Weekly Tech Tips

For the past three years I have been creating Weekly Tech Tips for the teachers I work with. For half of that time I have shared them on my blog. The following is an archive of Weekly Tech Tips. I will periodically update this post as I add more.

2010

• Weekly Tech Tip: EMID Student Technology Survey Results & Analysis
• Weekly Tech Tips: Student-Centered IWB Strategy - Centers
• Weekly Tech Tips: Equity Issues in Technology & Education Panel Discussion
• Weekly Tech Tip - Editing FLIP Video on Windows XP
• Weekly Tech Tip - "Hey, look over there!"
• Weekly Tech Tip - Online Rubric Generators
• Weekly Tech Tip - Screencasting: The Classroom Flip
• Weekly Tech Tip - Moodle for EMID
• Weekly Tech Tip - Game-Based Learning Environments and Self-Selection
• Weekly Tech Tip - Text-to-Speech Digital Storytelling in k-2
• Weekly Tech Tip - Self Organizing Learning Environments in the 3rd Grade (inspired by Sugata Mitra's TED Talk)
• Weekly Tech Tip - Custom Search Engines
• Weekly Tech Tip - "Teaching Digital History: Enhancing Active Learning With Technology"
• Weekly Tech Tip - K12 Online Conference
• Weekly Tech Tip - Web Browsers for Kids
• Weekly Tech Tip - Web 2.0, Impermanence, & RSS Feed Migration
• Weekly Tech Tip - Open Source
• Weekly Tech Tip - Using Visuals With Language Learners
• Weekly Tech Tip - The Third Teacher
• Weekly Tech Tip - Metacognition
• Weekly Tech Tip - Social Media & Social Constructivism
• Weekly Tech Tip - Designing for the Future
• Weekly Tech Tip - iTeach Mobile & Cellphones in the Classroom
• Weekly Tech Tips - How to attend #ISTE10 from home
• Weekly Tech Tips - Live Streaming
• Weekly Tech Tips - Podcasting
• Weekly Tech Tip - Assessing Online Resources
• Weekly Tech Tips - The Elephant in the Room: Learning Theories & Technology Integration
• Weekly Tech Tips - Digital Natives, Peer Teaching, & Student Empowerment
• Weekly Tech Tips - Crowdsourcing & Participatory Cultures
• Weekly Tech Tips - Using HTML on Teacher Space
• Weekly Tech Tips - Virtual Guest Speakers
• Weekly Tech Tips - Social Networking, ISTE NETS, & Recommended Policies
• Weekly Tech Tips - Google Earth Jockeys
• Weekly Tech Tip - Curriculum Compacting: aka Teaching To the Test Results
• Weekly Tech Tip - Google Alerts
• Weekly Tech Tips - Digital Backpack & Xtranormal
• Weekly Tech Tip: Technology-Enhanced Active Learning Strategy - Backchanneling
• Weekly Tech Tip: Integrating Clustr Maps in the Classroom
• Weekly Tech Tip: Using Social Networks in the Classroom
• Weekly Tech Tip: The 21st Century Teacher as Sorcerer
• Weekly Tech Tip: Beginners Guide - Social Networking for Educators
• Weekly Tech Tip - Terms of Service and Age Restrictions
• Weekly Tech Tip - Downloading and Converting Online Video

2009

• Weekly Tech Tip - Twitter for Teachers
• Weekly Tech Tip: Digital Media, Social Tools, and Ethics
• Weekly Tech Tip - Research, Collaborate, Create, Publish and Repeat
• Weekly Tech Tip - Data Mining (results of a technology survey given to 7-12 students)
• Weekly Tech Tip - Vuvox
• Weekly Tech Tip - Technology Enhanced Active Learning Strategy - KWL
• Weekly Tech Tip - Scratch & Moodle
• Weekly Tech Tip - Distributed Research with Google Forms

Weekly Tech Tip - Web Browsers for Kids

Weekly Tech Tip:


Related Links:

• Zac Browser
• KidZui
• Kid Rocket
• Kido'z
  

Video Festival:

• Part 1 | Part 2| Part 3 | Part 4

• Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

• The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
  Back in Black - Education Crisis
  www.thedailyshow.com
  Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

• Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

• 
  
• 
  

Link Stew:

• Frintr — Print Your Friends - Fun site that lets you create photomosaics out of the avatars of your Facebook Friends, Myspace Friends, or Twitter Followers.
• Gapminder - Create visualizations from complex data sets
• Domo Animate - animation generator
  
• Stage'D! - animation generator
• Zimmer Twins - animation generator
• historious - social bookmarking site (works with Packrati.us to auto-archive links in Twitter)
• Twoolr - Shows how many people your last 50 Tweets have reached.
• TwimeMachine - Easily search through your old tweets.
  
• Paperlinks - Create QR code hyperlinks
• OffSync - Free download that lets you access Google Docs through Microsoft Office
• PDFescape - free online PDF editor
  
• The End of Education Is the Dawn of Learning - Interview with Sephen Heppell
• 2010 TIES Conference - Engage Me: Transforming Pedagogy with Technology - December 4th-7th (This year I am presenting a session on "Engagement as Information Prosumers" at this conference)
  

Newsreel:

• Why Johnny Can't Program: A New Medium Requires A New Literacy by Douglas Rushkoff (Huffington Post)
• How Would Teachers Like to be Evaluated? What do They Think is Fair? by Kenneth Bernstein (Huffington Post)
• Is Michelle Rhee’s Revolution Over? (NYTimes)
• The Critical Role of the Arts Throughout a Whole Child Education (ASCD Podcasts)
• Google has self-driving cars… Self-driving cars! (TNW)
  

Blog Carnival:

• Gartner's 2010 Hype Cycle by Scott Mcleod on Mind Dump
• 31 of My Favorite Digital Storytelling Sites by Kelly Tenkely on iLearn Technology
• Where does space begin? by Ira Socol on SpeEdChange
• My Response to "Superman must beat Super Union to succeed" article By Nick Provenzano on The Nerdy Teacher
• Are they Students or are they Learners? By David Warlick on 2¢ Worth
• The potential of teacher run schools derives from the conditions they create on Education|Evolving
• Origins of Chartering on Education|Evolving
• Special Forces: Is Specialization Killing Art Today? by Bob Duggan on Big Think
• 21st century (fill in your educational consideration) by Gregory Thompson on Constructing Meaning
  

Retweetable Tweets:

WHAT does "being at grade level" mean when we're supposed to be differentiating? It's comical that we have both terms today. #watg10less than a minute ago via TweetDeckJessica Brogley
jbrogley

Take action on Edu Reform. Post your ideas on Oct 17, REBEL Day. http://bit.ly/a3fH2a. Place Post ink here. http://bit.ly/cW9fqI #Edchatless than a minute ago via TweetDeckTom Whitby
tomwhitby

Weekly Tech Tip - Web 2.0, Impermanence, & RSS Feed Migration

Weekly Tech Tip:


related links:

• Online Teacher Training Tutorial - RSS
  
• Google Reader
• Bloglovin'
• FeedShow

Film Festival:

• Douglas Rushkoff: Program or Be Programmed from DANGEROUS MINDS on Vimeo.

• GOOD Transparency: Education in America
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Version of “The Social Network” [PARODY]
• Public education de-regulation charter school reform Diane Ravitch
• 
  

Link Stew:

• Future of Education, "Elevating the Education Reform Dialog" - incredible conversation from 10-4-2010 with Steve Hargadon, Betty Ray, Alfie Kohn, Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch, Sir Ken Robinson, Gary Stager, Chris Lehmann, Julie Evans, and Will Richardson.
• EdTech Posse 6.4 “Drill Down Baby Drill” Heather Ross, Dean Shareski, Alec Couros, Rob Wall, & Rick Schwier discuss Diane Ravitch's "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," Waiting For Superman, and Ed Reform.
• Google Sketchup Tutorials
• TubeMote - Use your cellphone or iPod web browser to control YouTube on your computer.

