Digital Challenge–Week 6: Get Connected

This week wraps up  Connected Educator Month (CEM), a month-long  online conference, discussion and webinar.  CEM encourages and celebrates educators learning and leading in online social environments.

As a connected coach for Powerful Learning Practice (PLP) I participated as a “lead discussant” for two online forums, “The Connected Education and the First Six Weeks of School,” and the “Professional Learning Forum.”  Even though the official conference is over, recordings of webinars and a plethora of materials can still be accessed on the CEM web site.  If you have picked up the tweeting habit, you will find connected educators at #CE12.

So, what’s the big deal you ask?  Imagine this…you enter a digital room with 350 colleagues from around the world.  On a map, the webinar moderator invites folks to place markers, indicating participants’ locations.  You quickly see that six of the seven continents are represented on the map.  The chat log whizzes by at a rapid speed, as your own fingers are flying on the keyboard, contributing your thoughts to the conversation.  You are hearing from a passionate teacher in Australia talking about how to engage kids in learning.  You are clicking on a link in the chat log that directs you to an amazing resource you just discovered from your colleague in China.  Then, an education guru speaks on some fabulous topic like “flipped instruction” and you get a gagillion ideas from your colleagues in the chat log, which you will save at the end of the session so you can read through it again later.  You then get brave enough to grab the mic and add your thoughts about engaging students with technology.  And at the end, you are thankful and energized, not to mention you have a few new colleagues to follow on twitter and maybe even skype another classroom…in Australia!  Now, that’s cool!  And that’s 21st Century learning.

I really love this infographic from the MacArthur Foundation on Connected Learning.  It captures the essence of connected learning:

Three Challenges: 

ONE: 

This week’s post is all about challenging yourself to get connected professionally and to try out some connected learning tools and spaces. Here are a few TOOLS & SPACES to give a try that will start you on your connected teacher path:

Classroom 2.0 – This Ning, founded by Steve Hargadon, is a collaborative space of educators from around the world (75,000 members and 185 countries, oh my!).  You can literally find discussion forums on almost every topic of interest to you.  You do not have to join the ning to peruse the space (this is called “lurking” in the connected education world, by the way.)  If you want to participate via discussion boards, sign up.

Edmodo – This is a safe walled garden for social learning with your class.  If you want something that has the look and feel of Facebook, but totally private and enclosed, this is the tool for you.  Edmodo is totally free for educators.  Edmodo does NOT collect information about your students and it does NOT have advertising. It’s quite awesome, really.

Edublogs – I have written about Edublogs in the past.  They really cater to teachers and students.  Check out the tool.  If you end up really liking it, we can discuss a subscription for your class and how to implement it for instruction.  They even have some lesson ideas and “teacher handouts” for you.  They rock! (And yes, my blog is an Edublog!)

Wikispaces – I especially like Wikispaces for collaborative projects.  Students can design their own content based on challenge-based learning and study.  They love the authentic audience and feedback that is possible in this space.  The link here is a special link for FREE wikis with NO ADVERTISING for teachers.  You can sign up your whole class without wikispaces collecting information about your students.  It’s wonderful.

Canvas Instructure – This is a new one that I just learned about this summer. I plan on trying this out with Michael and the 6th grade digital citizenship class.  I will report back to you on it after quarter 1.  This space is social, allows a wiki environment, has a built in gradebook, and for the individual teacher user, it’s free (schools who buy a campus subscription pay per seat).  In fact, the University of Maryland just got on board with this one.  If you do use it, let me know what you think!

TWO:

Choose at least one professional development opportunity for yourself, no matter if it is participation in an online conference or one face-to-face.  Here are a few you may not know about…

K12 Online Learning ConferenceOctober 15, Pre-Conference Keynote, Oct 22-25; Oct 29-Nov 2 “This is a FREE, online conference open to ANYONE organized by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice.”  I have attended this conference in the past–it is marvelous.  You will hear from educators from all over the world who are passionate about kids and learning.  And what’s even more incredible is that you can access all the materials indefinitely.  You can choose to go the sessions in real-time or you can watch videos on your own time.

