techtocktoe

Common Core Standards Resources for Edmodo Teachers

2012-03-08T17:20:00.003-05:00

Example of conversation

There is a wonderful group on edmodo that addresses the common core standards everyone is trying to make friends with. I came across a particularly helpful reminder post about using the appendixes. Teachers may forget they are there to help make sense or provide guidance. I have posted a picture of what you can expect from this group with the user's names and faces blurred. It is just a sample of the rich conversation I have found in this professional learning community. If you are an edmodo teacher and want to join this group, the group organizer is
Mrs. Kristina Holzweiss and the link to her as a connection is http://www.edmodo.com/lieberrian

How to subscribe your edmodo group to an RSS Feed.

2012-03-08T16:38:00.000-05:00

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Apps for Pre-schoolers

2012-02-13T12:03:00.000-05:00

http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/OiSA0H7fiby1/Preschool-Appy-Hour
This is a jog the web Created by Lisa Johnson, Instructional Technology Specialist at NEISD. It contains apps for pre-schoolers. Teachers will get to see the itunes preview by navigating through the left side of the jog.
tags: ipad_apps ipadapps ipadedu ipad ipads pre_school technology education web2.0 resources educational edtech

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Embedding youTube Videos in PowerPoint

2012-01-26T21:14:00.002-05:00

Collaborative Projects using Minecraft

2011-12-19T10:28:00.004-05:00

There are many opportunities to participate in a project while living in different locations. Recently, this group of middle schoolers' worked on a collaborative project together, each from the comfort of their own homes. They all have a Minecraft account, and they used one student's Minecraft server. This project allowed them to use their favorite online game to meet social studies and technology standards. The students communicated throughout the process with the online chat and through Skype group calling. The purpose of the project was to make a video about a pre-history village. Instead of dressing up and playing characters as the rest of the class did, they decided to BUILD an entire prehistory village using Minecraft software.
Minecraft is focused on creativity and building, allowing players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world.
Some of the challenges included getting certain students to stop goofing around and they also failed to START with a plan. As they built their village, they argued about each inclusion and whether or not it followed pre-history in terms of historical accuracy. They concentrated very heavily on only using building materials that were accessible during that time period.
What they learned by the end of the project was to set up specific times that they could all work on it together to finalize certain areas and make group decisions, to have a common plan and set zones and directives for each student to work on. They also had to learn diplomacy, they destroyed project pieces that did not meet rubric guidelines, but they had to explain/debate/support why they made that choice. It would have been more helpful to have a project manager who made final decisions like this established from the beginning. There was also a student who gave a non- participant access to the server, which was against the rules and he was temporarily turned off until the project was complete and captured on video. When it came time to shoot video of their online world, the students tried out various screencasting scenarios. They used Jing, and screencast-o-matic.com. For the narration, the students used a group call coming through Skype which they captured while they navigated through the site. This way more than one voice was represented on the video and no one had to leave their homes. This scenario works wonderfully if you have students in different countries, provided they are able to meet according to the time zones. It was also challenging because certain students failed to mention to their families that they were recording. There were background noises that interfered at times, forcing them to make many retakes of the video. Some students had microphones and others didn't. Some students had Skype accounts and others had to quickly create one. The beauty of this project is that the students chose the technology, they had to problem solve on the fly, and use multiple web 2.0 tools to assist them. The teacher simply gave them the topic of their video and the students managed the project specifics and timeline on their own.
As a teacher who now understands how this program works I would have asked for a basic master plan on paper first along with a list of team members and their roles. Although the students managed their project on their own, they could have benefited from some project management guidance and follow-up. I think I would also have mentioned that they should have scheduled times to work on it as a team for the necessary debates as well as the asynchronous work. It would have saved them some time.

Memiary Tutorials and the Power of Edmodo

2011-11-08T09:37:00.006-05:00

I have a teacher who needed a daily journaling program for his music students. He wanted them to have a place to enter certain information on a daily basis about the music they heard that day in class. Paperless was pat of the challenge. We debated using google forms but I posted my question on edmodo and received a quick response from another teacher. Memiary!
Here are the quick screencasts we made on using this tool. As a teacher, I can track all my student's Memiarys and make sure they are up to date. As a student I can see my whole calendar full of what I learned in music class during the year.

The Loss of Creativity

2011-11-01T07:15:00.007-04:00

Click on the comic to get the full view, The loss of creativity stems directly from what we ask of our students. Rote memorization and drills kill creativity. I thought this was one of the best articles a professor had ever shared with me.

A great article to read if you are a teacher or administrator...
Click on it...

Google+ New features -ripples and Creative Kit for quick photo editing

2011-10-28T07:02:00.000-04:00

See how a post is shared through rippples. Tracking the flow of information is a useful tool if you want to market your own posts or services. You can evaluate how information is spread, find the fastest route for the type of information you are trying to share and model your flow based on your research.

The creative kit tutorial is very easy to understand. My students are going to love this.

Now Google+ should be available on Google app accounts. I will be checking that out later today for a few of my districts.

Q-charts, Blooms Taxonomy and Edmodo

2011-10-21T07:21:00.001-04:00

Adding questions to edmodo

See where the questions are clustered

The Q-Chart is in use in our language arts classrooms. The teacher asks students to create questions by using one word from the left hand column and one word from the top row. The farther down and to the right she asks them to go, the more complex and high-level the questions. She explained to them where they were on the Bloom's Taxonomy Chart based on where their questions fell in the Q charts. With this particular activity, she chose the columns from they could build their questions. After the students wrote the questions, they posted them in our edmodo group for other students to answer. By allowing the students to create their own questions, it becomes a peer activity, totally student-directed, instead of teacher directed.

We expect students will to improve their ability to ask higher level thinking questions on their own as they have opportunities to practice during their guided reading groups.

Using the Smartboard for Keyboarding

2011-10-20T16:51:00.000-04:00

Smart Notebook solves many problems. We took a picture of the onscreen keyboard using the picture tool in Smart Notebook. Then hovered our hand over the home row keys and traced the outline using the red pen. We grouped the objects. The students come up the board and and we were able to move the keyboard with the hand placement to their height and resize it for their finger size. They were able to practice on the smartboard,(which they love) then go back to their seats and practice on real keyboards. We had them press each finger down on each key and sing the letters while they were up at the board.

Earning Edmodo Badges

2011-10-20T16:04:00.002-04:00

Here is one of our students earning her first edmodo badge for Keyboarding in Computer Class. The other students are clamoring to earn their own badges. The gamification of the classroom is underway. We will be developing leveled edmodo badges so that students can "Level Up."

How do we Keyboard?

2011-10-20T07:37:00.002-04:00

Inspired by Mike

2011-08-15T23:10:00.001-04:00

Never was hosting a podcast so easy as using soundcloud.com I cannot wait until they come out with a RSS feature, for now it is perfect for me to make podcasts in audacity and edit them, then upload them right to soundcloud. I am sure to exceed the free amount of space on my account in no time. Thank you Mike, in honor of your share I made a quick and dirty podcast about the edmodoCon conference I attended this week. I did not bother to edit out my uuuummms and aaaahhhhhhsss because I was doing it on the fly for a last wildcard fun exercise. Normally I script out my podcasts, but this was just a quick reflection. EdmodoCon by MichelleWendt

Meeting our classmates

2011-08-15T09:54:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday was a fabulous evening. I was able to meet Angela and Mike for the first time; I realize I have never been to actual class this semester. The first time I met people in person was at the Graduate Orientation. I also had to chance to meet some new students who have not been in our classes so far. I am glad I brought my laptop, we enrolled for classes right there at the table, even the newbies! Mike and I got right to work on a project- we both learned new tools. We played with soundcloud. I like how social this podcasting application is- people can annotate your podcast in the timeline and the annotations play along in text format during the podcast. Soundcloud reminds me of MTV's Pop-up video. The new Campus Center is beautiful, and I hope to be able to spend some time there eventually and reap the benefits of all that construction.

Wading through the debris

2011-08-06T17:55:00.001-04:00

I always feel busy, so this is a fun picture that gives me
an attitude adjustment. I am very lucky to be so busy...

In the process of trying to get my life in order this weekend, I am supposed to be working on many projects at once. How can order be achieved by chaos? I do not know... and seriously hope someone steps in to help me make sense of it all. As I sit here, trying to catch up on homework, work projects, and cleaning up the house/closets/drawers/fridge/laptops, I feel like a mountain is sitting on my head. I am going to try to focus for at least the next ten minutes on my orientation reflection homework. Since I am seriously disoriented working on everything I do NOT want to work on, I thought it was a fine match.

Last week some of my teachers attended a three day institute on technology integration. On the final day they had to plan a sustainability plan for technology use for the year. I had to talk one of them (let us call her Mary) off the ledge because she could not believe that she was going to use this document during the year. She was convinced that she would never open it again because that is not the way she works. Mary's orientation to learning demanded that she have a real-life application for her time spent on this project. Since she did not participate in the the planning of this activity, she couldn't see the connection to her own classroom and would rather have spent her day on something that was important to her. Although Mary learned how to use google docs and wikis on this day- skills she can carry back with her, this teacher would have benefitted from being involved in planning the learning objectives and activities. The next day, as we worked at our school on projects we had all planned together- there were no ledges or cliffs. I could tell that every teacher appreciated being in charge of their own learning, and were more oriented to learning. I see this trend in adult learners and do not see it as much in the pedagogical model. I think younger learners may be more conditioned to work on projects they did not select than older students.

