At the start of the school year, during the Technology Kickoff presentation, I challenged teachers to take their Professional Learning Communities to the next level – beyond the walls of the building and the boundaries of the school district. I thought that now, right before our PLC Professional Development Day, it would be a good time to re-issue that challenge and provide an idea on where to start.

I wrote about Twitter.com last year. This is a GREAT place to start. I know some folks will say, “What? Why on earth would I want to know what other people are doing during all hours of the day, every day of the week, and in 140 characters or less?!?!” Well, the key is in WHO those other people are. In Twitter you “follow” people with similar interests and backgrounds. They, in turn, “follow” you. It may sound like one big stalkfest (I know stalkfest isn’t a real word. But this is a blog and not even remotely close to anything resembling literature), but Twitter has proven to be the most valuable online tool I have used during the past year. After logging in to Twitter, within minutes tips, tricks, and resources come flying in.

If the key is in who to follow, how do you find the people? Twitter4teachers provides lists of educators on Twitter by subject area. Once you find folks that post information that you find useful, check out who they are following and follow them, too. If you know of others in your field, you can search for them on Twitter. It’s amazing how many people are tweeting–authors, professors, politicians (and, yes, Ashton Kutcher is tweeting, too, if you are into that sort of thing). Or, you could check out who your friendly-ITRT is following and start there. You will find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tekkieteacher.

Once you have started setting up your online PLC, the next step is to actually post something. For those of you who are a bit shy, try “re-tweeting”, or just re-posting someone else’s post that you found useful. Be sure to include the “RT” indicator and attribute the post to the original person with the “@” symbol like the example below:

When working within an online PLC, you will get more out of it if you are a contributor to the conversation rather than just a bystander. Before you know it, people will start following you, too! I recommend always screening your followers and blocking anyone that you aren’t sure about. However, I have to admit that it was also very cool once some of the big names in the the Ed Tech world who I was following started following me, too!

Our PLCs are about helping and learning from each other to improve ourselves and the instructional process. There are 195 people in my Ed Tech PLC and I am much better at what I do because of them. Come join me!

Since last week’s Technology Kickoff presentation, a number of you have asked about the tool I used to create the opening slide, http://wordle.net. Wordle is a completely free tool that allows you to create a word cloud out of any text, including poetry, literature, speeches, etc. All you have to do is copy/paste the text into the create field and viola – a personalized word cloud. Wordles can be used to introduce a lesson and spark discussion, or in our Language Arts classes to convey the main ideas in a piece of literature. This site created Wordles for every presidential inaugural address since Washington!

To get started, I recommend copying/pasting your favorite poem or a couple of paragraphs from your favorite book to see what kind of Wordle is created!

(Originally posted 12/8/2008)

For the past year, the Tech Team and I have maintained Hylton’s webportal at http://guest.portaportal.com/pwcs. However, I recently moved all of our links (and added lots of new ones!) to http://delicious.com/hyltonhs. Both PortaPortal and Delicious are online bookmarking tools. However, Delicious has proven to be much more user-friendly. It is easier to create bookmarks, and it is also easier to search your bookmarks. Once you have over 100 bookmarked sites (we currently have 297!), the search capabilities become very important!

Hylton’s Delicious site hosts a collection of bookmarked sites for teachers, students, and parents. Just go to http://delicious.com/hyltonhs, and use the tags listed along the right side to find tons of links to online tools for virtually every subject. We will continue to add bookmarks, so check back often to find out what’s new! And, if you know of a site that you would like included, forward it along to your friendly ITRT.

Hylton’s PortaPortal site will remain “live”, but no new bookmarks will be added. Instead, everything new will be posted at http://delicious.com/hyltonhs.

Here is a link the survival tips presentation from this year’s Technology Kickoff. I created it using the online presentation tool, Prezi.com. Enjoy!

As with my previous posts from NECC, please forgive typos, grammar, etc. These are notes from the sessions and are not intended for anything other than information. My plan is to come back, later, and “clean them up” and provide clarification, but who knows when I’ll find time for that!

