Group items tagged

Lisa Nielsen is an educational administrator and permanently certified teacher with more than a decade's worth of experience working in educational innovation at the city, state, and national level. Working as an innovative educator in New York City, Ms. Nielsen was honored as Teacher of the Year and was her district's nominee for Technology Educator of the year. Ms. Nielsen has worked in various capacities in educational innovation at the NYC Department of Education and Teachers College, Columbia University including as manager of instructional technology professional development, literacy coach, instructional technology coach, teacher, librarian, and staff developer. She currently serves as Technology Innovation Manager for the NYC Department of Education. Ms. Nielsen is a Google Certified Teacher, International Edublogger, International EduTwitter, and creator of The Innovative Educator blog, website, learning network, and wiki. In addition to her blog (http://TheInnovativeEducator.blogspot.com), her work is published in "Learning and Leading," and "Tech & Learning," magazine as well as the following online media Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, Ed Reformer, and The Huffington Post. An outspoken and passionate advocate of innovative education Ms. Nielsen is also covered by local and national media for her views on "Passion (not data) Driven Learning," "Thinking Outside the Ban" and determining ways to harness the power of technology for instruction and providing a voice to educators and students. Her first book "Teaching Generation Text" is set for a fall 2011 release.

"10 Ways for Teachers & Students to Build Websites The lines between blogging platforms, website platforms, and wiki platforms are not always clear. I have a somewhat simplistic explanation that I give to teachers who don't have a web presence yet, but want to create one for their professional work. Here's the explanation: websites are good for providing a static resource of information, blogs are good for frequent updates and communication, and a wiki is great for collaborating on the creation of a reference site. For the teacher who wants to create a website, here are ten good platforms to try."

Twitter Resources for Teachers You've heard the buzz on the Twitter phenomenon. Everybody seems to be hooked by this micro blogging service. It's been a catalyst for marketing in multinational companies, personal branding for entrepreneurs, and a simple advertising tool for the small businesses. Professionals from the education sphere seem to be catching up to the trends of technolgoy. Whether you're innovating teaching strategies for the university or looking for education jobs online, Twitter is one versatile venue where both teachers and students converse meaningfully. Don't take our word for it, here are some expert guides and tips on how to use this magnificent social networking site to your learning advantage. Articles on Twitter In Education 1. Teaching Twitter to the Teachers - To use twitter effectively, you need a reason to start with. 2. Twitter Tweets for Higher Education - Doing a little online searching (emphasis on the little), the author of this blog has found the following items related to Twitter and education. 3. 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education - Blog By Carol - Based on a list by Chris Brogan - 50 ideas for using Twitter in Business. 4. Using Twitter as an Education Tool - Are you using Twitter yet? If not, you may want to read how other educators are using Twitter as an education tool. 5. Twitter Transforms Teaching - Twitter's now tapped as a teaching and learning tool with opportunities to motivate students and advance achievement. 6. Teaching with Twitter - Steve Wheeler's 10 top uses of Twitter for education. 7. Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education - 18 people Lon S. Cohen (writer and social media strategist. He is @obilon on Twitter) following for a real time education. 8. Educational Tool: Twitter - 'Twitter in the Classroom' techniques by Christine Morris. 9. Twenty-Five Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom - Excellent presentation by Creative Commons 10. N

"Student blogging is not a project, but a process. We are continuously striving to refine, improve and re-evaluate. As I am meeting with teachers individually, I can't stress enough the importance of READING other blogs (professional, student, blogs about your hobby, blogs about other interests you have etc.). I am trying to filter and funnel quality blogs in education, their grade level and areas of interest to them as I come across them, so they can build a quality RSS Reader. BUT.. we need their help in having a basic understanding of blogs, its pedagogical uses, as a platform of a new writing genre (digital writing) and how our blogfolios fit into your curriculum and the BIG PICTURE of LEARNING. The blogfolios are not a platform to use only for a particular subject, but should give evidence of learning for each student. "

"The Blogging Teacher: Setting Up Your Classroom Page Blogs ("web logs") are an effective way to communicate with parents and the school community about the learning and events taking place in your classroom. As a teacher, using a blog page as a method of sharing news and information can be helpful to parents (and students) by allowing them access to these things online - rather than by paper handouts and agenda writing. "

"We've all heard about Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Some teachers out there may have heard of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers. Below are our 7 habits of highly effective teachers who use technology: "

My goal is to create the ultimate teacher resource that is free for everyone! Have Fun Teaching is updated on a daily basis with new worksheets, songs, videos, flash cards, coloring pages, fun activities and blog articles released every day. Unlike other web sites for teachers, Have Fun Teaching is created by a teacher and it offers high quality songs for learning with content-rich lyrics for kids. HaveFunTeaching.com specializes in fun worksheets, coloring pages, songs for kids, educational videos, fun activities, and teacher tools. ColorMeGood.com is another website that I have created that offers over 6,000 free printable coloring pages for kids! This is the largest selection of coloring pages online with thousands of high quality, full-page coloring pages.