Add Facebook and Twitter to Google+

2011-08-01T18:06:00.007-04:00

I found this very useful post today and installed the plugin, it works properly, I am pleased, so far.
You do want to read the whole post and take the three minute tutorial that they suggest. It is worth
the time to work these social networking sites to your best advantage.

Here is the link to the extension.
http://www.vikitech.com/4817/add-facebook-twitter-to-google-plus

I now need to find a plugin for edmodo and linkedin. The one I found for linkedin says it has a verified author, but I still have the willies. Extended Share for Google Plus

Verified author: mohamedmansour.com

Free

I now have the willies about all manner of plugins and extensions. I have to go back and check them all out because google+ is still so new.

Unplugged

2011-08-01T16:36:00.002-04:00

Me against an insane asylum background

Amazing that I am getting stressed out because my laptop battery is dying and I have to totally move to plug in somewhere. I do not want to interrupt the session. That is what happens when you go to a training and want to use your own equipment. Half the outlets in the room wouldn't work-had to run out to my car to get my trusty 50ft extension cord. BTW this is a photo booth shot with an imported background. If I had a pop-up green screen- that I keep forgetting to ask Santa for- it would have looked better.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Schools may block Google!

2011-07-27T07:30:00.000-04:00

Many schools block social networking sites. After one day of playing with Google+ and seeing how connected it is to all other google apps when we are signed in, I am worried that in an effort to block google+, schools will just block google. I am looking for answers on this topic. I assumed it would be a standalone piece, and it may be if just using google and never signing in, or if using google apps for education. My fear is that not every school technician understands how important the google apps are to educators, they may block google+ and wind up blocking google. I myself am usually signed in when I am working in schools, and now that I have google +, will I not be be able to use all my documents and calendars? Anyone out there have any insights?

You know what to do...

2011-07-27T06:43:00.000-04:00

All that for nothing!

2011-07-26T21:51:00.002-04:00

I wanted the google+ button on my posts and they just wouldn't show up no matter how many times I refreshed my blog. Since I have + they should automatically show up under my share area with all the other sharing icons. It was not showing at all. I read a few tutorials and actually went in and edited the HTML code, which is not normally a problem for me, but I swear the code I was looking for was SOOOOOOOOO buried. I did this with both blogs, put in the code for + and then when I saved, I noticed that my share bar HAD REFRESHED to include the +. Give me a break. My eyes did not appreciate that little 1/2 hour exercise at all. Now I have TWO buttons at the bottom of each post. Too bad, I am not going back in after the code now.

The Innovative Educator: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs - When and W...

2011-07-26T20:38:00.001-04:00

The Innovative Educator: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs - When and W...: "After week one I shared my thoughts about “ What Google+ Means for Education .” I’m on week two now and the big questions are: Do I really..."

Experience can go a long way- or it can get stuck in the mud

2011-07-25T17:51:00.000-04:00

Not all skills translate over from one job to another, some fields are very specific and so are some skills. I feel bad for some of my adult learners because it is not always possible to draw a personal or direct analogy to the technology they are facing to give them a frame of reference for understanding. Today, for instance, I spent a long period of time with one teacher and we were not speaking the same language. She wanted to save some links and some documents she had saved on a jump drive to her own computer. I was teaching her how to update her website and her jogtheweb.com sites. (That was the objective) Couple the lack of communication with internet troubles and we had a fun time trying to unstick ourselves from the mud. She understands favorites, she thought they would also exist on her google site. I was trying to show her how not to lose her data, and was uploading her documents to her google docs and linking them to her site pages. She does not understand documents in a cloud, so we had to go back and save them on her computer. Funny thing, her computer was hating us all day long. It would not stay connected to the internet, and we were all a little frustrated with it. She kept trying to use another person's computer to achieve her ends. She understands favorites, but doesn't understand where they live. She was trying to save favorites and documents to my computer and her friend's computer, not understanding that they would not be accessible on her own laptop.

How did all this happen? When a workshop is planned for a specific topic, such as google sites, that does not mean that all learners are ready to learn that topic, they may have questions and goals that are important to them that are PART of the objective, but are really not the focus of the day. It is hard to unstick oneself if there are other concerns dragging one down. She was not ready to move past her own goal to the class goal even though it was related. She was also trying to transfer her knowledge of favorites to another function, documents - not everything will translate over that easily. I could have shown her diigo or delicious, but that would have been like me speaking Martian to her. She needs bookmarks in the cloud, and we will get there, today she did learn that bookmarks are the same as favorites. Baby steps and lots of laughter saved the day...

Epals post ( Guest Blogger)

2011-07-25T17:20:00.002-04:00

Hi! I read your epals post and viewed your blog. It is wonderful!
I am Missy McCoskey in Missouri. I teach high school at risk students, which
means that I work with students who are at risk of dropping out of school or who
have already dropped out and are returning to try to get their diploma. I am
working on my masters degree on integrating technology in the classroom. Last
year I also taught one hour of math and was able to integrate technology in
innovative ways. It was wonderful. This year, I am focusing only on the at
risk students. They have a prescribed agenda to follow and it leaves me with no
outlet for my technology learning.....However, I have also moved rooms and will
have a smartboard for the first time. This is wonderful and I will play with it
and learn about it, but using it in my classroom will be a little difficult.
Since my students have a prescribed way to achieve, the smartboard is not part
of that, I will have to be creative. When my students finish recovering their
class, I want to have them work on projects for the school, like redesigning the
website, etc. I also want them to skype and email students in other countries.
I am open to ideas!
Last year I loved having my students start wikis. I created a wiki to organize
the wikis. Students created wikis for fractions, graphing, etc. They found
websites, games, etc. and posted those on the wiki. It was a very good
experience.

I have to collaborate online with other teachers for my masters degree and am
looking for someone to email or skype. Are you interested? It looks like your
schedule is already full and busy. Great job on your blog!

RESPONSE!

Missy, we would love to collaborate with you and possibly your class. We have new 6th and 7th grade classes starting up in September- let us know what time of year you are interested in and we can schedule it according to what works with your curriculum. April and May are tough for us, that is when we test, but we are available the rest of the months, September to June. I also have access to some high school teachers who may be a better match for you... They will see this blog post and let me know. I will be in touch through epals, thank you for being a guest blogger here!
Missy

Reflections of Adult Learning

2011-07-20T16:31:00.001-04:00

A picture does not always paint a thousand words, sometimes an explanation IS needed. This is what I learned this week in class. We each created an exhibit on the characteristics of adult learners. By themselves, just as pictures, we could infer a great deal, but it was the explanations that each member of our class added to the pictures that made them come alive.

For instance, this dog could represent an adult learner who is satisfied with himself, or it could be a trainer keeping a close eye on a learner.It might even be a proud teacher witnessing her/his class take charge of the their own learning. We figured out this week that our take on a situation is based upon our individual experiences and backgrounds. The connections we would automatically draw are going to be different for every one of us. It was difficult looking at exhibits from an earlier class and trying to figure out what the graphics meant. I personally had a lot of trouble understanding until I had to build my own.

Pedagogy and Andragogy

2011-07-13T15:22:00.012-04:00

History of Pedagogy on Dipity.

NOTE TO SELF

2011-07-11T21:31:00.001-04:00

I guess the biggest realization I came to tonight was that I only had class one day per week until now. Guess I was spoiled, because I do not have two days in my week and time to do homework along with all my other obligations. NOTE TO SELF- only take classes that actually meet ONCE a week. I do not know if that goal is even achievable- It may take me a few years to complete my MAIT degree that way- but I am stressed right now, so this is my rant. Everybody needs a piece of me right now and I don't have any extra pieces to give. I think the projects we will work on in class will be interesting and very helpful to me in what I do, which is train adults, so I have to get past the stressed part and down to the learning. I also have to remind myself that people new to wimba and Blackboard have it way harder than me. SO I need perspective as well. (This is me yelling at myself for pitying myself) Don't feel sorry for me, because I am just whining here and not being constructive.

New class-New Year and Newbies!

2011-07-06T21:35:00.001-04:00

I noticed tonight that no matter what class I take, we are always starting from square one. There are always newbies in each course that may not know how to use all the tools we are familiar with. I noticed this particularly tonight because I am spending my summer preparing teachers for next year's classes. We are starting from square one again with new learners who do not have the technology skills our students developed over the last year. I think I would prefer to loop with a class, rather than start all over every year. I think of all the skills our students have learned and how other teachers will benefit from that next year and we will be "stuck" with the "toddlers." It is not a fair thought, or even a nice one, but it is honest. I am excited over the prospect of thrilling a new set of students with empowering tools, but the thought of starting from how to turn off a laptop correctly is a little exhausting. I also have a new group of teachers who have not used smartboards or laptops with students, because the ones I trained retired and took their skills with them to the golf course. I can only hope that we can plan better for next year knowing all the missteps we may have made this year. As I start this new course, Adult Learning, I have to remember that we have some new students amongst us and they may need time to learn all we know already about wimba and blackboard. I am a total newbie to the concepts being presented in this course, I haven't even heard of Andragogy before!

I loved listening to the newbies from our last class totally take lead in this class tonight. Their growth is a testament to their strength and tenacity. Of course, I did not enjoy hearing them try to get me to go first. I think they are trying to throw me under the bus...