Enjoy!

Presenters:

Will Richardson (http://weblogg-ed.com/)(@willrich45)
Cheryl Nussbaum-Beach
21st Century Learning – Here Comes Learning – check out Wiki

How learning looks different today

Important to be Learners, not teachers, first

YouTube video – Help with Bow drill set – example – Richardson
-Wasn’t afraid to not know something
-Showed what he did know and then asked for help – made it easy to teach him
-Didn’t ask teachers/parents – went to Web 2.0 forlearning
-Asked for feedback – plz, plz, plz – b/c it’s on YouTube there’s a large number of people who can help him
-Very comfortable with technology
-No name, no face – privacy
-How did he know he would get a response? Intriguing question
-Learning environments are changing

Connecting and Community – Cheryl
-New teachers – afraid to ask questions within their schools – fear of it being evaluative
-set up virtual community for PLN – Cheryl set up online mentors – ENDAPT – for new teachers
-found mentors did not lead the learning – everyone taught each other – virtual community of practice
-can learn and grow without feeling like they are being judged

-21st Century Learners Project — http://abpc21.org
-funded through grants (P21?)
-21st Century Learner’s Goals
-insight from project “necessity for change” – professional development needs to be centered around managing change

Richardson
-can’t look at classrooms the same way as we have in the past
-”Here Comes Everybody” – book recommendation
-Importance of forming groups – techtonic shift
-we are not fully aware of what is occurring right now – Iran and Twitter is example – can no longer be traditional journalist
-”Smart Moms” – another good book recommendation
-Connect around the tools
-Orbitz response to twitter complaint – called him!
-NCTE – Definition of 21st Century Literacies – much more complex today
-We form groups around what we write(Wikipedia) and what we read(Diigo – with comments!)

-kids moving into hyper connective and hyper transparent world – foreign to us – kids ARE using these technologies
-using them to socialize – MacArthur study – must read
-connecting to people they do and do not know
-that is a GOOD thing – millions of potential teachers for our kids – doing it without us because we don’t have the same type of context for learning in this world right now
-Some kids have no adults teaching them to use technology effectively for learning
-teachers need to be learners in this context, too – they have to connect, too

Cheryl
-Education operates on deficit based model, not strength based model
-ask them – what do YOU want to accomplish, learn, etc.
-from classroom to community structure
-teachers as colearners
-connecting and collaborating – for professional development
-What works for adults – job embedded learning – like getting personal recognition
-The Medici Effect – more suggested reading
-Professional Development – team approach – with learning communities – online ones!
-Different from the workshop driven approach
-Community Definition – from Wikipedia
-Communities of Practice – Community instigator/leader – one of the top 10 jobs in the next 10 years
-need to evolve over time
-product is co-created and collaborative with opportunities for feedback and ownership
-The Scaling Framework (From Microsoft?)
-PLP Delivery Model – Powerful Learning Practice – built on professional learning teams

Case Studies
Archdioces of Philadelphia – Nancy (@ncara)
-Technology Plan
-Team approach to putting together the plan – used online tools, too, (Twitter, Delicious, Ning)
-”surprised to find a social network could turn in to a professional network”

One to One program – Professional development for it
-Using PLP professional development worked better

Back to Will
-It’s all about being able to build a fire – figure out how to get your questions answered by being a global learner
-expansive and personalized
-Revolution isn’t online learning, it’s personalized learning
-Be Learners first, teachers second

Presented by Tammy Worcester, ESSDACK

www.tammyworcester.com

http://handouts.tammyworcester.com

On instructional uses of cell phones – yes they can be bad, and most schools ban them – but they can be used for good, too!

