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How can teachers and computer specialists help teach students the skills they need to be efficient and safe Internet surfers? Education World offers ideas and Internet resources for tackling the task in this article, the sixth article in our "Getting Started on the Internet" series. Complete access to the Internet?

A free online account to help students organize themselves.

Another free student organization website. Offers a collaboration feature to connect students with one another. Mobile app also available.

In this article that focuses on social networking and learning, Ruth Reynard explores research conducted by The National School Boards Association (USA), in partnership with research firm Grunwald Associates and with the support of Microsoft, Newscorp, and Verizon, published a 2007. The research cited indicates that learning through social networks is mostly "unidirectional (posting messages, downloading media files, updating personal information) and students utilize it as "a self-reflective learning environment." However, the author points out that the researchers also found if instructional design is geared toward "the user controlling the tool rather than the tool dictating the user's activity," learning collaboratively can increase knowledge because the learner becomes actively engaged in the task, rather than passively approaching it.

I really like the message where it says that students become more actively engaged when they control the tool rather than the tool dictating the user's activity. The students then take control of their learning. They map the course they want to take.

this was very interesting - I found myself wondering how much of it was still relevant given its "age." Crazy that 2008 is "old" but social media has changed so much since then!

This website, from the University of Houston, provides links to a categorized array of Web 2.0 learning tools in line with 21st century skills. It is quite thorough and provides great options for technology integration for specific types of tasks.

Students working together with different roles to accomplish a task...

Baltimore County Public Schools maintain this website filled with advice, writing samples, and rubrics for a variety of science writing tasks

This article separates technology used in communities of practice based upon the technology's function. Some technology supports content (blogs, vlogs, microblogs, status updates, wikis, collaborative document authoring tools, social bookmarking, media libraries and albums. Project coordination is aided by use of event calendars, task management tools to track project deadlines, and decision support tools. Incentive and recognition technology allows members to be recognized by way of badges and endorsements. Other technology supports member interaction. Profiles and social networking like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Instagram, member commenting, discussion boards, and webinar services allow for member interaction on their own time frames.

By Dr. Etienne Wenger tthis is a stong definition oa community of practice with some thought given to implementation.

I especially liked how the CoP was referred to as a joint enterprise that is continually being renegotiated. Isn't that what learning is supposed to be all about? The table listing the relationships between CoP and businesses was interesting. The bootleg relationship does not surprise me at all. This one frustrates me greatly since it only applies to a select group of people who keep many things to themselves. Just think if they were to share some of their knowledge what an impact it could have on the organization. It was good to see the seven different styles of leadership defined, however I believe a good leader would exhibit a bit of each one of these characteristics. Being a leader is not a simple task but it is important to be well rounded.

I like the graphic organizers that are included with the information on communities of practice. The first is almost like a life cycle of a community of practice. Nothing that I read in my research acknowledged that a community of practice may have a timeline on it, so even though it may be implied, it was nice to actually see it in print. The second, the table, defined certain types of categories that CoPs may fit into. I was drawn to the third column, the challenges of each group, because it shows that working in a CoP and sharing beyond the community itself may not always be free of issues. Thanks for sharing this resource!

This is an amazing tutorial for learning to call live performances. Focusing more on 9-12 Theater, Show Choir, or other Performing Art incorporating a live show, this will help your students learn their tasks.

This last year I got tasked with teaching Psychology for the first time. I was without any textbook or real resources to use, so I looked to the web and found a couple of great blogs that really helped me out. It showed to me the power of great teachers sharing amazing resources, lesson plans, and ideas with one another to generate the best learning outcomes for our students!

This article comes from the OD Practitioner journal, Fall/Winter 2000. This article focuses on the basics of Communities of Practice, defining the dimensions, purpose and changes from knowledge sharing now rather than in the past. This article focuses on the industrial and business world. It shares that knowledge in the past was knowledge was to be horded for power, while today it is to be shared to grow said power "in multiples" (Allee, 2000). The article goes on to share the benefits for everyone as far as the business, community and the individual. I appreciate the call for possible new communities of practice to meet new business community challenges.

I like how this article, even though it focuses on the industrial/business world, still has some great applications to the world of education. It's also interesting to find out more about some surrounding groups to CoPs and how they are related. A quote from the article (pay close attention to the last sentence in regards to education) says, "Communities of practice emerge in the social space between project teams and knowledge networks. When multiple project teams are engaged in similar tasks the need to share what they know often will lead to community formation. From the other direction, a loosely organized knowledge network of people who share common interests can gel into a focused community when people recognize new shared opportunities or begin to seek a significant breakthrough. Those who would support communities need to learn what conditions foster their emergence and create an environment in which they can flourish."

With PowerPoint Online you create presentations right in your internet browser. They live in your OneDrive or Dropbox space, and you can edit and share them online without any other software or installations. Let's walk through the steps for creating a basic presentation: PowerPoint comes with "themes," sets of professionally designed colors and layouts.

This online stop watch can be used to visually keep a group on task.

Google is usually one of the first places students turn to when tasked with an assignment. Whether it's for research, real-time results, or just a little digital exploration ... it's important they know how to properly Google.

This project has students using Instagram to post pictures that are related to the book they are reading. For this project, students were asked to select one line from the first two chapters of the book they were reading. They were asked to find a picture somewhere around their school that related to the line they selected and take a selfie with it as well. The final step was to post their picture with their quote as the caption using the classes hashtag. I like this assignment because students can select whatever part of the reading speaks to them the most and find a way to represent this visually. This pushes students to look deeper into what they are reading. Additionally, time can be spent looking at other posts made by other students and further depth can be added to the novel. This is a quick and easy task that can be done every few chapters for any novel. I could see myself using this project to supplement the reading being done in my class.

Spreadsheet software offers users a wide variety of tools and features. From organizing data and creating charts to computing complex math formulas, the possibilities are endless. Knowing where to begin and how to make sense of it all can be a daunting task. This resource serves as a beginners guide for those wanting to learn how to operate Google sheets.

Cathy Moore is one of my favourite training designers. She created action mapping, which now seems like such a simple and intuitive concept. Imagine, training people to do their jobs by recreating the tasks that they need to complete to accomplish their jobs.