Looking Back at 2014 and Forward to 2015

What a year it has been.

And now that it's coming to a close I like to take a look at the most popular posts here and do a bit of looking into the crystal ball to see what conversations might be on the horizon for next year.

First, the most popular posts!

3 Things We Need To Remember For Every Professional Development-I have dedicated my career to enhancing the professional knowledge of other educators so that they feel empowered to conquer any obstacles in and out of the classroom. And in my time in working with educators from across the globe I think there are 3 things anyone who delivers professional development need to remember. This post from January was my most read and one I hope you find valuable.

Why Twitter Chats Matter-For the past 5 years #Edchat has been a staple on Tuesday evenings. Since then hundreds of conversations on Twitter on a variety of topics take place each week. Twitter chats serve to connect educators and learners but they also do so much more. In this post from May we look at all that Twitter chats do for learning and why you should take part.

Let's Build Something Together: Resources for Genius Hour, 20 Time and Maker Spaces-This year has seen a boom in maker spaces and giving time back to students to pursue their passions. There are lots of ways to do that and this post complies some of the best resources our there and offers tips and advice for getting started.

Why Formative Assessments Matter-I have been a long time advocate for the need to shift our assessment focus from the summative to the formative. Pinpointing learning when it happens and how it happens is important for student mastery. In this post from June we look at what formative assessments really are, how they are beneficial and some easy ways to make it happen in the classroom.

Quick Collection of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Resources-Before I left my role as Director of Instructional Technology for a large district in North Carolina I was instituting a BYOD program. And during that time I collected a mountain of resources to implement BYOD effectively and get the most out of it for learning. This was my most popular app and site focused post of the year.

Favorite Apps For Learning On The Go-I travel a lot so I am usually in a car, on a plane or in an airport. I try to take every advantage I can I keep up with what's happening in the Ed space but also take time to learn something new. This post highlights some of my favorite apps for learning and keeping up with everything while on the move.

2014 was filled with all sorts of conversations, mostly centered around personalization of learning and creating more student centered environments and I don't see that slowing down in 2015. I believe we will see more of the same, hopefully with much more depth in the coming months. I see maker spaces becoming more mainstream and more classrooms and schools embracing all they can do for learning. But I also see a slow down in the number of devices purchased by districts as they take a hard look at the ones purchased in the previous years and evaluate how effective those programs have been. (Something they should have done on the front end.)

But you know I could be wrong, and probably will be! The great thing is these are incredible times to be a learner and educator. New things happen everyday in the Ed space.

Here's to a Happy New Year to you!

Remember to make it awesome, everyday!

Photo Credit: Anders Adermark via photopin cc

Reflections On 2013-This Year's Most Popular Posts

As 2013 comes to a close let's take a quick look at the most popular posts here over the course of the last year.

It seems the voices, both for and against the Common Core State Standards got louder over the past year. Wherever you come down on the debate I hope we can all agree that, in most cases, summative assessments have their place. But in day-to-day learning in the classroom formative assessments give us a truer picture of how are kids are learning and how our teaching needs to adapt. In Formative Assessments Are Easier Than You Think, we took a look at a few, simple techniques and tools you could use each day to gauge how your students were learning and gain valuable insight into their learning. And in Why Formative Assessments Matter we look at a story of how formative assessments changed one classroom for the better.

The gathering of information is just one part of the digital literacy puzzle. Understanding how to organize, or curate that information is, I would argue, much more of an important skill. In the past, the only way we could keep our bookmarks and resources was in our browser. Now we can take that information anywhere, to any device, and share it with anyone with social bookmarking and social curation tools. In the post Doing More With Diigo we took a look at what the service is and how teachers and students could use it to collect, curate and share information.

Blogging is a large part of my professional and personal reflection process. I use my blog to share, think and learn in a public way. Blogging is also becoming a larger part of student's learning. But how do you get started? What services can you use? How can blogs be used in the classroom? Are their prompts you can use? How about grading them? In the post So...You Wanna Use Blogs In The Classroom, we looked at the answers to all those questions and more.

