Professional Development In Your PJs

We're in the final stretch. This week it's about professional development and provides an example of how to access learning opportunities at anytime. The site featured on the wiki is K12online.org, but there are additional resources online. You can google or youtube (yes, I just used both words as verbs) any topic, find conference handouts on the presenter's website, or follow a Twitter #hashtag. What sets the k12 online conference apart is that there are years of resources in one place. It's a "flipped" conference. Mark your calendars, the 2013 conference is taking place in October. Stay tuned! Also posted this week is your final assignment, a digital story reflecting your experience on this journey. Details are on the wiki. So, here is what's left: This week... Online conference Digital story-due May 13 Next week... Hot topics in EdTech All work must be completed by May 13, 2013.

Week 7- Formative Assessment

This week is about Formative Assessment.  You're going to be taking a couple of quizzes, but they are formative, so they don't count as a "grade".

There are many web tools out there, but we will dip our toes in the water by experimenting with three tools that are solidly in the lead (in my book, anyway)-  Google Forms and Flubaroo, Socrative and Padlet.

The "wall" embedded in this post is a Padlet wall.  It was created in less than 3 minutes.  Padlet is a quick and easy tool for creating formative assessments.  A Padlet wall can be used as an exit slip, poll or whatever your imagination can dream up.  

Before moving on to this week's Activity, please click below and add your comments to this Padlet "wall".  

1. Double click anywhere on the wall.
2. Add your name and title of your post.
3. Write something to answer the prompt.
4. Optional:  add a link or picture to your post

Click here to proceed to Activity 13- Technology and Formative Assessment

Created with Padlet

Week 6- FREE Resources!!! Creative Commons and Open Educational Resources

Designed by coerll

This week is all about where to find resources for use in the classroom.  Every educator in the 21st Century should be able to find things for free, vet them and know how to give credit where credit is due.

I'm sure you've searched YouTube
and found videos you've liked, possibly even shared them with your students.  Have you found entire textbooks?  Animated lessons?  That's what you will be exploring this week.  



4/08/13 Week 6 - Harnessing the Power of the Web- Part 2- FREE resources!

• Activity 11- Creative Commons
• Activity 12 - Open Educational Resources (OER)

The resources for Activity 12 are science and math heavy, that just seems to be where the OER world is going deep.  For those of you outside of math and science, spend some extra time in Creative Commons area of Activity 11 and exploring the MIT content of Activity 12.  

I have a favor to ask this week, in posting comments to your blogs, I have to enter catchas every time.  Those are the jumbled up words and numbers that verify whether or not you are human.  If you watch this short Jing (screen capture) you'll see where to turn these off in the "settings" of your blog.

Note:  One resource not covered in the activities for this week is iTunes U.  iTunesU is a great resource, but is limited to Apple users, the content does not work on PC's or other tablets.  If you have an iPad or a Mac, it's worth exploring.

Week 5- Prezi, Voki and Animoto

Welcome back!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Spring Vacation.  Did you pick up a few followers along the way?  Add any circles or communities to your Google+?  Hope so.  

Week 5 Is starting to look at some WebTools for presentations.  Whether it's teacher presentations or student products.  These are three tools every educator should have in their tool box-  Prezi, Voki and Animoto.

• Activity 8- Using Prezi to spice up your (teacher or student) classroom presentations
• Activity 9- Voki- Creepy, but effective
• Activity 10- Animoto- Quality video production in a few clicks

Your blog post for this week should take place after Activity 10.  For activity 10, I provided a link to Youtube.com/editor.  If you are all ready skilled in Prezi, Voki or Animoto, you should substitute that time to learn to edit directly in YouTube.  The power of pulling in Creative Common resources directly from YouTube is unrivaled.

Have a great week.  Have fun creating something special with each of these activities!

Week 3 and then Spring Break!

Week three is all about communication and connections.  We learn best when we teach others, but we also learn more when we have a larger community of learners to pull from.  Our class, under 20, offers many insights from blog posts and videos that have been shared, but we have access to the world, a click away.

My use of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ has grown exponentially over the last two years.  I started as a "lurker" and have evolved into a more active tweeter, re-tweeter and share-er on all three social platforms.  Building my professional learning community online has allowed me to make stronger connections to these people in person.  I meet them at conferences and we have face-to-face conversations, hard to believe, right?

Growing a professional learning network has put me in touch with experts around the country, and WORLD.  I can direct message or email many of the people in my network when I need a question answered.

We're focusing on Google+ and Twitter because these two networks seem to be used more for professional connections than Facebook.  LinkedIn is another professional network, but it seems more static.  The dynamic properties of LinkedIn haven't taken off as profoundly as the other two, but it's still a good resource to have yourself "out there" with a web presence.

This week, I hope you jump into the stream of social networking.  Here are the links you will need for this week.

• Link to Activities page on wiki
• Link directly to Activity 6- Twitter
• Link directly to Activity 7- Googe+
• Link to tracking spreadsheet

As always, remember to add the week or activity title to your blog post or tag it.  Additionally, comment on the blogs of at least three of your classmates each week.  Mix it up, don't go back to the same person each time.

Google Apps for Education Illinois Summit

Looking for a professional development opportunity over Spring Break?  Check out the Google Apps for Education Illinois Summit taking place March 27th and 28th at Glenbrook North High School.  Learn from Google Certified Teachers/Trainers.

For more information, click the link- http://il.gafesummit.com/.

'via Blog this'

Week 2- Going Google

I hope the activities of week 1 have given you a taste for what web tools really have to offer.  Several of you sought me out for some help via email or in person, keep doing it.  If you need me, I'm just a click away.

Week 2 is all about Google.  You will explore Google Apps for Education.  Spending your exploration time completing a scavenger hunt will acquaint you with the many features of Google Apps for Education.  From there, you will get "under the hood" of your Google Chrome Browser.

Have fun with Google.  I'm "Giddy for Google" and I think it's contagious.

As we progress through the course, please remember to check off the activities on the tracking spreadsheet. A few of you have added your blog address to the tracking spreadsheet, please do so once you have started your blog.  We will use this to add the blogs to the blog list for this main class blog (look to the right).  Finally, keep reading each other's posts.  You'll learn a lot from the reflections and comments shared via our classroom blogging community.  Comment on at least three blogs and try to spread your comments around the class.

Link to Wiki Activity Page
Link to Tracking Spreadsheet
Link to Tracking Document

Don't forget to Spring forward this weekend!