EdCampPDX:  This one is right in our backyard–seriously!  Touted as the “unconference conference,” educators interested in technology as a learning tool for enhancing instruction and engaging students share their ideas from the trenches.  Local independent schools host this gathering about 4 times each year. Check the EdCampPDX wiki for the next event.  I bet it will be on our state-wide PD day!  To find out about updates, follow the twitter handle #edcampPDX.  There are “edcamp” conferences all over the world, actually.

JEDCHAT – Jedchat is a Jewish education tweet chat occurring every Wednesday at 6pm PDT.  The twitter handle is #jedchat.  The first one of the school year is September 5th.

Lookstein Listserv – Sign up for the Lookstein Center’s listservs.  Lookstein was established by the Bar-Ilan University to promote Jewish education in the diaspora.  The site also have many wonderful resources.

THREE: 

And finally, set a professional goal for yourself as a connected learner and instructional leader.  What would you like to try?  What would you like to accomplish?  What do you want to know about connected learning? Here are some articles and a video to jump start your thinking…

 

Cultural Anthropologist, Mimi Ito (7:06) from the Digital Media Learning Hub

Mimi Ito speaks about the impact of digital media on youth and learning.

 Articles & Resources for Connected Learning and Leading:

5 Tips for New Teachers to Become Connected Educators from Edutopia (Ps. This applies to ALL teachers!)

Researchers “Introduce” a New Model of Connected Learning

What is Connected Learning?

And finally, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach from Powerful Learning Practice designed and authored a wonderful Starter Kit for Educators who want to get connected:

starter-kit-final-1

 

Digital Challenge-Week 5: RSS–Feed Your Need to Read!

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. In plain English, this is the technology that allows us to broadcast to the world and then subscribe to the “feeds”. RSS allows us to gather information from multiple web sites all in one place, instead of having to visit each separate site to view the new information. For instance, let’s say you are a Phillies fan and follow the sports section of the newspaper; you are an avid reader and follow book reviews in The New York Times; and you love to cook and follow the latest recipes from a cooking blog that you read. Instead of visiting these three web sites daily or weekly, you can gather the “news feeds” in your aggregator or RSS reader. Readers are free and easy to use.

How do you find the feeds?  How do you know if a site offers a “feed” that you can subscribe to? Look for the orange RSS symbol (above), look for a link that says RSS, or look for an icon or link for XML or Feed, or even a link that says “subscribe”.

Why RSS? Well, it’s a super smart way to collect information. We seem to have less and less time in our Web 2.0 hustle and bustle world. RSS will save you the hassle of visiting a whole bunch of sites. Also, it’s great to develop an RSS reading habit–this will keep you in tune with a lot of interesting information related to your professional life. And finally, RSS is so sophisticated that you can actually set up feeds based on specific topics in a news search, which is really helpful for learning centered around current events, for instance. (Give this a try in the challenges below!)

Challenge 1:  Watch this video and learn a bit more about RSS and how it works.

Video: RSS in Plain English from the folks at Common Craft (3:44)

If the video does not play in this window, go to this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

 

Challenge 2: Google Reader — Turn it on! 

“Turn on” your Google Reader. With a Google gmail account, you already have access to your own Google Reader without siging up. Go to Google Reader and login to your already existing Google/gmail account. By logging in to Google Reader with your Google/gmail username and password, you are “turning on” the “Reader” feature of your account. It’s that easy!

Check out this video tutorial on Getting Started With Google Reader.

For more details on using Google Reader, check out this “Getting Started With Google Reader” support page.

And finally, here is a screencast I made showing you my favorite features of Google Reader, including organizing your feeds in folders and allowing Google Reader to “sniff” out a blog if you know some of the title.

 

Challenge 3: Feed Your Reader

Now that you have your readers turned on, it’s time to grab some feeds!

Peruse the blog roll on this blog (right sidebar) and add 1-2 blogs to your reader.  If there are other blogs that you like to follow, add those as well.  Heck, add Techbabble to your reader too!  🙂

Then, explore some of the fun feeds below. Add (2) fun feeds to your reader.

