EBTL2

I wish I could convince some of my skeptical colleagues at RMHS how valuable Twitter has been for my own self-directed professional development. For the most part, they think I tweet about random daily happening and any comments about my participation in social media are tongue in cheek. I shrug it off because they don't understand the truth of the value of social media to me. Here is a list of people UNDER 30 YEARS OLD worth following to enhance your own social media self-directed professional development experience. Enjoy!

This is featured on the Edline Help page http://eec2.edline.com/

This is a cool idea. I never thought of using a blog this way. I'm not sure I agree with the say the example video organizes the class Edline website, but it definitely helpful for using Edline to its fullest extend when flipping. Awesome resource!

This is a valuable resource for so many features of Edline. I like the blog aspect and am planning to try this out in our class. Using Edline to flip the classroom is fairly simple but had great enhanced features. Love this site.

I guess I need to look into Google+ and start teaching kids more about how to create and produce a good audio/video podcast!

Google+ is very handy. It helps to be part of a community. Maybe we should start an Expanding the Boundaries community and see who joins.

Interesting way to show teens how important it is to think before you post. I think we should lead my example. My teen students are welcome to follow me on Twitter. What do you think?

This is a quick way to compare different blogging platforms that can be used with students in the classroom. Seventh and eighth grade teachers have had a lot of success with Edublogs at Parker, and we've been looking into beginning blogs with the sixth graders. I've also heard good things about Blogger, from Google, and wonder if others have used it? The students already have Google accounts and use Google Drive regularly to save and revise writing assignments. I believe it's also free, which is the right price in the world of public education, but often free accounts also come with limits. Curious to hear about others' experiences.

The chart mentions a $39.95/year fee for an Edublogs Pro user to access a lot of the features. A partial work around for this is to buy a bulk upgrade for $99 dollars. This gives you 5 credits to update accounts to Pro accounts. They roll over from year to year, so you could update your own blog account for 5 years for half the price.

I love Tumblr as a blogging tool, also. It's easy to use and provides a very polished looking site.

Each year, hundreds of visitors--including journalists and researchers--flock to schools like San Diego's High Tech High or Napa Valley's New Tech High to get a glimpse of how teaching and learning can be re-invented and re-imagined.

Janet, This sounds amazing. I'll probably regret it but I signed up for the course which begins Jan 20. If nothing else the response you receive once you fill out the form is worth the effort!

A friend of mine was reading this article and when I heard her mention "SMART Goals" I perked right up. Here are some examples of how one athlete has set SMART goals for the new year. They aren't just for the classroom!

This is a great article about brain health and how diets that include large quantities of gluten have been linked to maladies such as Alzheimer's, anxiety, depression, chronic headaches, ADHD and others. The book, Grain Brain: The surprising truth about wheat, carbs, and sugar; your brain's silent killers has been on the best seller list since September. It's being published in 15 countries. The New England Journal of Medicine has also conducted numerous studies and supports some of the claims of the book, though there are differing opinions in the medical field and at the end of the article, the author is not convinced that gluten is dangerous to most people. We see a tremendous numbers of students in our schools that suffer from some of these ailments. The article is suggesting that nutrition is absolutely linked to our neurological health. A few years ago our food services changed the menus in our schools. Children in middle school can no longer eat 6 cookies and 2 ice creams for lunch. Though lunch duty isn't my favorite responsibility, it gives me the opportunity to see the changes happening in our cafeteria. In my observation, kids are actually ordering and eating the healthier options that they are offered. I recently experimented with changing my diet to be gluten free and I've never felt better. I didn't lose weight, but I lost my craving for carbohydrates after a few days and my focus on everything else seemed to be a little keener. It lasted about 6 weeks and I only fell off the wagon with my mother's bread stuffing at Thanksgiving. I instantly felt cravings for all things with flour. If I try it again I will pay more attention to see if I can tell if my diet really does effect my brain.

This is very interesting. I saw Dr. Perlmutter on the Dr. Oz show last week. Dr. Perlmutter suggests that we need to stay away from most carbs including many fruits, grains, rice and root vegetables. He talks about how our low fat, high carb diets are actually shrinking our brains causing more instances of alzeheimer, dementia and ADHD. Simple life style changes of going to a higher fat, low carb diet will reverse this trend. We have to be careful that people don't translate this recommendation of adding fat to our diets into raiding the cookie aisle and super sizing at MacDonald's!!

Wow! Thanks for the helpful info. on gluten and other foods that can impact our brain health.

Nothing earth shattering in this article, but a good reminder to think outside the box when it comes to asking students to demonstrate understanding of what they're reading. I love the movie trailer idea, and the kids have shown they can do some amazing things with iMovie. I'm also interested in exploring some of the apps that the author says would allow students to put characters into new settings - it may be a neat way for them to demonstrate deep understanding of character's personality and motives.