We asked, you answered! 15 more brilliant ways to use Edmodo

2011-06-30T13:04:00.000-04:00

We asked, you answered! 15 more brilliant ways to use Edmodo

QR codes

2011-06-29T23:27:00.005-04:00

As we were walking around ISTE we kept running into the qr codes everywhere, so I was inspired to make my own using the KAYWA site, I can now read them too, thanks to the app I downloaded on my Blackberry. It is pretty darn cool that I can just take a picture and my blackberry browser goes right to the site that is associated with the code. I have to try it out for contacts. I wonder if I take a picture of my own and save it if I can just display it on my Blackberry screen for someone else to scan it. hmmmmmm. I DO know that I can scan it from my computer screen, I did try that already. It doesn't to be printed out. Here is one I created for the new band booster website. The website is still under construction, but enjoy trying my qr code anyway.

Our arrival at ISTE

2011-06-28T09:04:00.000-04:00

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Just arrived at ISTE!

2011-06-28T08:02:00.000-04:00

Very excited to be here, I am planning my day and have already managed to trade my free laptop case for a free iPad case. Since I borrowed my son's iPad for this day he will be happy I am bringing him back something cool. I will update as I go along. Right now Sheila and I are setting our strategy.

ISTE UNPLUGGED

2011-06-27T18:12:00.000-04:00

How incredibly cool is it that I can be at ISTE 2011on Monday when I am not going to be there in person until Tuesday? Illuminate sessions of unplugged presenters are available with archives at this link.

I couldn't be more thrilled because I am only going to be at ISTE 2011 for one day and I was worried that I would miss out on a lot of PD options if I really explored the floor. These sessions remind me of the From My Classroom To Yours Conference at Stockton. They are definitely shorter, but everyone appears to be offering resources to help us use the applications they are showcasing.

Blogs as Showcase Portfolios

2011-06-23T11:47:00.000-04:00

Blogs as Showcase Portfolios

Archive madness

2011-06-13T05:43:00.001-04:00

Since I left early last week, I was trying to catch up with the archive and understand the military timing, it has been awhile. Looks like I missed a great wiki show by Ann. I am so pleased that she was able to make this tool her own this semester. There is a new commenting feature that the other talent 21teachers and I plan on using the coming week before school ends. This gives an almost blog functionality to us that we were missing and we are excited by that. Wikispaces has been the most successful tool for me over the last few months. Since we only have so much room in our teacher websites, this extension of our digital world has been priceless and we can make them as content specific as we like and leave them until next year after this year's class is done without maxing out our webspace. Thank you everyone for the warm comments in the aha's! I think you are all amazing people too!

Loving this service!

2011-06-09T21:00:00.000-04:00

I had a project that I needed completed right away, it was all transferring text from one format to another and I just didn't have the time. This service is great, I posted a job and within 5 minutes, I had nineteen offers from people willing to complete the job. I selected my assistant at 11pm at night and the work was done by 6am the next morning. Great way to make extra income if you like to work from home and have skills. Awesome way to get a digital assistant. I made sure I emplyed someone from the United States because we need jobs in THIS country too.

Learning from each other...

2011-05-31T04:23:00.002-04:00

We are so lucky to have the chance to share resources, everyday I get the chance to learn something new from another teacher. The wonderful technology blogs, the shares on diigo, delicious and twitter, and the products that my classmates post in our discussion boards are the ways I stay on top of my game. It doesn't matter it someone is new to the graduate program or has been in it for a while, everyone has something valuable to give to each other.

Starfall: Teaching Through Song and Games (Guest Blogger!)

2011-05-23T15:30:00.003-04:00

This is a guest blog post from my epal Genesis in Guatemala. Her blog is fabulous and I have been following her for a few years now. We have yet to skype, but this was a good solution since she is always on her computer in the middle of the night.

I never intended for my kids to start school so early, but when my oldest, Dorian, was 2.5 years old, he was fascinated with the computer. I did a little searching to find some kid-friendly sites and Starfall.com was one of the first that I came across and Dorian loved it!
It didn’t take him long to master the mouse movements necessary to play his favorite songs and I would let him play on the laptop while I worked on my desktop in the mornings. His baby brother, Dante, would climb up beside him and hum along to the songs. Pretty soon, both of them could belt out most of the tunes on the alphabet section of the site.
When Dorian was 3, he really wanted to learn to read. He would offer to read the bedtime story, then say, in a rather angry tone, “Oh, right, I can’t, because I can’t READ yet!” Obviously, he was ready!
I started with teaching him the letter sounds . . . but it turned out he already knew most of them, thanks to Starfall. What he lacked was the knowledge to put the sounds together so he could actually read a sentence. It was pretty easy to teach him to read, because he already had the basics down, just from playing online! He’s already well on his way to a Grade One reading level (he’s 5) and his brother Dante (4) is close behind him, all thanks to their time on the computer.

More Search Sites for Middle School Students

2011-05-16T15:04:00.001-04:00

Middle School Reference sites for students

2011-05-16T14:46:00.006-04:00

Urgent Reply Needed .

2011-05-15T18:43:00.001-04:00

Ok, I put out the call to my epal forums for guest bloggers to participate on my blog. I was looking for teachers using technology in their classrooms to contribute. I gave the email address for the blog post to appear, but it was supposed to go to draft. I did check my blogger settings on this matter. Since I had weekend troble with blogger, I am assuming the the settings need to be reset because this is what came through. Danielle is right that we have to be vigilant, even with the moderated epals site, because sometimes the crazies get through.

SEE CRAZIES BELOW!

My Dear Friend,
My name is Reginald Cole, who is diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. To cut the long story short, I have few hours left to live, depending on my surgery which will take place soon. Although I am rich, but it doesn't matter anymore.
I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul and so with that reason I decided to give what I have to charity and I never had children. I want this to be one of the last good deed on earth. I now give you the authority to dispatch my last funds to any charity of your choice.
I have Nine million pounds in a financial institution. I want you to keep fifty percent of this amount for yourself and time, while you keep the other fifty percent to any charity of your choice. May God be with you as you carry out this task.I believe with this,
I can now be free to depart peacefully. You can then contact my lawyer who will assist you in getting the funds to you when I pass. He would give you more details. His name is Barr.Lawrence Walter, and his email address ( Barrlawwalter@aol.co.uk ) He would guide you through receiving the funds.
Lot of Love
Reginald Cole

Blogger having trouble this week

2011-05-15T13:57:00.000-04:00

Both of my blogs disappeared this week. Thank you Ann for alerting me. There was suspicious activity on my account, so the blogs become temporarily unavailable. They do not give us this message though, they say they have been removed. It is a good idea to back up your blogs by exporting them. Since I have been blogging for many years, I almost had a heart attack when I saw that all my blogs were down. It also helps it you change your password from time to time.

Techy Things Teachers Should Try: My Avatar Editor

2011-05-11T23:03:00.000-04:00

Techy Things Teachers Should Try: My Avatar Editor: "My Avatar Editor is a free online site where you can create and edit avatars. Gender, height, size, hair and eye color, along with other ph..."

Everyone is coming along in class

2011-05-11T13:41:00.000-04:00

Only mild technical difficulties last week- we did lose Brandy's Tooltime. I think when she was sharing in wimba some of us received that error message about the archive and thought it was our own screen. Uuughh! I was impressed that Steve performed on the spot for us with a very interesting tooltime on Comic Life 2- I will be upgrading to that version for sure! I am loving all the jings the class is creating and can't wait to share them with my grant team on our moodle. On another note, I am also enjoying working with Brian, our graduate assistant. Just like old times! It was the first night that I felt everyone had finally settled into a groove. There were minimal technical difficulties, good participation from the group and the tooltimes and related discussions were comprehensive and extremely helpful! Everyone has come so far in such a short time- I only hope that this summer will be a time of reflection on how to integrate these tools into the normal school year. I predict that when the computer lab sign-up sheets get posted, these teachers will hog as many spots as they can for their classes in the coming year.

How to use Yodio for easy Podcasting

2011-05-09T21:29:00.001-04:00

Myriam was good enough to share this site with us and I found a helpful tutorial that shows us how to use the Yodio site.

Wondersay fun!

2011-05-09T21:11:00.003-04:00

made on Wondersay - Animate text with style

New Tools!

2011-05-04T13:42:00.000-04:00

Last week was much more fun for me, I love it when people in the class present new tools that I have not used yet. I am excited to try them out and see if they can work seamlessly into some of the curriculum my teachers have to meet. The problem with technology is that there is always a learning curve for teacher and students and this presents a problem; we only have so much time to teach our subjects. In light of that kind of problem, I am always on the lookout for the easiest and most creative tools than I can find to keep the students engaged.

Informants Post Quiz

2011-05-02T00:24:00.001-04:00

The Informants Post-Test » online testing

Passed the test for the Informants.

2011-05-02T00:08:00.000-04:00

Pre-Quiz: The Informants » Online exam software

Using Windows Live Movie Maker

2011-04-29T09:42:00.000-04:00

Our students have been creating ecology powerpoints and wanted to publish their movies on the web on our schooltube.com channel. Once published their were able to share their links with their epals. Otherwise the file sizes were too large to email. I made a series of screencasts using Screencastle and/or Jing to talk them through the process of using Windows Live Movie Maker and the Sound Recorder in connection with work they had already done in PowerPoint.

Saving PowerPoint Slides as JPEGs

Importing Pictures to Windows Live Movie Maker

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Adding Titles and Credits to Windows Live Movie Maker
Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Adding Narration to Windows Live Movie Maker
Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Adding captions and Using other tools in Windows Live Movie Maker

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Adding Transitions To Windows Live Movie Maker
Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Saving Projects as a Movie to ready it for uploading to Schooltube or Youtube.

Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Uploading Movie to Schooltube.com
Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Wimba on Crack and what is a chat anyway?

