A New Year And A New Way To Twitter Chat

After being involved with the creation, participation and evolution of one of the largest hashtags and Twitter chats around (#edchat) I always hear the same feedback wherever I go. Things like:

• I like the chat, but it’s too hard to follow. 
• Is there a pause button so I can slow it down and read what everyone is saying? 
• There’s a lot of great information but the archives are difficult to search to find what I am looking for. 

And over the years, there have been many suggestions that we and others have offered to help participating in these necessary learning events easier -  and the experience better. These suggestions have included creating specific columns in apps like Tweetdeck and using chat specific sites like Tweetchat. But there wasn’t really one place where educators could go to have a better chat experience...

Until now.

The folks over at Participate Learning have created Chats, a new platform to help anyone participate, follow or catch up on their favorite Twitter chats. As well, Chats is integrated with everything else you can do with Participate Learning, including finding vetted resources, creating collections around topics or lesson plans, and collaborating with others on resource suggestions and how to incorporate in instruction. Here is a Medium post from their CEO that explains why the built Chats.

It works like this.

Head over to their Chats page and pick the chat you want to participate in (live or after the fact). They have over 150 listed, with plans to add more as well as a place to suggest one you’d like to see there. Connect your Twitter account or use your free Participate Learning account and wham-o! You see all the things to make your chat experience better. No only are the Tweets there (that you can scroll through at your leisure), but you have a list of current participants and a whole box of nothing but the resources being shared. You can tweet right from the Chats page, Retweet, Favorite, Reply and other things available in Twitter clients.

So imagine, you have gone through your chat and you want to see the blog posts, websites, apps and more that were shared. Rather than going through the tweets, Participate Learning Chats gathers them all for you right there. Now you can combine those resources with the power of Participate Learning and send them to a collection to share with others, or come back to later.

And it’s not just resources either. You can create your own archive of the chat for any time length up to four hours, and save what you need to share it or come back to later.

What’s great about all this is you don’t even have to be in a chat. You can use these features any time. We know that hashtags are a great way to share information and there is awesome stuff being shared all the time. You can visit Participate Learning Chats and have all the access to the tweets, participants, resources, archives and sharing features.

My only addition I think would be great here would be a calendar to know the dates and times of all the chats listed (and the folks at Participate Learning tell me that is coming really soon!). The Education Chats Calendar also has that information so you can head there before participating.

So head over to Participate Learning and check out their new Chats feature. Use it for your next Twitter chat and let me know what you think!

How Tech Can Enrich Your Next Field Trip

This post is sponsored by Samsung. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Devices like tablets and wearables don’t just enhance classroom learning—they can also transform field trips, making educational outings more interactive and memorable than before.

Culturally stimulating field trips were found to improve critical life skills in children in a 2013 study from the University of Arkansas. And with tablets, smartwatches and virtual reality headsets in hand, a whole new avenue of learning opens up for our educators and students.

“Today—and tomorrow’s—mobile technology can enhance the actual educational impact of the field trip through all phases of the learning experience,” says Ellen Paxton, founder of the Professional Learning Board.

Getting students truly involved in their surroundings during a school outing by using technology to capture information, do research and visualize the unseen makes them more invested in the experience. It “provides a stronger personal connection to the learning objective of the field trip,” according to Paxton.

Here are a few ways to make it happen:

Scavenger Hunt
Build time into the trip for students to explore the destination freely. Send them on a technology-enhanced scavenger hunt where they use tablets or Samsung’s Gear smartwatches (which come with built-in cameras) to capture photos of certain objects, landmarks, details or personal discoveries. They can take notes on the go, and complete photo descriptions once back in the classroom. This article has a nice idea for doing a scavenger hunt on school grounds, too.

Data Collection
Science field trips can encourage students to explore an environment independently, conducting field research by capturing photos, video, measurements and other observations.