Most kids say when they come to school they are “taking a step back in time” when it comes to technology

1-800-Goog-411 – Free 411 service from Google

Text questions, any questions, to Google at 466453

Google maps – choose the “send” option to send maps and addresses to your phone

http://www.google.com/mobile/ - has lots of tools that can be used with cell phones

Posting to blogs by cell phone – via email – set up through blog settings – can create project-specific blogs and students “send” (aka email) assignments – show up as blog posts – caution: students have to sign posts somehow, either with id # or name, so teacher knows where they came from – nice way to post pictures on blogs

Cell phone to Flickr – can email pictures to flickr, too, just like to the blogs – be sure to include tags – http://www.db798.com/pictobrowser/index.html can then be used in combination with tags to create slideshows and embed in blogs (But Flickr is often blocked, not sure how this will work in that case)

Podcasting by cell phone – really easy using http://drop.io/ – “drop” audio files from your phone – click phone link and gives you a number to call to record your message – can embed the audio

http://www.geograffiti.com/ – leave voice marks – marks it on a map – call in and talk about where you are at that time – nice for geography or family vacations – Caution: there is no filtering so kids can say anything

http://www.polleverywhere.com/ – Student response tool using cell phones – nice example of instructional use of cell phones

Additional links at end of presentation – check the presentation link – one really cool one on ring tones that can’t be heard based on your age – http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/

(OK, I’m going to try and “live” blog this. First attempt at this, so bear with me and forgive my typos.)

Presented by Steve Dembo (@teach42, http://www.teach42.com/)

http://prezi.com/117545 – link to presentation

What is Web 2.0 – Entirely web based, interactive, plays well with others (mix and match content from one to another)

Bloglines - aggregator – http://www.bloglines.com – keep track of all your favorite blogs, news, searches and more – check out other subscribers – see who they subscribe to – use as “human filter”

(OK – this is about when my WiFi connection died — so much for “live” blogging)

Delicious – social bookmarking site – may not have the most features – simple – does what it does really well – http://delicious.com – searching delicious – only get sites human beings have looked at and decided if it is worth saving – another human filter – can then check out what others have bookmarked – ones with common interests – using tags – “steal” their bookmarks – wealth of info they’ve already aggregated together – can then subscribe to them – using RSS – and can see each post they add – add into Bloglines – subscribe to that person’s bookmarks – can also “bundle” links – to aid in research – under teacher or class names – Hylton’s Delicious is at http://delicious.com/hyltonhs

Sharetabs – share your links as tabs – http://sharetabs.com - very neat – don’t have to have all the urls, just the one, Sharetab, URL – nice preview version – thumbnails – even works in IE 6.0 – will still show tabs – nice, especially since our district is still using IE 6.0!

Drop.io – http://drop.io – can upload files and give others access to them – upload it, share it, fax it in, etc. – you can even call in whatever you want to “drop” off – FREE – can even do a whole podcast for free from a mobile service – http://drop.io/teach42/media - can share audio files via iTunes, too – parents ask “How was your day, today?” – they can LISTEN to how it was using this – podcasting using cellphones – this makes it easier – 100 megabytes for free – lots of features with this tool! – provides embed code

JayCut Online – full video editor in your browser – like older JumpCut that is now gone (sad) – looks pretty intuitive – has everything that MovieMaker offers – http://jaycut.com – unlimited size! – multiple users can use it – pull from same “bucket” of media and then they rename it on a save – gives them a nice starting point to the build their own media – provides embed code

Edmodo – like Twitter – but designed to be used with students – http://edmodo.com – microblogging with your students – is behind a password – private – option to “send to” specific groups – nice for classes – version 3.0 is on the verge of being released – allows you to embed media files, too – what Twitter would have looked like if it had been planned for a school environment – more enterprise features coming – may have an iPhone app for it – Tweet zemote (?) on Twitter for questions on this

Poll Everywhere – http://www.polleverywhere.com/ – classroom response system for every teacher for ever classroom that parents pay for – done via text messaging – USING CELLPHONES! – nice example of instructional use of cell phones – 30 votes per poll for free – good for classes of 30 – each poll gets 30 votes – can download results to excel – then clear them and be ready for next class – can also download as ppt – results show “live” in ppt - standard text messaging rates DO apply J – do have a for cost school version – can also use computer/laptop stations to do this for kids without cell phones