"There are new web 2.0 tools appearing every day. Although some of these tools were not originally meant for use in the classroom, they can be extremely effective learning tools for today's technology geared students and their venturesome teachers. Many of these teachers are searching for the latest products and technologies to help them find easier and efficient ways to create productive learning in their students. More and more teachers are using blogs, podcasts and wikis, as another approach to teaching. We have created a list of 100 tools we think will encourage interactivity and engagement, motivate and empower your students, and create differentiation in their learning process. "

"The term "master teacher" seems to get thrown around a lot, but is something that many educators aspire to be. In my ten years in the field of education, I would say that the definition of "master teacher" has definitely changed. When I think of a master teacher, here are the qualities that I would suggest they have: 1. Connects with kids first "

About Edmodo is a private micro-blogging platform built for use by teachers and students for use in the classroom. The problem with traditional web 2.0 tools in a k-12 classroom environment is concerns over privacy of the students. Edmodo has been built with the privacy of students in mind. Edmodo provides a way for teachers and students to share notes, links, and files. Teachers also have the ability to send, alerts, events, and assignments to students. Edmodo also has a public component built by allowing at the teachers discretion to post any item to a public timeline at the teacher's discretion.

"Here is one of my private assumptions about education innovation that could use some public criticism: If [x] is going to change teaching practice at scale, then [x] needs to be easy, fun, and free for both the teacher and her students. [x] needs to be all three of those things at the same time. Realize that if you're a teacher and you're reading a blog post, you're automatically seeded in the top 10% of innovative educators. You'll try anything once. Let's also go with Jack Welch and assume that 10% of educators are hopelessly and/or willfully incompetent. Convince yourself, then, that 80% of teachers exist on a sliding scale of innovation and are basically up for grabs. Those who don't want to try [x] aren't necessarily bad educators. They may have made a rational calculation that [x] isn't easy enough, fun enough, or free enough to adopt. There are implications here, some obvious, some subtle: "

"Five Inspirational Blogs for Special Education Teachers"

"10 Steps To Be A Blogging School no10In this article, I would like to share the 10 steps for being a blogging school. This is the way I decided to follow based on my experiences as a teacher and blogger. Maybe, before writing this kind of a blog post, I should wait until the experience proves to be successful. So please remember: These are not proven success steps to be a blogging school but my ideas might help you generate your own. At the end of this academic year, I will write another blog post and evaluate the success of the way I followed."

"The 50 Best Blogs for Future Teachers"

Insight for elementary teachers when they are looking to integrate blogging.

"Blogging has really taken off in lots of schools already, but some schools have only just started theirs. As with anything, teachers are always looking for quick and simple ideas to help get their blog up and running. Here are some ideas to get your blog started."

There are a tremendous amount of websites out there now (usually referred to as web 2.0) which allow users to create content. You're actually on one right now…a blog. With all of these resources, they offer tremendous promise for classroom application. The trick is to pick a few and begin to infuse inside your class. From time to time, you will see our TCI bloggers refer to, or even use, sites. For techies, web 2.0 is like breathing. They can't imagine life without it. For many teachers though, it can be overwhelming. We've worked to create a quick guide to some of the more popular web 2.0 sites out there. This guide will give you basics on how to get started and how they can be used in a great TCI activity. Feel free to download and share this document with colleagues. If there's another site you feel we should really take a look at, please let us know! We're always on the hunt for great new tools for teachers

"There are many excellent platforms that teachers and students can use to create and maintain a blog throughout the school year. Depending upon your chosen purpose for student blogging, some platforms are better than others. But if you just want students to occasionally publish an essay to the web for peer review, you might not need a full-fledged blogging platform. Here are five ways that you can have students publish their essays to the web in under a minute (writing and editing time excluded)."

I've also noticed that a lot of our students struggle to learn without direct teacher instruction - they don't seem to be as independent in their learning as I've come to expect. I'm not sure if that's because we are living in Japan, where literally every single thing comes with explicit instructions (e.g. the audio warnings everywhere you go, like "You are now on the escalator, hold the handrail and stand on the left," or this interesting story about Crocs) or if they're just used to being directly told what to do. I want to make sure that my students understand that they can learn anytime, anywhere, from anyone who is willing and able to share their knowledge. I want them to have the skills not only to be able to find out the answer, but also to share what they know. I'm glad to see that other teachers are trying the same thing too…

"Ten Bloggers I Read First Yesterday, I was asked for a list of the blogs that I recommend reading other than my own. I published a similar list two years ago, but some of those blogs have become less active in the last year. Here is my updated list of the ten blogs that I go to first when my Google Reader account indicates "1000+ unread items.""