The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. The K-12 Online Conference is a free and open to anyone. The 2009 sessions have been posted. The sessions are for educators by educators from around the world. All session are online and most can be downloaded from the K-12 Online Conference podcast page in iTunes. You're welcome to simply view the session or participate by adding blog comments or joining the conference's Ning social network.
I haven't had the chance to view all of the session yet, but I would like to share four that I have enjoyed.
My students loved playing game shows. They are a great way to bring novelty and variety into the classroom. The questions, competition, and fun can make reviewing content something to look forward to. When I first started teaching I used a pocket chart with note cards. The note cards were arranged into categories and had a point value on one side and a question on the other. Students were divided into teams and I played the part of the host, complete with a sports jacket. Everyone looked forward to game show day, even though it meant a test was coming up.
Continue reading "Game Shows in the Classroom with JeopardyLabs"
We've all sat through our share of presentations that heavily relied on slides filled with bullet points. Rarely does anyone look forward to or remember much from these types of presentations, yet they are very common. It is frustrating for audiences to witness the speaker turn away from them to read from the projector screen. Nonetheless, presenters often rely on their slides for what they are going to say. Bullet points are routinely used because some presenters think by including so much information that they are being thorough. Another reason for slides with loads of text is that the presenter can print them out for an instant handout.
PowerPoint and Keynote are the two big names when it comes to presentation software. PowerPoint is part of Microsoft Office for Windows and Macintosh. Keynote is part of iWork and is only for Apple computers. Both pieces of software are guilty of guiding users toward using slides with titles and bullet points. Their slide templates are filled with layouts that include text boxes for titles and bulleted lists. Despite their tendency to lead users toward creating "death by bullet point" style slideshows, PowerPoint and Keynote support Presenter view. In Presenter view, also known as Presentation Mode or Presenter Tools, the speaker views his or her notes privately on the computer's screen while the audience sees only the slide on the projector's screen.
Today's teachers typically use more than one computer. They often access their files from home, the classroom, and computer lab. Many educators have at least one flash drive for saving and transporting files. Some even clutter their inboxes by emailing files to themselves. There's a free solution to accessing files on multiple computers that is practically invisible to the user: Dropbox. No discs, drives, or emails are necessary. All you need is an internet connection. Continue reading "Dropbox for File Syncing and Online Backup"
When you think of comics, you probably think of characters who wear tights and can fly. Sure, many comics are about super heroes, but comics can be about any topic. The combination of text and drawings in a comic make them a powerful communication medium. In fact, when Google released its Chrome web browser, it commissioned a comic book to tell the press and public all about their new product. There's no crime-fighting or capes in Google's comic. Instead, it features normal characters showing and telling why Google made its own browser and why they think it is better than other browsers.
Continue reading "Create Comics"
The Arizona K12 Center is offering a new Technology Integration Series class, Google Tools. The workshop meets four evenings, and it is packed with Google goodness. I (Tony Vincent) am the instructor, and I am very excited about the services Google provides. Participants can look forward to plenty of classroom examples and hands-on time. Below is the description of the Google Tools class.
Continue reading "Register for Google Tools Workshop"
Wallwisher is a website where you can make an online bulletin board where anyone can post virtual sticky notes. It can make a great discussion, brainstorming, survey, question, or assessment tool. The teacher can start a new wall and one or many people can post sticky notes to the wall.
Educators are using Wallwisher in different ways. For example, Steve Kirkpatrick's elementary students in Salford, U.K. posted to their Dinosaur Question Wall. Questions like "Which Baby dinosaurs were the biggest after they have just hatched?" and "Were there any swimming dinosaurs?" will serve as research topics. Similarly, Kathleen McGready's students posted what they know about dinosaurs to their What did you learn about dinosaurs? wall. Twelfth grade biology students in Andrew Douchy's class brainstormed what they already knew about evolution before beginning to study the topic in class. Jim Hansen has a wall called From the Desktop of Mr. Hansen where he posts announcements. Jim's wall is embedded as a web widget in his New Searles 234 class blog. James Hollis asked SMART Board using educators on Twitter and Ning to post their thoughts on the wall he started called Why Do Teachers Love SMART Boards.
Discovery Education has posted a series of videos all about Web 2.0. Hall Davidson and Steve Dembo host seven short videos that explain the concept of Web 2.0 and how these new web resources can be used by educators. Together the videos total about an hour of viewing time. The videos have been embedded below.
