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One year ago, I began blogging. It was my first attempt to try something new in quite a while; to share some ideas with the world and to learn for the sake of the students who learn from me.

ipad app evaluation check list and the socialness of learning

Create a keynote template, export to Book Creator, share between iPads and have students make a copy. Really good way to get authentic student voice in student writing. "Anytime students can find or take real-time photos, it connects themselves to the text in a meaningful way. "

I have written several posts before on the importance of making presentation meaningful and interesting. Not just creating a PowerPoint because it's the easiest tool for you to create a visual representation of your content. Comic books are what I consider to be attention grabbers. After bringing out several samples, you now have the student's attention. It's what you do with that attention that really matters. For this post I thought I would share some great web 2.0 tools that allow you and your students to make comic books. I urge you to make these assignments interesting, and relevant. Make sure that they are strongly tied to important curriculum standards and benchmarks. Just because the form of presentation and activity creation is "fun" does not mean that the substance in the curriculum is not important.

Digital Learning should be Personalized Learning is the post organizing key findings and resources about leveraging digital learning to fulfill personalized learning. In this post are more valuable insights, analysis and experience sharing about learner-centered learning.

There is more to Word Clouds then Wordle! welcome to a series of posts devoted to the use of Word Clouds. I know you will find new information… whether you are a seasoned user of word clouds, or brand new. I enjoy working with teachers and helping them use word clouds in their lessons because they are a great way to get any teacher started with integrating technology.  In the last post you discovered  12 Tips in Using Wordle. In fact you may wish to read it if you have not as of yet. This post will share 108 ways for educators to use word clouds in the classroom. 

Our language of saying "going online" carries the connotation that we go to a different place, and with that, who we are in these places has a different identity. With the ubiquity of mobile devices, we effectively carrying the internet in our pockets, and for me, carries questions about the blurred boundary of "online" versus "offline". In this video, I would like to explore these questions, share some stories, and make some suggestions about managing our own identities versus having it managed for us.

When it comes to professional development, Kathy thinks of it in two ways: from her perspective as a classroom teacher and from her perspective as a staff developer. "As a teacher, I was eager for professional development and opportunities to think and talk about how to improve my work and craft....I want to find an environment where professional sharing is the norm rather than the exception," Kathy explains. "As a staff developer, my first instinct is to try to figure out where teachers are with regard to their knowledge-base and their attitudes towards the topics we are studying together. I try to build a relationship with teachers characterized by trust and mutual respect so that we all feel comfortable taking risks and asking questions of each other."

Ruben Puentedura's slide set which he shared assessment info with us during his visit. 

"Telling a brief story around a single photograph seems like such a simple idea. Add to that a sharing element and you think: another clever web platform to distract and amuse us. But there's a lot more to Cowbird.The interface is beautiful, as one would expect from Jonathan Harris, Cowbird's creator. The Web artist and programmer behind the 2006 Web project "We Feel Fine," Harris thinks big. His goal with Cowbird: nothing less than to create "the world's first library of human experience," according to the site.While you can add audio, the focus is on the image, which floats front and center, full screen, with the accompanying story beneath in plain text. To get a feel, you'll need to spend some time with the stories posted thus far, as the site suggests."

A wiki sharing student-generated Math Movies.

To help schools with the tasks of creating an iBook using iBooks Author an iBook has been created that you can download here that provides the following information:What is an iBook?Content and Design of your iBookiBooks AuthorPreviewing and Publishing your iBookHow to share your iBook copyResources

For all your stop watch needs! Timing class activities, 30 sec discussions, think-pair-share ...

"What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social MediaThis page contains resources from the ASB Unplugged 2012 Leadership Institute in Mumbai, India. These materials are made available under a Creative Commons 3.0 attribution-share alike license, which means that you are both allowed and encouraged to use them! Please contact Drs. Scott McLeod or Jayson Richardson if you have any other questions about these resources."

The features in Google Docs can be used to facilitate a digital writer's workshop based on peer editing, and they are particularly useful when combined with cooperative grouping strategies to fine-tune students' editing skills. While students are writing their drafts, teachers can take advantage of opportunities to lead small instructional groups to help them focus on specific cooperative grouping job-related skills, then students can share their drafts with other group members who use comments to suggest revisions based on their job. The immediate feedback provided by peers will likely encourage writers to check comments and revise at home and stay on task during classroom work time. The revision history will keep student comments and revisions honest and focused on the task.

I had the wonderful app-ortunity to make a site visit to Westlake H.S. in Eanes ISD on Wednesday February 1st. When we arrived, various campus and district officials shared some background on the student-centered learning initiative. They focused on multiple benefits of the 1:1 iPad initiative where high school seniors were issued iPads like textbooks at the beginning of the year. In a time where global communication, inquiry-based opportunities, and self-directed learning is how students manage the information revolution, it was refreshing to get to observe an iLearning Utopia.

@jessmcculloch's getting started with Twitter page. Jess asked people in her PLN to make 20 second Twitter stories about why they use Twitter. She also asked people to share videos about different parts of Twitter & getting started. It's a great resource for those who are new!

We like to use real life images when possible but for those times when you can't find image or you want an icon, you could try this clip art library - The Open Clipart Library is the largest collaboration community that creates, shares and remixes clipart. All clipart is released to the public domain and may be used in any project for free and with no restrictions.