2011-04-26T16:41:00.000-04:00

Last week was challenging to me because I was teaching some tooltimes and attempting to help students in the class at the same time. I had to keep leaving the computer I was demonstrating on and I am sure having a snowball mike would have helped. We have many different levels of proficiency in the class right now, and those most proficient are at home on wimba. I felt pressure to keep up the dialogue for them at home and still assist the students in class with their problems. I know when I was home on wimba for the first time, there was a lot of dead air, like a radio station, that was not a good scenario so I tried to avoid it. Another thing I noticed is that this class does not use the chat window as much as previous classes, so it was hard to track who was on track at home and who wasn't. I was disappointed when I realized the last two demonstrations of diigo and delicious were not archived. They are useful tools and I could have used those archives with my teachers, guess I will have to make jings. I am still learning how to keep it all flowing together without dropping any balls.

Need a sponsor!

2011-04-20T08:37:00.000-04:00

Ok, here is my offer. While I LOVE Jing, I suspect I will love Camtasia way more, so I am seeking a sponsor to pay for it for me. I accept all serious offers and will provide a series of screencasts in exchange for your sponsorship, so long as you select some tool I actually know how to use.

Quizlet.com Tutorial

2011-04-19T09:44:00.001-04:00

Good Friends on Good Reads!

2011-04-18T19:12:00.000-04:00

Last one is a rotten egg!
No seriously, the last one is my epal from Guatemala

My epal from Guatemala is finally on Goodreads.com. I am thrilled! With all the social networking going on out there, I cannot seem to get my friends to join easily. I know we all read books, maybe they don't all read as voraciously, but they do keep up a respectable pile by their beds. I have sent out invites a few times, and they slowly trickle in. After a whole year, I am now up to a whopping seven friends. Ugggh! I hope if you are a reader, you will take the time to participate. I have found some good books my friends have suggested to me this way, and I always know what they are reading. I LOVE talking about books more than technology. I tell my students about this web 2.0 tool, I want them to track what they are reading while they are young. Hopefully it will stay free as they grow up. Yeah Goodreads.com.

Epsilon System Hacked: Has Your E-Mail Been Stolen?

2011-04-13T06:15:00.000-04:00

I know mine must have been, I received eight different emails from various companies that my email information was exposed due to the Epsilon hacking incident. I wonder how many of you got that same message? United retail group, Best Buy, Target and College Board all sent me Epsilon warning notifications in one day. We use a specific email just for any online transactions, but it doesn't help. Ultimately, we cannot have a throwaway email. We actually need some of the information companies send when we buy stuff online. For instance, at the Apple store, they email us our receipts, well, I need those receipts. I need the entrance ticket to the SAT test for my daughter, I need the concert tickets and boarding passes. There has to be a secure email associated with my banking and shopping where I can receive notifications if there is a problem. This past month, I have received three emails from friends that were clearly not from them, they were hacked and now I have changed all my passwords again in case they start getting some from me. I send out quite a few emails, I know that may be weird in this world of texting, but it is how schools get work done. I do not need people scared to open my emails. I have eleven email accounts and have started just opening them all on my phone, rather than on my computer, I can handle a virus on my phone easier. The sprint store is closer than the Apple store. Haha! Meanwhile, I just keep changing my passwords and trying to stay ahead of the hackers.

Helping each other through many channels

2011-04-12T21:44:00.000-04:00

I am so glad that Ericka jumped right in a showcased Prezi for us tonight, I just couldn't get a handle on it the last time I used it, which was last week. Apparently it is all in the framing. I must have missed this in their tutorial, Ericka's was much better. I use them on my interactive boards all the time, But I am using the ones other people created, now I want, no, I NEED to make my own and master this tool.

Tonight's class was rewarding on many levels, even though I could feel the frustration emanating from a few people, they have no idea how much they upped their game tonight. In my first class, we did not do the wimba/blackboard work they were doing for a few weeks. I heard others making plans to meet together and finish it, and that made me extremely happy, they have already picked up on how to work together to solve problems. It is important to get their cell phone numbers and skype names in our address books right away just so we can help each other. Tonight, I was able to call Kevin to get in to the building, Brandy was able to call me to get the dial in to phone wimba, and Ericka skyped me to get into skimmer when she locked herself out. Amy texted in to get someone to let her in, Ann texted in to class to find out if we were still working, it just goes on and on, including the butt dialing in of my husband twice, who has no idea he was there.

The point is, we will all make it through if we stick together and are willing to be there for each other. I am glad we had the chance to showcase a few quick tools. Hopefully people play with them and hit us with feedback on how they would use the tools in their classes with students.

NY Tech Meetup-

2011-04-11T21:56:00.000-04:00

I was looking for a free talk-radio solution so I could host my own show and I may go with this solution. While exploring, I found this wonderful channel on Livestream.

Watch live streaming video from nytechmeetup at livestream.com

Cacoo! Cacoo! Cacoo! No birds here...just good partnerships

2011-04-11T20:54:00.005-04:00

Our Cacoo!

Tonight I was lucky that Erica decided to Chat with me on Skpye to talk about our contract items. We decided to do a Cacoo together, since I had never made one before and she had never collaborated on one before. Since she had experience using the tool, this was helpful for me, but she was also able to use it in a new way. I had no experience with the tool, and it was helpful to have someone with me as I practiced my Cacoo skills. We initiated a Skype phone call and used the chat feature in Cacoo. I could see how this would be wonderful to use with a class. I have to investigate some more to see how many users can be on one Cacoo at the same time. It is very easy and both of us were able to edit at the same time, which is an upgrade from webspiration. It doesn't turn our mind maps into outlines though. It had some amazing features, is perfect for a project or idea where people get to put their heads together in different locations. It is amazing how the collaborative web 2.0 tools allow students that cannot sit next to each other in class to still work in groups across a room from each other. Below is our quick Jing on Cacoo- you can hear us talking through Skype. Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.

Yeah- I did it!

2011-04-05T22:44:00.000-04:00

Tonight I came home after class (Integrating Technology into the Classroom) and successfully exported my 7 year-old personal blog to this site and published only the tech posts I wanted here. It took me only 5 minutes to move over that many years of work. I cannot believe it. My normal blog has EVERYTHING on it, book and theatre reviews, recipes and family events, the DDR (Ask me what that is) as well as all my tech stuff. Since I would like to keep my techie and school stuff separate from my personal blog, I am so pleased I was able to do this. HOW did I do it you might ask? I googled it, just like we shared with everyone tonight in class. No one knows how to do anything until we google it, or YouTube it, but we have to look to find the answer. LOOKING IS KEY! Now I am off my soapbox and onto enjoying my new techie blog space.

I am so excited to fit in another course before the year is out, and this one looks to be another zinger- we will be using more tools I haven't yet tried and I am sure that will only increase my effectiveness as a Technology Integrationist. For my wild card options I will pick tools I haven't used before, so I can gain as much new knowledge as I can. Since I have used many of the mentioned tools with my students already I have to be careful to challenge myself. I am also excited to help out the other students in our class, I am sure the three of us who have had Amy before will be able to be of some use to the rest of the class, and they in their turn will help the next class they are in. It is a beautiful system.

Here is the voki I created tonight to introduce myself, some of them my classmates made were quite funny. My students loved it when I used voki for instruction and we had a lot of fun in our last class using avatars to introduce our Instructional Theorists. we did have some trouble with voki freezing up on a few computers. This frustrated a few of us and when I got home and logged into my account, the voki I made in class was gone. I had to create another one. The application also froze up a few times at home. We are lucky we have other avatar web 2.0 applications to choose from in case this happens. Amy said she would post them all in blackboard for us and I did view at least three of them in my last class.

Digital summary of Synectics

2011-03-22T17:34:00.000-04:00

I have officially exceeded my cognitive load

2011-03-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

Cognitive Load Quiz » quiz

Who knew learning Spanish numbers 11-20 would be so stressful for me? Perhaps this is the way our students feel everyday. We should slow down- wish we could, we should have more fun- wish we could. It makes me reflect on how busy we all are and how Sundays aren't sacred anymore and how much we need to project a balanced mood in our classrooms. In this class I am taking right now- there is a lot of pressure, there are many intelligent people who constantly keep us on our toes. The stakes feel high, otherwise, why would I be worried about ten little numbers? I was though, and so grateful for the handout- or I would have failed. I guess I need more time (as our students frequently do)with concepts that challenge me.

I need a break, Seriously!

Connectivism Lesson quiz

2011-03-08T19:14:00.000-05:00

Connectivism Quiz » Create A Quiz

Research Reflections

2011-03-08T08:55:00.000-05:00

I was grateful for our time last week with the librarian. It reminded me of how much my students enjoy a guest speaker. Although we had taken a library tutorial last semester, I definitely benefited from the reinforcement and I was glad she reminded us to remove the "Noise Words." Since we are doing so much research right now, this was just-in-time learning. I also benefited from the folder conversation. I finally found out what went wrong in 2005, during my senior seminar with Professor Tompkins. All my Northrop Frye research disappeared from my folder after a long night of research and I had to do it all over again. The discussion of the Interlibrary loan (ILL) was lively, especially since one of our classmates is so far away. I hardly think it would be cost- effective to ship books to Panama, but it is nice to know we can get what we want when we are on campus. I did take advantage of this on a number of occasions and was happy with the result.