Newsreel:

• This Isn't An Education Debate by Chris Lehmann (Huffington Post)
• UPDATED: Laura Bush Is Unveiling a Bold Principal-Training Effort Today (Education Week)
• What ‘Superman’ got wrong, point by point (Washington Post)
• The Problems With Value-Added Assessment * (Education Week)
  

Blog Carnival:

• Alfie Kohn Comes to the Rescue by Anne Smith on Learning and Laptops
• Resources related to Edutopia Webinar by Gary Stager on Stager-to-go
• We can’t let educators off the hook by Scott McLeod on Dangerously Irrelevant {This post has already generated nearly 100 comments. Rich discussion there.}
• The Textbook Challenge: Environmental Science (7th grade) by Scott McLeod on Dangerously Irrelevant
• Clueless by Miguel Guhlin onAround the Corner-MGuhlin.org
• The Best Posts & Articles About The Teacher-Bashing “Waiting For Superman” Movie & Associated Events by Larry Ferlazzo on Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day
• Designed to Fail - Education in America: Part Four, Part Five by Ira Socol on SpeEdChange
• I’m Not Waiting by Bud Hunt on Bud the Teacher
• How Much Funding has the State Cut from Your School? By Jeff Van Wychen on Minnesota 2020 {The chart at the bottom of this post says it all about the the equity problem in Minnesota schools}
  

Retweetable Tweets:

Ravitch - the heart of the problem is we don't trust each other's intentions. #elev8edless than a minute ago via TweetDeckDavid Britten
colonelb

Deb Meier-"The central purpose of education is to create a society that we aspire to, together." #elev8edless than a minute ago via TweetDeckEric Juli
ericjuli

The McGraw-Hill Companies Earns Perfect Score on the Human Rights http://bit.ly/90EEgn - Irony alert...they abuse our children with tests.less than a minute ago via twitthatRic Murry
rrmurry

xtranormal - create an account - email them u r an educator to get free points in order to build ur animation #tmtnless than a minute ago via TweetGrid.comMelissa Smith
EduTechSmith

Weekly Tech Tip - The Third Teacher

Weekly Tech Tip:

I really wish I had more time this week to devote to a better production of this video because I do think it is a very important topic. But, I also think it is an important message to address now as teachers are setting up their classrooms.

• The Third Teacher Website
  

Additionally, and on a slightly related topic, this very interesting, thought provoking, and important video was published this week on TED. I highly recommend you take the 17 minutes to watch as the work Dr. Mitra is doing may dramatically transform how we do education globally in the years to come. It is a topic I hope to discuss in the district over the coming weeks.



Blog Carnival:

• A Parent 2.0’s Back to School Dilemma By Will Richardson on Weblogg-Ed
• 16 of the Best Internet Safety Sites for Kids by Kelly Tenkley on iLearn Technology
• NCLB Lies by John Fitzgerald on Minnesota2020
• What KIPP Academies do... by Ira Socol on SpeEdChange
• Follow the money and wake up (or there’s gonna be a shakeup) by Scott McLeod on Dangerously Irrelevant
• The Assessment Problem By Will Richardson on Weblogg-Ed
• Old and New By Will Richardson on Weblogg-Ed
• Barack Obama's Belief in the Least by Ira Socol on SpeEdChange
• It’s Complicated by Clarence Fisher on Remote Access
• The New Story…Who’s Doing It? By Will Richardson on Weblogg-Ed
• Lord of the Flies: How Adults Create Bullying by Ira Socol on SpeEdChange
• Are School Reforms More Like a Pendulum Or a Hurricane? by Larry Cuban on Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
• A Big Margin for Error by Diane Ravitch, NY Times Article
• Learning to Blog Using Paper by Karen McMillan on Notes from McTeach
• Problems with the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers by Alfie Kohn on Economic Policy Institute: Research and ideas for shared prosperity
• Proof that teachers matter by John Merrow on Taking Note
• I hate science fair by Tyler Rice on Wisdom Begins with Wonder

Weekly Tech Tips - How to attend #ISTE10 from home

Weekly Tech Tip:



Related links:

• Official ISTE 2010 Conference Site
• ISTE Unplugged
• #ISTE10 on Twitter

Things I will be involved with at #ISTE10

• Monday at 11:00 (Mountain Time) I will be a panelist for a discussion session on recent research conducted by Project Tomorrow
• Tuesday at 10:00 (Mountain Time) I will be presenting Web 2.0 & Connectivist Learning at ISTE Unplugged
• Tuesday at 2:00 I will be co-presenting a BYOL session on Technology Enhanced Active Learning Strategies with Vivan Johnson, Scott Schwister, and Cara Hagen
• Wednesday at 8:00 I will be presenting a poster session on iTeach Mobile
  

Link Stew:

• Bring Your Own Laptop To School: 1 Laptop per child, many educators sharing their resources and experiences
• How The World Spends Its Time Online
• ASSESSING TECHNOLOGY LITERACY: THE CASE FOR AN AUTHENTIC, PROJECT-BASED LEARNING APPROACH by @jonbecker
• Knowledge Coherence in Fragmented Information Ecologies
• Stop Disasters - Simulation Game

Retweetables:

• If Atari Was Apple, And Had Done It All In 1977... http://bit.ly/bUkv9Bless than a minute ago via webGreg Garner
  classroom_tech

  
  

• The Government’s Official Plan For Education Technology http://bit.ly/cxeFjjless than a minute ago via feedlyMike
  MrEDUHowto

• 15 Coolest Google Earth Finds: http://tinyurl.com/yhf27htless than a minute ago via APIrusseltarr
  russeltarr

Blog Carnival:

• ISTE 2010 – Can you ever really know that edublogger beside you? by Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant
• 100 Ways to Teach with Twitter by K. Walsh on EmergingEdTech
• Shiny New Ed 2.0 Video with Gratuitous Sex and Violence By Clay Burell on Beyond School
• Yeah, You’ve Got Problems. So Solve Them. By Will Richardson on Weblogg-Ed
• New Assessments for New Learning By Will Richardson on Weblogg-Ed (be sure to read through the comments on this one!
• Filtering and hyper-compliance By Doug Johnson on The Blue Skunk
• Why I Teach...By Nick Provenzano on The Nerdy Teacher
  

Weekly Tech Tips - Digital Natives, Peer Teaching, & Student Empowerment

Weekly Tech Tip:

Digital Natives, Peer Teaching, & Student Empowerment

Related Links:

• Here is Author Don Tapscott's Fantastic Talk from ASCD About "Growing Up Digital"

• Marc Prensky @ Handheld Learning 2008
• Confessions of a Converted Lecturer: Eric Mazur
• Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. UCB University Press.
• Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part 2: Do they really think differently?. UCB University Press.
• Evidence Doesn't Support Generational Distinction by Mark Bullen on Net Gen Skeptic

Link Stew:

• Google Wave Dance by Mike Relm
• Culture, Politics & Pedagogy: A Conversation w/ Henry Giroux
• Unschooling Vs. Homeschooling Vs. Formal Education
• The Daily Show With John Stewart on Apple's Response to Gizmodo & The iPhone Prototype

• The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
  Appholes
  www.thedailyshow.com
  Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

• Imagine It! - New documentary with lots of people educators and edtech people will recognize including Gary Stager, Sir Ken Robinson, and Ray Kurzweil. Site includes many clips from the film.
• 
• Why and How to Give an Ignite Talk, Ep 19 - Scott Berkun
• Great List of Multiplatform Free Video Editing Tools
• Google Earth (as a web app)
• Parents using smartphones to entertain bored kids
• TitanPad - Another Etherpad Replacement
  
• @hrheingold Archive of today's webinar on critical thinking/web literacy http://iste.acrobat.com/p88815038/
• Socialbookmarking practices in the field of education : semantic, socio-cognitive and formative affordances
• New video game academy won't be child's play
• Web 2.0's Top 1,000 List!
• It Goes Both Ways By Bridget McCrea on The Journal
  
• Tal.ki http://tal.ki/ - embed a forum into your website.
• TextEd - Cellphone safety and etiquette curriculum
• ePubBud - Create and share children's books (like YouTube for children's literature)
• FriendorFollow - Twitter tool for managing your followers. Allows you to sort who you are following and who is following you with many options. (saved me hours of time last night)
• Game for science - Virtual world devoted to science, technology and free educational games online
• Kerpoof Studio - Make your own storybook
• Asustek Eee Pad to hit channel in July - said to run on Google Android
• How the Crowd Can Teach by Jon Dron & Terry Anderson
• u.nu :: the shortest urls. period.

