Jan 22 2012
“Educator-created tutorials on how to use technology in the classroom to engage and empower learners. Get Learning Suite – over 20 of our most popular software, tools and teacher resources in one easy download. “
Jan 15 2012
Popplet | Collect, curate and share your ideas, inspirations, and projects!
Me, My PLN & EdTech: Some creative ideas for using Popplet in the classroom
Popplet is one of my favorite web 2.0 tools , it is dedicated to having a creative work space for hundreds of ideas, combining sticky notes , a breeze mind map , presenter and a multimedia tool, all in just one platform that can present visual ideas in a multiple work spaces. It is an easy tool that even a kid can use it! .
popplet is similar to various tools like stickynote and mind maps ones
Seven Ways to Quickly and Easily Share Files
“The trouble with large digital files is that they can sometimes be difficult to share with others. If you’ve ever tried to send a large media file as an email attachment, you may have encountered a problem with a recipient’s email inbox not being large enough to accommodate that file. Here are some free services that will allow you to share large files without the hassle of zipping files or sending email attachments.”
Center for Implementing Technology in Education (CITEd)
“Welcome to the Center for Implementing Technology in Education (CITEd)! CITEd identifies evidence-based practices for integrating instructional technology to support the achievement of all students. View our narrated webtour to find out what the site has to offer.”
NoodleTools : MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian Bibliography Composer, Online Notecards
Top 10 Tips for Doing E-Research at College – Professors’ Guide
“The situation: You’ve just been given your first 15-page college research paper assignment. Your professor wants you to use books and scholarly journals in writing your paper, and doesn’t want you to rely solely on Google and Wikipedia to do the research. What do you do? You could call your parents or ask advice from a friend. But a far better idea would be to follow these 10 best tips, offered by visiting blogger Cheryl LaGuardia, research librarian at Harvard University’s Widener Library”
Texting While Walking: Video Guide for Safety and Etiquette
OH so essential!! I have a scar on my hand from falling becasue I texted and walked…
Strategies for Successful Professional Development
What are some of the key requirements for successfully integrating technology in your classroom? Not surprisingly, one requirement is adequate and effective professional development.
Is it OK for teachers and students to be Facebook friends?
My feeling about this is quite clear… the learning is in transparency so I advocate not befriending students. Rather create a page or a group and interact transparently with the students there.
iPaddiction: 8 Burning Questions About iPads in Class (Answered!)
Top 50 Education and Technology Journals
“I’m knee-deep in literature review at the moment for my doctorate. Such a joyous way to start the new year! Anyhow, a part of this has been to review the quality rankings of journals in the area. It was a bit of a pain so I thought I would share the results, just in case some poor unfortunate soul needs to do something similar!”
Secondary schools fail teenagers over computer lessons, says Ofsted report
First Class Ice Breakers Using Mobile Devices
A mobile app that allows you to share information about the 2,000+ peer-reviewed journals, 49,000 books, 127,000 open access articles: as illustrated the three dissemination tools are email, Facebook and Twitter.”
Jan 11 2012
<—Back to main twitter un-workshop page
If you have been following the un-workshop you have learned the basics of Twitter.com. Day 17 introduced some ideas on how to keep track of important tweets. Today we will introduce a useful management tool that will make it possible to tweet from multiple “personalities” and help you to keep track of diverse hashtag topics all in one! This will make it possible to separate your personal and teacher personas and even add your facebook account. So you can create a separate twitter account for your teacher role.
The following post was kindly volunteered by a great and inspiring teacher @bhallowes:
So what is Tweetdeck? According to Wikipedia, “TweetDeck is an Adobe AIR desktop application for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn , Google Buzz, Foursquare, and MySpace.” We will be focusing on using it for our Twitter account for now.
Search for Tweetdeck (in Google) and download the free application to your desktop. It will ask you to set up a Tweetdeck account. One can use the same username and password as one’s Twitter account to simplify matters. Once installed, this is what Tweetdeck looks like.
You will notice it is divided into columns. It is these columns that help organise your Twitter account and your hashtags.
