Favorite Apps For Learning On The Go

I spend a great deal of time on the go. From working with all the schools in my district to traveling to far off lands to work with teachers, I sometimes feel like I am disconnected from my learning. And that bums me out!

There are a few apps (and some sites too) that I rely upon to keep me updated with whats happening and to teach a me a thing or two as well.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Zite-A lot of folks reading this have probably heard of Zite. But just in case you haven't, Zite is a curated magazine type app that delivers content to you based on your interests and feedback. When you create an account the app asks a couple of questions about what you'd like to see. They have thousands of sources so just a few key words and you will be greeted with hours of reading and learning. You can also choose to bring in your social feeds from Twitter and Facebook too to further the reach. I have a couple Education phrases along with Leadership and some technology stuff as well.

Flipboard-Similar to Zite, Flipboard looks and feels like more of a magazine. You can subscribe to your favorite sites with a simple search (or RSS feed address) and you can search what others are curating too. I will often times go into Flipboard and do searches to see what others are reading. That really helps me expand my learning. One board you will want to check out is FieldFlips from AnEstuary.com. They have lots of great education topics curated for you.

Podcast App-The popularity of podcasts seems to come and go. A few years ago loads of folks were listening and creating their own. Then the excitement seemed to wane but now they are on the rise again. I like hitting up the Podcast store in iTunes and seeing whats new in the Education, News or Tech categories. I can be walking through an airport but still feel like I am learning something new. #Edchat has its own podcast where you can hear a break down of that week's chat. But I also like the NPR Technology podcast and one of my favorites is the Get-It-Done Guy, which is full of short productivity and life hacking tips.

Lifehacker-Speaking of life hacking, I am a huge fan of Lifehacker. While it isn't an app, it is a pretty awesome website with tons of advice for, well, hacking your life. They have everything from design tips for presentations, to ideas for cutting the cord from cable or satellite, to what to do when you don't feel like working any more. I can always spend 5-10 minutes (but most of the time, way more) there and learn something pretty neat.

TED Talks-I've written about the power of TED talks before and their app is no different. All of the talks are available there along with short spinets which are great when you don't have the time to watch a full talk.

Twitter-Of course I have to list Twitter. But when I am on the go I spend a lot of time with Lists. Lists help me organize tweets into specific categories. So I have a list for tweeters I don't want to miss, policy folks, funny twitterers, etc. Lists are a great way to not feel like you have to be tied to Twitter all the time.

There are lots of options out there to keep up with learning. What are some of your favorites? Leave some suggestions below.

Happy learning!

photo credit: Daniel Y. Go via photopin cc

Get Your MOOC On!

Yep.

MOOC.

Massively Open Online Course.

Wikipedia defines MOOC as "an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user fora that help build a community for students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs)."

Simply, a MOOC is a online class you take that might have 100's or 1000's of people are participating at a time. They can be a great way to learn new skills while connecting with lots of other people with similar interests.

The Friday Institute at NCSU has developed 3 MOOCs that might be of interest to you.

Coaching Digital Learning | Cultivating a Culture of Change was developed by the Digital Learning Collaborative team at the Friday Institute, led by Verna Lalbeharie, Senior Program Director. Beginning March 10, this course is designed for educators and professionals who guide the integration of digital learning to support and enhance student learning (i.e. instructional technology coaches/facilitators, media specialists, mentor teachers). It will allow participants to learn what it takes to coach educators to integrate technology effectively; explore relevant frameworks, strategies, tools, and resources; experience opportunities for personalized application of new learning and job-embedded practices; and develop and share an Instructional Technology Coaching Action Plan to support their school/district's digital learning culture. For more information about this course or to register, please visit https://courses.mooc-ed.org/cdl1

Division and Multiplication of Whole Numbers: Bridging to Fraction Understanding is the second in the “Mathematics Learning Trajectories for the Common Core” MOOC-Ed series. This professional development series focuses on learning trajectories as a framework for interpreting and implementing the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M). Funded by a grant from the Hewlett Foundation to provide free professional development to educators around the new CCSS, this is the first of four courses that will be released throughout the year.

Division and Multiplication was developed by the GISMO Research Group at the Friday Institute, led by Dr. Jere Confrey and Dr. Alan Maloney. Beginning March 17, the course will introduce a learning trajectory approach to students’ multiplicative reasoning, exploring a stronger conceptual basis for multiplicative reasoning, so that multiplication and division of fractions is an extension of multiplication and division of whole numbers. It is recommended for elementary and middle grades mathematics educators. For more information about this course or to register, please visit https://courses.mooc-ed.org/dvm1

Registration will remain open until the end of Unit 2 for the Planning for the Digital Learning Transition (DLT) in K-12 Schools MOOC-Ed. In collaboration with the Alliance for Excellent Education, the DLT course will help participants understand the potential of digital learning in K-12 schools; assess progress and set future goals for their school or district; and plan to achieve those goals. The course is intended for school and district leaders, as well as any others involved in planning and implementing K-12 digital learning initiatives. For more information about this course or to register, please visit https://courses.mooc-ed.org/dlt3

To learn more about MOOC-Eds, please visit www.mooc-ed.org

Have you participated in a MOOC? Have a suggestion for another MOOC? Leave a comment or two below!

photo credit: IlonkaTallina via photopin cc

Digital Learning Day Is Coming! #DLDay

Digital Learning Day is coming Feb 5. Here is what you need to know. 