 

Fun Feeds While you should keep up with some educational news and blogs, it’s fun to add things you enjoy as well! Give these a try:

Bloglines –browse this listing of the most popular feeds

Dictionary.com –word of the day

Weather Channel –local or national weather forecasts

New York Times –RSS feeds–subscribe to any part of the NY Times feeds.  Each section has its own feed.  You may need to scroll to the very bottom of some of the pages to find the RSS link.

Quotes of the Day –daily quotations

Fandango.com –top 10 box office movies

NPR RSS Feeds–This is one of my favorites! Select from this page’s listing of all NPR RSS programming.

Sukodu –daily puzzle from New York Times

Entertainment Weekly –feeds on Hollywood, music, and more

Yahoo Sports –follow your favorite sport

 

Challenge 4: Customized News Feeds

Now that you are a pro at adding some feeds to your Google Reader, you are ready to kick it up a notch! Let’s say you are interested in following a political leader in the news, or you want to follow the unfolding events of a crisis in a foreign country. Instead of grabbing an old-fashioned newspaper each day, you can custom-tailor a news feed to magically arrive in your reader as news is updated daily. You can even select which news sources your reader grabs. (If you are a history teacher, you are probably salivating right now?!) Go for it! Add your own customized news feed to your Google Reader.

Try “Using Google News RSS Feeds” for tips on setting up customized feeds.

Digital Challenge–Week 4: Collaborative Messaging & the Power of the Written Word

I just returned from an fabulous week with my children, picking them up from Camp Miriam.  The tears on my kids’ faces in the parking lot and the pleas to stay at camp are wonderful indicators that camp rocked! After taking a week break from the digital challenge posts, I am ready to share some awesome collaborative messaging tools with you!

This image from Indiana Public Media, is part of the Writing on the Wall Project, which is dedicated “…to youth empowerment through the arts, by engaging inner-city youth in artistic, civic-minded activities that cultivate relationship-building, increased self-esteem and cooperation/negotiation.” When I began to think about the tools I am featuring in this week’s challenge, the power of words stood out in my mind.  Think back through the ages how words moved nations, transformed governments, inspired millions, started revolutions, moved audiences to tears and healed souls.  And what is the most powerful thing about all these written words?  They had authentic audiences.  Can you think of anything more empowering?  Real people reading and responding to your words and ideas?

The tools I am featuring today do not require students to sign up for them–this way, you do not have to be concerned about COPPA laws or tricky sign ups for student use.  (But of course, DO implement good digital citizenship and modeling with your students:)

Wall Wisher

Wall Wisher is the cutest tool, if I do say so myself.  Teachers like “pretty” and this one has some eye appeal.  Not only this, but Wall Wisher is great for K-8.  It’s a tool that everyone can use and it’s simple. While you must enter an email address and user name to create a wall, students and participants in collaborative discussions do not enter any information about themselves.

Think of Wall Wisher as an electronic “chalk talk“. Post a title and/or a question in the subtitle and select an image.  Then, contributors can respond and find the digital wall via the “friendly” URL you assigned to the space.  Don’t forget to select “everyone” for viewing and editing, or you will have a lonely wall. 

You can choose to approve every post or not.  The main reason you would want to approve posts is to keep the public out of your space, but truly and honestly, I have never had a problem with this.  I have never received random comments on one of my wall wisher pages–they are really like grains of sand on the ethersphere beach.  Remember that by selecting “review all comments before they post” will take away the instant and in real-time dialogue.  You can always close off the comments after the class meets.  Oh, and did I mention that you can select your pretty wallpaper background, embed links, videos and more?

Challenge 1:

Add your thoughts about Wall Wisher on this PJA Teacher Sandbox page. How would you use Wall Wisher in your classroom?

Challenge 2: 

Create your own Wall Wisher page and post the link as a comment on this blog post, inviting your colleagues to post their thoughts on any topic you would like input on!  Here is a short screencast video to help you get started.