Collecting and curating information is just part of the digital literacy package. If you don't have the skills necessary to keep safe online, you could end up making a lifelong mistake. (Just ask Justine Sacco.) We all need to understand how be smart and how to protect our information and our identities while living online. In So...You Wanna Be A Good Digital Citizen we took a look at resources kids and teachers can use to be better digital users.

In my position of technology leadership I spend a lot of time talking to school and district leaders about technology integration and how technology can be better utilized for learning. I use a lot of resources to prompt conversations and get our administrators thinking. In the post 5 Leadership Questions To Finish (And Start) The School Year With I look at one of my favorite technology leadership assessments and pull out the 5 questions we all need to ask to help drive our reflections and our technology decisions each year.

An interesting collection of posts indeed.

While not as popular in terms of views, I did have some posts that were fun to write. A few of my favorites from the past year included:

Going Global-Tips and Resources for Global Collaborations
The Administrator PR Machine
The Summer Series of Learning (10 Posts To Learn Something Over The Summer, or Anytime!)
So...You Are Connected. Now What? 

This year proved to be my lightest for blog posts. After 5 years, however, I still find this space valuable for my professional and personal growth as an educator and learner. I am so glad you are reading and hope you will join me in 2014 for even more reflections, sharing, learning and growing!

Happy New Year!

photo credit: GraceOda via photopin cc

Looking Back At 2011 And Looking Forward To 2012

For the past few years (here and here) I started a tradition (if we can call it that) where I look back at the year in #edtech and try to make predictions as to what's going to take hold in the coming year. No science behind any of this. Just my feelings from what I have been reading and seeing and what I believe will take a great hold in educational technology.

So, how did I do last year?

QR Codes- I said QR would take more of a foot hold. That I believe to be true. We are seeing more and more teachers, conferences, and companies embrace QR as another way to engage students, audiences and customers. One of the most useful examples I saw this year was at a Moodle conference where in the digital conference guide was a QR next to each session. When scanned the QR set up a calendar event with a reminder for the time and location of the session, and the contact information for the presenter so you had it after you left. What a pretty nifty idea. Still don't believe me? My buddy Richard over at FreeTech4Teachers had 10 posts this year about QR. Everything from code makers to ideas for use in the classroom to a way to use them for scavenger hunts (which is pretty cool too.) If you still wanna learn more you can check out my Livebinder all about QR.

More Social Networking- This all boiled down to the continued growth of using Social Media and social networks for learning. While I believe this did happen this year I don't really have a way to measure it. I can say from what I saw in my travels around that educators still are just scratching the surface when it comes to 24/7 Professional Development. We did see things like #edchat and The Reform Symposum grow this year which is great but there is still resistance out there that has to be overcome. Perhaps we will see some movement there this year.

Tablets- It's going to be tough to find anyone who would argue that Tablet did not increase in use in education this year. I wrote several posts about my favorite places to find information about iPads in education or my favorite iPad/Android apps for Administrators. Even in my district we began a tablet roll out with Galaxy Tabs for our Administrators. Look at what my good friend Patrick did at his high school, going 1-to-1 with iPads. These are just a few examples. There are so many more out there and I believe many more to come.

Xbox Kinect- This was my wild card. I didn't really see or hear of much of it's use in education this year. There might be examples out there for Special Ed or Physical Ed that I just didn't hear about but I would love to if you have any examples. Leave them in the comments below.

So what do I think is going to happen this year?

Free Online Courses Will Continue To Grow-Over the past year we saw schools like MIT and Stanford offer up totally free courses in computer science and engineering to anyone who wants to take them. (MIT has had something like this already for a while called OpenCourseware.) But these are the same classes that the students at the universities take, open to the public. Now, its not enough for a degree or anything but if you wanna get your feet wet and do it with some of the greatest minds out there, why not? I think we are going to see more colleges and universities open their courses to the public like this for free. This idea of access to education is only going to grow, I believe, into something pretty amazing.

Badges-Playing off of the Open Course movement I think we will continue to see badges grow in popularity. Think of it like a Merritt badge. You do something, show mastery and get a badge. There was a great piece in Mindshift KQED just before the holiday about badges and how employers could use them. I think, maybe, one day we could see badges rank up there with degrees. Why specialize in one thing when you can take a buffet of courses, get some badges that show mastery and be a versatile member of society. Of course all of this is a long way off but I do think we see more and more conversations about badges and their place in learning.