Tech Quiz

2011-02-22T19:48:00.000-05:00

MAIT Technology Quiz - Michelle » funny quizzes

We were asked to post our quiz results here, and for now it will clutter up my blog. While not immediately valuable to me, I did see that some people in our class learned how to grab an embed code for the first time to post various assignments and assessments to their blogs. I can see the value in this when working with my own students and asking them to post their results. This works only if the quiz locks them out after the first try and if the students are comfortable posting their grades in an online forum. Hmmmmmm... food for thought. I am conflicted because I KNOW that I have students that would be horrified and some students that wouldn't care a whit. I know I took the quiz a few times just so I could post my best score. If the quiz is being used to LEARN, and not as a FINAL assessment, it could be valuable to post the score certificate, such as " When you score an 80 or above, post your quiz certificate." Another observation I had is that I would ask students to use their first names or nicknames so their full names would not be published on the certificate.

Bit of a control freak here

2011-02-22T11:29:00.000-05:00

I now have a direction for our lesson, but I am not inspired to write much about it here yet. I am still digesting this upcoming lesson for tonight's class, it should be interesting to create a pln graphic using only text. I was a little confused by the directions because we were supposed to be able to work on something we wanted to work on, but if we are in groups maybe we will be arranged according to the topics we selected. Anyway I created my own for tonight in case we have more rough snowstorms- here it is.

Perhaps I need some coffee to get motivated- I was up all night waiting for a snow day to be called or not called for kids and myself- amazing that I can never sleep when a snow day may occur. I am glad my partner and I got together for our project- I always feel unsettled with things that are not certain. I get anxious, just like the snow day thing. I guess I am a bit of a control freak. Since many people in class exhibit these tendencies- because we prefer to work alone rather than give up control, I thought I would share this picture...

I hope they are all headed in the same direction...

Who wants to follow them?

2011-02-08T21:19:00.000-05:00

After tonight's lesson in class, I am so much more aware of how the stakes have risen. A perfectly executed lesson is a hard act to follow. I particularly noticed how the assessment quiz related to the instruction and with the flashcards. The end result was tied in with the actual lesson, and if I took more time I would have aced my quiz, as it was I got a 60% because I kept selecting what I would do rather than what Gagne would do. I would dissect at least part of frog to gain student attention rather than show a video clip, but that is just me.

I already have too many flashcards, but I can narrow them down to 10 assessment questions easily. In fact, I think I may have already done this without knowing. Let me explain, the quizlet application creates quizzes as well as flashcards- so I really just have to copy and paste 10 of the best into proprofs or word. I can see if I can use quizlet to give me a link for others to take the kind of quiz I want them to take. Of course, Brian was going to do that part so we may have to shift roles yet again and trade jobs. We will see. I was so glad Dustin and Erin used the notebook software, not only because it is my favorite software and so much fun, but because it worked in WIMBA! Finally, something works in the Wimba window the way it is supposed to. I learned some new things tonight about teaming up in the wimba environment. Clearly the chat window was always being monitored by at least one of the presenters. They handled the whole environment very well. The bell ringing and little horn were nice touches. I am glad Dustin and Erin used the people in the room to their advantage to assist them in making it such a great lesson.

I have to remember to put it all in one place!

2011-02-01T21:18:00.000-05:00

Theory presentation notes:
A jog may work, I have been using Dave Dimmerman's tool since last semester with a vengeance! Here is a sample of some jogs I have created for various content areas. I think for Brian and I, we may have to put everything in one place to present. We run the risk of people running ahead- but it will save time in opening files and avoid the whole sharing nightmare that I had before in Wimba. Last semester, I pre-loaded a powerpoint- and then once I hit the archive button, it wouldn't load properly in the screen. I hate the lag of presentations in total share mode, it just gets annoying for me. Therefore, I must stick to my guns. Other questions remain--- what lesson to teach? Which Synectic strategy to use? I do not want to over-think it, nor do I want to leave anyone confused as to the application of Synectic theory. Last semester was definitely simpler, but I am grateful that Brian and I do not have to present first. I made the powerpoint too long last semester- so I am glad Brian will do our digital summary. He is bound to get right to the heart of the theory.

Reflection on class:
I was kicked out of wimba a few times- that means Brian and I each have to have total access to everything we are creating- so we have a back-up plan. I felt bad for John and Ryan, because they did not have the benefit of watching some of us struggle last semester with Murphy and his "anything that can happen, will happen." I thank them for paving the way. Can't wait for next week, the avatars are my favorite elements of the presentations so far. I want puppet avatars.

School Tech: 6 Important Lessons From Maine's Student Laptop Program

2011-02-01T09:47:00.000-05:00

School Tech: 6 Important Lessons From Maine's Student Laptop Program | Diigo

Since we are involved in the Talent 21 grant in NJ, I thought I would share this article.

Everybody's Different...

2011-01-25T22:02:00.000-05:00

During our class tonight, I really noticed how everyone can hear the same thing and come up with a completely different understanding of what they heard. We all bring our own filters to the table. People who were familiar with Learning Theory Families knew certain things and the rest of the class played catch up. The ones who understood the way the product could look or what it should represent, didn't necessarily understand the content. THANK GOODNESS we had each other. We all come from different backgrounds and don't all have the same starting point.
After examining some of the products, I knew we shouldn't have second-guessed our inclination to have some text in the product. I felt like the link we created for the two families was not clear. Halfway through the exercise- I realized someone else had joined our team, so that was a surprise. When I tried to load Ryan's PowerPoint, it fragged my macbook and I had to switch to another macbook. I was lucky I had another on hand. Whew! I may have to re-download the Office for Mac software because I think my PowerPoint is corrupted. I have had trouble a few times with it and I do not have time for that in this class. It just won't do if my macbook freezes up when I open a PowerPoint. Half the time we are opening PowerPoints.

Our Class- as different as the two sides of the brain

I was unaware that we could have two wimba rooms, though we can't be in both at the same time. If we can I haven't figured our how to do it. I truly enjoyed working with new people tonight. Even though we each brought different understanding to the communal table, I feel like we worked well as a team. We LEARNED as a team, made decisions as a team, what emerged was our shared understanding or misunderstanding, which is an example of George Siemen's connectivism. Here is a link to a nice Connectivism glossary.

I love pot luck suppers because you never know what you are going to get, and there is always the potential to find a new dish to enjoy. In the case of this class, the mixture of students who are familiar with each other and the students who are fresh to the group are going to make this an interesting and rewarding semester. The scavenger hunt activity was fun and we were so careful to leave breadcrumbs. Consequently, when we opened another group's hunt, we were laughing because they left just the bare bones for clues, and we still found what we needed to find. It goes to show that one method can be just as right as another, or there is MORE than one way to skin a cat. I wonder who came up with that saying? Who wanted to skin a cat anyway?

Pseudostupidity

2011-01-23T16:02:00.000-05:00

"The tendency to approach problems at much too complex a level and fail, not because the tasks are difficult, but because they are too simple." (Elkind)

Trying not to over-think the tasks in front of me, hard to do. I couldn't even make breakfast happen right this morning, burned the wrong sausage- the plantains not ripe enough, not happy with rice cooker, hated the back-up breakfast choices, and over-thinking my schoolwork enough that I don't even feel confident enough to take the syllabus quiz. I should have moved past this stage during adolescence, but apparently, I am still stuck. Sorry for complaining, trying to move past it all. I would help if I chose ONE direction to concentrate on for more than five minutes. I keep going back and forth. You can tell because I am here blogging instead of working. My process of learning stinks on a regular basis, and today it is just a mess.

UPDATE:
Ok, after a little nap and some amazing macha refreshing me, I have returned to life, though I do not plan on cooking or baking anything until I am sure the curse has worn off. The syllabus quiz was too easy for all the stress I assigned it (I hate timed assessments), and I have looked at many examples of Synectics. I am taking it slow, I will get to the personal learning theory papers next after I am done looking at all the synectics examples. I am grateful that they are all posted for our benefit in the course materials section. It would be helpful to know which ones were the best- if there was a rating system so we know which are the absolute BEST examples.

After looking at a few websites that showed "best practices" I came to the conclusion that it is easy to slap a "best practices" label on anything. As we have peer-reviewed articles available to us through the library or other internet sources- it would be helpful to have peer-reviewed websites for all teachers to access for any best practices claim. I know there was some talk about an alternate internet of only peer reviewed "stuff" Forgot what it was called. Waiting for it... we all know what works BEST for us or for our students, to have websites rated not by number of hits but by scholarship and experience would be amazing (Plus just think of all the jobs that would be created this way).

On another positive note, I was on EBSCO and realized that some of the articles has associated mp3's what a boon to my tired eyes!

My Learning Style

2011-01-18T17:36:00.000-05:00

I had to decide what my learning style was, I think this is it. I like a model, I am not very creative on my own, but I can find applications and tweaks ONCE I have a model. Tonight's class was good, some fresh faces and lots of familiar faces as well. Brian is mine, hopefully he and I have fun discovering Synectics, I have NO idea what that is. Sounds fishy to me.
The syllabus is a furry, smelly beast right now that I have not yet made friends with. I know once we start rolling, it will stop having eight heads and a thousand claws, but I also know it will be a lot of work in a very short period of time. So enough of my jawing, I have to get back to work. Honestly I do. My readers need to ready themselves to read another smattering of weekly class posts interspersed with my real life, my non-academic life, which fits into like TWO hours of my day, when I should be sleeping, or showering or something extremely creative or fun.

My Learning Style

I have planned some fun in the next week and then officially my life is over until this class is behind me. I will be done by Easter break, that is a blessing because I plan on visiting some friends far away. I posted a plea for an epal from Paris, France, I will have to see if I get one. I need one for this course, so if you know anyone, and DRINNE, I am sure YOU do, please let me know.

Prezi for the ipad!