Julie, I agree that these projects are interesting and also that kids like doing them. But...always...I wonder... do they really get kids more interested in reading or do they really just help kids get through the monotony of assessing reading? I think the latter goal is a worthy one and I do feel that kids get something out of these projects.researching, writing and collaborating. Even when I was a student, I used to wonder about these questions. Outside my school life, my reading was so rich and varied. English classrooms to me seemed places devoid of books and the discussion of books that took place in my home. So I don't think think this is a new question, but I like to think of the primacy of helping kids finding books they love as well as giving them a place to discuss them.

This powerful spoken word video was one of Edutopia's "8 EduWins of 2013." As an educator, it made me think about the messages that I give to my students on a daily basis, and how important it is that we don't just fall into the trap of the way things have always been done. Students today need to see the relevance of their learning; they want to know how and when they will apply skills and information. Worth watching.

I found this video along with another Spoken Word video "Why I Hate School But Love Education," extremely powerful and captivating. The message is exactly what we are talking about in class and trying to change in our classrooms. The whole presentation of the video was motivating as well. I really enjoyed listening to him speak and agreed with his points. His presentation in the first video is what made click on the others. Both videos are definitely worth watching.

It's so obvious! Why didn't I figure this out? Awesome step by step guide in the form of a Google Drive Doc.

Thanks for sharing Kerry - great directions - very easy to follow. I like the format. I was curious as to whose directions they were so I followed the URL at the bottom. It's from Brevard School District's technology page and it has some great information and links for all grades.

Thank you! I'm always looking for new ways to use Edline! I'll be trying this out soon.

Written by a professor at Framingham State. A nice reflection of the benefits and pitfalls of blogging in the classroom. Something I need to work on is how to continue to assign writing (the more practice they get the better they get at it) without making it so overwhelming for me to give meaningful feedback. Also, he talks about how it is hard to get students to comment on one another's posts and how to monitor it online.

This was great to read (and a little satisfying) as these are exactly the same stuggles I face using blogs with my students. Practice has always been a main focus. We always talk about giving students as many "at bats" as possible, but like it was mentioned, with more writing offering quality feedback for every piece is sacrificed. I've experimented with different methods to offset this, but nothing is sticking yet. The student commenting piece is also frustrating because so much scaffolding and monitoring needs to be done for students to do it well that you have to set aside more class time than you have. I would have thought at the college level this would be easier to manage, but apparently not.

This is an interesting and instructive post about one person's revised workflow as a paperless business and household. Worth a read.

Is the PC dead? If so, what is the life span of our smart phone, iPad, and Chrome book? Technology is changing so fast, so how can we possibly keep up? What is the best product for my needs? There are a lot of questions, but also many amazing product ideas. How about "turning our tables, floors and windows into touchscreen displays" or using your "touchscreen wrapped around a coffee cup"?

Is the PC dead? If so, what is the life span of our smart phone, iPad, and Chrome book? Technology is changing so fast, so how can we possibly keep up? What is the best product for my needs? There are a lot of questions, but also many amazing product ideas. How about "turning our tables, floors and windows into touchscreen displays" or using your "touchscreen wrapped around a coffee cup"?

Interesting article on setting guidelines for limiting the amount of time kids spend on a device. Also brings up issue of parents not really knowing how to help their child use the device for educational purposes. My guess is that most parents defer to their children as the experts on their devices and yield to what they want for apps.

This week's theme is looking at student work for deeper learning. The resources are outstanding. If you haven't seen it before, watch the video Austin's Butterfly.

So I know that we all have heard about multi-sensory learning for a long time now, but this blog post about multi-sensory study skills has some good insights and explanations about why some of these things work. You can never really have too many alternative, multi-sensory approaches to use with your students and it's sometimes hard to stay fresh with these ideas.

I like the idea of working with the students to figure out which ways they learn best, and how they can customize studying to fit their needs. I think too often we're guilty of pushing methods that have worked for us personally, but they may not work for someone else. It's a good reminder to be open, and to continually ask kids what makes information more memorable for them. I'd also love to see real study skills instruction in the middle school (as a course). I think many times teachers tell kids to "study" for a test, but we haven't really taught them what that means, or what that looks like.

I have not been happy with the output of my Twitter account. I have come to the conclusion that I am not following enough people, and that some of the people I am following are not right for me. I started to do a search on the internet for Twitter and education and came up with this resource. It includes a long, varied, categorized list of people and organizations to follow in education. The categories include such topics as Special Education, Technology, iPads, Design, General, etc. I have started following several of the people/organizations recommended by this resource and am already getting much more out of Twitter.

Jan, this is really helpful. I've had a similar feeling about my Twitter account. I'll take a look at some of the hashtags in the article you posted and hopefully we'll both get more out of it!

I follow Jerry Blumengarten on Twitter and have had a few Tweet conversations with him. He has great insights about tech integration that change learning, rather than for the sake of tech integration. This page is like his version of a Diigo page for BYOD resourcs. It links to a lot of great BYOD blogs, articles, lesson examples, etc. Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites The internet catalogue for students, teachers, administrators & parents. Over 20,000 relevant links personally selected by an educator/author with over 30 years of experience.

This is a handy reference tool with easy to read examples for your students.