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100th Final Post – Don’t Let the Grass Grow Under Your Feet

Posted by Kathy Adkins on January 11th, 2013 No Comments

Three years ago Friday Flash was created to inspire the new Instructional Technology Specialist in my district. This is the 100th and final post of Friday Flash at irewired. It is time to move on and explore new creative ways to share with others. Sharing has been a passion. From my beginning newsletter posts in 1999 and 2000, I began sharing resources for the educators in my school. Learning to post on the web was a passion but in the early days I am not sure the amount of time to learn and share made an impact on my small audience so I kept evolving. In 2002, Munch and Learn was created and professional development was supported with snacking and recipe sharing. The following years e-link shared information and was pushed out as html in Outlook. It was great to learn and make things pretty but time was limited and in the years that followed simple emails delivered information. After retirement and becoming rewired, Friday Flash grew from those push emails and passion to keep learning led me to Word Press. Now it is time to move on from these posts and share my passion in other formats. Remember to evolve and keep learning everyday to make a difference for all learners. Don’t let the grass grow under your feet! You can continue to follow my journey @kathyadkins.

Four for Friday – Ways to Share Your Passion

Simple Booklet provides a free online flip booklet maker. There is an educational version now available. Free version does contain ads as seen in this simple booklet, Twitter Resources.

Snapguide is a another easy approach to make guides for learning. There is a free IOS Snapguide app to view and share guides. Lisa Johnson shares iSnap 2 Learn: Snapguides 4 the Classroom on Pinterest.

Edcanvas is an online canvas where teachers and students can share knowledge. Richard Byrne recently shared Use Edcanvas to Organize and Share Classroom Materials at Free Technology For Teachers.

Flipsnack lets you take your pdf files and create a flash page flip digital publication. The books work great on mobile screens of different sizes.

Image credit: g215 / 123RF Stock Photo

Tags: design, encouragement, learners, resources, students, tools

Celebrate Twelve – 12.12.12

Posted by Kathy Adkins on December 7th, 2012 No Comments

Next Wednesday will be 12.12.12, a date that provides an opportunity to celebrate learning using a variety of engaging activities in the classroom. There are dozens of ideas to celebrate this unique day and integrate it into content. The simplest activity, sharing 12 favorite things, is part of a special student blogging day. You can join 12.12.12. A Special Blogging Day by submitting this form and share learners’ 12 favorites. Canadian educator Nothy Lane, shares Wednesday 12.12.12. Lesson Ideas, which will also get your wheels turning. Whatever you do to celebrate, make your learning engagement relevant and exciting for learners. Even if you do have a list of 12, dig deeper to continue the learning from this list. Have an amazing 12.12.12 Day and try 12 new ways to engage your learners?

Friday Flash – Holiday Activities with Mobile Devices

PNC Christmas Price Index shares the price of the 12 Days of Christmas and provides a lesson on economic trends and inflation. Total Number of Gifts and Total Cost of Gifts are Excel spreadsheets that can be used to crunch the numbers. Learners can use their device to crunch numbers with a calculator and use apps such as Calc Lite Spreadsheet.

Create a QR Code Scavenger Hunt such as this one – The Twelve Days of Christmas Giving at ClassTools.net. Create a QR Code for the Christmas Price Index so learners can quickly access the site on devices and search for answers. You can search samples quizzes at ClassTools for new ideas.

Create a Socrative quiz using holiday math word problems or practice grammar with holiday sentences. There are so many great ways to use Socrative including ticket in the door or exit ticket. Check out the growing list of quizzes that are shared and can be imported.

Twelve Holly Days and New Year’s Resolution are two MadLibs from Wacky Web Tales. These simple activities work well on mobile devices. Make a QR Code for learners to quickly access these sites.

30 + Free Apps for Celebrating and Learning About December Holidays was recently posted by Shelly Terrell for Tech & Learning. One favorite shared, Red Stamp, allows you to create and share many types of greetings with friends and family. What a great way learners can share gratitude this season.

Image above created with Visual Poetry.

