Group items tagged

"I do believe that educators should use Twitter for professional purposes with other educators. I am writing this blog post as a newbie to Twitter. I am writing from the observation and opinion of what I have learned in a short period."

Excellent post on advice to Web2.0 Newbies

Angela Maiers, in her latest blog post, asked for some suggestions for people starting their Web 2.0 journeys. Here are a just a few: 1. Start with the pedagogy -

Great post by Ben Grey on his participation in Constructing Modern knowledge - he hits several things including the fact that many at the conference said that computer programming should be mandatory for all students and a presenter who said that the problem with today is that too many people have a voice. My comments from Ben's blog are below. Great conversations happening here! Programming - OK, on the programming thing, here are my thoughts. In our curriculum our objective is not as much a specific LANGUAGE. One year I may use HTML with Javascript, this past year I used LSL - what I want kids to know that when they encounter programming and coding that there are certain conventions. Some are case sensitive, some are not. How do you find out how to add to what you know about programming? Do you know where to go to find prewritten code? Can you hack it to make it work to do what you want it to do? We spend about a week - two weeks but I require they know how to handcode hyperlinks and images - they are just too important. But to take 12 weeks or 6 weeks to learn a whole language - yes maybe some value - but to me the value is HOW is the language constructed or built. What are the conventions and how do I educate myself if I am interested in pursuing. What comes out of this time is kids who say either "I never want to do that" or "this is really cool, I love coding." They are doing very simplistic work (although the LSL object languages were pretty advanced) but since we don't have a full course nor time in our curriculum, I do see this as an essential part of what I teach. I'm not teaching it for the language sake but for the sake of understanding the whole body of how languages work - we talk about the different languages and what they are used for as part of Intro to Computer science and have an immersive experience. To me, this is somewhat a comprimise between leaving it out entirely or forcing everyone to take 12 weeks of it. I

Keep up with Classroom 2.0 LIve conversations. I actually have this as part of my Google Calendar so I can keep up with it. This week: "This Saturday, Mar. 21st, Peggy George, Kim Caise, and Lorna Costantini will be hosting another Classroom 2.0 LIVE web meeting. Classroom 2.0 "LIVE" meetings are an opportunity to gather with other members of the community in real-time events, complete with audio, chat, desktop sharing, and sometimes even video. (Special thanks to our sponsor, Elluminate, for providing the service that allows us to do this!) A Google Calendar of shows is available at http://live.classroom20.com/calendar.html. The topic this Saturday is: "Podcasting". Our special guest will be Kevin Honeycutt, founder of the "Podstock" Ning. Our Newbie Question of the Week will be: "What is a podcast and how can I use it to support my teaching?" We hope you'll join us to share your ideas and questions. Links for more information can be found at http://live.classroom20.com. We strive to make our shows beginner-friendly and if you've never participated in a live web meeting don't be afraid to come and take a peek at the show's format. We love newbies to join us and 'dip their toes in' the conversations until you feel comfortable enough to "jump in the conversations with both feet"! We want to encourage "experienced Web 2.0 users" to join us by contributing and extending the conversation by sharing real-life examples and tips/suggestions. Date: Sat., Mar. 21, 2009 Time: 9:00am PST/10:00am MST/11:00am CST/12:00pm EST Other time zones link and a link to the actual meeting room can be found at http://live.classroom20.com/. Location: Elluminate https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=M.97A21EB084879D9442B4EDF2437E3D"

Great resources and free PD. This calendar lists all types of activities and webinars for you in one place.

the classroom 2.0 calendar, for people (like me!) who have a busy teaching schedule, thereby (haha) getting days/time zones confused :O)

This is a very honest, open discussion between educators about why diigo or delicious -- I think the fact we can have this conversation within diigo at all says a lot for the usefulness of the tool. Diigo is an emerging tool for social bookmarking and collective intelligence.

This%20is%20an%20annotated%20discussion%20of%20our%20discussion%20here%20on%20Diigo.%20%20Look%20how%20deep%20the%20conversation%20can%20go%20now!%20%20WE%20can%20analyze%20ourselves%20and%20extract%20meaning.

Kathy Schrock has made dynamic helpful screencasts to help newbies get acclimated to GoogleApps for Educators

There is no reason to deny that WordPress is world's favourite blogging software and there are many sites out there who publish great wordpress tutorials, following these tutorials one can easily learn wordpress in no time. Here is my list which is divided into different categories, each list is arranged in way that it goes from basics to advanced level. Hope you have a great time learning them.

First Year Teacher is an invaluable resource for newbie teachers. It offers hundreds of tips, warnings, and anecdotes from experienced educators--all in one warm and charming package.

Excellent article on google+! one of the best I have found!

"Last week, we had a welcome evening for the new staff joining DBIS at the start of this academic year, and as I was sharing a glass of wine and chatting to our newly arrived teachers, I realised that just two short years ago, it was me who was the newbie; just landed in Hong Kong and starting to settle in my new country and starting to get to know my new school."

How students (and teachers) get around your firewall

Just want you to see the page that your students will probably look up before they start school. Remember that working on behavior is better than trying to block. Also, dealing when behavior when caught instead of punishing your IT department is more appropriate.

This incredible post by Beth Kanter is a must read for anyone in IT or working with web 2.0 and professional development. Understanding the intrisic value of a newcomer is so important for anyone working in these feels. Newcomers have more power now than they could ever imagine. Newcomers, speak out and give your opinion. The power is in your newness and guess what, if you wait till you're an "expert" then you're just like all the other experts out there. Also, it is better to be a newcomer than a latecomer!

The importance of a newcomer

Great advice to the newbie.

And at times it is a beautiful thing….and at other times, it might be chaotic, crazy, and seemingly unmanageable. So what do you do….to make this manageable, workable, and productive??

My own reflection on my first experience presenting at ISTE