The default columns are from left, All Friends (this is where your Twitter stream appears – rather like your timeline in Twitter.com), then Mentions. This means that if anyone re-tweets one of your tweets or mentions you that post will appear in the Mentions column as well as in the All Friends column. The last default column is Direct Messages. This is where your direct messages that you send or receive will appear. They will not show up in your All Friends column because they are to or from you personally.
At the top left of your Tweetdeck your will see the three buttons for action. They look like this:
The yellow square with the pen is for writing a new tweet. Click on it and give it a try. Send a tweet telling us you now have Tweetdeck installed. Don’t forget to add #ict4champions to the end of your tweet. Great!
The next button is a circle with a plus sign in it. This is to add a column to your Tweetdeck. Click and you will see a window open in the middle of your deck.
You can then give your column a name using a hashtag #. If you were setting up a new event such as a conference, you would create your own hashtag, but in the case of this un-workshop the hashtag #ict4champions is used. Type it into the box and press Search. What do you see? A new column should appear with the hashtag at the top and very soon the column is populated with the tweets that have been sent using that hashtag. Now you can see at a glance who has posted to the un-workshop and who is and active in the course.
Remember that if you have a lot of columns on your deck you just have to use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the deck to move across and view them. Try adding another hashtag such as #sateachers or #edtechconf.
The last of the three action buttons at the top left of your deck is for finding a quick profile or list. If you have seen a tweet that looks interesting and you might want to follow the person but you’d like to check out their profile first try this:
Click on the Quick Profile button and type the twitter name of the person you want to view in the window that appears. A new column opens up with the profile of the person you are thinking of following. You will also find a Follow button at the bottom of their profile column. Click it to add them to the list of people you follow and then close the profile. You will now be following that person.
Below these three action buttons on the left is your account/ accounts that are logged into Tweetdeck. You may set up a number of accounts – such as a personal one, a school account or a class account. They can all be logged into Tweetdeck by clicking the Add More Accounts button. When you want to send a tweet you can click on one or more of your accounts and the tweet will be sent from them all – or just the one you choose.
Now move across to the top right of your Tweetdeck where you’ll find five more buttons. These are Refresh, Single Column View (you can toggle between single and multi column view with this one), Settings, Support and Log Out. These five buttons are pretty much self-explanatory and they are best explored and experimented with at leisure. Below these five buttons, also on the right, is the option to add one’s location, upload a photo or a video or log out.
Now we come to the fun part of the Tweetdeck. This is the open strip below the buttons where you will type your tweet. You would then press Send. If you are copying a URL from a website it’s best to select the text, press Ctrl+C to copy it and then click next to your tweet text and use Ctrl+V to paste it. One trick Tweetdeck does is to auto shorten your URL’s. Make sure the auto shortening facility is on by clicking the button below the typing strip and to the left of the hashtag button. Click it to select ON.
If you are part of an event like this workshop remember to add the hashtag e.g. #ict4educators. In order to facilitate the easy addition of hashtags, Tweetdeck has a button below the typing area with the # on it. This will open a drop down menu and if you click on that it will give a list of all your recently used hashtags. Double click the one you want and it will be inserted at the end of your Tweet. Now all that remains is to press Send on the right.
The last thing for you to do is explore the set of buttons at the bottom of each column. Columns can be moved to the left or the right of your Tweetdeck depending on their popularity; they can be filtered by different criteria; marked as read and cleared of all seen tweets.
To close a column, look for the blue Twitter t on the top right of the column next to your user name. As you hover over it an X will appear and pressing that will close the column.
But how does one retweet or send a direct message using Tweetdeck? Hover over the avatar in a tweet The icon will change into four squares with different functions. Hover your mouse over an avatar and see what happens.
Did you find the re-tweet and reply buttons? Find a tweet you would like to reply to and click on the reply button. Reply to a tweet from someone in the un-workshop and let them know you have found the reply button in Tweetdeck.
Try clicking the re-tweet button on the avatar. The tweet will now appear in your message pane and the beauty of Tweetdeck is that you can Edit the tweet before sending it! Once you have selected a tweet to send try adding the #ict4champions hashtag to let everyone in the unworkshop know how fantastically fast you catch on.
