. Where do I start?" I see this question pop up all the time in the feeds, listservs, and blogs that I read, and I am continually surprised by the great resources that appear in response. Check out the #makered hashtag on Twitter, join the K-12 Fab Labs and Makerspaces Google Group, read about what Maker Ed and Agency By Design are up to - and then speak up! These groups are filled with generous, welcoming educators who want to share with and help each other. Ask for support fine-tuning a project prompt, invite other schools to participate in competitions and local events, or ask for advice on safe and effective ways to use a new tool. Model the collaborative, open-ended, growth-oriented approach to learning that you'd like to see in your students, and enter the conversation. "

"In the past year I have received numerous emails asking the best and easiest way to go about designing 'apps' for classes etc. The question varies depending on what type of functionality they desire, however for anyone looking to build an app that links together content from multiple web sources such as RSS Feeds, YouTube videos, twitter accounts etc then I am recommending two tools to get this done in a matter of minutes."

"Like it or not, American youth are decidedly online. According to a 2013 report by Pew Research, 78 percent of teens have cell phones, and almost half of those are smartphones - which means they can log onto the Internet virtually anywhere, any time. You can bet many of those students are also using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat - maybe to excess."

"Increasingly, educators are acknowledging and welcoming the relative advantages of social media into the teaching and learning process. From creating school Facebook pages to connecting students with experts via Twitter, social media has taken root as a legitimate classroom learning and communication tool. The highly linguistic nature of social media allows us to create and consume ideas and information unlike ever before. Much attention has been given to composing an articulate blog post and condensing our messages to 140 characters or less. However, effective use of this 21st century technology requires that we not only become proficient in textual communication, but also in our ability to express ourselves and interpret others' ideas through visual literacy. "

"Audioboo is a free tool for creating audio messages to share on the web. Using Audioboo you can record messages on your mobile device using Audioboo's free Android or iPhone apps. You can also record messages directly on the Audioboo website. Messages that you create can be shared by embedding your recording into a blog or website. You can also share messages by posting them to Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr."

"If you spend time on twitter looking at the #augmentedreality and #edutech hashtags you will know that there is quite a lot of discussion going on about Augmented Reality, and how it can be used as an educational tool. And with good reason"

"To say I'm pretty jazzed about the possibilities of my classroom learning by connecting with other classrooms and people would be a bit of an understatement. My class regularly learns from and with students and others from across North America and in fact from around the world using social media tools such as Skype, Twitter and blogging."

"Making the ordinary extraordinary… This picture was one I picked up a couple of years ago on Twitter and it sparked a creative note. Having experimented with the approach to place value and reading numbers in this way it has very good effect. Especially when the students make the tool themselves. Younger students can get to grips with the position of numbers and the zeros prompt them to say the correct magnitude if they are a little unsure. You could write the words too underneath the numbers if necessary. Its a lovely class project for year 3 and 4 and it's cheap too. It is also great for intervention at a later stage, with older students."

"Recently, I presented an online webinar with education colleagues from different parts of the U.S. The webinar, Social Media Savvy for Educators, was well received. Our purpose in sharing was to: Support educators who were new to using social media Support them to seek out a few resources Support them to launch into those spaces In this webinar, we shared ways to tap into the power of social media to increase professional effectiveness, student engagement and parent participation. K-12 educators and leaders attended and participated to learn about integrating Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, blogs, Google Hangout and more into their everyday work. An interesting issue emerged as we stepped through the webinar -- we observed that many participants did not know how to "get started" using social media tools. "

"The Managing Complex Change model puts language to that which makes some schools successful while others struggle. The model looks at five components necessary to create a desired environment. These include vision, skills, incentives, resources, action plan. If any one piece is missing the model indicates results schools will experience including change, confusion, anxiety, gradual change, frustration, and a false start. When thinking of successful schools such as Science Leadership Academy, The MET, The Island School, The iSchool, you will find they have all those components in place. On the other hand, when I hear teachers lamenting about their school failures, the model brings clarity to the fact that one or more of these components are missing. Below is the chart that lays this out. Following the chart, I'll take a look at what each missing component might look like in a school environment. As you read, consider which, if any are components, are missing at your school. save image Lack of Vision = Confusion When I hear exasperated teachers spinning their wheels, working so hard to get ready for all the various mandates and requirements, but never feeling a sense of accomplishment, it is clear there is not a tangible school vision that has been communicated. In some cases this is because what is being imposed does or can not reconcile with what the school wanted for their vision. Skill Deficit = Anxiety My heart goes out to those with a skill deficit. They are required to implement a curriculum they are not trained in using or being evaluated via measures with which they are not familiar. Or…they are put into a position they were not trained for or prepared to embrace. Social media provides a great medium for helping these teachers get up to speed, but when the outreach occurs, the anxiety is abundantly clear. Lack of Incentives = Gradual Change It is not unusual for innovative educators to feel like and be perceived as misfits. Islands onto their own

""Have you seen this video?" The Twitter message from my good friend and fellow thought-instigator Daniel Scibienski pointed me toward If You Build It, a recent PBS documentary about designer/educator/activists Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller persuading an underfunded school board to create a new kind of design-based program for the students at Windsor High School in Bertie County, North Carolina. What I saw affected me profoundly: students, confused and reluctant at first, gradually developing skills and abilities with tools they'd never used before, designing and building increasingly complex things; failing, trying again, improving, collaborating, and ultimately succeeding and celebrating. I, too, have a vision for a new kind of classroom. I, too, am building something radical, exciting, and even revolutionary. I want to tap the power of design thinking to transform learning in my classroom. We're bringing shop class back to my middle school -- but this time, it's digital."