Today’s Meet

Today’s Meet is a different kind of text messaging, collaborative tool.  Many tech conferences use Today’s Meet to set up a backchannel during a lecture or workshop.  Backchanneling allows participants in the room to voice their ideas, questions and concerns in a public space.  It helps push the dialogue along and allows for everyone’s voice to be heard, even if they do not have an opportunity to speak or if they are a bit shy to speak out loud.  Backchanneling also empowers the class coach, leader or facilitator by providing them with an opportunity to leverage the dialogue and questions to meet the needs of everyone in the room and add some meat and relevancy to the experience and discussion.

How does it work?  Here’s a scenario… You are teaching a history lesson on the Civil Rights Movement and having an interesting discussion about Freedom Riders.  Instead of slowing down the conversation with interjections and questions, students can post their thoughts, opinions and questions on the Today’s Meet chat log.  As you are facilitating the conversation, you can scroll through the log and turn to different students in the class who have ideas to offer at different points in the conversation.  You know they have something to offer because they add a signature to their comment or question on the chat log. (Technical logistics:  You will need some students with computers, iPads or other internet-connected devices to post their comments.)

Try this chat log out…I put up a Today’s Meet for you on the topic of  Dogs vs Cats as household pets.  As parents, many of us are faced with our kids wanting a pet.  What are the pros and cons of each?  Why are you more of a “cat person” or a “dog person”?  Visit the Dogs vs Cats link to see how the Today’s Meet tool works and post your thoughts.  Don’t forget to post your name or an alias and click the SAY button.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?  How can you use this in your classroom?  In a professional development workshop?  In a faculty meeting?  Think about the power of “crowdsourcing“.  Isn’t the collective whole smarter than the individual?  Think about it!

Challenge 1:

Watch the video on Crowdsourcing from the folks at What-is-crowdsourcing.com (2:50)

 

Challenge 2: 

If you haven’t already, try Today’s Meet on the Dog vs Cats conversation.  Post your thoughts on the tool on the COMMENTS of this blog.

 

Challenge 3: 

Create your OWN Today’s Meet topic.  Post a question about something in teaching and learning that you want to learn from your colleagues about.  Crowdsource it!

Here is a screencast showing you how to set up your own Today’s Meet.

 


 

 

Digital Challenge–Week 3: Say It With Infographics

We have all heard the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  And in today’s connected world, images and multimedia are more important than ever in effectively communicating in online spaces.  Let’s not forget that infograhics also appeals to visual learners.

What are infographics?

According to visual.ly an infographic is a fancy word for “data visualization.”  But don’t get worried all you liberal arts folks out there–the word data can be interpreted in a variety of ways.  Visual.ly points out 4 key hallmarks of an infographic:

Visualizations that…

  • represent complex information quickly and clearly
  • integrate words and graphics to reveal information, patterns or trends
  • are easier to understand than words alone
  • are beautiful and engaging

 Bloom’s Taxonomy & Infographics

How do infographics support the application of Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom?  Take a look at this infographic to see how technology has transformed how we think about higher-order thinking and learning.  It’s so interesting how the Bloom’s of yesterday used nouns to describe the learning and today we expect action/verbs–we want our students to create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand and remember.  How can infographics support creating, evaluating, analyzing, applyinge, understanding and remembering?  (Infographic from NewEd)

 David McCandless From Ted Talks (18:17)

This video talks about the power of data visualization. Check it out!

  Connected Learning

This is my favorite infographic on connected learning (from Connected.tv).  It really shows what I love about learning in the digital age and how it can be a transformative experience for students and teachers.  What do you think?  Does this inforgraphic measure up to visual.ly’s list of requirements?

Resources to Learn More About Infographics:

More Than Words Can Say–Infographics, by Jane Krauss:  Wonderful article giving tips, how to’s, samples and more.  This is a great place to begin! (ISTE’s Learning & Leading With Technology, February 2012 Vol. 39 No. 5)

Teaching With Infographics | Places to Start (Teaching and Learning With the New York Times Learning Network)

 Tools to Create Your Own Infographics:

All the tools listed here are free and do not require you to download or install any software (web-based). My advice for using tools with students is ALWAYS try them out yourself FIRST.  (Remember, kids under 13 cannot sign up for a tool [Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act].) Every tool will have something you like and something you don’t love.  Also, consider the idea of saving work and returning to something later.  Some tools require you to sign in order to save work and return to it later (example:  Gliffy).  If you have younger students, you may consider creating the infographic with them collectively at a learning station in the classroom.  How else might you create infographics with your students?