The third button on the avatar is the Direct Message button (the one that looks like an envelope). When you send a direct message to someone it will appear in your Direct Messages column of your Tweetdeck. Lastly explore the Other Actions part of the avatar. Use this option to carry out one action on this tweet such as email it to someone or translate it – or whichever action grabs your fancy.
That covers the basics for installing and using Tweetdeck. This is by no means an exhaustive tutorial and it’s for you to play and explore and share your findings with the un-workshop. We all learn from one another. Enjoy!
Activity:
<—Back to main twitter un-workshop page
Jan 08 2012
The New Facebook: How to Take Control of Your Privacy
Here’s how to avoid three of the new Facebook’s potential privacy concerns.
9 YouTube Tips and Tricks for Teachers
YouTube is still the best place to find videos to use in the classroom, despite being blocked in many schools. If your school does allow you to use YouTube there are a few cool tips and tricks to improve your use of YouTube in the classroom.
Jan 01 2012
40 Most Awesome iPad Apps for Science Students
If you’re a college student looking to supplement your science studies, these apps are some of the best for learning, sharing, researching and just plain having fun.
Dec 11 2011
How Twitter is Changing Professional Development for Educators
“I naively assumed that Twitter was a place for people to narcissistically blab their every move, and after reading “Why Educators Should Join Twitter,” my mind was changed and I joined. My life is changed! I finally feel like I have others whose lives revolve around education the way mine does”. Jaime Mendelis, Binghamton, NY
The Truth About Facebook And Grades
Does Facebook negatively impact grades?
“Take part in a global online presentation event for secondary school students. Share your ideas about 21st century topics with a world wide audience. NEXT SESSION: 7 February 2012″
Dec 06 2011
<—Back to main twitter un-workshop page
Hopefully by now you are convinced of the amazing sharing and learning opportunities that twitter offers. This edu-twittering can however, result in a virus like condition that I like to call Compulsive Obsessive Information Stream Addiction (COISA). You will know that you are suffering from COISA if you start talking in acronyms/hashtags, constantly or permanently check your twitter updates on your phone/mobile device/laptop/desktop ass well as colleagues’ computers, and have anxiety attacks if you, for whatever reason, not have internet connectivity. This is not a healthy situation (ask @lady_chocoholic) and edutwits can panic about missing out on resources or the latest cutting edge information.
In an era of information tsunamis, we need to learn how to manage the overload and we need to educate our students on how to do the same. The first thing you need to tell yourself is that the good stuff will be fished out out the edutwitter-stream and chucked back by someone else filtering (retweeting) it. Fortunately there are also quite a few tools at our disposal to assist us in consuming, filtering and organising the information shared on twitter (and other social media platforms). These tools have the following in common:
As these tools are third party tools you can start using them straight away by signing in using your twitter (or Facebook) username and password. We will look at 3 tools to make your life easier and you can also encourage your students to use these tools for class projects.
Paper.li (www.paper.li)
This amazing curation tool actually works across quite a few social media platforms and can publish Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or any web content into a handy online personalized daily newspaper. It monitors your content sources to update your paper automatically. For our purposes we will just use twitter as a source, but you are welcome to include your Facebook, or any other source updates as well. You can choose whose tweets it should include. If you tell it to turn those whom you follow’s tweets into a newspaper, it will collect only the most important tweets and filter out the background noise. You can further filter the information included in your newspaper using hashtags or keywords.
I have created a how-to document for your use here (you can download it from here 
More tools to manage your twitter resources and information:
Summify (www.summify.com)
I have found this tool very handy as it sifts through your social media platforms (twitter, Facebook, blogs, wikis, Google+…) and present you with a daily e-mail. I always receive, magically, only the most important news bits (top 10 articles) in a quick scannable and visual e-newspaper. It creates a beautiful daily summary of the most relevant news from your social networks, and delivers it to you by email, web or mobile.
What is Summify? from Summify on Vimeo.
Twylah (www.twylah.com)
I am growing exceedingly fond of this little management tool! When you sign up/in and authorize twitter, it analyse your twitter feed and hashtags and create a newspaper of tweet topics in a magazine format with a picture relating each topic to add visual appeal. It is like a personalized page of topical tweets. You can take control of your page by showing topics you like and hiding the ones you don’t. At the moment it still is in Beta format and you can request to join. My page is here: http://www.twylah.com/maggiev.