Blog Carnival:

• Obama & State School Leaders Want Facebook Unblocked in Classrooms! by Gary Stager on Stager-to-Go
• Technology – Roadblock to reform? by Jerrid Kruse on Bridging the Gap
• Deal Or No Deal? by Tom Whitby on My Island View
• Anthony Orsini, Please Shut Up by Ira Socol on SpeEdChange
• Assessment is a Bad Word? by Ben Grey on The Edge of Tomorrow
• Assessement Options: A Rant by Nick Provenzano on The Nerdy Teacher
• A Radical Notion by Chris Lehman on Practical Theory
• It's Time to Tackle Minnesota's Achievement Gap by John Fitzgerald on MN2020
• State's K-12 Education Cuts Run Deep by Jeff Van Wychen on MN2020 [This post has some valuable and eye opening statistics about school funding in Minnesota]
• Standing By as State’s Education Infrastructure Crumbles by John Fitzgerald on MN2020
  
• Teachers, Tenure, Transformation by Ira Socol on SpeEd Change
• A Call for Education Equity by Marian Wright Edelman on Change.org
• Mapping the Filter: What do you Block? by Will Richardson on Weblogg-ed
  

Weekly Tech Tips - Crowdsourcing & Participatory Cultures

Weekly Tech Tip:

This past 8 days have seen two interesting turn of events that have by coincidence converged in my own experience of them to produce this week's tech tip. First was the announcement last week that Ning was going to phase out the free version of their highly popular social networking tool and the subsequent collective action of the online communities I am a part of to work together to find alternatives. The other was the publication of the TEDxNYED talks on YouTube. While the topic TEDxNYED was education most of the talks seem to revolve around this idea of participatory culture and crowdsourcing.

Additionally, for our teachers at EMID we are going to offer a PD course (optionally for Hamline Grad Credit) on "Web 2.0 & Connectivism" where participants will through the course of a year build their own personal learning networks and explore the potential of these technologies both in their own learning and the learning of their students. This course will also be available to non-EMID staff members as an online open course beginning May 27th. (online participants will also have the option of taking it for credit). For this open course synchronous sessions with EMID staff will be streamed online and asynchronous engagement will be facilitated online through social tools. I will post more information about this opportunity in the upcoming weeks.




Related links:

• Alternatives to Ning - Google Doc
• Clay Shirky:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPQViN...

• Jay Rosen:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGHw9G...

• Mike Wesch:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyCAt...

• Henry Jenkins:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCLKa...

• George Seimens:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BH-uLO6ovI

• TEDxNYED
• Social Media Reading List for School Leaders

• Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Seimens (2004)

Link Stew:

• I urge every math and science teacher to watch Dan Meyer's TEDxNYED talk:

• TEDxOntarioEd - Tim Ludwig - 04/09/10

• Chris Lehman's talk at the #140 Conference:

• That's Why I Chose Yale

• Cell Phones in the Classroom : Learning Tools for the 21st Century

• mobiles - the 7th mass media
• How future historians will use the Twitter archives.
• u.nu - the shortest URL shortener, period
• Pew Internet: Teens and Mobile Phones
• Kaywa QR Code Generator
• QuickMark - Mobile QR code reader for your PC
  
• Cultivated Play: Farmville
• Classroom teaching in 2030 by Daniel T. Willingham
• View the wonders of the Ancient world in 3d
• PBS looks at motivation (and candles)
• Educational Networking - Wiki directory of educational social networks
• IceRocket real-time search

Blog Carnival:

• 5 Questions to ask BEFORE buying IWBs byBill Ferriter on The Tempered Radical
  
• Does teacher tenure have a future? by Scott McLeod on Dangerously Irrelevant
• IWB’s Help or Hurt? by tomwhitby on My Island View
• Interesting ways to use Wallwisher in the classroom by Richard Byrne on Free Technology for Teachers