EDTECH at Boise State University

Voicethread allows users to create videos and share with others.

Transforming media into collaborative spaces with video, voice, and text commenting.

Voicethread is a great way for students to add narration to their presentation slides. Simply upload graphics and images to the slides then record narration over it. Great for presentations you wish to share with others and students can receive feedback from the Voicethread community.

This educational youtube channel was created by two educator brothers. One creates videos in which he teaches the humanities and arts while the other creates videos for science. The videos are fun and engaging for younger students around the 5th grade mark.

Use this Chrome add-on to block the majority of pop-up ads during online use. This add-on even blocks youtube commercials and its great for classroom use in general.

Everything from creating templates to publishing files as websites, the Tips page for Google Slides is full of helpful tips.

This browser based polling system can be embedded inside a Google Slide with the PollEv.com Chrome Add-on. Students can use almost any device with access to the internet to answer questions during a presentation. The data is projected immediately on the Google Slide as students answer.

A kid friendly research website complete with its own encyclopedia, atlas and educational games designed to help with homework. The website is written by professional educators for young learners and provides a safe space online for students to visit outside of school hours.

The new version of Promethean software has been designed to cater to a changing classroom with more diverse connectivity using BYOD and so on.

Learning communities help to share the responsibilities of student success within a school system. Since PLNs require a shared goal, when used in a school it helps align the vision for students, teachers, and administrators. PLNs are a continuous cycle of research, planning, and implementation. They are data driven and reflected upon. Everyone within the PLN is responsible for the development and implementation of the community. When everyone participates it creates an environment of trust and expertise that can be shared equally amongst all of the members. The learning that takes place within PLNs helps to keep school systems aligned and functioning.

This was a very interesting article that really had me thinking deeper bout PLN. One specific line " Learning communities convene regularly and frequently during the workday to engage in collaborative professional learning to strengthen their practice and increase student results" really caught my eye. How does one find time for such intensive participation? Separate from that I like the idea of learning being a group responsibility and not just an individual one.

Hi Ryann, I love this article and how it chunks the topics into easy comprehension for the reader. Collective responsibility stuck out to me the most. I think this is so important whenever tackling a project as a team. The team is interdependent and I think its important for each member to take responsibility of their strengths that they bring to the table. Nice article!