What: Digital Learning Day is a nationwide celebration of innovative teachers and common-sense, effective applications of digital learning in America’s schools that support teachers, improve learning, and provide options for students to achieve at their highest potential. Digital Learning Day materials and resources support educators at all levels as they navigate the shift to more robust digital learning environments to achieve higher standards for students.

Who: Anyone is encouraged to participate. There are activities for teachers, students, administrators and more!

Where: While all the activities are digitally-based, there is opportunities for face-to-face conversations on what digital learning is and what it means for students.

What Else? There are tons of free virtual sessions that you can take part in on topics ranging from demonstration of digital lesson plans, to discussions on the policies surrounding digital education. Also, on the Digital Learning Day website there are loads of lesson plans, activity ideas and more to do more on DLD! If you plan on doing something, anything, for Digital Learning Day, please take time to head over to the DLD website and add your event to their map.

What are you planning on doing for Digital Learning Day? Leave some suggestions below!

Showing How Awesome You Are-Building Your Brand

Back when I started this blog in February of  2009 I was trying to create a space to share resources with my teachers in my district. Web 2.0 tools were gaining in popularity so I wanted to capitalize on that, hence the name. The same with my Twitter account. I wanted the two places to be tied together.

I wasn't thinking about branding.

Fast forward 5 years and @web20classroom and this blog are who I am.

They are my personal brand.

But why is personal branding important? And how do you even start?

First the importance.

There is no doubt we live in a digital world. We are able to do tremendous things and accomplish so much because of our ability to live in this digital world. Your story and how you tell your story is becoming increasingly important. Employers are beginning to look at the digital habits of prospective employees to see what they are saying, doing and thinking. For kids, colleges are doing the same. And parents too, looking at the digital spaces their classrooms, teachers and schools create.

It is important for all of us as individuals to create spaces where we can show off the good things about us. These spaces can house our digital portfolios and give insight on what we say, do and think to anyone who comes looking.

Sounds complicated but it actually is pretty easy to start. And I bet you are already doing some of this.

There are 4 easy things you can do.

Create A Landing Page-A what? A landing page is a simple place that has some basic information about you. Similar to a bio page, this can be a place to highlight what makes you awesome. And there are about a bazzillion ways to do this. For me, the easiest and most effective way was to use About.me. It is a free service that creates a simple an elegant page that is all about you.

On mine you can see a picture of me, a short bio and, most importantly, an easy way to get in touch with without revealing my email address. So, someone can send me a short message and I can choose to reply with my email or with my About.me address. Oh and you can link to all your social media accounts too. It's a great way to highlight lots of information about you but you only have to use one address. There are other services that do this too like Vizify that can work well.

Create a Blog or Portfolio Site-You are pretty amazing. You do pretty amazing work. You need a place to show off all that awesome. A blog or portfolio site can be a great way to share presentations you do, exemplary lessons you create or projects you've worked on. Google sites are free and dead simple to use. I like using my blog for that work because it gives the added benefit of a space for my personal reflection as well. Wordpress has some great features for portfolios and blogs but Blogger could work too.

Create A Social Media Profile- Here is where some would disagree with me but I think it is important to have profiles across social media channels. Having profiles in Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Facebook or others doesn't mean you are constantly updating those spaces or spending massive amounts of time on those sites. But you are there. And you do have stuff there. It's another way for you to post your information and another way for others to find that important information about you.

I am in all of those social media spaces but I use each one very differently. I primarily use Twitter for my information gathering and sharing but post my blog posts to Google+. I have a Pinterest account and follow several boards and you can find me on Facebook (but only the information I want you to see.) The point is you are in several different places, posting, following and liking stuff that will build who you are.

Figure Out What You Are Going To Go By And Stick To It-Crazy to think about your name but its an important step. And this might take some thought. The last thing you want to do is change up the name of your blog, portfolio or Twitter account all the time. It makes it much more difficult for others to find you. Do a little research. Does someone have a similar name to you (like me)? Maybe you add your middle initial like I did. Or maybe you have a nickname that you use. Whatever you decide, give it lots of thought, do some searching to see what is already out there and once you settle on something stick to it.

But what about if you are a school or a district thinking about branding?