Visual.ly -Create, share and get feedback using visual.ly

easel.ly – Very user-friendly, lots of tools for design and some preset themes to get you started

Many Eyes -A tool from IBM; Peruse the gallery to get ideas and then choose your data and the type of visualization you would like to create

Gliffy -Gliffy is great for mindmapping too; Check out the gallery of images and shapes, as well as how to upload your own images to be part of the visualization

Chartle -Make pretty interactive charts and graphs (this runs off of java applets, so you may be prompted to download or update your java)

Digital Challenge #3

It’s your turn!  Create an infographic that supports one of your curricular units.  Think about choosing a unit of study that is well-established, so that you can focus on the infographic and not the content.  If the infographic has a web link from a tool you used, share it on this blog! And, if you are up and running on Twitter, tweet it out to the world!

Also, post your thoughts on infographics in the classroom on this blog–let’s get the dialogue rolling:)

 

Digital Challenge–Week 2: Get Your Tweet On

It’s time to break down and find out what all the tweets, I mean fuss, is about.  Twitter is a social networking tool, providing conversation in small, succinct bites.  Think of twitter as a trail of breadcrumbs, leading you to a pot of gold.  Seriously!  If you start following your heroes, your colleagues and some smart folks, they will feed you links to interesting resources, news sources and more. By crowdsourcing and sharing, we all become smarter.  And twitter isn’t just a tool for grabbing good resources and information from the web.  You can have meaningful tweet chats with your colleagues, use the tool to promote yourself and your ideas, communicate with a class around the globe, or show your gratitude and appreciation for your peers or colleagues.

Video on Twitter–Get the Skinny

Watch this short video from the folks at Common Craft:  Twitter in Plain English (2.25)

Sign Up for a Twitter Account

I suggest that you think carefully about your twitter identity.  This is part of your online digital footprint and how people will come to know you in the future.  Bloggers often post their twitter handle on their blog and you might end up using this for many professional interactions.  When you sign up for your account, you can choose an “avatar” or image to represent your identity online.  Some folks use avatar tools to create a comic of themselves and others use their actual photo.  I use my photo because I think this personalizes the communication in an online space.  I use my twitter account for professional purposes only.  Think all of these things through!  And finally, use an email address that you do not mind receiving messages from twitter because you can set the account to notify you when you receive a tweet.  You can adjust privacy settings and notifications within your “account settings.” Sign up!  What are you waiting for?

So what is a tweet? 

It’s 140 characters of text. You can also post links within your tweet.  You can send out your tweets to the world and you can label your tweets with categories–these are called hashtags.  A hashtag is created by a group or an individual–it is entirely made up by the user.  You do not have to sign up for a hashtag.  For instance, if I want to discuss Cupcake Wars in a tweet, and I want others who are interested in Cupcake Wars to join me, I would put the hastag #cupcakewars at the end of my tweet.  That way, anyone following that topic will be able to join in the conversation.  (Don’t ask–cooking shows are on demand at my house!)

Speaking of follows, some folks will choose to follow you and others will not.  Don’t get offended if someone you follow does not choose to follow you as well.  I follow the author Judy Blume, for instance, but I am certain she is not following me.  (And no, it’s not like stalking someone!  LOL)  You can search for people within twitter by their name or their twitter handle (mine is at techbabble88).  You can also search for twitter feeds by hashtags and follow those conversations.  If you attend a conference, chances are there is one hashtag that is announced at the start of the conference and everyone uses that in their tweets.  That way, everyone at the conference can dialogue and follow the conversation.

What a tweet is not:  Spam or an insult.  That’s pretty easy to understand.  Remember that your tweets are public, so if you want to have a private conversation, take it offline or send a private email message.

Retweeting:  You can show your appreciation for an idea or tweet by retweeting someone’s tweet.  This is one of the features within the twitter tool.

Friday Follows:  On Friday, tweet out your appreciation to the folks that kept you smart all week long.  Use the hashtag #FF for Friday Follows and send the tweet to your favorite follows of the week.

