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Posts Tagged ‘tools’

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

Ask…”What Can You Do For Your Wiki?”

Posted by Kathy Adkins on November 2nd, 2012 No Comments

Choice and usage of multiple digital learning tools is growing in our district by all learners, educators and students. In a recent workshop on four of these tools, participants had the opportunity to select two sessions and grasp the potential of the tools for instructional design. Edmodo, Edublogs, Voicethread and Wikispaces were the tools for collaborative learning and choice was key in personal learning for the day. At the wiki session, many asked the question, what is the difference between wikis and blogs and when should each be used? Blogs vs. Wikis, a fictional debate between JFK and Nixon shared on you tube, is a great video to open discussion and provide answers. During this electoral time, what will you vote for, wikis or blogs? It is your personal choice to which tool addresses the instructional design needed for learning and sharing. Today’s vote is to be a warrior with wikispaces. As JFK stated in the video, “Ask not what your wiki can do for you, but what can you do for your wiki?”

Four for Friday – Wikispaces Resources

Wikispaces Videos and Tours, is a collection of over 30 how to videos on you tube on various topics

Wikispaces Blog has incredible information on what you can do for your wiki. Check out Class Case Study: Room 14 Goes Mobile in Auckland and how students own and call their pages ebooks. Also note Wikispaces for iPad, which shares how to better view wikis on iPads since currently there is not an app.

Educational Wikis is another place of learning how to use wikis in education. Be sure to view the examples page.

Getting Tricky With Wikis provides advance directions using code to create text effects, layouts, to inserting a print-friendly feature and creating rollovers. Lenva Shearing, the curated for this wiki also created Cool Tools for Schools and Cool Apps for School.

Tags: apps, blogs, encouragement, information, learn, tools, wikis, wikispaces

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

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

BYOT Outdoors – The Sky is the Limit

Posted by Kathy Adkins on March 23rd, 2012 No Comments

One of the best perks about having a mobile device in hand is the ability to take it outside. The walls of the classroom are gone and the open space can lead to new conversations. The sky is the limit and the curiosity of the outdoors will lead learners to new spaces of learning. One space to spark outdoor curiosity is Project Noah and its free mobile app. Noah is the acronym for “Networked Organisms And Habitats.” Project Noah provides educators a place where learners can explore nature and document observations. Learners can join missions and become “citizen scientists” solving real world problems. Check out this video on the 2011 BioBlitz to inspire BYOT outdoors. Will you create an outdoor mission? The sky is the limit.

A Few For Friday – Grow Curiosity

Share You Tube Time Lapse Videos of Plant Growth such as Time Lapse of Plant Growth. Time Lapse of Flowers in Growth is incredibly beautiful and a must see!

Visit sites that are interactive and engaging such as The Life Cycle of a Plants which has a whiteboard view. Science Kids has an interactive page with drag and drop features for life cycle. Plants is another short learning experience for younger learners. Note that many of sites contain Flash and using Rover, an app browser on the iPad, works for viewing on IOS devices.

Visit sites with lots of photos to inspire your young phoneographers. Arkive is an incredible site with lots of earth images and videos for student exploration and learning.

Photo collage created by irewired with Diptic

Tags: apps, BYOT, learners, mobile, Photos, tools

Phoneography Inspiration

Posted by Kathy Adkins on February 3rd, 2012 No Comments

This past weekend 259 students participated in our district’s annual Technology Fair with over 206 projects in 14 categories ranging from project programing, robotics, and animated graphic design to digital video production and digital photography. What a great day for students to share their technology passions outside the normal school day. As a judge, I was privileged to view the photography expertise of fifth and sixth graders. Not only were their photos amazing, their passion for taking great photos was evident as they shared their projects. What was surprising was the low number of entries in the digital photography category. How can we promote digital photography learning? There are great lessons online that weave the art of photography with curriculum as well as how to’s. A great place to start is the Digital Photography School and 13 Lessons to Teach Your Child About Digital Photography. Whether it is a mobile device or digital camera, learners need to capture and share their views of the world. How can you inspire young photography artists?