The same steps apply. And are important for showing off the great things kids in your classroom or building are doing. (And if you are a Principal or Teacher it's easy to be a one person PR Machine!)

The point of all this is that you want to highlight and share with the world what you are doing. And it doesn't have to be complex. With just a little bit of effort you can create a brand that truly shows the awesomeness that is you!

photo credit: tonyhall 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

Why You Should Give @ThingLink A Try

I regularly use images in presentations. Pictures can be a great way to share a particular message, or can be used to create the imagery I am trying convey. But sometimes I want my images to have a little extra umph. I want to be able to use one image and have it contain lots of information.

Enter ThingLink.

Thinglink allows you to upload an image, grab one from Facebook, import from Flickr or use a picture from the web.

Then you tag the parts and pieces of the image with links, videos, embeds and more.

So I took an image of Tom Whitby and I doing a talk a few years back in NYC at the #140Edu Conference.

So you can see here, I've clicked a place on the image to tag it. Then I can insert a link to a website, video or really anything. It's really super easy.

Here is the completed Thinglink of my image.(Hover over the image to see all the tags.) 

If it's not working for you in the embed, you can visit the completed image here. 

And sharing is easy. You can embed, as I've done here. Or you can share via the traditional social networks like Facebook or Twitter. And they've made it super easy to share to Edmodo too. 

Wondering how it fits in your classroom? Here are a couple of posts that have tons of ideas:

• 26 Ways To Use ThingLink In The Classroom
• 10 Innovative Ways To Use ThingLink
• A really neat way a music teacher is using ThingLink

Signing up is fast and easy. And I was able to upgrade to an Educator account with ease giving me a few more features. 

But what is super awesome is ThingLink is now offering free EDU Premium Accounts for teachers, a value of $250! ALL new teacher accounts that are created before the end of December will have access to Thinglink Premium features including custom icons, image carousels and stats, the ability to create classroom groups and much more!  There’s even a Thinglink app for Android and iOS devices!

The best news for educators is that students now have the opportunity to create interactive images to demonstrate and share their knowledge of concepts within a monitored environment. (You can go here to see how other teachers are using it. http://www.thinglink.com/action/store/education)

If you already have a Thinglink account—no problem! Just be sure to email #premium to education@thinglink.com. Write ThingLink EDU Campaign in the subject line. If you do not have a ThingLink account, simply create one with the email you responded to the promotion with.

So you can't beat free and you can't beat a free upgrade with loads of features. Head over to ThingLink to learn more and sign up today!

So...You Are Connected. Now What?

Remember October?

No, not Halloween. (Although if you are like me might still have some of your kid's candy still in the bucket on top of the refrigerator.)

Remember, it was Connected Educators Month.


It was the time to celebrate what it meant to be a connected educator and to help other educators get connected. There were some great events, book clubs, conversations and even a Twitter chat with U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan.

All in all, it was a great success.

Right?

I truly enjoy the idea of a month dedicated to connected educators, especially when it has the weight of the White House behind it. But a month really isn't enough. These are conversations that need to to happen every month, every week, every day of the year.

So where do we go from here?

Maybe you are newly connected and don't really know where to go from here. Or maybe you've been connected for a while but aren't sure what to do.

Ask yourself these 3 questions...

Why Am I Connected? Being connected is one of the most important aspects of my professional being. Not a day goes by that I don't rely on someone or something from my connections.

Being connected challenges me, everyday.

Being connected pushes me, everyday.

Being connected helps me grow, everyday.

Being a connected educator is part of me, both professionally and personally and I could not imagine myself otherwise.

So ask yourself, why are you connected?

What Can I Do To Be More Connected?  There were lots of events in October that helped you get connected, or more connected. The twice-daily emails were a great way to keep in touch with all the learning that was happening. But now the emails have ended. So how can you continue the moment and keep growing those connections?

• Check Out The Connected Educators Month Website. Yep. There are still tons of events on the calendar and you can get hooked up with the EdConnectr and continue conversations or start new ones. 
• Twitter Chats. I've talked a lot about Twitter chats. But seriously. Check out the Edu Twitter Chat Calendar and take part. 
• Lurk and Learn. There is power in just lurking. Lurk on Twitter. Lurk on other educational social networks. Listen to other conversations. See what others are talking about. I bet, in a short time, you will want to jump in and provide your two cents. 

How Can I Help Someone Else To Be Connected? To put it simply, once we are connected, we should help as many others get connected too. That can be a lot of pressure. So work one just one colleague. Send them some resources you found on Classroom 2.0. Tell them about a link you saw on a Twitter chat. Help them start a blog. Nurture someone elses connected learning by helping seed their development. Don't know where to start? The resource kits on the CEM website can help.

So while it may not be October any more, we can still celebrate the connected educator and grow ourselves and those educators around us.