Group items tagged

"There are still a large number of folks who believe that Twitter is a very amateur and even entertaining task. After all, how hard could 140 characters be? Who needs a strategy for telling people what you had for breakfast? Champion Tweeters think differently. They approach Twitter and their time in the Twitter community with a different behavior set, mindset and belief system. Their Twitter Habitudes separate them from the pack. If you seek to be more successful on Twitter, reach out to more people, get noticed, and make a bigger impact; you must be willing and ready to think and act like a Twitter Champion! Here are 5 ways to get your Twitter Game on: "

"The first place to find someone who has the credibility and the intent to influence others to change their behavior is in your own network. Going back to The YOU MATTER Manifesto, you already have the power and ability within your means to be an influencer. If you have credibility within a topic and ask those with whom you have strong ties to repeat information about something you like, they will do it because of their belief in you. If you did not like a product or service, and suddenly find something nice to say about it, your circle will sit up and take notice. I strongly believe that consistent engagement on social media is the best mechanism for building your influential base."

"Every topic, every bit of learning has content that can be Googled, and we don't want teachers wasting precious enquiry time lecturing that content. We want students, instead, to be using class time to collaborate and debate around the questions that are Not Googleable, the rich higher order thinking to which neither the textbook nor the teacher know the answers. One of our schools in Brisbane, Star of the Sea Cleveland, took my "Googleable" / "Not Googleable" to a very literal end, when they pinned up two headings and got students to post-it each and every question in the class, categorising those which could be searched quickly (the lower order questions) and those which they should dwell on in class time. This is the kind of meaty discussion that we want in class, and making it explicit in this way means that we cut to the higher order thinking so much quicker."

"I want teachers to be able to, not only ask for and use an app, because someone else recommended it, but I want teachers equipped with the curiosity and the knowledge of: the value an app can bring to a learner (and being able to articulate the value) the connection from the app to curriculum content (and being able to demonstrate the depth of that connection) the possibilities the app can bring in order to amplify (take a look at a previous post: The Next Step: Amplification ) the difference of using an app to automate and substitute a task versus informate and transform (previous post: Enhancement-Automating-Transforming-Informating ) how to evaluate apps for their transformative potential?"

"Picture this: A student is at home, listening to my biology podcast and a question comes to mind, that she thinks would be of benefit to the community of fellow listeners. She wants to contribute to the podcast by asking her question in her own voice (like talk-back radio) and hear the question discussed on next week's episode. I have investigated and tried quite a number of options. Some of the best include K7, Skype Voicemail, Google Voice and iPadio and CinchCast. But none of these were ideal for the purpose. Some are expensive for students. Some are expensive for me. Some don't work in Australia (yes - I'm looking at you, Google Voice). Some are cumbersome for my purpose, and let's face it, if it takes much any effort, students won't use it). Enter SpeakPipe. A new service that is just what I've been looking for."

In the ideal classroom, all students would learn how to work cooperatively with others, compete for fun and enjoyment, and work autonomously on their own. Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals. Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and beneficial to all other group members. it may be concluded that it is the drive for goal accomplishment that motivates cooperative and competitive behavior. Positive interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative interdependence tends to result in oppositional or contrient interaction, and no interdependence results in an absence of interaction.

"The literature on educational leadership and school change recognizes clearly the role and influence of the campus administrator (the principal, and sometimes an assistant principal) on whether or not change will occur in the school. It seems clear that transforming the school organization into a learning community can be done only with the leaders' sanction and active nurturing of the entire staff's development as a community. Thus, a look at the principal of a school whose staff is a professional learning community seems a good starting point for describing what these learning communities look like and how they operate. "

When socializing or communicating with Facebook here are some resources to support your understanding of the environment, a few tips to ensure for a safe experience, and some links to keep up you up to date on changes and privacy settings. The concept to be aware of is that anything online is not private. So be cautious and thoughtful about what you say, share and post. It will be associated with you on the internet and you may never be able to get rid of it. Think before you post!

It's common for Facebook to undergo drastic (or silent) changes whether the users like it or not. The real question is, how ready are you when Facebook is determined to 'make the world more open and connected'? Have you made full use of the privacy and account settings to your advantage? Also, if you've been observant enough you should've discovered several improvements on the existing features to make them more visible and user friendly. Why not give this list a run-through and see if you missed any.

"Administrators across the United States are recognizing that the education system needs fundamental changes to keep pace with an increasingly complex global society. Yet, the deeper we get into the process of change, the more confused we can become. We need some sense of what to expect and what direction to take. Seeing the patterns of change can be difficult; stakeholders in a system tend to see change primarily from their own perspective. Often teachers may not understand what is seen by administrators and parents, nor do administrators or parents see change from a teacher's perspective, or from each other's. To give stakeholders an aerial view of the shifts occurring in educational systems, the matrix "A Continuum of Systemic Change" defines six developmental stages and six key elements of change (see fig. 1). A composite of experiences in systemic change from across the United States and at all levels of education, the matrix provides stakeholders with a common vantage point for communicating and making decisions about change."