The Sequoia Park Zoo in Northern California did just that by partnering with Humboldt County Office of Education to create a technology-based experience for visiting students using Samsung School. Students go out to the Redwood Forest behind the zoo to collect data and beam it back to the zoo learning center, where teachers can monitor how their students use the technology. Learn more about the program here.

Virtual Field Trips
Virtual reality technology allows students to hear and see things that would be otherwise unavailable to them—places like outer space, ancient Rome, or the bottom of the ocean become accessible. These multisensory experiences enhance students’ conceptual understanding, and improve their ability to recall information. Samsung is partnering with Oculus Rift to build the Samsung Gear VR, which is a mobile VR headset.

High school guidance counselors can even use virtual reality experiences powered by YouVisit Colleges to help students explore university campuses around the world and find the right school

This is just the beginning. Who knows where technology will take us next?

Photo credit: GraysonHighlands-hiking via photopin (license) For more content like this, follow Samsung on Insights, EDU Twitter, EDU LinkedIn , YouTube and SlideShare. 

Bing In The Classroom

The folks over at Microsoft Bing in the Classroom Initiative hope to help students be better searchers of information and build a foundation of good digital literacy skills. It's definitely something worth a look.

It all starts with registering your district (or independent school) as a Bing In The Classroom partner. When your schools community members use Bing at home they can donate to your school to receive credits from their searches. Those credits add up to free Surface tablets for your school. Simply search and earn free tech. Neat!

What I think the most beneficial part of the Bing In The Classroom program are the free to use digital literacy lesson plans. They range in topics from traditional computer science lessons like programming and coding to more integrated content areas like math, chemistry, the arts, design and more. Lessons range from Kindergarten all the way through High School. Each is aligned to the Common Core and has additional resources to help extend the lesson.

Some of my favorites:

• K-4: Query Formulation-Even our youngest students can learn the best terms and ways to find the information they need. 
• All Grades: Texting-There are several lessons for all grade levels to help students (and adults) understand texting, how to do it appropriately and how to avoid the pitfalls as we grow older. 
• K-8: Robotics-These lessons introduce students to the history of robotics but also the impacts robots have on our daily lives. 
• HS: Hungry On Mars- Students are challenged to grow food in an environment hardly supports life. 

There are so many more! And many have a tie in to the Skype Education community so you can find a subject matter expert to help extend the lesson.

Take some time and check out the entire Bing in the Classroom initiative. There's lots to discover and learn!

Teaching Educator Digital Literacy With A Pinterest Party

This post is sponsored by Samsung. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I will freely admit that Pinterest is one of those services that I haven't been a big user of. When it first appeared my wife took to it instantly. Now, she is a teacher but she didn't go in the hunt of resources for the classroom. She was looking for recipes, design ideas and oddly enough, wedding dresses (we were already married so I'm still not really sure about that one).

During a multi-day workshop I was running in one of my schools a few years ago, we had teachers divide up in to curriculum teams to investigate and find resources for a unit of study they felt they were weak in. As soon as we turned them loose to get started, multiple hands went into the air.

"Why is Pinterest blocked?"

"I need to get to Pinterest to get started and I can't!"

I heard this over and over from across the room. The teachers, when setting out on a task to find resources for their classroom were not going to Google like they had done traditionally. They went to Pinterest to find what they needed. I had no idea it's popularity (nor did I know it was blocked in our schools). I had it unblocked and teachers went about their way.

But then we had a problem.

Most of the resources they were finding and wanting to use just weren't right. Some where not aligned to the correct content area. Others were just not pedagogically strong. And still others were copyrighted material that should have never been posted in the first place. The problems came when the teachers said the lessons looked great, or pretty, or fun. They weren't evaluating the resource, rather they were evaluating the look of the resource.

I am sure there are wonderful resources for the classroom and learning that are posted there. Many folks that you know through social media have boards there on a variety of subject areas. But Pinterest wasn't designed for sharing instructional resources. It's a visual medium for food and design and fashion. So if we are going to use it to share instructional resources, we have to take additional steps to ensure what we are finding is right for the classroom.

