Category: Social media

Here are five more of the blogs I read to get inspired, motivated, re-energized:

• Cybraryman–a massive resource of materials curated by a teacher. You don’t want to miss this one.
• Diary of a Public School Teacher–this blog will warm your heart. Lisa is upbeat, hard-working, and authentically integrates technology into her students’ days. I love reading her story.
• EdTechSandy–Sandy is one of those educators that seems to have her finger on the trends that drive technology in education. I often visit her blog to orient my thinking, see what I’ve missed at Geographically-Undesirable conferences and center my pedagogy. Here’s her bio:

  I am a professional educator with 18 1/2 years of experience in education. My areas of interest include teaching with technology, educator professional development, online blended & distance learning, social media in education, and digital citizenship. I want to build bridges between thinkers in the cloud and teachers in the classroom.

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Do your students Skype?

I first met Betsy Weigle over at Classroom Teacher Resources when I ran across a great how-to post she put together on Skyping in the classroom. The more I ran around her blog, the more impressed I became with her expertise and asked if she would do a guest post for my readers.

Betsy holds a Masters in Elementary Education & Teacher Certification from Eastern Washington University and earned her National Board Certification. She attended the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teaching Academy for Science and Math, been a national finalist at the Microsoft Innovative Education Forum and been awarded an Enhancing Education through Technology Grant. Her professional experience includes teaching grades 3 through 5 and substitute teaching from Kindergarten through 6th grade

I think you’ll enjoy this post:

Using Skype to Connect Classrooms

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Twitter can easily be dismissed as a waste of time in the elementary school classroom. Students will get distracted. Students will see tweets they shouldn’t at their age. How does one

manage a room full of Tweeple without cell phones? Is it even appropriate for the lower grades?

Here’s some ammunition for what often turns into a pitched, take-sides verbal brawl as well-intended teachers try to come to a compromise on using Twitter (in fact, many of the new Web 2.0 tools–blogs, wikis, websites that require registrations and log-ins, discussion forums. You can probably add to this list) that works for all stakeholders:

You learn to be concise.

Kathy Shrock has done a wonderful piece linking the multitude of Google Apps to the levels of Blooms Taxonomy. This is an invaluable resource for all teachers.

BTW, she’s updated the page since I posted this 18 months ago so the picture looks a bit different. Click the image; scroll down to the section on “Google Apps to Support Bloom’s”

Take a look:

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Every Friday I’ll send you a wonderful website that my classes and my parents love. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of your students as they are of mine.

Age:

K-12

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Blogs are the most exciting educational tool to come along since… well, wikis, twitter and email. Without any effort on the teacher’s part, students become enthralled with writing. (more…)

If kids are inspired to write, they get better at writing. The trick is to make writing fun.

Blogs do that. The students get to interact with their favorite toy–a computer–and go online for legitimate purposes. They get to see their thoughts in print. What could be more appealing. Blogs and online forums are a teachers dream.

The problem is how teachers use these tools. Like every good skill, blogging and online writing requires a bit of explanation. Start with these simple rules:

1. Be concise in a blog. Readers don’t go to blogs to read a novel. They want something that will help them in, say, a minute (that seems to be the average time people spend on a post)
2. Be pithy. Readers don’t want to waste even that sixty seconds. They may get tricked the first time by a snazzy title, but not again. So, students must put their thoughts together in a cogent and concise arrangement.
3. Be knowledgeable. There are so many bloggers out there, students must come across as intelligent on their topic and smart enough to discuss it in that one minute the reader gives them. How do they do that?
   1. Watch grammar and spelling.
   2. Pick a topic they know about. If it’s an opinion, pick something they have ideas about.
   3. Don’t tear down the other guy’s opinion as a way to promote their own. This sort of mean-spiritedness turns people off.

For more great reasons why blogs are good for kids, visit Educational Blogging Wiki–including helping them find their voice and empower their maturing identities.

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Drop by every Friday to discover what wonderful website my classes and parents loved this week. I think you’ll find they’ll be a favorite of yours as they are of mine.

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Do you ever wonder who would sit in front of a computer and post articles, day after day, week after week, with no idea how many people are reading them or if they’ll ever make any money doing this? Are they frustrated journalists? Desperate housewives? Just plain bored and in need of a platform?

I’ve got the answers for you. I write five blogs as well as columns for this newspaper and Technology Integration in Education. I’m not paid for any of them (not a salary as a corporate blogger is), yet I happily do it. My reasons are varied, but I’ve been at it for several years, so it seems to be more than a passing fad.Here’s the breakdown:

• If you blog, you’re probably 35-45, or in a broader sense, 25-55 (check for me) (more…)