Other tools (updated automatically from my bookmarks)
Classroom uses
These colourful resource magazines can be used in many ways in the classroom. Students can collect all the material that they are using in projects and add that to the magazine filters. In the case of Paper.li, for instance, langauge students can track resources shared by their favourite authors. Twylah can be used to create a twitter newsletter for different groups in the class.
Activity:
A the end of this activity you sould have at least 5 tweets.
<—Back to main twitter un-workshop page
Dec 04 2011
5 innovative tools to spice up your presentations
“Spice up your presentations with these five cool web 2.0 tools. From meetings with your faculty to engaging classroom lessons, express your creativity with these presentation alternatives.
In today’s fast-paced, media-driven world, the traditional slide-by-slide presentation will not hold the interest of your audience. That’s where this collection of tools comes in.”
Open Access Journals in Educational Technology (and closely related fields) – Google Docs
Here are the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011. This, the 5th Annual Survey of Learning Tools, was finalised on 13 November 2011. This year’s list was compiled from the Top 10 Tools lists of 531 learning professionals worldwide – from education, training and workplace learning.
How to hide Twitter #hashtag chats from your followers
Personally I would not use this as I like to see those who I follow’s tweets even if they are live-tweeting an event. It is like being there with them. Of course this assumes that the people I follow live-tweet things I am interested in!
ReadCube | Free Reference Manager – Academic Software For Research
“Import article PDFs from your computer. Your articles immediately become full-text searchable so you can find what you want. ReadCube will automatically identify the author, title, and journal citation information of every article.”
Listen, create and share FREE geolocalized audioguides.
One appplication that comes to mind is to let the students create walkabouts for the school for prospective students or create a audio recordal of outings to historic places.
Nov 29 2011
<—Back to main twitter un-workshop page
As we have discussed before, tweets do not stick around for a long time and you need to take responsibility for backing up your twitter stream for later reference. This also goes for backing up your class tweets for every day as well as your conference/event tweets. It is a good idea to ask one of the students to take responsibility for doing this at the end of every lesson. You (or the responsible student) can then share this document with the rest of the class so that they can revise the day’s lesson using the tweets as summary.
The tweet backup document can also come in handy when writing reports after you have attended a conference or event. If you make a backup document of a conference hashtag, you will not only get your summary tweets, you will also see others’ comments and input.
There are a few 3rd party tools that you can use to do backup tweets. Some only allow you a limited amount of tweets to backup, others allow you to backup your entire twitter stream.
Tweetdoc.org
This user friendly site allows you to create a PDF of up to 500 tweets at a time into a good looking printable document.You do not even have to register for an account to be able to create a backup document. It is a good idea to register for an account though, as you can then keep track of the tweetdocs that you have created. See our workshop #ict4champions tweet summaries here:
How do you create a tweetdoc?
Tweetbackup (www.tweetbackup.com)
This tool back up all your personal tweets on a daily basis.
It will make an ongoing backup of your personal tweets, so it is important that you create a backup sooner than later. My backup was started a year ago and have about 7600 tweets archived. It can only go back 3200 tweets, so now is the time to sign up for your backup! You can export your tweet archive as a text, rss, csv or html file. If you copy your archive link under Settings you can tweet it.
Twapperkeeper (http://twapperkeeper.com)
Another good tweet backup service is Twapperkeeper. Here you can create an archive from a hashtag or keywords as well as from any twitter user.
Just login with your twitter username and you will be able to search or create archives according to various filters. For instance, you can just choose to archive someones (e.g. @maggiev)’s #mathslit tweets.
Activity:
By the end of this activity you will have 2 backup documents and have send at least 4 tweets.
<—Back to main twitter un-worksho page
Nov 27 2011
Introducing iLearn4Free: educational apps for little learners
English is a foreign language for 95% of the world’s children. Yet almost all digital literacy tools for young children are written in English. Mobile learning is therefore out of reach for all but those very few children prepared to start learning a foreign language before they have mastered their own. Isabelle Duston, a self-professed “serial entrepreneur” decided to tackle the problem by creating educational applications that will bridge the digital language divide without losing cultural diversity in the learning process. Her iLearn4Free venture is developing apps in several languages for teaching little ones how to read in their native language.
