I've been asked by a few teacher why I use Twitter. If they would have asked me the week I started, I would have told them it was something fun to play around with this summer. Now, I feel I would be lost without my Teacher Tweeps. The connections I have made with other teachers from around the world has made me a better teacher. We share ideas, pass links, discuss ed topics and tech topics. There is no limit to what we can discuss. The question I have for people now is, "Why are you NOT on Twitter?"
Below are a few links that can answer some questions about Twitter that you might have.
Richard Byrne has a great blog called Free Technology For Teachers and it is a great source of information. This post will show you how to find other teachers with shared interests on Twitter. You can follow him on Twitter by clicking the Twitter link on his blog.
Laura Walker has a great site that offers wonderful tips. This post gives 9 great reasons Teachers should be on Twitter. You can follow her at @mrswalker
Twitter for Teachers is a site for teachers and it's about Twitter. It has endless resources on Twitter and other great tech tools for the class. Don't skip this site!
Another great site that offers comments on technology, thought on education policy and movementsm, and shares terrific links from other teachers is The Nerdy Teacher. @TheNerdyTeacher
Lastly, you should try to follow the people you know. Friends, famliy and other teachers in the building and district is a great way to get comfortable before you start connecting with the rest of the world. Twitter is where the information is being shared by educators. It's important to keep up or you might be left behind.
- Give it a try!
Showing posts with label Sharing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sharing. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Posterize Yourself
Thank to Dee for sharing this cool site. :-)
Blockposters.com was sent to me by a fellow teacher and it looks like a winner. It's a very simple 3 step process.
1. Upload the image of your choice.
2. Decide how big you want the poster to be.
3. Download your poster as a PDF.
The website chops up the picture into seperate pages that you can print our and assemble yourself. Student projects or class rules could be turned into larger posters you can hang in your room. Have a look around and let me know what you think.
- Give it a try.
Blockposters.com was sent to me by a fellow teacher and it looks like a winner. It's a very simple 3 step process.
1. Upload the image of your choice.
2. Decide how big you want the poster to be.
3. Download your poster as a PDF.
The website chops up the picture into seperate pages that you can print our and assemble yourself. Student projects or class rules could be turned into larger posters you can hang in your room. Have a look around and let me know what you think.
- Give it a try.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
History Alive!
As a short lived Social Studies teacher, I know I would have found this website very useful in my classroom.
Digital History is a huge site developed by The Chicago Historical Society, The University of Houston, The National Park Service, and other groups dedicated to preserving history. They have enabled their search engine to find primary sources of information. Here is a link to the New York Times reporting on the Dred Scott Case. Primary sources can be tough for students to find on the internet, so this is a great tool for students to have access to very valuable information. Here is another link to the Journal of Christopher Columbus. Students will no longer be able to say they could not find a primary source for their paper. It is a great tool that I can even use in my English classes if I wanted students to watch the video and read the text of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Simple searches can open a world of possibilities for your class and your students.
An interactive timeline is a great visual tool for students. Links to speeches and other wonderful sources could help make the Social Studies Classroom a more interactive environment for student learning.
Give it a try.
Digital History is a huge site developed by The Chicago Historical Society, The University of Houston, The National Park Service, and other groups dedicated to preserving history. They have enabled their search engine to find primary sources of information. Here is a link to the New York Times reporting on the Dred Scott Case. Primary sources can be tough for students to find on the internet, so this is a great tool for students to have access to very valuable information. Here is another link to the Journal of Christopher Columbus. Students will no longer be able to say they could not find a primary source for their paper. It is a great tool that I can even use in my English classes if I wanted students to watch the video and read the text of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Simple searches can open a world of possibilities for your class and your students.
An interactive timeline is a great visual tool for students. Links to speeches and other wonderful sources could help make the Social Studies Classroom a more interactive environment for student learning.
Give it a try.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
"I Can't Find Any Information!"
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that from my students. Another one I love to hear is, "What do you mean I can't use Wikipedia as a source?" As an English Teacher, I have spent many long hours teaching students how to conduct proper searches on the internet. In case any of you do not know, all Freshmen at Grosse Pointe South are taught about proper searches and proper citation. They should never be able to tell you that they were never taught how to properly cite information or where to look that information up.
With that having been said, sometimes I just want my students to look at a few specific websites for a specific project. I have started using a great site I want to share with you great teachers. The site is called Diigo and it is a bookmarking site. By creating a free profile, you can add specific pages to your account and direct students or other teachers to look at them. That is not the only thing you can do with this great tool though.
Highlighting - You can highlight specific information before you bookmark the site. This can save people time when there is to much information to read through and all you want is a few lines.
Sticky Notes - You can places notes on the highlighted areas to remind you of their relevance. There have been too many times where I have bookmarked a site and I could not remember why I saved it a day or so later.
