INSTTECH 4131 & 5131: Technology in Education (Fall 2012)

Great resource for teachers in math and literacy.

I loved the pumpkin themes in the first post! This is a great resource for teachers and I liked how it expanded on different subjects rather than focusing just on literacy, like most blogs. This is a great resource for teachers rather than the students.

Education Week Teacher is a blog that has an array of articles concerning technology integration. The blog also provides news that covers a wide range of issues relating to education.

Google Earth is an instructional tool that I use often as a social studies teacher.  However, it can be used across content areas.  For example, it can be used to highlight the geographic connections to the settings of novels, or to take students on virtual field trips to science museums.

I agree with you that this is a great tool that is something that can really enrich student learning. I can definitely see myself at most grade levels using this tool one way or another. I would be interested in experimenting more with the program and finding creative ways to implement it into lessons.

I really enjoy using Google Earth in the classroom. The capabilities of Google Earth and Google Maps (especially with the most recent update) give my students a chance to see places they may never get to see in their lives. I think we are going to spend more time focusing on the use of Google Earth or Maps in my upcoming Global Studies classes.

I great website with blogs about special education and different types of teaching and learning for students with mild to severe disabilities.

A website that explains wikis, how to use them, and has examples of wikis.

I think this is a great place for new educators to start (or educators new to this technology). It gives you the basics and instruction for what what exactly a wiki is and how it can be used. We need simple and clear cut sites like these to introduce new technologies so that we don't get so lost and left behind!

Materials, eBooks, videos, and games for teachers or students.

This site was really cool to look at. It had a ton of things to buy for the classroom! Just looking around I was already getting inspired to incorporate them into daily activities and lessons. This would be site I would recommend to administration so they can purchase things for the school to have available (if they are nice like that).

Reading and writing tips, ideas, and lessons for teachers.

Thanks for sharing this site, Haley! I love the free "student interactives" given under the resources tab; I just had a lot of fun exploring some of those -- especially the "printing press" which I am actually adding to my own bookmarks....it looks like a cool way to get students interested in writing, and incorporating an "app" to make their publications look more professional. Definitely something I'd like to use in my upcoming student teaching, or my own classroom! :)

Resources, guides, ideas, and videos about teaching reading

Any Pinterest users out there.  Here is a list of the top 20 Pinterest boards for educational technology.  

I stumbled upon this post a couple of days ago. There is some great information on these boards! Again, another way to keep everything organized and "bookmarked" in a central location. Nice find.

This blog gives great advice on how to make sharing a class set of iPads with multiple classes.  

Article from EdTech magazine featuring Edina Schools in Minnesota. Discussion is based around their initial 1:1 pilot program and eventual decision to move towards BYOD after that.

This article again features some discussion with Doug Johnson from Mankato Schools in Minnesota on BYOD strategies in his district.

Hi, Shane, cool blog. I especially like the article that you linked to about the BYOB program. I have a BYOD program in my own classroom. Kids still aren't supposed to have their devices in school, but my room is a technology haven. I've been somewhat forced into it since my district isn't 1:1 so I have students supplement our school technology with their own devices. It seems to work fairly well, and once you establish expectations, it probably lessens the disruptions to class time form technology.

A great site for the District Administration magazine which covers a range of school items from building construction to curriculum. Being involved in many facets and committees, I review this occasionally.

WordPress is a great way to start a free hosted site or download and run your own server. I use it in my district for a few web servers, including our journalism server.

This wiki has a collection of web resources for teachers and students. Items that interest me in my profession are the 1:1 laptops or iPads in Education.

Doug Johnson is a Technology Director for Mankato Public Schools in Minnesota. The Blue Skunk Blog typically takes a common sense approach to technology use in education and raise some pertinent questions. As a Technology Director I review this blog from time to time to look for new ideas.

Edutopia is reliable and well known source of information for educators.  The technology blog provides useful articles on how to effectively integrate technology in the classroom from 1:1 implementation to the flipped classroom.

This is YouTube's free video editing Web 2.0 program.  Students and teachers could use this to create and store online media for classes.  Many schools have Google accounts for their students that could be used to access the YouTube video editor as long as administrator provided the proper permissions.  This could also be a free alternative to programs districts must pay for like iMovie or WeVideo.

I know someone else already posted this, but it was such a great find (and I did not know it existed!!) that I had to bookmark it for myself. I am posting this for totally selfish reasons, and not for use with my students exclusively. Although, I am sure I could use this editor to enhance instructional videos, or my students could use it to enhance videos they may create as projects. Currently, I'm excited to use it for myself, for current class projects. =X

Collaborize Classroom is an online Web2.0 tool that allows teachers to facilitate and create distributed learning communities for their classes.  This is a forum for students to blog on questions from class and extend their learning beyond the classroom.

Hmmm, have never heard of this before, but I like the look of it! I think it's great that a site like this can offer a UDL twist to online work for students, while also cutting down on grading time for the teacher. As a TA this semester, I have finally seen firsthand the incredible amount of time that goes into grading! I never understood why teachers hated it so much, but...I do now! I'm sure most web 2.0 classroom discussion tools have this sort of tracking feature for grading purposes (like ELearning here at UNI, for example). I love that this is a free tool! I do wonder how successfully students would utilize threaded discussion or other online learning environments such as this one in K-6 environments. I think it would be fun to experiment with and perhaps do some serious research and publishing on the results of such an experiment. All about being a teacher-researcher, and this is certainly something I could see myself trying to bring into my own classroom, especially if I was ever teaching in a flipped classroom environment...

I like the setup of Collaborize Classroom and definitely see the advantages of using it in the classroom. Unfortunately, I think our students are overwhelmed with new LMS systems, web 2.0 tools, and websites that they would probably not be very receptive to this site. If CC was easily integrated into a LMS interface, then I would consider using it, but at this point I will keep it on my radar for future use.

Classroom wikis in abundance!