Pen.io create gr8 text based web pages 2 share in an instant
No registration, no email required. Just put in what you want the link to be and a password of your choice. It takes you over to a page where you can enter in a title and your text. Click save.
10 things I’ve learned in a year of blogging
Very useful post, which succinctly suggests 10 things to consider when blogging.
Really interesting collection of Web 2.0 tools
Thoughts on writing a social media policy « simfin
Comprehensive and thought-provoking post from Simon Finch on ideal beahvior online — including by teachers and parents.
The Social Media Guide: A Guide to Facebook Security
Looks pretty good, accessible.
Curated witter Resources and articles (Scoop.it)
“Resources on how to use Twitter effectively and strategically – curated by Dr. Sarah Eaton
“A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classesmeasured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviationwas larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se. An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education).”
Using Google Docs in the Classroom
Lots of really nice links and resources and ideas.
Most people use Google for searching for information. This session will teach you all of the tools for finding information quickly and more efficiently. Unlock the secrets of Google Search.
Introduction to Moodle 2 for teachers. How to set up a course.
Free ICT technology help videos for using Twitter (MOODLE2- Step by step help screencasts go through all basics
EdTechTalk’s live webinar streams
Edtechtalk is a community of educators interested in discussing and learning about the uses of educational technology. Part of the Worldbridges network of homegrown webcasting, several live shows are webcast each week
Discovering free online resources for learning and teaching- free webinar
Another in the free RSC Wales Lunchtime Bytes webinar series. Topic: Discovering free online resources for learning and teaching. The session will be of interest to teaching staff in all sectors, especially to those involved in the adult learning and skills sectors.Information: We are all aware of the vast resources ‘out there’ on the web, but it is not always easy to find what you are looking for. In this workshop, Paul Richardson and Sharon Crossan look at some handy ways of finding ‘stuff’, and share some of the best learning resources they have found. Feel free to bring some of your favourites too. The session will be of interest to teaching staff in all sectors, especially to those involved in the adult learning and skills sectors.
Department of Basic Education 2nd Quarter 2011 Performance report
The Department of Basic Education briefed Members on its Second Quarterly Performance Report from 1 July 2011 to 30 September 2011; on the progress on delivery of infrastructure development for technical schools; and on the Quality Learning and Teaching Campaign.
Technology is More than a Tool
Great read!!
8 recommendations 2 spur African research on ICT in education (PDF)
A resource uploaded via filegooi by @segomelo
Twitter self assessment rubric for students
You can use this as an assessment tool for your students to see how they are using twitter in the classroom.
Moving Your Kindergarten into Web 2.0 with 5 Different Tools (by Özge Karaoğlu) – Teaching Village
Kindergarten has always been the place to make friends, paint pictures, tell stories, play games and have fun while learning. Wooden blocks and legos have always been favorites in kindergarten classes. Today, the world is undergoing a digital change, changing our children digitally as well.
SoundCloud – Share Your Sounds
“Capture a voice, moment or music in seconds or upload audio you’ve already created.”
SoapBox – Transform your lecture in real-time
“Teach more effectively. SoapBox is a controlled digital space, designed to improve student engagement by breaking down the barriers students face when deciding whether or not to participate in class, and gives teachers a concrete assessment of student comprehension, in real time.”
Present.ly – The Constant Awareness Communication Tool – Private Microblogging for your Business
Chatzy – Free Private Chat Rooms
“Chatzy is a good alternative to Facebook, Skype, Windows Live, and other messengers because:
Chatzy has no registration steps – your friends can join instantly
Chatzy is free and has no popup ads
Chatzy does not require Flash or any installation on your computer (= no spyware)
Chatzy works on all major browsers, with any language and through corporate firewalls
Chatzy is simple and easy to use”
Twitter for Professional Development: Ultra Beginner Edition
Free Stuff for Teachers, Free Teacher Resources, Free Materials for Teachers
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