educators

Apparel and accessories with IM acronyms and emoticons

TechForum Midwest

The key to Twitter is to see it as our own Personal Learning Network (PLN). Everyone has the right to use it how they want. If someone doesn't like how you use twitter than they can just go ahead and unfollow. Really it's no different from writing a blog. Similar etiquete but you are more likely to share the mundane in twitter. Twitter is also more like f2f conversations - if all you do is post links or ask for help you will never make the connections that make people want to conenct with you.

This is the site where Steve will post the ppt from the Tech Forum session

Tech encourages students' social skills Studies illustrate how some classroom technology can lead to student collaboration

This webinar is Monday about Web 2.0 and I'm co-presenting. If you attend, you'll receive a 3 month free trial subscription to Atomic Learning. Preregister here. This will give you access to the series I did on Web 2.0 and how to set up an RSS reader, etc. Also, the new one I've done on Flattening your classroom will be available as well.

This webinar Monday has free three month subscription to Atomic Learning attached to it.

Fill-in information organization program

Another cartoon creator web2.0 application.

Business people and management should read this article about the transformation of business by using workplace communities. "Workplace communities are designed to solve workplace-related challenges" -- they focus on tasks. I would find it interesting to see a business REALLY use technology to change things. Having the business in a business network (OK a NING) and let people tag their posts with the business related PROBLEMS they are having and blog, video, or photograph it-- the tag cloud would tell the business IMMEDIATELY what the problems are in the company. The problem with this model is that there are few corporate executives who REALLY want to know the problems within their organizations. They don't want to be problem solvers, just opportunity creators. However, when managers open their eyes (and I'm a former General Manager myself) and see that two things give business opportunity: problem solving and innovation. And they are directly related. True innovation solves problems. Read this article and think about how you may solve problems using the networks you may now create. If you don't want everyone to know, keep it private and only allow people in your company in.

Using mashups is going to become an essential skill, I believe. Students should understand what they are.

Microsoft Popfly lets you make mashups and build web pages without knowing code. I am to the point I don't teach the detailed web site creation coding I used to. I teach RSS, embedding, creating wikis, uploading media of all kinds, but I just don't know how important coding is any more at the basic level. I want to spend some time tinkering with this.

Information on popfly and windows live writer and how it may be used in the classroom. Cool post.

This is a fascinating blog post about how Alfred Thompson used PopFly to create a mashup activity for a classroom demo for teachers. He also took this document from word into Live writer to make a blog post. It is important to look at many ways to do things. I found this information very insightful and cool.

I spent the day with Emily Vickery, the teacher/administrator at Montgomery Academy in AL, responsible for their PD. This is her wiki, where she shares with others at the school what they are doing. We talked about using RSS and diigo to give links. She is doing great work and will be presenting at NECC on July 2nd -- her students are going with her!

Wiki from Montgomery Academy-- teaching others at the academy how to use 21st century tools.

Website of lesson plans focused on the use of Google Earth. Lessons categorized into : how to's , student controlled, teacher controlled, mini-lessons. Searchable by content area.