2011-01-11T13:59:00.000-05:00

It's all who you know

2011-01-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

Biggest Hit Day Ever

Thank you David Pogue, you brought my obscure blog over 5,000 hits in one day. You tweeted my post to your over 1,328,181 followers, and I was famous for my 15 minutes (My brush with fame). You also have me tweeting again after a little hiatus. I have forgotten how much information and how many cool people I met on twitter. New items I learned from twitter this week: how long the lines were are Seaworld, Delicious is up for sale, and people get real sappy around the holidays. Mr. Pogue, since you were so generous with me I will re-post your latest book here in hopes that anyone reading this will run out and support your latest endeavor.

Colonial America

2011-01-03T13:39:00.000-05:00

Colonial America Wonderful resources for teachers with smartboards or one-to one laptops focusing on Colonial America studies.

Did I at least get an honorable mention?

2010-12-23T19:17:00.000-05:00

I was on David Pogue's page today and noticed he had a new book for sale:
The World According to Twitter
By David Pogue and His 500,000 Followers
The wit and wisdom of the Twittersphere captured in a collection of hand-picked tweets.

Now, I am tempted to buy this book just to see if he gave me credit for sucking him into the twittersphere. Let me explain...
A few years ago, when I was "into" twitter, I noticed that my favorite tech guru was listed, but had no tweets. He had many followers, but no tweets. I emailed him, despite his page-long explanation of why he doesn't normally respond to emails, and asked him why he had not tweeted. Here is my email to him, which I have lovingly saved for 2 years:

On 12/5/08 6:58 AM, "michelle -----"

wrote:

By now you know that twitter is like crack for some people, you have a decent following and you haven't tweeted in a year. I am just wondering why you stopped using it. Was a fun toy that couldn't sustain itself, did you not find anyone interesting to follow? Just curious. There are tons of people who throw up twitpics and the applications are multiplying day by day. I think there are a lot of annoying marketing people on there, but there are also some very funny people, i just dump the ones I don't like. I'm a bit of a twitch that way. throw your followers a bone, too lazy to correct this i am drying my hair at the same time.

His response:
I’m glad you wrote... I was just thinking about this last night...

I DON’T GET IT!

I need a Twitter teacher.

I’ve sent out tweets several times, and they just... disappear into the void. How do I know if anyone’s listening? Sometimes I pose a question ... nobody answers.

I once saw a guy with a Twitter program that runs in the corner of his Mac screen, so he doesn’t have to be logged into the Web site to do Twittering. What was that?

Can you help me?

Hope your hair dried OK!

dp

My response:

I think that application is called twitterific, it is for the macs. I have a

gadget on my blog so when I am workign there I can tweet from my blog and see

what is being posed by the people I am following. You have a bunch of

followers already so THEY will see what you are tweeting every time you tweet,

you will see the people you are following. A lot of twitterers talk to each

other, they put an @sign in front of the username they are addressing. then

when you are in your home page you can look to the right and check your @

messages first to see if anyone had something to say directly to you.

you can also DM each other if you are following each other.

Tweets can be general or specific, it depends on your style. I will email

more later, go to get back to the class.

Michelle -----------

A short relationship followed with questions asked through twitter on DMs, but they were BORING, so I won't share them here. Since he dived back in, Dave has tweeted 3,500 times has 1,327,540 followers, has written at least five columns about the application, and has now written a book. I think I deserve an honorable mention.

My most successful student...

2010-12-17T18:24:00.000-05:00

Test blog from phone<3

42 of 3123...

2010-11-22T18:08:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to de-authorizing my computers in tunes, and reauthorizing two of them. I had only one computer left and was sure I had not de-authorized two machines I used in two different schools a while back. I think it is a shame we can only do this once a year, I mean, what does it cost Apple anyway? the 42 of 3123 represents the fact that I finally turned on home sharing between my two macbooks. Right now 3123 songs are making their way through space to live on my other laptop. It is a beautiful thing. I will update later and tell you how long it took. Here is a link telling you how to use home sharing in itunes. Now I have to figure out how to share the playlists and the settings for each ipod and nano.

All she does is smile?

2010-11-16T19:29:00.000-05:00

During a Skype session with my evil twin Sheila the students clustered around and wanted to extend their greetings. They could see my face and Sheila's as we talked to each other. Then, we lost connection. When we reestablished it, Sheila did not automatically turn her video; on her avatar was showing instead. One of the students stopped by my desk and watched for a few minutes and then scoffed, "All she does is smile?" I could not stop laughing.

Technology Invasion!

2010-11-16T18:29:00.000-05:00

I was teaching a bunch of teachers how to use blogging with their students and a teacher mentioned the invasion of technology. WHAT A MIND BLOWER! I am an integrationist, not an invader, but ultimately, this is how the teachers view these changes to their curriculum. I know where they are coming from, no one likes to be told to do something that is not of their own choosing and teachers have had to deal with NCLB and many more mandates for years. They are fed up. I have to walk on eggs sometimes because they are so adamantly opposed to technology. Don't get me wrong, they act like they are interested, they do their best to "fit it in," but I can hear them the second my back is turned, complaining to each other about what they have to do now. Technology upsets their pacing charts, it gets in the way of content during the learning curve process. They make little digs about technology and I have to really try not to get upset and take it personally. But I am the face of what they are hating and that is difficult.
I have to remind myself that there are things I do
not like to do either. After all, I hate math, I really really hate it, and I try to act excited about it when I have to teach it, but lets face it, we all have different interests, and that is what makes us interesting to other people. I respect the teachers I work with and pray that I keep understanding their pain as they try to change the way they teach to fit the interests of the generation we are teaching. It IS hard, technology integration is unlike any other educational reform that has ever taken place. It is constantly changing and shifting and is sometimes like working on quicksand.

You have to get it done and fast because the internet could go down, the moviemaker could freeze up again, the edublog logins will fail due to timing out. It is stressful and uncomfortable for anyone who doesn't love and embrace technology. For all the teachers forced to integrate technology, I feel for you. My hope is to be less of an invader and more of an organic presence over the year.

What really happened to the Roanoke Colony

2010-11-15T19:06:00.000-05:00

This was a project that my son and his 7th grade friends worked on for a weekend. They had to explain the disappearance of the Roanoke colony. They also had to explain the word Croatan carved into a post. They clearly had lots of fun. It looked way better on the big screen with a disk. but you know how much resolution is lost when uploading to youtube. Welcome any suggestions about boosting resolution. Someone gave me handbreak, I have to figure out how to use it.
This is not a repeat post but rather an update as to my progress burning the project. Again, I do not have a superdrive but I WAS able to save as a disk image and burn that with an external drive. WOW it works, I read it in the forums as I mentioned in the earlier post, but I implemented it last night and burned copies for all my son's friends who took part. It would have been better if the kids had seen what I did for them so that they could do it, but they all have piano and babysitting and all those other things going on.

Can You See Me Now?

2010-11-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

One of my friends, who shall remain nameless, thinks that he is invisible when wearing his "Digital Camouflage jacket." Since I am a techie, I should not be able to see him. What do you think? I think I can still see him, but I do need glasses you know.

PLN

2010-11-07T20:41:00.000-05:00

Working hard on my PLN, I met a lot of very grr people at the NJEA convention this past week and I am connecting to them using Grouply, Ning, Thinkfinity Community, Linkedin and Delicious. I have learned how to USE my network on Delicious instead of just treating it as a repository for my bookmarks. Adding my Delicious feed to my blog was easy but it is disappointing that I only get the last five bookmarks I added on this Blogger site. I will start to post the feeds of the people in my network and this will give me a bit more of what I really want. I have taken charge of connecting to people outside of my personal Facebook and have started honing my Twitter friends into categories that match the different interests in my life. While this takes lots of time, I am sure it will be rewarding and will help me stay on top of my game in my field of study. My fingers hurt. Now I have to have a professional look over what I have done and get back to me with more direction. I have to wait for people to accept my friend requests on the various social platforms as well.

We have had lots of problems with the grouply, apparently only the group creator can send invites to our group, in the Ning platform we could all invite people into the group. It could be an administrator setting that is off, but whatever the reason, it is not acting as user friendly. I have 119 members to connect to in this group, but the never share anything. I guess if it is a mandatory thing instead of a passion, you just don't get participation.

My blog is getting some major updating, I have been tagging appropriately, so that I can split off some of my posts to specific blogs if I need to do so in future. Zemanta in Firefox has been helpful as it suggests tags I do not think about. You all know I just throw everything in here and sort later, so I am in the sorting process. I have added feeds of some of the blogs I follow in my personal life and in class on this site as well.

This Weekend's Work

2010-11-07T18:39:00.000-05:00

I am very tired. The toughest part was letting the kids take total charge of their project. I just manned the cameras and assisted with editing for like 15 hours.
Problems we encountered:

Objects in park that did hindered our commitment to historical accuracy (such as cars, trash cans, and someone blasting "Eye of the Tiger").
Wardrobe malfunctions and misinformation.
The noise of the fire station horns every half hour, along with the church bells.
One weird looking duck that kept distracting the actors.
A table of donuts and coffee that distracted the crew AND actors.
Not enough baby wipes to get off all that face paint.
Taping over the opening sequence- having to copy another scene and reversing it in imovie.
Not being able to match the sepia tone in the movie clips to the picture clips and having to use all black/white instead.
Not being able to edit out the rope tied to the canoe, the canoe club, the outbuildings, the trash cans, the cars, or the barbeque pits in video clips. (We could only do this in still shots).
Not having a super drive on my macbook to burn the DVD movie for best resolution.
Not being able to get George's Mom's superdrive to work and having to upload all our beautiful work to the internet instead, at only 12 frames per second on youtube and 30 frames a second on iweb. ( I could just cry).
Just found this tidbit in the forums and it is too late! "If you'd like to transfer a file to burn on another mac, go back to the project on your mac and use the Save As Disc Image command. This creates a virtual DVD that you can move to another computer and Copy to an actual DVD."

