World-Shaker

Theorizing Google Docs: 10 Tips for Navigating Online Collaboration →

Before I start: If you’re not following Hybrid Pedagogy, you should be (they’re not on Tumblr, so you’ll have to subscribe via RSS or follow them on Twitter). 

This is a great article, and definitely worth the read. If you’re considering using Google Docs, or use already do, the information in here amounts to some fantastic advice. I’m already brainstorming how to adapt this into a Tech Talk.

Here are two of their tips (click though for the rest):

1. Think about the interface. The specific word processing software we use — the pen, paper, or keyboard — changes the nature of our writing. We write differently depending on our instrument, on whether we hold a keyboard in our lap on the couch or write with pen and paper while sitting upright at a desk. Before I write anything, I like to survey and experiment with my tools, to see how they influence my thinking and language. When we choose a tool, we’re making a creative choice, and it’s important not to take that choice for granted.

2. Embrace chaos. There is something slightly crazy about a shared writing space, especially when there are more than 2 contributing authors. A Google Doc can seem to write itself, a new digital ecosphere that bubbles with lively and chaotic energy. I’m frequently startled when I leave a Google Doc to realize that it will go on without me. If you haven’t collaborated within a Google Doc, start by choosing a low-stakes project and experiment. Don’t be surprised when weird and sometimes wondrous things begin to happen.

30 Storytelling Tips For Educators by @MSeideman →

This was a surprisingly thorough article, and well-worth the read. Here’s an excerpt:

13. Have Your Story Provide An Answer To a Problem

Every story has theme or meaning. When you can tell a tale that provides a solution to a problem, there is higher likelihood that the story will take on a deeper meaning when it solves a problem in real life.

When you are trying to communicate boring facts (like multiplication facts for example), they don’t take on meaning until you create a story in which the protagonist must know those facts in order to divide her gifts up among her family members.

All of a sudden, the solution to the story- lies in the principle you are trying to convey.

14. Know Your Ending Before You Begin

Before you tell a story, know the ending. Know where you are going so your story doesn’t go down rabbit trails that distract the listeners.

Good storytellers when they begin to formulate their story, start at the end and work backwards. As you prepare, pick the ending first. Write it at the end of a timeline. Then think about the point that comes right before the end, then the point that comes before the point that gets to the end. Keep working backwards until you arrive at the beginning of your story.

"How do we change this mindset going from high school into college?” Clement asked. “The number one way is to put your policy in writing in the syllabus. If the paper is due Monday, and the student is not in class that day, will the paper be accepted after Monday? Will it be accepted after Monday at all? If the answer is yes, until when and with what penalty?"

— This Isn’t High School: Advice for Faculty Teaching First-Year Students

Back to School Tips for Parents and Teachers →

An interesting column. This piece of advice for teachers caught my eye:

1. This next tip is going to seem strange but I speak from experience. Purchase refuse and recycling containers with lids. One year, I had a little boy who would get physically sick every day after lunch. Since we had math right after lunch, we thought perhaps he was riddled with math anxiety. He loved school and was always excited to come, but by 1pm he was sick to his stomach and laying in the infirmary or being sent home. We could not figure out what was wrong, until one weekend when I was tidying up and changing the configuration of our desks. The little  boy was now seated next to a window we loved to open, instead of being by the door where the garbage and recycling was located. That Monday the little boy was feeling fine after lunch and was able to stay at school all day. In our school we ate lunch in the classroom and the overwhelming smells of all these lunches in the garbage bin next to him was making him nauseated to the point that he had to leave school. It was something that few of us noticed in the room. I purchased a covered garbage and recycling bin and  have not had that problem since.

What advice would you give to incoming college freshmen?

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How to Turn Your Classroom into an Idea Factory

With 8 tips borrowed from actual classrooms. Here are two:

1.   WELCOME AUTHENTIC QUESTIONS.

Good projects start with good questions. Listen closely to students to find out what makes them curious. Instead of presenting them with ready-made assignments, invite student feedback when you are designing projects. Make sure your driving questions for projects involve real-world issues that students care about investigating.

2.   ENCOURAGE EFFECTIVE TEAMWORK.

Projects offer an ideal context to develop students’ collaboration skills, but make sure teamwork doesn’t feel contrived. If projects are too big for any one student to manage alone, team members will have a real reason to rely on each other’s contributions. Teach students how to break a big project into manageable pieces and bring out the best ideas from everyone on the team. Offer them examples of innovations (from the Mars rover to the iPad) that wouldn’t have been possible without team efforts.

Six Big Ideas for Educational Technology Leaders →

Here was my favorite:

Change “yes, but” to “what if?”  In this era of high stakes testing, there are always reasons not to try something new or apply what you have learned to make positive changes in the realm of student learning. It is easy to fall back on the “old ways” of schooling – and then technology becomes just another delivery method.  Stay focused on your vision, trust in what you have learned, and help your stakeholders to think outside the box –or better yet, build a whole new box!

Five Smart Habits to Develop for Back to School →

Here’s one:

2. BECOME AN EXPERT IN ONE TOOL

There are at least half a dozen apps and software for every job. Should you use Diigo, Delicious, eduClipper, Pinterest, or BagTheWeb to collect links? Is Photoshop, GIMP, Pixlr, or FotoFlexer the right photo-editing software? It’s overwhelming, and there really is no single right answer. (For the record, though, Diigo is great because of its iOS app and GIMP works well because it’s both free and powerful.) So pick one class of tools and become a ninja in how to use one of the leading tools in that class. Skills from one platform are transferable to the others. You will benefit from learning everything about whatever tool you choose.