Xtranormal – http://xtranormal.com – used to create animations – text to movie – good for ESOL and World Languages – can even change the voice to match the language – nice for digital storytelling, too – can change camera angles (getting lots of ohhhhs and ahhhs with this!) – can change animations, too – very nice tool – “action” equals rendering – can take a little time – keep that in mind for classroom management – extraordinary tool – changes the paradigm – and does provide embed code

Livestream – TV studio in your browser – http://www.livestream.com – can even use your cell phone as a camera

Prezi — http://prezi.com – different type of presentation tool – what ppt would look like if there were no borders or slides.

With final exams fast approaching, here is a link to Hylton’s collection of bookmarked study tools.

http://delicious.com/hyltonhs/study_tools

There are links for educational games, practice tests, and test-taking strategies. Take a gander, and if any seem appropriate, please share with your students.

This site looks very promising.

http://www.shmoop.com/teachers/

The mission of the site is “To make learning and writing more fun and relevant for students in the digital age”. While the focus is on literature and poetry, there are also nice resources for social studies, too. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Did you know President Obama was blogging?!?! OK, well maybe he isn’t the actual author of the posts, but it’s nice to see the White House joining in the 21st century’s Web 2.0 revolution. My favorite resent post was called A Good Day on the Swingset! Check it out!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/

Let’s face it. We live in a Microsoft-dominated world. Our computers use a Microsoft operating system(Windows) and most of us use Microsoft productivity tools (Office). But believe it or not, there was actually a world before Microsoft. More importantly, there will be a world AFTER Microsoft, too.

How do I know? Because everywhere we turn innovative new companies and individuals are coming up with truly wonderful (and much less expensive) alternatives to Microsoft products. An example is this week’s website of the week, Google Docs. With this free service, you can create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. AND it allows you to easily share files and collaborate with others. Everything is then stored online – no thumb drives or floppies needed!

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t really have anything against Microsoft. However, I do think competition is a good thing!

For more information and ideas on how you might use Google Docs with your students, contact your friendly ITRT!

This site has been around for a very long time – http://webquest.org/index.php. A webquest is “an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web” and this site is chocked full of over 2500 of them that you can use for your classes! Be sure to click the link on the left that says Find Webquests. There are webquests here on virtually every topic!

Found this on TED. It HAS to count as some kind of poetry!

Many of you have expressed your frustration about not being able to access and use YouTube videos to meet your instructional objectives. There are some really nice videos posted there. Unfortunately, there are some very inappropriate videos posted there as well. For that reason, YouTube can never be unblocked by the school district. In a perfect world, teachers would have access while students would still be restricted from the site, but I don’t imagine that will happen in our school district any time soon, if at all.

However, there are many good alternatives to YouTube available that are not blocked. The best I’ve seen is still TeacherTube.com. The videos there are posted by fellow educators and all are screened to make sure they are appropriate. I also recently discovered Edublogs.tv, and of course teachers also have access to the wonderful resources, including video, at Discovery Education (a.k.a. United Streaming – see your ITRT if you are not sure how to create an account).

But let’s say that you’ve found the perfect video for your class, and it’s only on YouTube. How can you use it for instruction? The first thing you have to do is download the video file. The best free online file downloader I’ve used recently is Media Converter. When you download the file, I recommend converting it to .wmv which is the format that will play on our school computers. Once you’ve downloaded the file, you can play it directly from your classroom computer, embed it into a PowerPoint, or upload it to TeacherTube so that you can access it anywhere at anytime from online. And that’s it!

For the past year, the Tech Team and I have maintained Hylton’s webportal at http://guest.portaportal.com/pwcs. However, I recently moved all of our links (and added lots of new ones!) to http://delicious.com/hyltonhs. Both PortaPortal and Delicious are online bookmarking tools. However, Delicious has proven to be much more user-friendly. It is easier to create bookmarks, and it is also easier to search your bookmarks. Once you have over 100 bookmarked sites (we currently have 297!), the search capabilities become very important!