Tags: apps, BYOT, celebrate, celebration, create, QR Codes, resources, socrative

Keyboarding isn’t Dead, Yet

Posted by Kathy Adkins on October 26th, 2012 2 Comments

Is Keyboarding Dead?, a recent post from Ask a Tech Teacher – Jacquie Murray, shares interesting points felt by many now that we have entered the age of touch screens. Murray states, “Students are encouraged to use audio, visual, taped vignettes, recorded snippets–everything that ISN’T the traditional MS Word document with a bullet list of comprehensive points to convey the message.” To develop that message they still have to draw, write or type notes to brainstorm ideas and create a storyboard to produce their products. Keyboard awareness remains important but not as a standalone activity as learners progress in age. Younger students, exceptional students as well as ELL students can benefit from short rounds of practice with online sites and applications. As awareness and proficiency progresses, integration with curriculum lessons should be the norm. Transparently embedded into lessons and usage of mobile devices will provide the practice needed. Keyboarding will remain relevant and making your brain and fingers think as you compose and create is not going away. There is just so much more we can do with our brains and fingers. Give them something worth typing about and they will learn.

A Few for Friday – Sites to Move Fingers

Typing Lessons provides simple, progressive lessons with a few outside game sites and Learn to Keyboard is a wiki with lots of links for drill.

Keyboarding Activities from Lees Summit R7 School District, shares a few integrated activities for younger children. What could you add to this list?

Ed Tech Ideas shares a plethora of game oriented sites to keep fingers moving.

Extra: There is a transparent link called ghost gif on this page that links to five treats. Can you find it? A few treats for a Happy Halloween!

Photo Courtesy-http://www.dreamstime.com/skeletal-hands-imagefree82755

Tags: apps, game, Halloween, keyboarding, learners, mobile, resources, tools

Diversity of the Leaf and Learner

Posted by Kathy Adkins on September 28th, 2012 No Comments

Fall color is in all its splendid color in some regions and just beginning in other areas. The Miracle of Fall provides many links to follow leaf change with web cams and foliage updates. You can even watch leaf change in less than 30 seconds. This month’s National Geographic article, “The Glory of Leaves” by Rob Dunn takes a closer look at why leaves look the ways they do, from different shapes, colors, size, texture and taste just to name a few attributes. Leaves are very diversified in nature due to climate, competition and defense and as noted in this article, a work in progress. As we observe their majestic fall beauty let us be reminded of their diversity and beauty. Let us also remind ourselves of the diversity of all learners and what shapes their growth. Just like leaves, they are also a work in progress. Let’s do our best to provide the best climate, instill competitive spirit and model best practices in online safety as we guide them in learning. Take a closer look everyday.

Five Apps for Friday – Collage Creators

Photo Collage

Frame Magic

PolyFrame Lite

Photo Wall Lite

Diptic $.99

These collage creators are just tools but a choice for students to share learning.

Photo above created with Photo Collage

Tags: apps, BYOT, encouragement, photography, Photos, resources

Blank Canvas – How will you frame it?

Posted by Kathy Adkins on September 21st, 2012 No Comments

As a veteran educator it is such an inspiration when young staff members step up and guide others. This week Alena Zink, Instructional Technology Specialist at Shiloh Point Elementaty, inspired me with her post, If We Stop Throwing Glitter in the Air…. Glitter meaning templates and cookie cutter activities. Yes, I have been guilty of throwing glitter over years as viewed in one of my newsletters from 2001 where templates were shared for the younger set as encouragement for teachers. Thankfully there were a few ideas shared that could have led to more creativity. Zink states in her thought provoking post, “In a glittery classroom, I see students sitting in front of laptops, completing template-based projects that answer only right-or-wrong questions. Each product looks exactly the same as other 25 in the classroom and does not lead to students remembering what they have learned.” Zink lists six important features of what today’s classrooms would look like if we stopped tossing glitter. You can follow Zink on Twitter @ZinkED_u. How will you frame your instruction with open-ended questions so students critically think, create collaboratively and share their voice? Will you provide that blank canvas without throwing out all the glitter?

“Our tasks as educators lies not in force feeding students but in making them hunger for knowledge.” Amy Pruitt

Five for Friday – Blank Canvas Productivity Tools

Wixie combines paint and artwork with text and voice recording to create the perfect canvas. How you frame the instruction using open-ended questions will provide students opportunity to be creative and own their learning. Tech4learning provides a trial download of Wixie with many resources for educators. Be sure to check out The Creative Educator, their publication that provides articles, stories and lessons on trending topics.

Paint and draw with Sumo Paint, a free image editor for older learners has many tools for creativity. Sumo Paint for the iPad app is $1.99.