"Advancements in online collaboration are rapidly changing the way in which we learn, and Google is pioneering the field with Google Docs . The development team continually adds new features and enhancements to the free online productivity suite, similar to Microsoft Office, which now includes applications for creating and editing text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and forms. Students and teachers are leading the parade of enthusiastic users, finding innovative ways to enhance education using Google Docs."

"Digital citizenship is " the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use."It is the combination of technical and social skills that enable a person to be successful and safe in the information age. Just like literacy and numeracy initiatives which provide people with the skills to ' participate in the work force, digital literacy has become an essential skill to be a confident, connected, and actively involved life long learner.'"

"We expect other drivers to observe the rules of the road. The same is true as we travel through cyberspace. That's where netiquette, a term allegedly coined from either network etiquette or Internet etiquette comes in handy. To guide you through your online communications, keep these pointers in mind: 1.Avoid writing e-mail or posting messages in blogs, newsgroups, forums, chat rooms and other online venues using all capital letters. IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING! Not only that, it's difficult to read. 2.When you talk with someone, the tone and inflections of your voice convey great meaning. To add personality and humor to your messages, use smileys, also known as emoticons, expressions you create using the characters on your keyboard. Below are some of the more popular smileys. Can you guess what they mean? Roll your cursor over each one to find out. Try This How good are your netiquette skills? Find out by taking the Netiquette Quiz . 3.Keep your written communications focused. This is true whether sending e-mail or posting messages online. Few people like reading lengthy text on a computer screen. Many people now receive e-mail on mobile phones and other portable devices. Tiny screens make reading e-mail challenging. 4.To shorten messages, use common abbreviations: < BTW > means By the Way. A < G > enclosed in brackets indicates grinning. A good one to keep handy in case you're worried about offending someone is < IMHO > -- In My Humble Opinion. One of our favorites is < ROTFL >, which stands for Rolling on the Floor Laughing. A shortened version is < LOL >--Laughing Out Loud. And if you get called away while chatting online, try < BRB >--Be Right Back."

The Evernote Web Clipper allows you to save anything you see on the web quickly and easily straight into your Evernote account. You can clip a full page, single article or just the URL and save it to a designated Notebook and add tags. Your web clips then become searchable within your Evernote account. Doing this allows me to have all of my information at the tip of my fingers, right when I need it and across my multiple devices.

"Once I was alerted to the concept of "hard fun" I began listening for it and heard it over and over. It is expressed in many different ways, all of which all boil down to the conclusion that everyone likes hard challenging things to do. But they have to be the right things matched to the individual and to the culture of the times. These rapidly changing times challenge educators to find areas of work that are hard in the right way: they must connect with the kids and also with the areas of knowledge, skills and (don't let us forget) ethic adults will need for the future world. "

"Whether you subscribe to the device as a consumption, creation or discovery tool, the technology opens the eyes of educators when given time to investigate." The challenge of pedagogy demands contact time between staff, students and those of us charged with coordinating. A staff and student blog will now be supported by a staff twitter account to encourage daily feedback/debate as well as the built in googleforms and analysis. Every question/suggestion and discussion is valid because of the diversity of subjects, staff and students.

""The new website is all about what teachers and students can do with those videos," explains TED-Ed catalyst Logan Smalley. "The goal of TED-Ed is for each great lesson to reach and motivate as many learners as possible. The new website goes a step further, allowing any teacher to tailor video content, create unique lesson plans, and monitor students' progress. By putting this new technology to use, we hope to maximize time in class and give teachers an exciting tool for customizing - and encouraging - learning.""

Here are some questions I have for anyone in the edtech community that has taken their school down the path of 1-1 learning with iPads: Does giving every student an iPad mitigate or exacerbate issues of equity in our school communities? iPads are often times promoted as being really 'easy' to use. Is this true? And is 'easy' what we really want? What are the learning dispositions we aim to foster in our students and school community and is going all-in with iPads going to help us build these dispositions? How are iPads helping your students participate in the long tail of invention, creation and manufacturing (the 'Third Industrial Revolution' as some have called it)?

Grovo is an online education and training platform that helps people find and use sites, and helps sites reach and educate users. Before Grovo, there was no single, centralized location for Internet education and training.

"A teacher's role in the classroom is to supply direction, maturity and wisdom. It is to raise questions, inspire endeavour and lay down challenges. A teacher brings purpose to the lesson. But to be effective in an iPad classroom, she must relinquish control over the tools used, allowing students to share the responsibility and joy of discovering and sharing solutions to achieve that purpose. I'm not saying that teachers are absolved of their professional responsibility for learning to use the technology. But they should admit to being learners, and not let that fact stop their students from using the device in unforeseen ways, in the pursuit of the class goals."