Traditional professional development in the realm of digital literacy can be quite boring. With all PD we have to rethink the way we do professional learning, especially when thinking about technology related PD. The learning needs of the educators has to be considered as well as the classroom environment.

This led me to an idea.

Curation and digital literacy are such necessary skills today. Understanding where to find the best information, how to vet that information, organize and share that information are crucial skills in this digital age. (Shameless plug-So important I wrote a book about it!) What if we combined the values of curation and resource sharing on Pinterest into an event.

A Pinterest Party!

The way it works.

Invite anyone, teachers, coaches, instructional staff to your Pinterest party. These could be teachers of the same subject or grade level or a mix of the two; however you want to do it. Then there are 2 rules. They must bring a board of resources they've collected that they are using in the classroom for an upcoming unit of study. And they must bring a dish that they found on Pinterest to share with everyone.

Who wouldn't want to come to a professional development with tons of food!

While we are trying out all these great dishes of food we can get down to business. Talking about digital literacy. For each resource participants need to answer 4 questions:

• Where did the resource come from? Can you tell from the post who the original poster of the information was?
• Based on where the information came from, is it copyrighted? Can you reproduce it, post it yourself, or even use it without proper license? 
• Is the resource aligned? Look at your standards/units/instructional plans and decide, does this resource help you meet a teaching goal? 
• Will this resource help students learn? The most important question to answer, we have to look past how fun or "cute" a resource looks and determine if it will really help students meet an instructional objective. 

The goal is less about the actual resource finding and more about teaching those necessary digital literacy skills to find the best information in the classroom.

While Pinterest can be great medium for finding resources we've got to ensure they are the best resources.

For more content like this, follow Samsung on Insights, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare.

Photo credit: balloons via photopin (license)

Becoming Connected Is Easier Now More Than Ever

This post is sponsored by Samsung. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Across the globe educators just wrapped up celebrating Connected Educators Month. During October the focus was on helping all educators, everywhere, understand the importance of being connected to one another and an examination of all the ways to make that happen. It's always a fun month filled with book clubs, webinars, chats and conversations.

My one complaint with Connected Educators Month is that it's just a focus for a month. Being a Connected Educator can't be something we push once a month or for a week here and there. Being a Connected Educator is a mindset.

As Tom Whitby and I point out in our book, The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning (Corwin, 2014) we believe there are 8 things all Relevant, Connected Educators do:

• Practices and Models Lifelong Learning
• Views Failure As Part of the Process of Learning
• Believes in Sharing and Collaboration
• Willing to Explore, Question, Elaborate, and Advance Ideas Through Connections With Other Educators
• Uses Technology and it's Connection to Other Educators to Learn and Teach
• Uses the Tools of Technology to Personalize Their Professional Development
• Comfortable With New Technology and Shows a Willingness to Explore
• May Put Creation Over Content and Relevance Over Doctrine

These Tenets of being a Relevant, Connected Educator should be embraced by all in the teaching profession. We are deliberately provocative for a reason. In order to maintain relevancy in the classroom for students and each other, educators need to connect together, to learn, share, reflect and grow. 

While it sounds like a daunting task for those that are just beginning to explore this world, it doesn't have to be. Our mobility, use of social media and access to devices has made making connections easy and impactful. 

Learning On The Go-More and more educators are writing, reflecting and sharing through blogs and articles. Because of the shear volume it can be difficult to find exactly what you looking for. And who has time to sit in front of a laptop for hours searching for just the right blog post. We can use those in-between times because of our access to mobile to do some learning, growing and reflecting. Waiting for a doctors appointment? Picking up the kids after school? Any time we're waiting can be time for learning. 

Apps like Flipboard curate the web and find the content that you want to see. It allows the user to customize the sources and type of content you want to see. For example, I can give a piece of content and thumbs up and now the app knows I like that source and like that topic and it will find similar content for me. Apps like this not only make learning happen anywhere, it makes that learning truly personal. 

