The GPS Tech Guide is a site designed to support the amazing teachers of Grosse Pointe South High School. Please use this blog as one of the many great tools you use every day to provide the top notch education the students have always received.
Next up in the series of How to Screencasts is how to embed a YouTube video. The steps will actually work for any video that has an embed option. Actually, the steps will work for anything that is capable of being embedded. They could be widgets, games, etc. I'll touch on those later, but here is the video on how to embed video. Oh the irony.
I hope this video made sense to everyone. I think I'm getting better at making these as I move forward. If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment in the comment box and I will get back to you as soon as possible. I hope this video encourages more people to look at the possibilities of blogs and web pages in general.
Well, it looks like I tricked some people into thinking I know what I'm talking about. I have been asked to present during on-line conference. The focus of the conference this year is Innovation in education and I will be presenting on Integrating Technology into the classroom. My session is on Sunday August 1 at 12:30 EST. My presentation is entitled, Everything I Learned about Tech Integration, I Learned from Movies. For those who know me, this is not a huge leap.
I'm excited to be presenting and honored to be in a great group of educators participating in the conference. I've met many of these people at ISTE last month and I'm excited to see their presentations and Keynotes. They have great things to say about education and it's worth stopping by for a listen. I encourage all of you to sign up if you have the time and stop by and see what people have to say about innovation in the classroom. You might find something that changes your entire view of education or just something that will make a single lesson a little bit better for your students. either way, you will walk away with something that will make you a better teacher. Best of all, it's free! Stop by The Reform Symposium website and sign up and look around. Here is a video explaining the conference.
I hope this helps answer any questions you might have about the conference. If you still have some, feel free to send me an email or leave a comment and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks for reading and spread the word!
Here is a screen cast on how to post a comment on a School Wires blog. This is the video I will be adding to my school webpage and showing to students so they can post comments on the class blog. Feel free to embed this YouTube video on your site for students to view.
Don't know how to embed video on your blog? Another screencast will be available shortly to show you how. :-)
If you have questions, please post a comment on this blog and I will help you out. :-)
I am going to be embarking on a crazy journey this school year as I connect my classes to high schools around the world through class blogs and other collaborative web tools. I've been able to enlist a few other teachers to give it a try, but I realized that some people might not know how to create and run a blog on the Schoolwires website. Some of you might be wondering why you should start a blog and what would you do with it. Below is a Wallwisher (Wonderful tool I've used in class!) where teachers from all over have given reasons to blog in the classroom. Take a look.
Blogging has been a great way for me to flesh out ideas for classes and find the best tool to present lessons. I have met many amazing people that are willing to help at the drop off that hat no matter where they are in the world. From a student standpoint, blogging is a great way to increase the overall literacy of our students. Literacy is no longer defined as reading and writing. Computer skills need to be added to the mix if students are going to become functioning adults. Blogs and other Web tools allow students to work on these skills. Having students read and respond to a teacher's post helps with literacy. As we strive to bring the literacy level up, blogs are a great tool to help achieve this goal. Whether you are a Math, Science, Art, Music or Foreign Language teacher, blogging can help you and your students grow. Consider this when you think about adding blogs to your class. Here is a blog post about the positive impact blogging has had on a High School Administrator.
Below you will find a video on how to set up and moderate your class blog. I will be creating a series of these screencasts to share with you in the hopes it will spur you on to creating your own blog. I hope to create a great network of teacher run blogs at South and connect them to schools around the globe. It will take some time, by I'm confident that the best teacher in the world can handle this without a problem.
I hope this video tutorial will help you as you try to set up a blog. I will have other screen casts in the future showing you how embed YouTube videos and other helpful tips. If yo have any questions, please post them in the comments section of the blog. That way I can help everyone in a timely manner. Thanks!
Here is a nice little video on how to create a Wallwisher. I've used this with great success in my classes for presentations. A student would present and the class would be at computer stations. Once the student completes the presentation, the other students post their thoughts on the Wallwisher. The presenter can then go back and see what student thought of their project. It is a great way for students to get instant feedback from their peers. Take a look at the video and play around with the site. I'm using it for the post above. Check that one out too.
P.S. - This was my first Screencast I had ever done. It was for my Grad class and it was easy to make after I got used to the set up. Enjoy!
I spent part of last week in Denver at the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) conference. Of all of the conferences I have ever been to, this was the best. It was the best Professinal Development I could ever ask for in regards to technology. I met teachers from all over the country and the world and we shared some interesting ideas about tech integration and professional development.
The one thing that I walked away with was the fact that, like myself, there were many teachers that were there because they wanted to be there. They were not sent their by their district, they found the conference and asked the district to if they would send them. Technology in education is something that needs to be teacher driven and building/district supported. That is the only true to grow and expand technology in the classroom. The connections I've made over the past 6 months on Twitter and the various blogs and Nings I'm part of will have a major impact on my methodology this upcoming school year.
I have a few blog posts I'm linking to for your consideration. They cover various aspects of the conference and technology in schools. Take some time and consider what they mean to your classroom or building. Now is the time to get on board and be innovators instead of playing catch up a few years from now. I hope your summer is going very well and you are resting up for another exciting school year. Please, please leave a comment with your thoughts on this post and others. Without your input, we will never know what direction to head.
Here is The ISTE Ning if you are curious as to what ISTE is.
Here are a few posts from me during and after the conference.
Mary Beth Hertz - She was recognized as an Emerging Leader by the ISTE at the conference and I had a chance to hang out with her and talk for a bit. She is very smart and has some great ideas about technology in the classroom. Here are a couple of posts from her that you should read. Follow her on Twitter at @mbteach
This post is by George Couros who is a principal at K-12 program in Alberta, Canada. He has some interesting insight into technology in the classroom for administrators. If you are an admin or are working on your Masters in Administration, you should check out the post below and his other posts. If you are still not on Twitter, sign up and follow him at @Gcouros.
Here is a great set of videos from Buzz Garwood about Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). You should watch it because it has me in it, but more importantly it further explains the value of Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) to teachers. I'm in the one at the bottom of the group of videos.
Kyle Pace is an Instructional Technology Specialist and is active on Twitter. He moderates the US version of #edchat. You can follow him @KylePace. An excellent post on PLNs and what they can do for teachers.
Kristina Peter's post on the Digital Generation is a must read. Our students do not learn the same way we did in school Here are some great notes she took during an ISTE Conference Session that explain this generations learns and what we can do to help them.
Those are just a few of the posts from people that I had so much fun meeting and sharing ideas. I look forward to meeting these teachers at other conferences and continuing to grow and push the limits of technology in my classrooms and others. Please leave me a comment if you have any ideas about PLNs, Twitter, ISE, etc.