SO WHY WAS IT A GOOD WEEKEND?
I got to work with my son and his friends for this 7th grade project, they were extremely prepared with a script, a storyboard in mind, costumes and a boat. They were creative, flexible and funny as all get out. While I am extremely tired, I am so glad I had the opportunity to assist them.

Who Follows Directions Anyway?

2010-11-02T20:47:00.000-04:00

Do we read directions anymore? Sometimes I do, and it is the thing I complain about to my son, "Always read the directions, honey." If I followed my own advice, I could have saved myself some time in last week's class. This week I had a new dilemma, after setting up edublogs for 25 students and having to go into their emails getting their logins, and then logging in to change their passwords to be the same as the other web 2.0 tools they use, I could scream. Turns out I could have set the password if I had clicked on the advanced blog creation button and set the password from the very beginning. I WAS looking for the manual but all they had were a bunch of pdfs, not even addressing the issue. It seems that when I go looking for directions I never find them. When they are there, I may ignore them and play for a while instead, trying to figure out the solution.

I have always liked to explore as opposed to going the way the arrows point in life, and there lies the crux of my problem. My happiest days are the ones when I strayed off a path to see what else might be there. I do not ignore signs that point out danger, I am not that ridiculous, but I always like to play with tools as opposed to reading about them.
I do usually go to manuals when I cannot immediately discern the way to work something. Since I started going blind as a bat, I am less inclined to read, except for pleasure (Can't live without my books). I just can't be bothered to take out my glasses so I don't have to squint. My days of "Dreamweaver for Dummies" is behind me, it better have a video tutorial for me to follow or you will hear me complaining as I search for those stupid Progressives. I can't make them work anyhow, the reading zone is too darn small.
I am willing to get a Kindle or ipad this Christmas just to be able to make the text bigger. Of course I will have to make friends with so many people so I can borrow the books they bought. I read way too much to buy the books I read, I go to the library every week and stock up. I am not really interested in free ebooks, they are books that I don't really want to read or I have read already. Wow, I have really strayed off topic here, another thing I tell my students and kids not to do. Back on topic, following directions.... Good or Bad? Hmmmmm, ask me next week... meanwhile I have enclosed a helpful article about teaching students how to read directions.

Why are you raising your hand?

2010-10-29T09:52:00.000-04:00

Mrs. V asked, "Why are you raising your hand? So the computer can see you?" She was using the Smart word randomizer feature to call up students to share their daily journal stories. The students wanted to be picked, and kept raising their hands. It was the funniest thing. Apparently that paradigm shift has not yet occurred.

Tech Slam

2010-10-28T20:36:00.000-04:00

Check it out, tech slam.

Missing my Class

2010-10-28T18:16:00.000-04:00

Smartboards need Smart Teachers

2010-10-27T14:15:00.000-04:00

In the last week, after our training from Faisal, I was really struck by how well the mimeo worked. I have heard of mimeos hiding in closets in some districts and I personally know some teachers that have Easyteach boards in their rooms that they never touch. Why? They lack training. It is not a good idea to spend money on technology and not FULLY train teachers how to use them. I had no training when I received my Promethean board. It took a me a year to fully understand how to use all the features and I would have used it for more if I had been trained for a few full days. The training has to involve not just the features, but the content area toolbars and resources. Teachers need TIME to build or change resources. Unfortunately, districts want the biggest bang for their bucks, so they choose increased technology over training. If we had the chance to learn our craft, we would be more effective and could turnkey our knowledge with other teachers in our district during district professional development. I am seeing a trend toward this area in some schools, simply because districts cannot afford to bring people in from outside. It is not enough.
If there is a teacher in a school who knows what they are doing, we can use prep times to be in their rooms and learn from them as they use the technology. Both can get professional development hours for this. We started off in the field as simple observers in our fieldwork classes, and it is still a wonderful method of learning as we attempt to keep up with the latest innovations in education. Here is a district goal outlined by Alan November, senior partner at Educational Renaissance Planners in Evanston, Illinois:

Develop a technology budget, earmarking funding not only to acquire technology and design the infrastructure but also to ensure successful plan implementation by means of professional development for school staff and adherence to rules of thumb for professional development. Include funding for a technology specialist to provide ongoing support and feedback to staff.

Since this is the job I am performing right now, Technology Integrationist, I am more aware than ever of the lack of technology education our teachers have. The little things like saving to a jump drive and printing in greyscale are big dilemmas to teachers who are now expected to provide interactive lessons using Smart boards. I only hope that we move away from the drive-by trainings that don't provide the ongoing assistance teachers really need. Only some of the teachers are comfortable with screencasts and webinars, a huge population of teachers need hands-on training that can be repeated as they need it. As I try to squeeze such trainings into lunch periods and preps, I get frustrated. I feel like every other teacher feels when their students are just about to complete an objective and the bell rings. I will be pushing for some substitute coverage so I can get more time with individual teachers. Luckily I work in districts that have technology-rich goals, so I may actually get somewhere.

Parent Night for Talent 21 Grant

2010-10-22T07:42:00.000-04:00

It was a rewarding evening for the parents of the Talent 21 students in Woodbine, NJ. They were able to use their child's new laptop and learn about the acceptable use policy, insurance options and the rationale for the laptop rollout. Parent asked questions abou the use of laptops in their homes and in school.

These students are the lucky few, they will have one-to- one computing for three years, across all subject areas. One of the challenges they face is the learning curve to use the technology in a constructive way to learn content and share what they have learned with others. Every day new challenges arise, new technologies are available, and they will keep pace with theses lightning changes. This ability to adapt will serve them well in the future as they compete for jobs in a technology rich society.

Technology-enabled Substitutes

2010-10-19T11:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, The substitutes of one of the school districts I work for participated in professional development. They learned how to access the teacher's websites and to use the Smartboards. Technology-enabled substitutes will be able to carry on with lessons in the technology-enabled classrooms when the teachers are away. The laptops can still come out and the students do not have to complete worksheets all day long.

The substitutes spent the morning in trainings and the afternoons with teachers in their rooms learning how technology is used in the classroom. This experience was the first of its kind that I ever witnessed. The principal also conducted a training session with the substitutes on how to be an effective substitute in the district. This planning for school-wide and student success is commendable. We will provide substitutes with a list of every teacher's website until the district website can be updated to include that information. They were also given directions for laptop basics and turning on projectors and smartboards. An issue still outstanding is the ability to log into the teacher laptops. A substitute username and password will have to be enabled on all machines and laptops that are connected to the smartboards. It would
be helpful to create hotsheets for each room that is technology enabled for the subs with quick reference sheets for the programs the students may be using. We should also create a substitute website that has information and training tutorials. Since the technology-enabled substitutes will be called first to serve in those classrooms, it does provide incentive for them to learn on an ongoing basis.
UPDATE!
On a sad note, in another school, the susbstitutes allowed students from another class to use the 6th grader's laptops. Substitutes need to follow the plans we leave for them as teachers, they definetly shoud never allow students to tell them what they "usually" do, because the students "usually" lie to substitutes. When in doubt, check with another teacher nearby, call the office and just maintain that it is your responsibility to follow the teacher's plans. As a teacher it is hard enough to miss a day with our class, it causes huge problems when susbtitutes deviate from our plans. We spend time getting those plans ready and it is frustrating when we come back to havoc. In this instance, the offending students tried to visit blocked sites, they changed the students backgrounds and settings and added items to their favorites.

Upping the game

2010-10-13T08:13:00.000-04:00

After last week's incredible presentations, I have upped my game when giving internet resources to my teachers. Instead of looking for Prepositional Phrases PowerPoints for one of my English teachers, I was haunting Prezi and looking for presentations that would make the most of the Smartboard. Most of the lessons in the Smart exchange are a bit young for the 8th graders so I was seeking other quick solutions. Now I am off to investigate how the two programs can work together, can I upload an old PowerPoint to Prezi and then work with it? I will update you when I get the answer. So far Prezi does not have a lot of grammar teaching resources on their site, just those made by students, and I do want to be able to provide the best alternative to spending hours making Smart Notebook lessons.

8th Grade Prepositions~Mrs. Groom on Prezi

This was the best one I found so far. It appears that most of the grammar Prezi presentations were geared for English language Learners. I will be sure to share them with my friends that teach Bi-Lingual and ESL students.

Teacher Interview Questions

2010-10-13T08:01:00.000-04:00

As an offshoot of last week's discussion in my Intro to Ed. Tech class, I though I would share a helpful link with anyone out there still looking for a teaching job this year. You know that if we get the interview, and that is pretty hard these days, we have to make the most of that moment. You may have read about some of my worst job hunt moments last year in this blog, and I hope to help alleviate some of your fears.
The Apple posted this article recently on how to answer the toughest interview questions effectively. There were some admirable answers, especially to the question, "What is your greatest weakness?" We hate to have to answer that one! It is impossible to do correctly without being self-serving and we want to be honest, but we can't because then we would appear weak. If you like, please post YOUR toughest interview question in my comments section. If you would like to share YOUR worst interview moment, I can give you a link to be a guest blogger on this site.