Links in a Tweet–Use Bitly:  Make your links shorter and smaller using a web-based tool like Bitly.  Every character counts in a tweet, so use bitly to overcome the long links. You can use Bitly by signing in with your Twitter account.  OR, you can use the tool TinyURL.  I like them both.

More about Bitly:  When you go to the Bitly page, look for the window in the top right corner to paste in your link.  For instance, if I paste in my blog address for this post, Bitly will give me a shortenend link that looks like this: http://bit.ly/PL1Dy7 .  I also like the sidebar tool, the bitmarklet that you can install into your browser’s tool bar.  With the “bitmarklet,” you do not have to navigate away from your page–the bitmarkelt tool shows up on the side of your screen when you click on the button in your browser toolbar, ready to paste in your URL.

And one more super cool thing about Bitly…when you use the bitmarklet in your browser, you can choose to share your shortened link with a brief message and send it out via your Twitter account (if you login to Bitly with your Twitter ID).  Pretty cool, right!  It takes a step out of of the process if you want to post a shortened link on Twitter–just sayin’!

Using Bitly Bitmarklet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pasting link into Bitly web page:

Get Your Tweets on With These Helpful Resources:

You may remember that I am a connected coach for Powerful Learning Practice.  Through this experience, I stay connected to my colleagues across the globe (some even in Australia and China) through twitter. And by the way, some of the folks I admire most, I have not met F2F (face-to-face), but only follow their tweets or blogs or participate in online spaces with them.  The smart folks at PLP put together a Tweet Handbook for Educators.  I gave you an overview of Twitter in this post, but when you are ready to really roll up your sleeves, use this handbook!  It’s unbelievable!  It also lists some wonderful folks to start following, if you do not know where to begin.

Twitter-Handbook-for-Teachers

Twitter Glossary brought to you by the folks from Twitter.

Twitter Help Articles – Use this resource page to get to know all the features of Twitter.

Tweetdeck – Download tweetdeck to improve your user interface.  You can create columns of hashtags, your favorite tweets and more.  I prefer this interface for all my tweeting.  It works really nice for live tweet chats.

Twitterfall – Twitterfall is another tweet aggregator that fetches your tweets into a nice feed.  It is also a helpful tool when you participate in a tweet chat and the tweets come at you so fast–it’s hard to read and post in these situations.

Tweeting in the Jewish/Ed Tech World:  Yep, there’s a whole bunch of folks I suggest you follow and there are some interesting hashtags too…

#jedchat – Follow this group of Jewish educators on Wednesday night at 9pm, Eastern. You can also check out their wiki and blog.

#jds

#jed21

#jewished – Follow this hashtag for conversations related to Jewish education

@jewishfutures – Jewish Futures hosts an annual conference dedicated to progressive thinking in the Jewish world.

@avichaifdn – Avi Chai Foundation

@ravsak – RAVSAK

@pejeJDS – Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education

@lisacolton – Lisa Colton, Founder of Darim Online, non-profit dedicated to helping Jewish organizations and education institutions with harnessing social media

@covenantfn – Covenant Foundation

@EJPhil (e Jewish Philanthropy)–They offer a lot of good news and often related to Jewish day schools.

@NYJewishWeek (New York Jewish Week–news source)

 

Some of my favorite ed tech guru follows and just smart educators:

@snbeach –  Sheryl Nussbaum Beach from Powerful Learning Practice

@lanihall – Lani Ritter Hall, educator and connected coach leader from Powerful Learning Practice

@willrich45 – Will Richardson, ed tech guru and progressive thinker/educator

@karlfisch – Karl Fisch, another ed tech guru and leader in the field

@stevehargadon – Steve Hargadon, ed tech leader and creator of Classroom 2.0

@chrislehmann – Chris Lehmann is the principal of the Science and Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA and the co-chair of the annual Educon conference. Another progressive thinker in the field:)

@globalearner – This is Alan November’s handle.  He is the leader of the Boston Learning Conference and a warrior in the digital revolution for education. If you get a chance to go to the conference, you will find it inspiring, hands-on and just awesome.