BYOD- Many are exploring the idea of Bring Your Own Device as an alternative to purchasing devices for students. Look at my district. 57,000 students. And we are only the 5th largest in NC. Providing devices for all students is definitely a challenge. BYOD can help. For me, the device doesn't matter. Its the access to information and the ability to create new learning that's important. I think more districts will revise cellphone and device policies and we will see more and more schools and districts allow students to bring technology with them. Of course that means a change in pedagogy and teaching and (hopefully) we will see that right along with this.

Overall I think we will see more educators embrace social media, more schools and districts see social media as a viable alternative to Face-to-Face Professional Development, digital learning books will take more of a foothold (because of tablets and personal devices in the classroom) and maybe, just maybe, we will see a shift away from learning about specific tools to how learning can be enhanced (TPACK) through the use of technology.

It was a great year. Loads of great things happened. And there are still lots of unknowns out there. But that is what makes working in Educational Technology so exciting right?

What do you think? Is there anything you see that will make waves this year? Leave some comments below.

Image under CC License from and the bird took flight on Flickr. 

The Top Posts Of Web20Classroom For 2011

Is it 2012 already?

Another year has come and gone and like several of my good blogging friends have done I wanted to recap the Top 5 Posts from this year. I am sorta surprised at the mix but there are some, if I do say so myself, good posts.

Quick List Of iPad Resources For The Classroom-This was my top post of the year. It contains several of my favorite sites and collections of using not just iPads but mobile devices in general in the classroom.

Twitter In Schools-A Getting Started Guide-In this post I lay out things to consider when starting a class/school/district Twitter account. There's more to it than just signing up.Who will manage? What will you tweet? Even what should your name be? There are all sorts of questions to ask when getting started. 

Twitter Series-A New Kind Of PD- Back at the beginning of this school year I did a series of posts related to using Twitter as an individual. In this post I address Professional Development when it comes to teaching about Twitter and how I radically changed the way I do it. Is it possible to use Twitter without being a member? Sure. And for some that's all they need.

Twitter Series-Super Secret Tips And Tricks- Another post from my Twitter series, in this one I give you everything you need to know to get more out of Twitter and to find more good information.

Taking Care Of Your Digital Self- Cultivating a digital footprint is important and in this age it begins even before birth. What can you do to begin taking control and getting a positive message out there? And what can you do to protect yourself at the same time.

Here's to another great year of blogging, learning, reflecting and growing, together!

Image under CC License from Sunkato

Looking Back At 2010 And Looking Forward To 2011...

Image From CC Search-Flickr (User Kadath)

Seems like it's the cool thing this time of year to look back at the previous year, where we have been and to look forward, to where we are going. I want to be hip. So here is my reflections on 2010 and my predictions for 2011.

I wrote a post on December 28, 2009 where I talked about tools that I thought would have a break out year.

How did I do?

Voicethread- I still don't think this wonderful program gets the attention it deserves. There was a lot of buzz about it every now and then on Twitter but I still don't see it's widespread adoption as a great storytelling tool and feedback tool. If you aren't familiar, Voicethread is a program where you drop in some images and then can record text, audio or video around the image. The best part is that others can do the same. Think about it in a lower elementary classroom. Kids draw images representing what their year will be like. Then the other kids in the class record their thoughts around the image. Very easy and lots of potential. Here is an example I use a lot where I asked people to give me their thoughts on what a PLN (Personal Learning Network) means to them.



I still believe this is a great and easy tool for anyone to use. Need ideas? Check out the Voicethread In Education wiki for some.

Skype- I do think I got this one right. Skype took off and more and more teachers are using it in the classroom. Even Skype itself got in the game late in the year and created a place for teachers to sign-up to connected with other classrooms. I have noticed there are less people talking about it being blocked, which is a positive. They have rolled out 10 way video calling but you only get it for 30 days unless you pay. Bummer. They are moving more and more into the mobile market and now you can do video calls on the iPhone. I see more great things this year for the program. If you need ideas, check out one of my favorite ways to use it, Around The World With 80 Schools.