A Few For Friday – Phoneography Tips and Tricks

iPhoneography is a great site for inspiration on using iPhones. This Week “Through the Eyes of an iPhone” shares a variety of photos from the amazing flickr group – Through the Lens of the iPhone.

Photojojo shares 10 Tips to Make Your Phone Photos Amazing. Practice some of the techniques shared with filtering and exposure and apply with split frames. Great app recommendations are shared as well as some easy tools for photo shoots.

Welovephoneography.com is a great blog to follow from Photojojo. Super cool ideas are shared for different mobile devices.

Sunsets, Relaxing and Recharging with Mobile Photography, a previous post, provides more ideas and apps to keep the shutter snapping.

Tags: BYOT, learners, mobile, photography, Photos, tools

Lots of DIRT to Scoop

Posted by Kathy Adkins on December 2nd, 2011 No Comments

Twitter and RSS feeds dig up tons of robust digital informational resources of technology (DIRT) that is shared daily . This time of year it is difficult to keep up with the wealth of information, or great DIRT, so it is helpful to subscribe to an online magazine or newspaper that gathers these tweets and feeds. Scoop.it!, an online magazine, is used by many educational leaders to share information centered around topics such as mobile devices and technology integration. Paper.li, is another online newspaper creator which was shared in a previous post, and is a great tool used to showcase sites also written by others. You can subscribe to these to receive updates. What DIRT will you scoop up to spread with your learning community?

Five for Friday – Great DIRT from Scoop.it! and paper.li

iPads in Education is curated by John Evans, an e-consultant from Manitoba, Canada. He curates his magazine by following blogs, tweets and videos on the web. He also publishes The Tech News Daily at Paper.li. You can follow him @joevans.

Tools for Learners is curated by Nik Peachey and shares of wealth of web based tools to help learners exploit the web. You can follow Peachey @The NerdyTeacher.

EdTechConference is curated by Arthur Preston who shares how technology is impacting and changing education. He also publishes on Paperli at Arthur Preston Daily. You can follow him @artpreston.

Digital Tools and Education is curated by Eric Stockmeyer. Stockymeyer searches for the best articles on using digital tools to improve instruction. You can follow him @stockmeyer1.

#mlearning is published by RJ Jacquez, an Adobe Senior Product Evangelist. You can follow him @rjacquez as well as link to his other publications at paper.li.

Photo Courtesy of Kevin_P - http://mrg.bz/58Ui2z

Tags: information, learn, news, paperli, resources, scoopit, tools, twitter, web 2.0

Thankful for the Delicious Bytes

Posted by Kathy Adkins on November 18th, 2011 No Comments

This is an incredible time for you to take a byte out of the incredibly delicious conferences that are being shared online. Global educators from around the world have shared sweet bytes of information during recent conferences and some are going live in the coming weeks. It is so important that these bytes of information are there for anytime, anywhere learning since educators’ schedules are very busy and time is so valued. Be selective and grab knowledge that fills your tool kit to benefit the learners you guide. Take a look at the delicious amount of information that is current and take a sweet byte! Be sure to share these delicious bytes with others.

Four for Friday – Fall Online Conferences

GaETC (Georgia Educational Technology Conference) on Nov. 2-4, offered a variety of professional learning over three packed days. Bernajean Porter, Tony Vincent, Leslie Fisher and Kathy Schrock were just a few of the educational leaders that shared knowledge to guide learners. You can view the presentations at gaetc2011.wikispaces.com. On your mobile phone, you can view at www.gaetc.mobi.

Global Education Conference took place this week, Nov. 14-18. You can sign up and view presentations and follow information at the hashtag #globaled11. The aim of this conference is to significantly increase opportunities for globally connecting education activities and initiatives. You can locate more information on connecting at globaleducationwiki.com.

