Wow! It’s been a busy week! Between our Chicago Summer Workshop Series as well as onsite sessions at schools in New York, NY, Tacoma, WA, Providence, RI, Andover, MA, and Kingston, MA, Tom Daccord, Greg Kulowiec, Samantha Morra, and Shawn McCusker criss-crossed the country. Carl Hooker successfully launched the second iPadlooza in Austin, TX, and Don Orth led a three-day iPad 2.0 seminar at Hillbrook.
On top of this excitement, we’ve posted some new articles and found new resources as we gear up for the start of the Boston Summer Workshops next week. We still have space in some of our sessions including:
- July 15-16: Leveraging Technology to Differentiate Instruction: Creating Rich Curricula for ALL Students
- July 22-24: Building an Interactive or BYOD Classroom with Multiple Devices
- July 25-16: Creating Digital Course Content for iPads
- July 25-16: All Things Google
Next week, we will be LIVE from ISTE. Jen Carey (@teacherjencarey) will be blogging in real-time for us, and Carl will be sharing daily wrap-ups, so stay tuned for lots of updates.
New Articles from the Team
Teaching Toddlers to Tweet? Introducing Social Media to Elementary Students
In this article featured on Edutopia, Beth provides three examples of how teachers can introduce social media to early elementary students in constructive and meaningful ways.
The Social Media Dilemma Facing Schools
“For me, social media is learning media.” writes Patrick in this article. This post is the first in a series where he will be taking on the challenges and benefits associated with the proliferation of social media in schools.
Three Ways to Kickstart Your PLN this Summer
Jen Carey provides three solutions for building your Personal Learning Network (PLN) during summer vacation.
How To Make Sure Professional Development Is Not An Oxymoron
Choice and timeliness are two characteristics of successful professional development according to Patrick. In this article he presents strategies for ensuring that PD meets the faculty’s needs and supports the teachers.
Easy Content Distribution for iPads
Greg offers an quick solution involving Dropbox and a Chrome Extension for easily disseminating content to student iPads.
Resources from the Web
A Platform for Good
New site from the Family Online Safety Institute with info for teachers and parents about digital citizenship and internet safety
Education Week: Virtual Learning for Little Ones Raises Developmental Questions
How much is too much technology for young students. When meaningful and appropriate, does it matter?
Quixey
Search engine of apps.
The Best Way to Predict the Future Is to Invent It
The Thinking Edge and The Edge of Curriculum and Assessment. Great article from Milton Chen!
The Paperless iPad Classroom with the Google Drive App
Good blog post about going paperless with Drive & iPads
Graphical Bios. Stunning. Simple. | Vizify
Curate your social media into a video. Interesting digital storytelling tool for current events.
FluidEquation 2014
From the folks at Fluidity Software, FluidEquation solves much of the challenges of writing equations on iPads.
Augmented Reality – ScholasTECH Integrated Instruction
Great page on using Aurasma in the classroom.
Classroom Uses – Chromebook Classroom
Google site of Chromebook classroom ideas and lesson plans – including Flipped.
Digital Citizenship Education
Free digital citizenship curriculum from Microsoft – registration required. Geared towards students in grades 8-12.
Doctopus
Good video tutorial and overview Doctopus for managing Google Docs.
Free Technology for Teachers: 8 Overlooked Useful YouTube Tools
Great set of tips for editing and annotating YouTube videos.
Google Art Project
Tour museums and works of art through Google.
StoryToolz : Resources for Authors
A great set of resources to support writers all in one place. From word count meters to a cliche buster.
Free Technology for Teachers: Collaboratively Create an iPad or Android Magazine
Flipboard now includes the ability to collaborate on the curation of magazines from within the app. This video tutorial walks through the process.
Narrable
Create photo stories with Narrable – a web based platform. The free version holds up to 5 stories at a time. There is an option to email about education pricing. An interesting feature is the ability to record audio by phone as well as computer.
Fotopedia Reporter
In addition to being able to use the Fotopedia Reporter from the web, there’s now an app. Choose from thousands of public domain images to create and share digital stories.
Fotopedia National Parks
Take virtual field trips throughout the National Park with the fotopedia app. Lots of information, resources, and photos to incorporate into other projects.
Culture Street – Activities – Picture Book Maker
This is a super simple picture book creator (FLASH BASED). Drag and drop pre-designed scenes and characters plus add your own text. Completed books can be shared by email or printed.
Chrome Extension – WatchDoc
Use the WatchDoc Chrome extension to get updates about changes made to Google Docs. Notifications pop up in the corner of your Chrome browser window.