Ning- What can we say about Ning? They decided to go to a paid service. So many educators ditched the service all together since the free options for educators doesn't really have all that they need. Many people looked at free options like the Buddypress add in for a Wordpress blog. That seems to work well, if you know what you are doing. I think the bigger story here is the fact that social networking in the classroom really took off. Through the use of Twitter, Facebook and other sites, educators are starting to see the power of social media to extend learning beyond the classroom. So if Ning is gone where can you turn to introduce social networking to your students? Here is a great list created right after Ning went paid.

Diigo-I am gonna say that I got this one mostly right. Diigo did have a break out year. More and more people started using the great education features. It wasn't until the end of December that they really started to grow with the mostly correct announcement that Delicious (another social bookmarking service) was being shut down or sold off by Yahoo. More and more people jumped ship and imported their bookmarks into Diigo. I think more and more people will begin to use the service and more and more educators will see the power that those features have in the classroom. Look for great things from Diigo this year.

So what do I see for this year? Well I learned my lesson last year so I will try to be less tool specific but I think there are somethings to keep an eye on for this year.

QR Codes-If you have been keeping up with my blog I have written a lot (here and here) about QR Codes. (I even have a Livebinder full of resources.) I see these popping up in more and more places and I think this could be the year that they really break out into the mainstream both out of the classroom and in. Education author and all around awesome guy, Jeff Utecht, wrote that this is the year of the QR code. Check out his thoughts.

More Social Networking- I believe that more and more educators will see the benefits of having a place where their students can meet online to share information, gather or just chat, outside the classroom. Some are already using spaces where kids are like Facebook but I believe services like Edmodo (one of my favorites) will continue to grow and gain in popularity.

Tablets- The iPad is wicked cool. While there are some imitators out there, I haven't really seen good competition. (The Samsung Galaxy is about the closest.) Expect that to change in a few weeks at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This is the chance for us to see what will be hot in electronics this year and I expect it to be tablets. Once the price is right I think these will replace netbooks and laptops in 1:1 programs in schools. That is, as long as the apps keep up. And that is key. Apps are what make the iPad so great. So education related companies are going to have to be innovative in the apps they create for these devices.

I do have a wildcard piece of tech this year to keep an eye on. The Xbox Kinect. This is basically a camera system that you connect to your Xbox and play games without an controller. Cool stuff. The use in physical education is obvious. But I am thinking about the use in Special Ed and physical therapy. Lots of potential there and I bet we will see at least one education company develop learning games for the Kinect. And it acts as a webcam so it could fit easily into the classroom.

So there it is. My reflections on 2010, and my thoughts on 2011. What do you think? What did I miss? What did I not consider? What do you think will be the "big thing" in Edtech this year. Leave some comments below.

Happy New Year!

Start The New Year Off Right With The Essential Tools For Educators

Recently I have been reflecting on the year and writing about some things to consider for next year like a few Google Tools or , as in yesterday's post, Applications that will break out next year. Today I just want to highlight a 4-part series I did back in Late October/Early November on The Essential Tools For The Connected Teacher.

There are some tools that educators need to embrace and learn how to use both in and out of the classroom. Each of the tools on these lists have some value either with students or for professional development. I encourage you, as part of a professional resolution for the coming year to investigate these tools. If you are already an expert, pass along the list to someone who isn't and perhaps resolve to take that educator under your wing and work with them this year.

Tools For Communication- In this post I highlight class websites, blogs, RSS readers, and Drop.Io for enhancing communication in and out of the classroom.

Tools For Collaborating With Students- Here I discuss Google Docs, wikis, Edmodo and Social Bookmarking as ways to promote collaboration with and among students.

Tools For Collaborating With Professionals- Learn about how Twitter, Ning, Skype and Google Wave can all be used to connect with and learn from other educators.

Tools To Create- See how easy it is to create a multimedia-rich classroom with Animoto, podcasts and Voicethread.

Remember to take it slow. Take one series and focus on that for a while. Don't try to integrate and use all these tools at once, you are doomed to fail. Rather, pick the ones you can see easily fitting into what you are already doing and grow from there.

Are there others you would add to the list? What would they be and why. Leave me some comments below!

Image From Google CC Search

Web 2.0 Tools That Will Break Through Next Year, With Your Help

Social Media and Web 2.0 Tools made huge inroads in education this year. From the Twitter explosion to Animoto to Google Apps there were several success stories of various tools making their way into the classroom for learning.