Kerpoof is another easy to use drawing program online for younger learners. What directive could you share to inspire young learners to think and share?

ArtPad is a very simple digital canvas that replays the drawing and provides a few frames to frame it.

Electronic whiteboards are large blank canvases begging for creativity in many classrooms. Let them create and share! With learners at the board, allow others to collaborate and design online at Board800. With BYOT initiatives try Jot Whiteboard, a free iPad app with very simple tools for young learners or experiment with Educreations.

Tags: apps, BYOT, design, doodle, learn, resources, students

Collaboration – The Big C – Do Not Wait!

Posted by Kathy Adkins on September 7th, 2012 2 Comments

Collaboration is one of the 4C’s that propels our district’s 21st century vision of learning along with Creativity, Critical Thinking and Communication. Collaboration is the big C that embraces the others and makes them stronger. Learners love to connect and share their knowledge in the classroom with each other and their desire to experience and share beyond walls is obvious. As they think, communicate and create collaboratively, the learning becomes larger. I am reminded of one collaborative project with first grade students, Hands Around the World, and how we worked to squeeze this project into the end of the year. It was a huge learning process for all learners including myself. Why should we wait to the end of the year when we have many resources and digital learning tools such as Edmodo and Wikispaces? Connect with a project or begin your own and collaboratively share your learners’ knowledge with others. Do not wait!

Five for Friday – Global Collaborative Connections

A great place to start is The Global Classroom Project, where teachers and students share on the global stage. Their wikispace shares ways to follow via twitter and facebook. Be sure to check out the Craze Crazes, under What’s Happening?

Projects by Jen, from Jen Wagner (creator of Wordle of the Day) provides projects for K-6 grades throughout the school year. OREO 2012 is a simple project for young learners and provides a wealth of resources to celebrate the 100th birthday of the OREO. Registration is now open with project lasting Sept. 17 – Oct. 12. Follow Jen Wagner on twitter @jenwagner.

Journey North offers collaborative sharing throughout the year. Currently Hummingbird Migration is being observed and reported weekly. Journey North now has an app to report sightings.

The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, CIESE, offers many ongoing and collaborative projects inspired by real time data.

Flat Stanley is a project that has truly embraced all ages. Be sure to check out current news and check the free IOS mobile app.

Tags: apps, collaborate, collaborative, create, encouragement, Inspire, learn, projects, resources, tools

Passionately Hooked

Posted by Kathy Adkins on August 31st, 2012 No Comments

Over the past four weeks, my role as lead mentor has given me the opportunity to visit 17 new instructional technology staff member at 16 schools. What a great feeling to see their excitement and passion as they begin their new roles as media specialists and instructional technology staff. What really rocked was the opportunity for all new staff to come together to collaborate with their mentors. To begin the collaborative planning session, The Voice of the Active Learner, was shared. This powerful video was a hook to open conversation and remind all of our roles in supporting educators, new and veteran, as they engage instruction in ways students want to learn in their digital world. The noise of collaborative sharing in the room was loud and only confirmed the need for more space and time for connections. How will you keep all learners passionately hooked this school year?

Starfish – An Inspirational Message for All Teachers

Five For Friday – Video Resources to Hook Learning

Ted -Ed is a great source for inspirational and educational videos.

All Things Science aggregates by topics with channels and is searchable.

GREEN tv is a site dedicated to environmental videos.

We Solve for X is a Google project launched earlier this year to encourage critical thinking toward solutions.

YouTube can be searchable by educational topics. Truly Amazing YouTube Tools is a livebinder with lots of fun YouTube tools as well as more alternatives.

Tags: collaborate, inspiration, motivation, resources, video

Digital Footprint Refresher

Posted by Kathy Adkins on August 17th, 2012 No Comments

Every school year begins with the review of acceptable use policies and online security. With the presence of mobile devices in classrooms and the vast amount of online tools for sharing personal expression and creativity, all learners have to be refreshed on securing their digital footprint. Scott Hibberson recently shared Getting Learners to Check Their Digital Footprint with Taxedo. This was a creative way to to use a word cloud as an ice breaker to get to know one another and introduce digital footprint. Whether you use a word cloud creator or other creative tool, learners should be aware of their digital footprint now and throughout the year. A photo or poster of a footprint would be a great decoration for your media spaces. How will you share your digital footprint refresher with your community of learners?

