Twitter, Blogger, Symbaloo, Collaborize, and Schoology/Skype With Van Meter

"Be open-minded" 
"Do things differently"
"Keep the five characteristics of effective instruction at the forefront of every lesson. Laptops should enhance these characteristics." 


Twitter


Twitter allows you to control your own professional development by developing a network of information people. The resources that are available on Twitter are endless. 

TweetDeck - You can only install this on Chrome or Safari. TweetDeck allows you to monitor and manage your feeds. http://www.tweetdeck.com/

Twitter Resources


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qsnIHXW-J30ilSaH4VUpeWxB1_K1L6JFMcTSvea89XA/edit

http://www.teachhub.com/50-ways-use-twitter-classroom

 http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2009/05/best-practices-in-twitter-enhanced-high.html

 http://twitterforeducation.wikispaces.com/Educational+Uses+of+Twitter

Blogging


 Rebecca Comer's Wiki (From Van Meter)  - There is a link on the left hand side titled "High School Student Blogs"


Notes from Skype session with Rebecca:

• Rebecca creates a document that has a link to all of her students' blogs. This document is on her Wiki and is shared with all of her students. 
• Students take pictures of their artwork and upload their pictures on their blogs.
• Van Meter has an artist of the week contest. A Google Form is created for students to vote on the best artwork/blog. The winner becomes the artist of the week. 
• Rebecca uses Pinterest to get a lot of ideas for her classroom. She finds blogs to follow on Pinterest. 
• Student blogs are used as a conference tool. This is a great way to showcase all class work to parents. 

More blogs to explore!


Teresa Euken's blog - http://mrseukensartmooseum.wordpress.com/

Sonia Kunze's blog - http://mrskunzesroom.blogspot.com/

2010-2011 Techno Days Blog - http://redoaktechnodays.blogspot.com/


Collaborize


http://www.collaborizeclassroom.com/

Notes from Skype session with Jared Lange:

• Collaborize is a great tool to use for online based discussions. 
• If you do a lot of reading & discussing in your classroom, then this would be a great tool to use with students. 
• This is a good data piece that can be used when conferencing with students and parents  about student progress. You can create participation reports. These reports can be used to help students become more responsible for their own learning.
• There is a topic library where you can grab resources to use in your classroom
• Words of advice: When just starting to use Collaborize, spend time doing open discussions so that students can practice posting responses and responding to their classmates. Also, have clear expectations for students from the get go.