10 Ways to ensure that this year parents won’t even have to ask “What did you do at school today?" →

An awesome list—here are three of my favorites (click through for the rest!):

5. Set Up an Audioboo Radio Station For the Class Audioboo is a mobile app that lets you make up to 3 minute recordings for free. The best part about the app is you can embed a radio station “player” into your website or blog and each recording, or “boo” is fed instantly into your custom radio station, NO uploading required. Have the students sum up the week’s work via podcast and then parents can tune into the radio station or even follow on iTunes and get caught up with class events- and no extra work for the teacher!

6. iMovie Trailers about events coming up in class or at school

iMovie trailers almost make themselves- after picking a theme, filling in the template with some quick video shots and then can be quickly edited on just one iPad. The end result is a 2 minute introduction that leaves the audience feeling as if they experienced something dramatic and amazing. What a cool way to get parents wanting more, just like real movie trailers do for the films they promote. Here’s an example of one trailer we made for our science project last year that took twenty minutes to create, but left everyone who watched wanting to watch it again and wanting to know more about our physics project.

7. Coach’s Eye Reflections

Coach’s Eye is a great app made by TechSmith, that allows coaches to tape what an athlete is doing, then take that tape and reverse it, put it in slow motion, focus in on certain areas and commentate over what is actually happening on the film. Well, during some hands on lessons, why not just video what the students are doing. Then, have a few of the students create some “coach reviews” of what they saw happening durning the lesson and share those commentaries with the parents. It’s an extremely cool app I discovered last year that has great applications for the classroom!

10 Presentation Habits My College Students – And You – Must UN-Learn →

A great article, and I think it would translate well to at least a high school audience. Here’s an excerpt from one of the habits:

2. Relying too heavily on one leg of the presentation stool.

Jim Endicott sees presentation as a three-legged stool comprised of the following:

1. speech content/message;
2. delivery; and
3. visual presentation.

Since there are three legs to Endicott’s presentation stool metaphor, my students are plagued by three bad habits.

• Sometimes, students will put too much focus on content, while ignoring their delivery and visual presentation.
• Other times, students will spend so much time on their visual presentation that content and delivery fall by the wayside.
• For a few charismatic folks, delivery is the primary focus, and they don’t develop content or a slideshow because they rely on their wits instead of a message.

Note: This is a two-part article. Part two can be found here: http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/10-presentation-habits-unlearn-p2/

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Here is a shot of my desktop version of Evernote. I have created lesson plan notebooks for each class I’m teaching. Within those notebooks, I’ve created notes for the individual units I have created for the school year. For each unit, I do not place dates, because I want the flexibility to move units around as I need to.

Click through for more info on how to setup Evernote for lesson planning.

(via The Nerdy Teacher: Using @Evernoteschools for Lesson Planning #EdChat)

Five Tips for New Teachers to Become Connected Educators

Here’s the first of five pieces of advice (click through for the rest):

1) Be Able to Define What It Means to Be a Connected Educator

What is a Connected Educator? Great question, because this is the piece that needs defining. As a new teacher, take the time to figure that out for yourself. Don’t be surprised if you aren’t quite sure. Let your personal meaning evolve as you make your discoveries. Here are some resources to help get you started: What is a Connected Educator? (excerpt); Connectedness as a Standard; A Day in the Life of a Connected Educator (infographic); What’s a PLN?; and Building Relationships as a Connected Educator. Read each one and/or view the resources. Then reflect on the question. Does it make more sense now?

6 Tips for Teachers: How to Maximize Shared Resources →

Here are the first three (click through for the rest):

1) Introductory Session

If you’re using a new tool or website, model it in the classroom before your scheduled time. This will eliminate time spent explaining the tool and give your students more time to use it.

2) Do It Yourself First

If your students will be creating an artifact, create one of your own and time yourself from start to finish. This will allow you to know approximately how long it will take your students to complete the assignment. If your schedule is unpredictable, try not to assign anything that will take longer than the time you have.

3) Collecting Student Work

Have a plan ahead of time for how students will hand in their work. If you use Edmodo or Schoology, have your students use the dropbox feature. If you have a Dropbox account, create a DropItToMe page and have students hand in their work to your dropbox. If your school has a public folder or your students have access to a class folder, model in the classroom how to hand in their work using this method before your scheduled time and/or create a screencast that shows them how they can view it during the scheduled time. If you don’t plan for this, it will be a nightmare trying to organize student work, and you might not even be able to collect it in a timely fashion.

10 Real-World Tips For Using iPads In Education →

Here was my favorite on the list:

Apps? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Apps!
John Spencer (big fan, hi John!) discusses how he’s rolling out various devices this coming school year. But he’s not going to load them up with apps ahead of time. Instead, he’ll be seeing what the demand is in terms of apps and making decisions based on that data. I love this idea and think it’s a great way to prevent cost overruns as well as having unnecessary apps that will simply be ignored or deleted.

"1. Listen First. The new-leader syndrome, however, often entails changing things quickly to establish authority. Many veteran leaders, on the other hand, may feel they already know what is best and may move forward without building consensus. In both cases, the “slow” part of going fast- listening- is cut out of the process and initiatives are short-lived."

— 5 Ways to Build Sustainable Relationships within Your School