Five for Friday – Digital Footprint Resources

Lesson Plan – Trillion Dollar Footprint (6-8) – This is an excellent resource from Common Sense Media that includes video and handouts. Common Sense Media is a great site to use throughout the year with resources provided for different grade level sections. You will need to register to download the materials.

Six Reasons Why Kids Should Know How to Blog – Mind/Shift shares the importance of a positive digital footprint as more students are blogging. This is a must read as students begin blogging this school year.

Teaching Kids About Their Digital Footprint: the who, the what and the how – This is an excellent post to share with your learning community.

Digital Footprints – What are Digital Footprints? – Kidsmart provides lots of information for younger learners and shares a digital footprint template.

Cybersmart -Digital Footprint – This site also provides content for the younger learner as well as more resources for online security.

Tags: BYOT, digital footprint, information, learners, resources, word clouds

Keep the List Short

Posted by Kathy Adkins on August 10th, 2012 No Comments

The web is packed with many educational resources sharing numerous lists for teaching and learning. Tom Barrrett’s Interesting Ways Series such as 32 Interesting Ways to Use an iPod Touch in the Classroom provides great suggestions. 100 Ways to Use Voicethread is a voicethread with lots of great ideas but is it too large? As educators digest these resources, we have to be cognizant of the amount of ideas and tools we provide. What is the magical number for lists? Would you opt for a few or many? The type of information we share and the time frame for delivery will often determine how many items should be on the list. It is important to keep the list short to maximize retention. What will be your magical number to list items to share?

Five for Friday – Trending with 5′s

Five Tips for Teachers to Become Connected Educators – Lisa Dabbs, founder of #ntchat on twitter, shares a timely post at Edutopia to support new educators. The department of education has declared August as Connected Educator Month and Dabbs offer some great tips to begin connecting.

Five Characteristics of Learner Centered Teaching – Faculty Focus publishes articles for the college classroom, but many topics shared relate to all classrooms.

Five Daily Questions for Technology Leaders – Steven W. Anderson shares questions that will help you focus on your vision and goals as the technology leaders in your building.

Five Ways to Use Pinterest in the Classroom – Edudemic post’s title says 3 Ways to Share Pinterest but actually five are listed! This is very pinteresting!

Five Reasons to Allow Students to Use Cell Phones in the Classroom – The Innovative Educator shares a guest post from Michael Soskil, a fifth grade teacher, and five key reasons to support BYOT.

Tags: information, learners, resources

Very Pinteresting

Posted by Kathy Adkins on January 27th, 2012 No Comments

Pinterest has caught the watchful eyes of educators across the globe and they are pinning away. What is Pinterest and pinning? As described by USA Today, it is a visual bulletin board for the web that share images which are grouped and categorized on a user’s page to inspire ideas. From recipes, places to travel, photography, geeky stuff and gardening just to name a few categories, there is a wealth of information that is shared freely for consumption. In that respect, Pinterest has created a new space for educators to connect and bookmark ideas of similar interests. Once you sign up and begin pinning, there are a few things to remember as pointed out by Kathryn Rose, a business consultant, in her posting, “To Pin or Not to Pint: An In-Depth Look at Pinterest.”

Beware there are only a few privacy settings so you must take care not to post private pictures.
Beware of copyright infringement. Take a look at Pin Etiquette and use good judgement. It is always best to give credit to the photographer or the person’s work you are pinning.
Beware of comments on pins as you pin. Be on the guard for spammers since this is an open-follow me platform.

The interest in Pinterest will continue to grow and consume your time. Beware of time online and use it wisely and creatively. Mashable has a quick guide to get you started so what are you waiting for? Curate and share with your community.

A Few for Friday – Searching for Educational Boards

15+ Pinterest Boards Teachers Should be Following shares boards for all grade levels shared by educators via #edchat. Save time and choose boards for your interests.

Select the small arrow to the right of Everything on the navigation bar at Pinterest’s Home and select Education to see what’s pinning in the world of learning.

At Pinterest Home conduct a keyword search on a topic of study or instructional strategy. Be sure to select boards, not pins, to see individual boards on a particular topic. Check out the Graphic Organizers board search. Free Technology for Teachers recently shared Cool Infographics for 2011. Try doing your own keyword search for infographics and view boards shared.

Photo Courtesy Naomi King - http://www.flickr.com/photos/revnaomi/6759965449/

Tags: information, pinterest, professional development, resources, web 2.0