K12Online Conference begins Nov. 21 with keynote posting and general presentations becoming available for viewing the weeks of November 28 and December 5. These will remain online indefinitely. Plan ahead by checking out this presentation teaser by Lorna Constantini as well as the full 2011 conference schedule. Don’t forget to follow the hashtag #k12online.

Virtual Tech Forum presents December 8 with live webcasts focusing on topics vital to 21st Century learning. Check out the list of presenters and full schedule of daily events. There will be an end of show drawing for prizes!

Image Resource – Glass Giant

Tags: conference, information, learn, mobile, professional development, resources, tools

Driving Questions – Project Based Learning

Posted by Kathy Adkins on September 17th, 2010 1 Comment

Recently Edutopia shared a post from Mary Beth Hertz, Which Tool do I Choose? Hertz shares that an educator must start with standards and goals but asks that all important question, “how can you know where to put a tech tool in if you don’t know what’s out there?” It is important to know new tools and how they can be used to share new stories of learning. However learning must first be driven by questions aligned to standards and then the path can be taken to steer the learning toward a choice of communication. The driving question is paramount.

The favorite for Friday shares steps in developing an engaging, standards focused project centered around a driving question(s). The Buck Institute for Education maintains this awesome resource with five design principles for effective project based learning. Abundance of information at both sites provides valuable resources to design and implement quality projects.

Can you follow these principals and craft a driving question to engage learning?

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” Naguib Mafouz

Favorite for Friday

Five Design Principles for Effective Project Based Learning

Begin with the End in Mind
Craft the Driving Question
Plan the Assessment
Map the Project
Manage the Process

3D Character and Question Mark Courtesy of SMJJP @ Flickr

Tags: challenge, design, integration, projects, questions, tools

Information Overload – LiveBinders

Posted by Kathy Adkins on March 12th, 2010 No Comments

This past week with the help of Twitter and educators freely sharing an abundance of information at several technology conferences across the country, I experienced an information journey without leaving the confines of my office. I was excited about the journey but tired by the huge amounts of information. This information journey began with NCTIES, North Carolina Technology in Education Society and MACUL, Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning. Using the hash marks for both conferences(#ncties & #macul10), I was able to view valuable information on presentations, presenters and attendees and learn about so many resources and strategies for the classroom. The information came fast and furious and as I viewed, I quickly categorized and bookmarked for later reference and reflection. The amount of material shared was overwhelming. Gathering the material brought me back to the old days when so much of our information was gathered, printed and saved in three-ring binders. My shelves were packed with different colored binders with information concerning software how to’s, integration ideas and student work samples as well as professional development artifacts. Of course teachers had their own technology binder with information they collected from year to year. Thankfully today we work harder at saving paper and ink since documents and resources are saved digitally.

One new archiving resource, LiveBinders, was discovered in a tweet from #ncties. LiveBinders is a free online knowledge sharing place that lets you create online three ring binders. It is very simple to use and a great tool for many educational purposes. Check out my New Tools Binder to see the format of LiveBinders and also view a few other new online tools by selecting the tabs. How can LiveBinders help with Information Overload?

“Know where to find information and how to use it – That’s the secret of success.” Albert Einstein

Five For Friday – LiveBinders in the Classroom

Ten Great Ways for Educators to Use LiveBinders – Great information to get you started!

LiveBinder4 Teachers is information overload but provides tons of information. Remember…Keep it Simple!

A Teacher’s Use of LiveBinders – This teacher created a binder for students to use over the summer. Notice that this binder has sub tabs under the main tabs.

4th, 5th and 6th Grade Math Word Problems – Great collection of math sites!

Promethean Activ Resources Binder – Be sure to notice the sub tabs.

Tech Bit

Thank you #ncties and #macul10 for sharing two great venues of information. Social Media is a teacher lounge for this retired educator. Read Guest Blog: Making the Case for Social Media in Education shared by Betty Ray with Steve Anderson for Edutopia and think about moving toward cybercitizenship conversations instead of cyberbullying.

Photo courtesy of irewired.

Tags: #macul10, #ncties, binders, information, tools, web 2.0