Delicious.com is an online and social bookmarking service. It's social because the thousands of people who use it openly share their bookmarks with others. Delicious is home to the largest collection of bookmarks on the web, and that collection is searchable. In fact, it's a great idea to search Delicious when teachers are looking for online resources. The search results are websites that actual humans took the time to bookmark. This is different from Google since their results are based on backlinks. Watch my short infomercial to see how searching Delicious.com can make your life better.
Continue reading "Search Delicious for Online Resources"
Did you know that almost every Saturday you can participate in live online webinars for free? It's true! Classroom 2.0 Live is hosted by Peggy George, Kim Caise, and Lorna Costantini. Each week they invite guest presenters to discuss topics in education.
Recently I was Classroom 2.0 Live's guest and I spoke about creating Interactive Stories. Interactive Stories are stories written by students that have many different endings. Interactive Stories are digital and hyperlinks, but they were inspired by the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. In those books, the reader made choices to determine what would happen in the story. Instead of flipping between pages, Interactive Stories rely on clicking linked text to make decisions about how the story progresses.
NASA provides raw digital materials for students that they can combine to make videos, audio recordings, and slide shows about selected science topics. The materials are available from NASA's Do-It-Yourself Podcast page. Currently there are five topics: Fitness, Lab Safety, Newton's Laws, Spacesuits and Sports. For each topic, NASA provides video clips, audio clips, images, and information. Students can edit together what NASA provides with their own video, voice, and/or images. Software like iMovie, MovieMaker, GarageBand, Audacity, and PowerPoint could be used to mix together and explain the provided media.
Continue reading "NASA Do-It-Yourself Podcasts"
The following post is by guest blogger, Sara Crawford.
The possibilities of Google Earth use in the classroom are endless and are growing everyday. Google Earth is a free software application that lets you virtually fly anywhere on Earth. It is a virtual globe, map and also a display of geographic information. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery and aerial photography. Google Earth allows you to explore the world beyond your classroom walls and allows your students to explore destinations they never thought possible.
To get started with Google Earth, you must first download Google Earth from earth.google.com/download-earth.html. After you read the terms, click Agree and Download. The program will automatically begin to download. To run the program simply click on the file that is downloaded has on your computer.
A podcast is a series audio or video on the web that can be cataloged in directories and automatically downloaded. The most popular directory for podcasts is inside of the iTunes software. There are over 125,000 podcasts and millions of episodes in iTunes. There are podcasts for just about any topic you can imagine (knitting, cats, vegetarians, politics, and weight loss to name a few). Most podcasts are only audio, with 25% of podcasts having video. It's important to know that you don't need an iPod for podcasting--a computer with Internet will do just fine.
Many teachers are creating podcasts for their students. Students can pause and rewind an instructional podcast so they can learn at their own pace. For example, Brent Coley's produces a show called StudyCast for his fifth graders. The podcast is designed to help students review for science and social studies tests. Episode topics include the colonies, body systems, and test taking tips. Students can listen to podcast as many times as they need to review the material.
Last month I posted a screencast showing how to use the free audio recording and editing software Audacity. Recording voice and adding sound effects and music can make for compelling productions. However, many teachers ask me about adding visuals to the audio because visuals can be especially helpful for your audience.
Since Audacity only handles audio, you'll need to use other software to combine the audio with visuals. I've created a screencast to show you how to use Movie Maker to combine your audio from Audacity with slides from PowerPoint. The screencast is for Windows users because I used Windows software. Macintosh users can use iMovie instead of Movie Maker, however, most Mac users prefer GarageBand for easily making an Enhanced Podcast (watch this Learn to Podcast video in iTunes to see how).
We've all sat through our share of presentations that heavily relied on slides filled with bullet points. Rarely does anyone look forward to or remember much from these types of presentations, yet they are very common. It is frustrating for audiences to witness the speaker turn away from them to read from the projector screen. Nonetheless, presenters often rely on their slides for what they are going to say. Bullet points are routinely used because some presenters think by including so much information that they are being thorough. Another reason for slides with loads of text is that the presenter can print them out for an instant handout.
Wallwisher
Delicious.com is an online and social bookmarking service. It's social because the thousands of people who use it openly share their bookmarks with others. Delicious is home to the largest collection of bookmarks on the web, and that collection is searchable. In fact, it's a great idea to search Delicious when teachers are looking for online resources. The search results are websites that actual humans took the time to bookmark. This is different from Google since their 
Did you know that almost every Saturday you can participate in live online webinars for free? It's true! 
NASA provides raw digital materials for students that they can combine to make videos, audio recordings, and slide shows about selected science topics. The materials are available from NASA's 
A podcast is a series audio or video on the web that can be cataloged in directories and automatically downloaded. The most popular directory for podcasts is inside of the 
