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With my wedding a little over a year away, I'm obsessed with making my wedding website amazing.

Do you prefer tools that are efficient, straightforward, and get the job done? We like them, too! This month, App Ed Review has curated four of our favorite easy-to-use websites for your classroom! Each of the websites we share in this RoundUp cut across the subject areas and can be easily embedded into middle and high school teachers' lesson plans.

Personal Learning Networks are nothing new, they have been around since the beginning of civilization. This article highlights how communication technology enables the expansion of your learning networks without going into overload.

This is an excellent guide for someone seeking to create and develop his or her PLN. In addition to development tips, the article provides management strategies that could be useful for someone planning a PLN.

This article describes the three main types of personal learning networks: (1) Personally maintained synchronous connections; (2) Personally and socially maintained semi-synchronous connections; and (3) Dynamically maintained asynchronous connections. The importance of social media in a PLN and lifelong learning are stressed in the article. It also give tips on how to create and manage your own personal learning network.

"Yammer is a private social network. Work in groups, share files, co-edit content and more with their free Basic plan."

Edutopia blogger Lisa Dabbs Educational writes about her top 5 Web.2 free tools.

Learning communities need to be intentional; students must form with each other deeper understandings; gives students more control over their learning environment

The authors review the literature over the last 10 years of Personal Learning Environments (PLE) to come up with an idea or the roles that teachers play within these environments as well as the skills needed to be successful in these roles. They have put forth 5 broad areas that teachers must take on in order to be successful in facilitating student PLEs: Planning and Design, Instruction and Learning, Communication and Interaction, Management and Administration, Use of Technology.

This webpage from the US Department of Education describes how Communities of Practice can improve education.

SUMMARY: The DOE gets behind CoPs as potential answer for achievement gap and underperforming teachers and leaders. Money, time, and resources were thrown at this initiative to see if online CoPs could become the missing link in the instructional shortcomings. Citing examples of success, one is drawn and intrigued to look further at the project as we are now 2 years later.

Finding and researching CoP sites I came across the Department of Education's answer on the Communities of Practice within education. The Department of Education has added the communities of practice within an initiative called the Investing in Innovation along with a series of other initiatives.

Documents and materials to help craft a technology vision statement

Since learning of the NETP, I find myself coming back to it again and again. It is clearly presented and we are allowed to use the content, as long as properly attributed.

This is a fabulous site for finding resources for students who need immediate help, especially in grammar. There are links to unit and lessons plans for a variety of works of literature, including recent ones. When I need something quickly, this is my favorite page to which I refer!

The Utah Education Network provides free web tools and services, such as lesson plans, videos, curriculum resources, student interactives and professional development for Utah educators, students and parents. UEN is the Internet Service Provider for public education, the Utah System of Higher Education and state libraries.

Lesson plans, and other resources to help educators teach physical education.

Please comment on the voicethread. It is quite fun and I would love to see and hear what you have to say.

This is the government's take on Communities of Practice, and I included it because like it or not, it impacts many of us on so many levels. The National Education Technology Plan asserts that we need PLC's, and if you have never read this document, it is worth the read. It definitely furthered my knowledge when I read it in EDTECH 501. The bottom line is that because so many students have access to mobile technology, they are able to be a part of social networks. The goal is to harness this power and cultivate collaboration and engaging learning experiences. Its premise is student-centered learning where students are able to make decisions and choices that form their own pathway to learning.

Thanks for including this document. I was impressed to see the progressive views outlined with many strong and important points for changing our education culture. One of the main areas included the need to leverage technology to empower students and shift learning responsibility from teacher to learners. In essence we want to strive to create master learners, where students understand how to evaluate and gain the information they need as life-long learners. The section "Measure what Matters" I especially applauded, as I feel our extreme emphasis on testing is misplaced if we don't make sure the tests and measures are appropriate for what students need to know to be life-long learners. Do standardized tests even have a section about locating information and assessing its validity? This report started out with a short list of recommendations that included, "Be clear in outcomes we seek". I think this is an important point as we strive to embrace and utilize the growing potential of connectivness.

Blog author Steve Wheeler summarizes several writings on connectivism in this blog post. He highlights the connectivist idea that learning occurs outside the individual via social networks and PLNs. He also points to the shift in knowledge acquisition from one of "knowing information (aka memorization)" to "knowing how to locate information." He suggests it's vital that students learn to develop their own networks and personalized learning tools.

I enjoyed the quote from Siemens where he says that students need to find a method to develop their own learning tools, environment, and communities to store their knowledge. As educators, it is more important for us to guide students to find the information they require. Then coach them as to how they can store and display the knowledge they have acquired.

I found his "nutshell" comment about how connectivism argues it's more important to know where to find knowledge than it is to internalise it to be very helpful.

Video shows different ways that tech is integrated in an elementary school classroom. Plans and rubrics that are linked on this page are good resources.

List of things to consider if you plan to use tech tools with your students.

A collection of lesson plans for all grade levels on a variety of topics related to web safety

Original lesson plans developed by Thirteen Ed Online "Master Teachers". These Web-based Science activities use the rich resources of Thirteen/WNET New York and the Internet.