Personal Learning Network

Of the 4 articles on Personal Learning Networks I like the one from edutopia.com because it reminds readers that doesn't "eliminate the need for high-quality professional development". A lot of educators and experts may forget about in-school and community resources that are available to them. According to the article ninety percent of teachers said that using a PLN has helped them improve their teaching. The other three articles have plenty of information on how to get involved and stay actively connected with the online community.

What makes you uncomfortable?

Edudemic blog writer Dawn Casey-Rowe has gathered 10 valuable resources for teaching and opening up students' minds about controversial issues. She begins with a movement to "reclaim the swastika" and how controversial issues that are not discussed in depth can cloud our judgement and create necessarily uncomfortable situations. She lists topics including more common issues such as abortion and death row, as well as more unique incidents such as women's right in Saudi Arabia and the previously mentioned Reclaim the Swastika Day which is worth the read.

http://www.edudemic.com/teaching-about-controversy/

Facebook Official

Jodran Shapiro @jordosh recently tweeted an article about how apps have started to control our social lives. Many times when people take pictures they instantly think to themselves if they should post it to their Facebook or Twitter account. We can agree that it is pretty bad when your everyday thoughts are tangled into an electronic existence. I feel that is is important to not let social identities control our true selves nor hinder our creativity.

Skype in the classroom

Skype is a great resource for any classroom. When students are learning new languages or just learning about cultures from around the world, they can connect directly to students from anywhere on the planet to learn directly from each other. Students can take virtual field trips using Skype and even have greater access to guest speakers. Sometimes authors will their books to whoever wants to watch and listen. Using Skype in the classroom may also help deteriorate racism by getting schools better connected with other schools around the world.

Twitter for Education

Teachers, principals, and virtually anyone working in education would benefit in some way or another while using Twitter as a personal learning network. I enjoy all the TED talk posts because they always have up to date information and new ideas on education all of the time. TED talks are excellent for keeping an eye on the future of education. It is also a good place to stay connected with professors and classmates. The more people and organizations that you follow, the more likely you are to find more interesting people to follow.

Digital Textbooks

Edudemic has a recent blog by David Matheson giving some pros and cons of digital textbooks. Benefits include the ability to carry all of your books on you all of the time, so you can never 'leave your book at home'. They also note that computers are becoming more prevalent in everyday life so the future will reply more upon being computer literate. Reasons against digital texts include the evaluation processes that remain a paper and pencil medium. I believe the pros outweigh the cons and digital textbooks and notes will help keep students organized and on task.

http://www.edudemic.com/digital-textbooks-2/

Standardized Testing

Sir Ken Robinson recently posted on his twitter account about 120 children's book authors and illustrators who wrote a letter to the White House stating that schools spend too much time and effort on standardized testing. They emphasized that standardized testing is limiting student's imaginations. The letter also notes how the new system of evaluating teachers based on standardized testing will "crown out exploration".


http://fairtest.org/FT-Press-Release-on-Chidrens-Authors-Letter

Googling

I am still amazed at how people try to search for things on the internet. A recent blog on Edudemic talks about basic strategies on how to generate better search results when using internet search engines. Simple things like adding quotations around a topic will search only for that exact phrase. When searching for cannibals in North America, putting quotes around the phrase will help filter out websites that have information on cannibalism in other continents. Other simple tools are using a plus (+) or minus (-) symbols before specific words if the website must contain the word (plus) or if you want only website without a specific word (minus).

This is stuff I knew when people still used altavista.com and yahoo search. Hopefully people learn this basic stuff before the internet itself is outdated...


http://www.edudemic.com/student-search-skills/

Government Shutdown

The ASIDE blog never fails to bring easy to read visual data about current topics. Through video and infrographics, this blog describes why there was a government "shutdown" from political disagreements. There are also types of government employees and who will be sent home without pay, and the more necessary government employees who will still be working, some still without pay. There are statistics surveys represented to display views among Americans, as well as a nifty diagram of past government shutdowns.

http://theasideblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/visual-resources-to-teach-about-us.html

Guides to Technology

Edudemic has a new blog that is a basic guide for introducing children to technology such as computers and programs. There are new products out that have expanded this world. such as digital cameras and tablets. They list basic functions such as using a mouse and keyboard, as well as navigating an internet browser. Safeguards are also mentioned such as setting aside time for not using technology in order to not become dependent on it. Infographics fill a majority of the post, giving visual references to tips and statistics.

This guide may be helpful for teachers who are introducing computers and technology to younger students. The infographics would make great posters for around the room.

http://www.edudemic.com/technology-for-children/

Students Using Technology

Students aren't just using their phones to text and the internet for Facebook says a recent blog from Edudemic. From using their smartphones as alarm clocks in the morning, to using web chats at night to discuss work with classmates, or even using a video-conference for an online class, technology is making education more streamlined and accessible. As a college student, you may not have time to meet with a professor during their office hours. It used to be that this student would have to call the professor, now there are several outlets that have emerged to create more engaging off-site conversations. Google drive is available to let multiple people work on a document together in real-time. Give it a few years and who knows what will be available... virtual reality conference calls? I hope not, that sounds kind of creepy. But if more people learn how to use video conferencing effectively, students can get quicker feedback from their teachers, thus creating a more effective educational system.