Personalizing Professional Development-Personalized learning doesn't have to stop at apps. Educators, now more than ever before have multiple options to take part in professional learning from the comfort of their own home. As Samsung points out in a great post, over 90% of teachers have a need for specific PD in digital resources. And in most cases these needs are drastically different (just as they are in the classroom). The reality is, districts can't provide personalized PD to every educator. Therefore, we have to seek out those places on our own to fill those gaps. 

Edweb is one of my favorites. Edweb is a group of communities on a wide variety of educational topics. Leadership, digital learning, the arts, school communications, even school gardens are just a handful of the 100's of communities that are there. Communities have message boards to share ideas and ask questions, blogs, and more. But the best part of Edweb are the free (and on-demand) webinars that take place there. On any given day you can find 2-4 free webinars on an even wider variety of topics. And after each webinar every participant gets a certificate of attendance. Can't attend a webinar live? No worries! You can view it on demand in the community. 

Reflecting on our Learning-Just as it's important for students to do, educators need to reflect on their learning and share that growth with others. Often we just need to talk-it-out with others to better understand our own positions and thoughts. Teaching can be isolating but it doesn't have to be. Alone we are smart but together we are brilliant. We have to work and share together to all be better. 

Twitter chats, as I have said for a very long time, can be a great starting point for these types of reflections. As a founder of #edchat, I have seen the evolution of Twitter chats over the last 7 years and seen the impact and power they can have for educators. In the beginning there were just a handful of chats to pick from. Today there are in upwards of 30 a day. Most states in the US have a chat, and there are chats that take place from all corners of the globe on just about any topic you can choose from. Check out the Twitter Chat schedule to learn more and, most importantly, commit to participating or lurking on a chat. 

As Educators, being connected should be an important part of our growth process. If we are truly committed to being lifelong learners and we want students to learn the importance of lifelong learning than we must use the power of mobility, social media and digital devices to reach out and learn, reflect and grow together. 

For more content like this, follow Samsung on Insights, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare.

Quick List of Classroom Blogging Resources

I originally wrote this in 2013. Since then a few resources have changed and I've come across some different ones. Enjoy!

Blogging is an important part of who I am as a professional. I can use this space to share resources with you, reflect on my own practice and try to figure out how to be a better educator. It is my public reflection on technology, leadership and learning.

Think about when you were in school. You write an essay. Who read it? Most likely the teacher and that is where it ended. You pour hours and hours into reflections on Shakespear, the economic and political effects of wars on society or how plants have evolved over time, yet the only person who read your thoughts are the teacher. Maybe you shared with a close friend or even the class. But generally the world was unaware of your thoughts and feelings.

Blogging changes that for kids. Now the audience is global and anyone can read, and in some cases respond and comment. Kids can post their writing, projects, thoughts and reflections. Teachers can provide prompts or starters and kids can pick up and run with it.

More and more teachers and classrooms are embracing blogging in the classroom. You're thinking about it, but are unsure where to even start or how to get started. Lets take a look at some classroom blogging resources to get started with.

There are lots of platforms to use. And the one you pick will depend on your district (blocked or not, policies, etc.) and how you want to manage them. Two very popular platforms are Edublogs and Kidblog. Both are very teacher friendly and ofter lots of features that make management easy. Edublogs has a great Getting Started section that will walk you through creation of your blogs and how to use them in the classroom.

Five Steps To Starting A Classroom Blog-Ms. Morris offers some great and personal advice on classroom blogging, learned from her own trial and error.

Educational Blogs and Blogging Resources-A wonderful Pinterest board fill of not only classroom specific blogs but additional resources for classroom blogging.

Two Critical Tips For Blogging Projects-From my good friend Bill, this post offers some more great advice on blogging in the classroom and how to make it successful.

Collection Of Blogging Resources-When I think of classroom blogging I think of Silvia Tolisano. She has been blogging, on, well blogging for a while. Her resources for classroom blogs are extensive and worth spending lots of time with.