But I think the trend will only continue. I predict that there will be further growth of several tools over the next year. While none of these are new, they might only be known in small circles of teachers or educational/instructional technologists. But I believe each of these tools is on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the educational arena.

So here, in no particular order are the tools that, with your help, can break through to the educational mainstream.

________________________________________________________

Voicethread

There are 2 groups of people when it comes to Voicethread. Those that use it regularly and those that have no clue. (But I guess that is the case with anything.) Voicethread is an amazing program that allows you (but I hope your students) to upload photos in a slideshow format. On each picture the user can narrate and/or place text. Then anyone can leave a comment on the sides of the preso either in text or voice format. Sound complicated? It's not! Cindy Brock, an Educational Technology Specialist in Tennessee recently posted a Voicethread made by 2nd Graders at her school about Tennessee state symbols.

She then wen out on Twitter and had her PLN make comments. (You can scroll through the presentation so see more.) You can see the variation of comments from voice to text really makes Voicethread a cool application for teaching collaboration. Basic accounts are free but if you have enough teachers on board a school account is worth a look. The basic accounts work just fine for most all educators. Be sure to check out the Getting Started With VoiceThread In The Classroom Guide (PDF) and experiment. I think this app has huge potential to be the most talked about tool of 2010 just because of its ease of use and how really cool it is!

(Be sure to also check out my Essential Tools For The Connected Teacher Part 4 for more Voicethread resources.)

________________________________________________________

Skype

This is one most people of heard of, However, if you haven't, Skype is a free application that you download and register for an account. Once set up you can make free PC-to-PC calls with voice and/or video. You can also do conference calls with several people (although you can't do video with more than 2 people). There is also file sharing and screen sharing available, all for free.

I have written before about how Skype is a game changer in education. The ability to instantly connect with, for free, a classroom, author or expert on the other side of the globe is huge. In education we keep talking about giving our kids a "Global Education." Ok, so here is a something, FREE, that we can do it with, but yet I hear time and time again it is blocked. Bandwidth and content are cited most often. If you are an educator where that is the case it's time to show the value in the service. Talk about the connections.

Skype has the potential to make walled classroom obsolete next year. For an example check out Silvia Tolisano's Around The World With 80 Schools Project. And you can see this post for more Skype resources.

________________________________________________________

Ning

As I said before, Social Media had a breakout year with educators this year. Educators took Twitter by storm and several other services as well. But there is one that is primarily used for Professional Development that has the chance to make it's way into the mainstream classroom this next year.

Ning is the social network you create. Some liken it to Facebook, but for me its much, much different. There isn't the clutter on Ning like you find on Facebook and there are tons more controls for the creator. The ability to make the network private is a big one. The creator can also control how posts appear and content that is posted.

So what about the classroom? You can create your own virtual classroom with forums for asking and answering questions. Create groups where you students can collaborate virtually and share files. You can post videos from class. The possibilities are endless. (Check this out for more Ning info and resources.)

The classroom doesn't need to be just in the school building. Educators are fast discovering that maintaining a virtual classroom, like one created on Ning, can really produce some amazing discussions and provide a platform for great learning.

________________________________________________________

Diigo

What? Who is Diigo? Well its not really a who but more a what. Social Bookmarking stands to make it mainstream in the classroom. What is Social Bookmarking you ask? Well, the awesome guys over at Common Craft have provided us with an explanation.

I was a Delicious user for about a year. I had a Diigo account but never really used it much. All that changed about 4 months ago. I stopped using Delicious because of the requirement that all new users have a Yahoo account, which can be a problem for schools. Plus I discovered I could auto-post to Delicious so those that used that service and followed my bookmarks could still do so.

Ok, so what is so great about Diigo. They really cater to educators. Once you sign up fo an account you can request free educator access that gives you the ability to create student accounts and class accounts that have special features like privacy settings and broadcast messages.

Social Bookmarking wont revolutionize education or change it in any drastic way, however, it will make class operations easier. Teachers and students don't have to copy and paste long links into documents, print them out, take them to the lab and type them all in. Now, sites can be bookmarked and tagged for retrieved from anywhere. (Here are some more social bookmarking resources.)