@mwesch – Michael Wesch leads his students in the study of digital ethnography at Kansas State University.  They have a fascinating YouTube project. His students created the poignant video “A Vision of Students Today“.

Follow me on Twitter @techbabble88

Who do you follow?  Post your follows on this blog.  Also, share your thoughts on how tweeting can support you as an educator?  How can twitter be part of your classroom experience?  What don’t you like about it?

 

Digital Challenge-Week 1: Find an alternative to PowerPoint!

Welcome to the PJA Digital Challenge, Week 1, “find an alternative to Powerpoint!”  As you know, each week I will be posting a new challenge task with fodder for thought on how to integrate technology into your curriculum in the fall.  I hope that you will try some of the tools and post your feedback on this blog–a dialogue amongst our colleagues would really enhance the experience for all.  If you do not know how to post a comment, here are quick directions: (By the way, I use Jing by Techsmith as a screen capture tool for all tutorials.  It’s free and easy to use.  It takes a picture of your screen and allows you to add arrows and text.  You can also take video and record your voice like a movie or “screencast.” 

Locate the comments link:  Below the title of the post, you will see a link “no comments” or it might say “comments” with a number next to it, showing how many people have commented so far.

 

 

Click on the comments link, and follow the on screen directions…click post comment button.  Once your comment is approved, you will see it live on the blog!  It’s that easy!  And by the way, blogs are meant to be dialogues, so PLEASE join the conversation and post your thoughts!

 

 

On to the Digital Challenge–Week 1:  Find an alternative to PowerPoint!

When PowerPoint first came on the scene and technology was fairly new for making fancy presentations, we as educators were fooled into thinking that PowerPoint was a great utilization of technology.  It looked pretty, it had animation and sound.  PowerPoint presentations popped up all over the place and presentations became “powerless points” as workshop leaders, business executives and educators alike posted every thought on the slides in a linear fashion and read to their audiences.  As time went on, leaders realized that key words, more images and less animation made for more poignant presentations, allowing audiences to benefit from presentations supported by interesting visual aides.  Even so, most of these presentations resulted in a linear form, where the presenter could click through slide after slide, rather than the presentation functioning like interactive media or a web site.

So, what else is out there that is different and more interactive for our students?  What tools can inspire kids to be creative, to synthesize their information and data, to harness good public speaking skills,  and to show what they know and to integrate some of the good stuff from 21st Century toolkits, like embedding media and collaboration?

Here are my favorite two slide presentation tools that support the 21st Century learning mindset.  I challenge you to try them out this summer and think about how these tools might fit into one of your rich and engaging units already in place.

PREZI

Prezi is a presentation tool that is social, collaborative and non-linear–all good reasons to love it!  You can import old PowerPoint slides and images into Prezi.  You can also embed video, hyperlinks and sound files.  You can share out the Prezi and allow others to collaborate on the same Prezi project–think of the power of this in a collaborative learning situation!  Your students can work on the same Prezi with students down the hall, across the city or across the ocean.  And if you do not want to rely on your bandwidth or internet connection for the actual presentation, you can download the entire presentation and view it offline. Oh, and by the way, there is an app for the iPad that works with Prezi.

Prezi also loves educators and students–accounts for students and educators are free! (Use this link to access the education account sign up page.)

The tool is based on a canvas concept.  You place your key ideas on the canvas and build related ideas around each concept.  Animation allows you to move around on the canvas or you can choose to skip an area on the fly by manually moving to the next area–this is great for mini lessons or conference presentations when time is pressing.

Visit the “learn” page from Prezi for tutorials and cheat sheets.  Prezi does a beautiful job of showing you some tips and tricks, as well as how the tool works.  Visit the “explore” page from Prezi to see examples of how Prezi is used for different purposes and fields.

One note of caution, the animation in Prezi can create a “motion sickness” effect on your audience, so use the animation or the “fly to” the next object feature with care.  Too much animation will make your audience dizzy:)

Scroll down on the Prezi homepage to “prezis we like” to see the possibilities of Prezi as a presentation tool.  And, for those of you who want to get into the nitty gritties of the tool, check out the complete user manual.

Here is a sample Prezi about Project-Based Learning by Heidi Hutchison