Tips For Blogging With Students-Sue Waters (from Edublogs) also has written a lot about blogging with kids. This collection of tips are definitely not to be missed.

Student Blogging Guidelines-Some teachers will want some guidance in place when they undertake blogs with kids. Kim lays out some easy to follow guidelines that might make implementation easier.

So you can get started. You can manage your blogs. But what will you do with them. More over, what will kids do with these spaces. In addition to the ideas I laid out earlier, there are a couple more to consider.

The Student Blogging Challenge is a great way to get into blogging and get kids into their blogs. The challenge is hosted by Edublogs but you don't have to use Edublogs to take part. The challenges range from helping kids understand the mechanics of the blog to learning about digital footprints. Each challenge has prompts the kids can use as starters for posts too. And while the challenge goes on for a specific time, you can certain jump in any time and start.

And lastly, one of the great communities out there that supports student blogging is Comments4Kids. Remember before when we talked about reflection beyond the teacher? Comments4Kids aims to extend the reach of student blogs and provide feedback on posts and show kids the world is reading what they are writing. There is a Twitter hashtag too (#Comments4Kids) that you can use to post blog links or ask questions. Join the Comments4Kids blog and share your posts with the world!

Do you have a favorite resource for blogging in the classroom? Or some advice? Leave your comments below.

photo credit: Kristina B via photopin cc

Reaching The Community With Periscope

This post is sponsored by Samsung Business. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I am on the road a lot. Traveling the country, working with teachers and districts to improve the way they use technology and bridge the gaps in the way they communicate with their communities. And while I have the best job in the world, that means I miss many opportunities to be involved with my first grader and what's happening in her school. Parent-Teacher Conferences, After-School Events, other meetings, are just out of reach.

Or are they?

Periscope is a live video streaming app that lives on your mobile device. To broadcast, simply fire up the app, give the broadcast a title and go. No complex set-up. No special equipment needed. You carry around a full fledged broadcasting station in your pocket with the power of one app.

To view, one gets a notification on their device that a broadcast has begun and they can tune in. While watching they can type comments and even favorite individual parts of the broadcast by touching the heart in the bottom right.

I am by no means the first to suggest using Periscope in Education. In fact a simple Google Search for "Periscope in Education" yields over 2.1 million hits. But if you begin to look at the suggestions most focus on in the classroom. And while there is potential in video streaming events in the classroom, I believe the greater impact is out of the classroom, getting parents and the community excited about whats happening in our schools.

Here are just a handful of ways to think about using Periscope to build community relationships:

Broadcasting After-School Meetings-Many adults don't work in traditional settings nor do they keep traditional hours. Those that work 2nd or 3rd shift or have multiple jobs may never be able to attend a parent meeting in the evening because of other conflicts. Or the lack of child care can prevent some from being more involved. With Periscope you can broadcast those meetings simply and easily allowing anyone, anywhere to see, comment and ask questions.

Athletics Highlights-Many schools have programs to record or even broadcast live the major sports in their schools but what about sports that don't typically get covered? Soccer, cross-country, tennis, track and field, these sports are just as important. And again, not every parent can be there for every event. So using Periscope could help them be more a part of them. And with the privacy functions built into the app you can allow in just who you want so you are in control of who can view and who cannot.

Parent-Teacher Conferences-In my situation using Periscope could be a great way for me to be at the conference without actually being there. Sure, using something like Google Hangouts would be a better choice because its 2-way video, but what about if I'm in a busy airport with lots of noise, or the equipment for a 2-way video chat just isn't available where the teacher is. Using Periscope allows me to be involved and takes the guess work out of the setup.

The inevitable question will arise, yeah but what if I can't see it live? Periscope doesn't offer a feature to save or publish videos. Fear not! With Periscope you can save your videos to your camera roll. Then you can publish them and share them to your social media accounts.

Periscope can be a great addition to the tools you use to communicate with your communities. Remember, its not the only way or replace what's already working. It's just another way to build those bridges.

For more content like this, follow Samsung Business on Insights, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and SlideShare.