Hylton’s Delicious site hosts a collection of bookmarked sites for teachers, students, and parents. Just go to http://delicious.com/hyltonhs, and use the tags listed along the right side to find tons of links to online tools for virtually every subject. We will continue to add bookmarks, so check back often to find out what’s new! And, if you know of a site that you would like included, forward it along to your friendly ITRT.

Hylton’s PortaPortal site will remain “live”, but no new bookmarks will be added. Instead, everything new will be posted at http://delicious.com/hyltonhs.

This week’s featured website is Free Technology for Teachers, a blog is authored by Richard Byrne (twitter) who describes himself as a “teacher and web apps junky”.

Brace yourself. Once you get started on this site, hours will pass and you won’t even notice. He has researched countless techology resources, categorized them by subject, and provided specific examples of how they can be used in the classroom.

Late addition to this post: I realized that this site was blocked and asked to have the site unblocked. Our district, however, has decided to keep it blocked. The site is an aggregator and they feel that some of the links might not be appropriate for younger students. If you would like to access this site to learn about these tools, you will have to do it on your own time. The site, by the way, has been nominated as one of the top resource sharing blogs for 2008 (http://edublogawards.com/2008/).

Wondering where you might find other teachers on Twitter? Here is the beginnings of a nice Wiki that lists folks who teach the same subjects as you do.

http://twitter4teachers.pbwiki.com/

And a video on Twitter.

I have only scratched the surface on this one — http://education.animoto.com/– but if you like building digital stories from pictures, Animoto looks like a great tool.

I would like to introduce all of you to my Personal Learning Network, or PLN. It’s based on the same concept as our district’s Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), but PLNs have a few advantages:

• While our PLCs meet once, or maybe twice, a month, a PLN is available almost all the time.
• Our PLCs, as they exist now, are limited to those members who can be physically present. PLNs have no geographic boundaries.
• The topics and goals of our PLCs are often determined for us, while the topics I study and discuss through my PLN are ones of my choosing.
• Everyone in my PLN wants to be there.

Essentially, a PLN is what we hope our PLCs will become one day.

Where do I go to find my PLN? My RSS feed where I have listed the most current posts of all the Edubloggers I admire is where I go most often. But you can also find them through social networks like Ning.com or through virtual worlds like Second Life. And increasingly, I’m using Twitter.com to stay tuned in.

If any of you clicked on the links in the previous paragraph while still locked within the walls of our district’s network security system, you now understand while in the first bullet I noted that my PLN was “available ALMOST all the time”. It is very ironic that where I most need access to my PLN — at work — I am generally denied access to it.

That being said, I love what I do. So, when do I access my PLN? Usually in the evenings, at home, after my little one has gone to bed. And here’s the craziest part — I ENJOY it. And the resources I learn about are invaluable to me.

So, I’d like to invite you to join my Twitter PLN. Go to Twitter.com and create an account for yourself. Then, do a search for “tekkieteacher”. I invite you to follow me. I know it sounds a bit like stalking, but it really isn’t. Then, check out who I follow, and follow some of them, too. Check out the links to their other web presences – usually their blogs. Before you know it, you’ll have a PLN of your own! A lot of the chatter is just that, chatter. But every so many lines will come a wonderful tidbit of wisdom that you wouldn’t otherwise know about. The collective knowledge of a PLN can be truly astonishing.

As with all social networking tools, use them with caution. I don’t recommend allowing strangers to become your online “friend” or to follow you on Twitter. And be careful about sharing any type of personal information.

For some additional ideas on how to use Twitter as an educational tool, check out this article.

This week’s featured website is chocked full of tons (and I do mean tons) of Web 2.0 resources for education.

Web 2.0 Guru

Don’t be overwhelmed by what you see–to start, skim through the list and check out just a few that you think sound interesting. All the resouces listed there are free!

As an added bonus, the website is a wiki, so it gives you a chance to see what a wiki looks like and how it can be used.