Groups - You can create specific groups and send pages you find to that group only. You can make the group a public group (anyone can join) or a private group (you select who can join). After some time, I will make the teacher's group a private group to keep nosy teenagers at bay.
Email - You can directly email any site yo find to yourself or other teachers. You can create an address book and send the site directly to students or to other teachers in your department.
Teacher Account - You can request to sign up for a Teacher Account from Diigo. This will allow you to sign up students to join your specific groups that you have created. I have a Teacher Account, but am not using it with my students yet. I'm just creating groups and keeping them open to the public. I put links to them on my website so they can view the groups without an account. It could come in handy if I want to email them sites to look at over the weekend.
Linking Accounts - Diigo allows you to link your blog and Twitter accounts to your Diigo account. This way, if you bookmark something, it can be posted to you blog and your Twitter. You can set up a your account to post all the bookmarks you have made to your blog. It can be set for a daily, twice daily or weekly. This is a great way to save you time. You can also link your iPhone to Diigo as well. Download the Diigo App and you will have access to anything that you have bookmarked. It migth be available for other phones, but you would have to check for that.
The best way to start bookmarking after you create your account is to download the toolbar. It will sit at the top of your browser and you just click the bookmark button when you want to share a website. There are many other great parts of Diigo that you can use. It's best to log on and play around a bit. Have fun!
With that having been said, sometimes I just want my students to look at a few specific websites for a specific project. I have started using a great site I want to share with you great teachers. The site is called Diigo and it is a bookmarking site. By creating a free profile, you can add specific pages to your account and direct students or other teachers to look at them. That is not the only thing you can do with this great tool though.
Highlighting - You can highlight specific information before you bookmark the site. This can save people time when there is to much information to read through and all you want is a few lines.
Sticky Notes - You can places notes on the highlighted areas to remind you of their relevance. There have been too many times where I have bookmarked a site and I could not remember why I saved it a day or so later.
Groups - You can create specific groups and send pages you find to that group only. You can make the group a public group (anyone can join) or a private group (you select who can join). After some time, I will make the teacher's group a private group to keep nosy teenagers at bay.
Email - You can directly email any site yo find to yourself or other teachers. You can create an address book and send the site directly to students or to other teachers in your department.
Teacher Account - You can request to sign up for a Teacher Account from Diigo. This will allow you to sign up students to join your specific groups that you have created. I have a Teacher Account, but am not using it with my students yet. I'm just creating groups and keeping them open to the public. I put links to them on my website so they can view the groups without an account. It could come in handy if I want to email them sites to look at over the weekend.
Linking Accounts - Diigo allows you to link your blog and Twitter accounts to your Diigo account. This way, if you bookmark something, it can be posted to you blog and your Twitter. You can set up a your account to post all the bookmarks you have made to your blog. It can be set for a daily, twice daily or weekly. This is a great way to save you time. You can also link your iPhone to Diigo as well. Download the Diigo App and you will have access to anything that you have bookmarked. It migth be available for other phones, but you would have to check for that.
The best way to start bookmarking after you create your account is to download the toolbar. It will sit at the top of your browser and you just click the bookmark button when you want to share a website. There are many other great parts of Diigo that you can use. It's best to log on and play around a bit. Have fun!
Sharing is Caring!
There have been times when another teacher asked if I could send them an assignment I used last year because they would love to use it for their class. I'm usually a pretty organized person, but sometimes things get moved from one place to another. Slideshare is a great website where you can upload your PowerPoint presentations, word documents and PDFs for other teachers to use when they want them. You can even put certain documents directly on your website if you want your students to have access to the document.
Slideshare is a free website that is quick and easy to use. If you have some older handout that are not on your computer, it's still not a problem. Use one of the new copiers in the building, scan the document, email it to yourself, and then upload it to the site. After you upload a document, you can decide who can view the documents. As more teachers create profiles, we can create a network that will connect all of the teachers in the building across departments. Social Studies could be sharing with English, Science could share with Math and Art could share with...with... well, most department could share documents with each other.
I'm going to start slowly uploading many of my regular use documents and just send the link to all of my department members so they can pick and choose what they want for their class. It would be great if most departments would use this site because it could be a great resource for new teachers in the building. Give Slideshare a shot and see all of the different things you can do. Remember, Sharing is Caring.
Slideshare is a free website that is quick and easy to use. If you have some older handout that are not on your computer, it's still not a problem. Use one of the new copiers in the building, scan the document, email it to yourself, and then upload it to the site. After you upload a document, you can decide who can view the documents. As more teachers create profiles, we can create a network that will connect all of the teachers in the building across departments. Social Studies could be sharing with English, Science could share with Math and Art could share with...with... well, most department could share documents with each other.
I'm going to start slowly uploading many of my regular use documents and just send the link to all of my department members so they can pick and choose what they want for their class. It would be great if most departments would use this site because it could be a great resource for new teachers in the building. Give Slideshare a shot and see all of the different things you can do. Remember, Sharing is Caring.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)