________________________________________________________

Once again, these are not new tools. They have been around for a while. But I really do believe, with your help, we can make it a breakout year for Voicethread, Skype, Ning, and Diigo. They might already be big in your classroom or school. If so, that is awesome, tell others about them. Share success stories. Share stories of failure and learning from the failure. Pass this post on to a colleague. If these tools are not big where you are, now is the time. They are all free to set up, and so very easy to use. Try them out, ask around, see what others are doing.

Are there other tools that you think will have a breakout year? What are they? Why do they stand out to you? Leave me some comments below.

Have A Wonderful New Year!

Image From Google CC Search

Google Tools For The New Year

Everyone has got one. A Year in Review. Whether its for the top news stories of the year, or top gadgets of the year or even the top apologies of the year these lists are everywhere. Why look back when we can look forward?

This was a huge year for Google. From the acquisition of Etherpad, to the unveiling of the Google Phone to the biggest news of the year, Wave, Google is always looking to innovate and change the way we access information. While those might have been the biggest stories of the year there were some additions to Google Labs that you might have missed that are worth a look in the coming year. So here, in no order are my Top Google Tools Worth A Look At In 2010...

____________________________________________________________________

Living Stories

This product is a collaboration between the New York Times, Washington Post and Google to better organize news stories. Basically you take a singular topic like The Politics of Climate Change and Living Stories will show you all the related stories. Right now it just pulls in articles from the NYT and WP but there are plans to expand it to other news organizations in the future.

Here is a short video on how it works:

There is a huge amount of information stored on each Living Stories page like quotes, multimedia, important characters, and more, all, linked out so you can find more information. But the implications for education are quite large. In just a history or social studies class students can easily see the evolution of major news events and have all their research in one place. Right now the choices in stories is very limited but I expect this to be big next year and grow once they add more media outlets.

____________________________________________________________________

Google FastFlip

This is another news service but its slightly different. FastFlip is more like a visual magazine. It takes the most viewed and most popular news articles and blog posts, captures an image of the page and posts it to FastFlip. You can sort by Popular stories, topics, sections or sources. (You can't control the content so you need to be careful and view before hand.)

For example, Health Care is a very popular topic right now. Doing a FastFlip search returns visuals of the most popular and most read articles from a wide variety of sources about Health Care. (Click for a larger view)

This one has some potential. I would like to see the ability to filter out content. But it is a great way to discover stories from across the web that you might not normally see on the Google News site or through a regular search.

____________________________________________________________________

Google Moderator

This one has actually been around for a while but it is such a cool program I have to put it here. Moderator takes polling to a whole new level. You can create a place for brainstorming, feedback and collaboration. You set up what they call a Series where you ask a question. You can attach links, even a You Tube video to further explain and open it up to feedback, ideas and suggestions.

One of the cool public ones is the Ask A World Leader Series. With in that series are lists of all the major world leaders. Click on the name of one leader and see all the questions people have suggested they would ask that leader. You can vote on whether or not its a good question and even leave feedback.

This is an app that doesn't get the respect it deserves. Perfect for collaboration in the classroom, I see it being used for teacher feedback, evaluations and student group work. Its definitely one worth a closer look next year.

____________________________________________________________________

Google Image Swirl

This is another one that is new but very cool. In Swirl, Google has combined the regular ol' Image Search and Similar Images into one, visually appealing product.

Take for example the search term Washington DC. What you get are sets of images related to DC.

So you see some major monuments, people and events. If you click a set you get a swirl of related images. So for example if we click the image of the Washington Monument we get a new set of images that are all related.

The images in that set can be drilled down to further and further related images. Swirl is interesting. It's a pretty cool way to find images on a specific topic and find related images. While not every search will return a swirl I expect this app to grow and get better over the next year.

____________________________________________________________________

So there is a small list of Google Applications worth a look next year. Of course that is not all. Google Squared (which I have written about in the past) is one I would like to see more teachers using. Of course there are the favorites, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Book Search that are all worth the time to investigate and find a use for in the classroom.

Are there other Google Tools that you think teachers might not know about or understand how they could be used in the classroom? Leave a comment below.

Google Swirl Images from Official Google Blog