Poll Everywhere

2010-10-05T20:28:00.000-04:00

Make your own poll voting question with Poll Everywhere

Try this audience polling system at Poll Everywhere

Create interactive meetings at Poll Everywhere

Try this audience polling system at Poll Everywhere

Post Tutorial Search Behavior

2010-10-04T21:09:00.000-04:00

Hating life and PowerPoint right now

2010-10-03T21:39:00.000-04:00

PowerPoint fragged up on me three times today with my macbook making the most incredibly weird noises. Having to employ the hard shutdown always makes me nervous. I had to redo a few areas of our group presentation many times because it refused to SAVE! Even when it did the backup every few minutes, it still didn't have the changes. Since my entire weekend has become this project, I could have done without this nonsense. I still couldn't embed video, like I can do on non- mac machines. I just couldn't find the feature on the PowerPoint for mac. I wanted to upload the whole thing to Issuu as a flipbook, but it wouldn't take the formatting. I had to go to Plan B for the Web 2.0 component.

I used slideshare instead. I did not yet use the narration feature, because we have to narrate as a team. I look forward to doing that on my own when we are done. It would be too hard to do it with three of us in different places. Slideshare has been a resource for my blog when I want to post a bunch of pictures from an event. As a presentation solution, I was thrilled with some of the free options it offered. It has some great features and I wish I could change my tooltime to that tool.

Can you read our Webspiration?

The most illuminating thing that happened this weekend was having to work as a team. Giving up control of even part a project has to be the most challenging feeling ever, and one we have to remember stresses OUR students out as well. I had to understand and implement what Brian's main ideas were from our mindmapping in Webspiration. I hope I stayed true to his ideas, if not, it is tooooooooo late. I started working on what we had, then he added more and I had to match it all up again to make sure I didn't miss anything. Note to self: Don't even start until it is all done. I have no idea if Roma finished our Timeline activity Gant chart, our meeting this evening did not come about due to scheduling issues. So now I have to rely on the email for communication until we can all talk again in Wimba. Wimba as a crutch? I am officially spoiled and hate having to go email everyone as they are not on Skype right now.

I chose the peace sign because what is contained in the this Tagxedo
just a "piece" of the whole IT picture. I know, very corny.

Spending the entire weekend tracking down appropriate pictures, videos and articles to make the mindmap come to life was accompanied by the endless sneezing and snuffling of my nose. Infection from all those school kids has finally set in, and I am tainted. At least now I have a comprehensive understanding of the history of Instructional Technology and a trash-can full of tissues. I could have just read the textbook, but then I would have had no reason to yell at my family for asking me silly questions when everything was going wrong.

I also made a Tagxedo to enhance the presentation and spent some time rearranging the Webspiration so it wasn't so busy, then Brian really fixed it and it looks nice now. Too big to actually read the screen capture in a photo here, you will have to be content with my Tagxedo instead. I was unable to do the things I REALLY wanted to do with this project. I wanted a blinking eye between the time eras, and I wanted to shoot words out of a cannon or a rocket as a transition as well. I especially wanted a photo of Tompkins with the macs from the 80's to include, but I can't always get what I want. The transitions won't work well in a web 2.0 sharing scenario unless I convert the entire thing to a movie. This will not work for me because of the video clips I want to have in it. The audience will be able to just move ahead after they watch what THEY want. Oh, well, best laid plans...

Transtechnical?

2010-09-29T20:43:00.000-04:00

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Holt's Intro To Educational Technology: Waiting for Superman

2010-09-29T08:33:00.000-04:00

Holt's Intro To Educational Technology: Waiting for Superman: "There is a new documentary out in select theaters entitled 'Waiting for Superman'. It explores the inefficiencies of America's school syste..."

Reflections on Wimba, Skype, and Project Management

2010-09-28T23:19:00.000-04:00

The Wimba Whiteboard or Eboard.

This week I spent hours on Wimba and Skype, meeting with my team members and working on our History of IT project. It was an interesting experience. When I took online classes before, they were asynchonous and our group projects involved emails and posts, not live communication. After using Wimba for this, I do not know how I will be able to give it up at the end of our class. I will have to use something like Adobe Connect or Go to Meeting to get a similar experience. As I use Wimba more, I learn new things. I took the tutorials a while ago, so I was relieved when Brian showed us how to get the whiteboard feature back by pressing the eboard button. I also learned about project management this week and gant charts. I've never heard of them before and apparently people have been using them forever. "What a concept!" Amy, my professor, was pushing us to use a free Web 2.0 tool. I found Tom's Planner, it looks very visual and you can share your chart online. Another I found was Basecamp. It will be interesting to see what my friend Adrienne, the quintessential project manager, writes in my comments. Anyway, my team member may choose a product that she is comfortable with over the ones I just mentioned. We will have to wait and see.

How I search for Web- Based Tutorials

2010-09-23T20:00:00.000-04:00

Loving it!

2010-09-21T19:25:00.000-04:00

She gave me top status!

This morning I walked into the teacher's room whom I had worked with last week. She just started teaching again after having a baby and does not have a lot of technical experience. She is by no means afraid of technology, but she has not had exposure. Nor did she attend any of the summer trainings. She saw me and her face just started glowing, she had three new ideas for for technology integration that she wanted me to teach her how to implement. An OnCourse teacher website, uploading word documents to the smart assessment tools and assessing her students with the PE clickers and having her students blog their daily journals, WHEW! She also shared her experiences of technological mishaps that happened when I was away from her room. The most impressive thing she said was that she felt like she could be helping other teachers by the end of the year. A teacher-learner becomes a teacher-leader! I wish we could all have "students" like this; people who are just dying to know something and can't wait for you to give them that little nudge in the right direction. I couldn't have been prouder than her mom when she told me how she had figured out some things for herself and shared them with her team. The she showed me how she had "added" me to her class. At the end of the day I was wrung out, trying to get her trained in everything she wanted to know, but it was so worth it!

Mindmapping is supposed to be clear, isn't it?

2010-09-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

I was looking at the examples of the mindmapping exercises that previous Intro to IT classes had completed and there were many that were too busy for me to want to look at. I recently had to get glasses so this is an issue for me personally, but it may not affect a younger generation. I enjoy the clean lines of Facebook and find them preferable to the busyness of Myspace that my younger students frequent.

This image is from the Worst PowerPoint Presentation

I teach my students that when they create PowerPoints, that they should use images effectively and no more than 2 per page. The type should be 30 points or more. I was impressed with the inventiveness and creativity of many of the IT History projects, but there was just so much going on that the message of the history of IT was lost. It would have been helpful to have the guidance of the presenter to take one through them.
I started looking at various mindmaps on the web to see what I liked and what I disliked. I loved this simple drawing of the life of William Shakespeare, but it was not interactive. Another one I enjoyed was the ICT/Glow and Learning styles Mind map, again, it was not interactive. I did eventually find a few that I thought were useful and interactive using free software called Freemind. This mindmap on Ubuntu was compelling, I liked the mouseover effects. It reminded me of annotating The Heart of Darkness for our Litt. Reaseach class with Professor Honecker's class. It will be interesting for me to see how busy our group project turns out...

techtocktoe

Common Core Standards Resources for Edmodo Teachers

Mrs. Kristina Holzweiss and the link to her as a connection is http://www.edmodo.com/lieberrian

How to subscribe your edmodo group to an RSS Feed.

Apps for Pre-schoolers

Embedding youTube Videos in PowerPoint

Collaborative Projects using Minecraft

Memiary Tutorials and the Power of Edmodo

The Loss of Creativity

Google+ New features -ripples and Creative Kit for quick photo editing

Q-charts, Blooms Taxonomy and Edmodo

Using the Smartboard for Keyboarding

Earning Edmodo Badges

How do we Keyboard?

Inspired by Mike

Meeting our classmates

Wading through the debris

Add Facebook and Twitter to Google+

Unplugged

Schools may block Google!

You know what to do...

All that for nothing!

The Innovative Educator: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs - When and W...

Experience can go a long way- or it can get stuck in the mud

Epals post ( Guest Blogger)

Reflections of Adult Learning

Pedagogy and Andragogy

NOTE TO SELF

New class-New Year and Newbies!

We asked, you answered! 15 more brilliant ways to use Edmodo

QR codes

Our arrival at ISTE

Just arrived at ISTE!

ISTE UNPLUGGED

Blogs as Showcase Portfolios

Archive madness

Loving this service!

Learning from each other...

Starfall: Teaching Through Song and Games (Guest Blogger!)

More Search Sites for Middle School Students

Middle School Reference sites for students

Urgent Reply Needed .

Blogger having trouble this week

Techy Things Teachers Should Try: My Avatar Editor

Everyone is coming along in class

How to use Yodio for easy Podcasting

Wondersay fun!

New Tools!

Informants Post Quiz

Passed the test for the Informants.

Using Windows Live Movie Maker

Wimba on Crack and what is a chat anyway?

Need a sponsor!

Quizlet.com Tutorial

Good Friends on Good Reads!

Epsilon System Hacked: Has Your E-Mail Been Stolen?

Helping each other through many channels

NY Tech Meetup-

Cacoo! Cacoo! Cacoo! No birds here...just good partnerships

Yeah- I did it!

Digital summary of Synectics

I have officially exceeded my cognitive load

Connectivism Lesson quiz

Research Reflections

Tech Quiz

Bit of a control freak here

Who wants to follow them?

I have to remember to put it all in one place!

School Tech: 6 Important Lessons From Maine's Student Laptop Program

Everybody's Different...

Pseudostupidity

My Learning Style

Prezi for the ipad!

It's all who you know

Colonial America

Did I at least get an honorable mention?

42 of 3123...

All she does is smile?

Technology Invasion!

What really happened to the Roanoke Colony