George's Dumb Rant

Maybe Mr. George Lucas is a little bent out of shape that his movies are terrible nowadays. In this article he is basically complaining that we aren't teaching art classes as general education classes. I'm going to keep this one short because of how unimportant his words of complaint are. What he really wants to see, I believe, is a greater impact and availability of psychology courses. Understanding what the color 'red' means to anybody is psychology. Understanding how graphics make people feel is psychology.

Boo hoo, "People aren't good with graphics" he says... Cry me a river, teachers aren't here to make pretty power point presentations.

Screencasting

Like many educators and learners, I have fallen in love with Kahn academy and Salman Kahn's visually-aided approach to teaching. If you don't know what I'm talking about please go to khanacademy.org or even do some Google searches about the site. Khan has even spoken at a TEDx conference.

Salman uses a screencasting tool to animate his words to potential earners. This revolutionizes what we know as distance learning. Edudemic has a recent blog post about 10 screencasting apps that may be used in (and more importantly outside of) your classroom. Have you ever wanted to pause your teacher's lecture, and even rewind certain parts? The technology is out there, we just have to start using it. Many of these apps are free and will work on multiple OS platforms (iOS, android, windows...)

Put down that dusty chalk and start recording educational screencasts that last virtually forever, and are so shareable that you can instantly provide educational opportunities for people all over the world.

Online Security

When you set up an account online, whether it be for an email account or a social media site, you are often asked to answer some security questions. This procedure is incase you forget your password, or maybe you are logging into your MySpace account from a new computer. Who am I kidding nobody uses MySpace anymore... 

The Aside blog recently posted about Social Engineering, or how people attempt to get information and even more from you. Now I've always been careful about posting confidential information online, but this blog points out something many might not be aware of. Sometimes we answer security questions such as "What street did you grow up on?" or "What is the name of your favorite pet."  Anyone who knows me or is friends with me on Facebook will know I posted 20 pictures a day of my cat Buster. With a little common sense, my account may be compromised by answering such "security" questions.

Children are highly susceptible to these types of security issues, and it is important to keep students informed when working with internet-enabled technology.

The lesson of the post is: be careful what you post online. When I was a kid (okay, okay, I'm still a kid) we were taught to never put a phone number or address online. Not only do some people post such things, but contacts between programs and applications sync their info right onto my iPhone. With a few clicks (okay they're not clicks, more like finger pressing a touch screen... we need a name for that. Maybe Apple can patent another iPhrase...) I can call these people or get directions to their house, or their recently geotagged post. Just be careful how trusting you are.

Scale of the Solar System

Our planet is nestled in a solar system with great distances between planets. To illustrate this accurately in a textbook is, well... impossible. A teacher who authors the blog ScienceFix uses the sidewalk in front of his school to demonstrate the scale of our solar system. He uses objects to scale to accurately portray the sizes of the planets such as the head of a pin for Mercury, or a bean for Saturn. To get accurate placement of the planets, teachers may use Google Maps to find where to place each planet for the most accurately laid out learning activity for conceptualizing the scale of our solar system. This is a great example of using Web 2.0 tools to create better lesson plans.

This blog post is dedicated to our dear friend Pluto.

Online Learning

If you're like me, you love charts and infographics. They are quick and powerful learning tools for visual learners.  The blog Getting Smart posted an infographic recently about the growth from what was called distance learning to the term we use today, online learning. We begin in 1840 when course material was sent through the mail service and come to today, were 1 in 4 college students are enrolled in at least one online course. We have come a long way in terms of getting educational material out to students off-site of the school or campus. There are still barriers to overcome, as described in the final pros and cons section, but one this is for certain: we are improving how we exchange information every day.

First Post

I have discovered a few educational technology blogs that many teachers may find useful for creating and bringing forward engaging lessons to the classroom. The first is called The Aside Blog and boasts wonderful video presentations and infographics that make learning easy and accessible. Their latest entry includes a video entitled "The Syrian conflict, in 5 minutes" with charts and links to follow. It is an easy to understand animation outlining the conflicts that have developed in the country the past decade or so leading up to the current civil conflicts.
Another blog that I started following is Edudemic. Edudemic keeps their blogs simple enough to be useful for the everyday teacher looking to incorporate technology into their lesson plans. There one post showing all of the basic features using iOS7 on the iPad, from creating folders, tabbed browsing, and icloud. If you are keeping track, iOS7 hasn't even been released to the public yet, so teachers can be a few steps ahead of the game when preparing lessons.