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Nice description of the new features in Diigo v4. Nice videos, too

Nice description and videos of the new features in Diigo v4.

creating infographics online

Another infographic maker that I've tested is easel.ly. I could not use this at all in Chrome but in Firefox it was a nice graphic maker. This is more for narrative story type graphics than Infogr.am, in my opinion. There are several basic themes to choose from and you edit and add your own graphics. Another tool you could use with students although if you want graphics that have a lot of data you should go with infogr.am. I found Easel.ly to be very simple to use with a quick sign up process, although it was totally unresponsive in Chrome, so make sure they are using IE or Firefox if you pick this tool. I recommend this tool for writing teachers, bloggers, and as a nice way to graphically organize stories, etc. Cost: free

This excellent edtech blogger has great posts and is in my "vip" column on Twitter. Plus, he's an incredibly nice guy. Take time to peruse his top posts. I'll be sharing mine soon. His top one is tools to help you integrate blooms taxonomy into your classroom. Very nice.

Another software visualization tool. This one is from IBM. The URL is an odd one so you'll have to bookmark this. This is free and is listed as an "experiment". It looks like many educators are gravitating to the site as I've found some nice infographics for literature here as well. On the homepage you can scroll through some of the ideas. There are also some nice articles about how to create effective visualizations on this site that will give you ideas if you are using infographics in the classroom.

Acceptable use policies including mobile phones

Just turned up this very nice post by Doug Belshaw about Acceptable Use Policies that Include Cell phones - this one and the one he wrote before it are very nice talking points for your committe who looks at AUP's.

A nice presentation on the water crisis. nice design & use of text and images.

This is a pretty nice aggregation site for how-to videos. nice potential here, although I haven't dug too deeply into the content yet.

Outstanding examples of technology-infused projects at all levels.

Arizona K12 Technology Integration matrix along with classroom videos mapped to certain parts of the matrix.

Matrix of technology integration levels indexed with different skills. Includes example lesson plans, and provides a nice rubric like self assessment tool for where your teaching falls. Might be nice for PD leaders of small groups working with tech integration focus.

Nice Blog Post from Edwin Wargo about vision and leadership. I particularly like this phrase about school culture: "No matter how cool the technology tools, culture, I believe, will win the tug-of-war. There still may be a few trailblazers but systemic buy-in is likely to be minimal. I believe culture ensures the sustainability that Michael Fullan talks about."

Nice post about leadership

Nice way to make google maps from your data.

A tool that makes it easy to make maps in google maps. Input data ad create data maps - and more. Nice.

You'll recognize many of the authors, I'm sure. A very nice collection of articles to keep you busy reading for a while.

A nice collection of articles, many available online, from the folks at ASCD.

A nice presentation creator where you add images and text to the sections and the site makes stylish slides for you. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Nice set of manipulatable visualizations to explore basic data and trends and relationships dealing with poverty, gender, and level of educational attainment.

This is a discussion to have with all IT integrators. Many adopt the attitude of leaving the hibernating bear alone. After all, eventually, the resistant teacher will come out of the den ready to enjoy the springtime of learning? No. Not necessarily. But technological change is as much emotional and psychological as it is instruction. If you don't first have the teacher in the mood to learn, you'll be struggling. So, be careful of labeling the teacher as resistant in the first place and be willing to teach and encourage the teacher wherever he/she is. This is a nice article from Elena Aguilar. Check out part 2 after reading this one.

Nice article to spread around to teachers as they hit post planning. From edutopia, it asks us to do what all of us teachers should constantly do: examine ourselves. Change is a way of life. I've got quite a few I'm pondering for myself as well.

A nice info graphic of learning theories.... The far right column describes connected learning

Jamie Kelly does a nice job of dissecting much of what is wrong with technology journalism - going for the trending topic instead of saying "this topic is trending because of misinformation" (i.e. Instagram terms of service changes). I think these points are excellent and can also apply to much of what happens in the education circles as well -- if everybody is talking about ___, then everyone is searching about ____, then everyone is writing about ____ so they will be found. Sometimes it is good not to be everybody but to be somebody who is different and more importantly, who goes through the hype to be as accurate as possible.

Nice article at edweek about the informational texts versus great works of literature debate and what Common Core will do to lit. The one important, practical issue that all parties to this discussion MUST recognize - the classroom time is FINITE. Teachers would love to cover EVERYTHING but it just isn't practical. So, if one thing is emphasized over another, it may push something out. Unintended consequences are happening as people "align" their curriculum to common core standards. As all of the pundits and advocates argue this, it would be telling to sit down with an actual aligned curriculum to SEE what happens where the standards meet the lesson plans and what is actually pushed out - until then - it is all, rhetoric. Give us practical application, we're teachers, after all. From the edweek article: "Until recently, the closest we'd come to a major speech on the nonfiction-versus-fiction question was a piece in the Huffington Post by the English/language arts standards' co-authors, David Coleman and Sue Pimentel, insisting that literature "is not being left by the wayside." The message to rally the troops must have gone out, however. Because since the Coleman/Pimentel piece appeared, the common core's defenders have stepped up to counterbalance the literature-pushout crowd. The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's Kathleen Porter-Magee, for instance, posted a piece arguing that it's a misinterpretation of the standards to say that teachers will have to teach less literature. In a recent email blast, the Foundation for Excellence in Education-led by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of the common core's biggest backers-declaimed the "misinformation flying around" about what will happen to literature under the common standards. "Contrary to reports," it said, "classic literature will not be lost with the implementation of the new standards." A glance at the standards' own suggested text lists, it noted, "reveals that the common core recognizes the importance of b

term.ly is the companion website for the terminology app for the ipad/ iphone. You can also shorten and share definitions. The main problem I had is if you use a diigo box, the search box tries to take over the words. Nice clean dictionary.

Sandy McConnell has created a nice set of reflections for 2012, something I think all admins should want their teachers to do, where she shared her views, what she has done, and how she's improved. Such retrospection on a year is a powerful way to mark learning and remember. She's done so many things, but particularly I like how she didn't let the fact that she was temporarily laid off stop her from learning and moving forward. IF you're having a tough time, you might want to read what Sandy is and has done. She inspires me. Wow. I"ll link to all of her sets, because I"d like you to read them all.