Of course you can find the Arizona K12 Center online here at azk12.org. But like other organizations, you can find the Center on the social networks Facebook and Twitter.
On Facebook, click on over to the Arizona K12 Center page at facebook.com/azk12. Not only can you read updates from the Center itself, but you can connect with more than 500 "fans" who are friends of the Center and education in Arizona. The page's "wall" includes updates about the Center, information about upcoming events, photos, web links, and musings. If you're a Facebook user, be sure to click the Become a Fan button so Arizona K12 Center's posts appear in your personal News Feed.
Continue reading "Arizona K12 Center on Facebook & Twitter"
Posterous is a web publishing service that bills itself as "the dead simple place to post everything." Like Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, and countless others, Posterous is a blogging platform. Unlike others, Posterous focuses on publishing by email.
The subject of your email is the title of the blog post. The body of the email is the content of that post. Once the email is sent, it's instantly published online. In fact, to get started, all a user had to do is email their first blog post to post@posterous.com and a blog is automatically created. Posterous sends an email back confirming that the post has been received and that a new blog has been created. The message includes a link to the new blog and information about optionally setting a password and other options.
Skype is a popular videoconferencing tool. It's free and more and more educators are seeing the value of making connections locally, regionally, and globally.
Silvia Rosenthal Tolisana, a 21st Century Learning Specialist in Jacksonville, Florida, has plenty of experience using Skype in classrooms. Silvia created a video for the 2009 K12 Online Conference titled "Around the World with Skype" where she shares step-by-step instructions on getting started. More impressively, she gives advice from real teachers on how to prepare a class for successful Skype connections.
The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. The K-12 Online Conference is a free and open to anyone. The 2009 sessions have been posted. The sessions are for educators by educators from around the world. All session are online and most can be downloaded from the K-12 Online Conference podcast page in iTunes. You're welcome to simply view the session or participate by adding blog comments or joining the conference's Ning social network.
I haven't had the chance to view all of the session yet, but I would like to share four that I have enjoyed.
My students loved playing game shows. They are a great way to bring novelty and variety into the classroom. The questions, competition, and fun can make reviewing content something to look forward to. When I first started teaching I used a pocket chart with note cards. The note cards were arranged into categories and had a point value on one side and a question on the other. Students were divided into teams and I played the part of the host, complete with a sports jacket. Everyone looked forward to game show day, even though it meant a test was coming up.
Continue reading "Game Shows in the Classroom with JeopardyLabs"
We've all sat through our share of presentations that heavily relied on slides filled with bullet points. Rarely does anyone look forward to or remember much from these types of presentations, yet they are very common. It is frustrating for audiences to witness the speaker turn away from them to read from the projector screen. Nonetheless, presenters often rely on their slides for what they are going to say. Bullet points are routinely used because some presenters think by including so much information that they are being thorough. Another reason for slides with loads of text is that the presenter can print them out for an instant handout.
PowerPoint and Keynote are the two big names when it comes to presentation software. PowerPoint is part of Microsoft Office for Windows and Macintosh. Keynote is part of iWork and is only for Apple computers. Both pieces of software are guilty of guiding users toward using slides with titles and bullet points. Their slide templates are filled with layouts that include text boxes for titles and bulleted lists. Despite their tendency to lead users toward creating "death by bullet point" style slideshows, PowerPoint and Keynote support Presenter view. In Presenter view, also known as Presentation Mode or Presenter Tools, the speaker views his or her notes privately on the computer's screen while the audience sees only the slide on the projector's screen.
Today's teachers typically use more than one computer. They often access their files from home, the classroom, and computer lab. Many educators have at least one flash drive for saving and transporting files. Some even clutter their inboxes by emailing files to themselves. There's a free solution to accessing files on multiple computers that is practically invisible to the user: Dropbox. No discs, drives, or emails are necessary. All you need is an internet connection. Continue reading "Dropbox for File Syncing and Online Backup"
When you think of comics, you probably think of characters who wear tights and can fly. Sure, many comics are about super heroes, but comics can be about any topic. The combination of text and drawings in a comic make them a powerful communication medium. In fact, when Google released its Chrome web browser, it commissioned a comic book to tell the press and public all about their new product. There's no crime-fighting or capes in Google's comic. Instead, it features normal characters showing and telling why Google made its own browser and why they think it is better than other browsers.
Continue reading "Create Comics"
The Arizona K12 Center is offering a new Technology Integration Series class, Google Tools. The workshop meets four evenings, and it is packed with Google goodness. I (Tony Vincent) am the instructor, and I am very excited about the services Google provides. Participants can look forward to plenty of classroom examples and hands-on time. Below is the description of the Google Tools class.
Continue reading "Register for Google Tools Workshop"
Wallwisher is a website where you can make an online bulletin board where anyone can post virtual sticky notes. It can make a great discussion, brainstorming, survey, question, or assessment tool. The teacher can start a new wall and one or many people can post sticky notes to the wall.
Educators are using Wallwisher in different ways. For example, Steve Kirkpatrick's elementary students in Salford, U.K. posted to their Dinosaur Question Wall. Questions like "Which Baby dinosaurs were the biggest after they have just hatched?" and "Were there any swimming dinosaurs?" will serve as research topics. Similarly, Kathleen McGready's students posted what they know about dinosaurs to their What did you learn about dinosaurs? wall. Twelfth grade biology students in Andrew Douchy's class brainstormed what they already knew about evolution before beginning to study the topic in class. Jim Hansen has a wall called From the Desktop of Mr. Hansen where he posts announcements. Jim's wall is embedded as a web widget in his New Searles 234 class blog. James Hollis asked SMART Board using educators on Twitter and Ning to post their thoughts on the wall he started called Why Do Teachers Love SMART Boards.
Discovery Education has posted a series of videos all about Web 2.0. Hall Davidson and Steve Dembo host seven short videos that explain the concept of Web 2.0 and how these new web resources can be used by educators. Together the videos total about an hour of viewing time. The videos have been embedded below.
Delicious.com is an online and social bookmarking service. It's social because the thousands of people who use it openly share their bookmarks with others. Delicious is home to the largest collection of bookmarks on the web, and that collection is searchable. In fact, it's a great idea to search Delicious when teachers are looking for online resources. The search results are websites that actual humans took the time to bookmark. This is different from Google since their results are based on backlinks. Watch my short infomercial to see how searching Delicious.com can make your life better.
Continue reading "Search Delicious for Online Resources"
Did you know that almost every Saturday you can participate in live online webinars for free? It's true! Classroom 2.0 Live is hosted by Peggy George, Kim Caise, and Lorna Costantini. Each week they invite guest presenters to discuss topics in education.
Recently I was Classroom 2.0 Live's guest and I spoke about creating Interactive Stories. Interactive Stories are stories written by students that have many different endings. Interactive Stories are digital and hyperlinks, but they were inspired by the classic Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. In those books, the reader made choices to determine what would happen in the story. Instead of flipping between pages, Interactive Stories rely on clicking linked text to make decisions about how the story progresses.
NASA provides raw digital materials for students that they can combine to make videos, audio recordings, and slide shows about selected science topics. The materials are available from NASA's Do-It-Yourself Podcast page. Currently there are five topics: Fitness, Lab Safety, Newton's Laws, Spacesuits and Sports. For each topic, NASA provides video clips, audio clips, images, and information. Students can edit together what NASA provides with their own video, voice, and/or images. Software like iMovie, MovieMaker, GarageBand, Audacity, and PowerPoint could be used to mix together and explain the provided media.
Continue reading "NASA Do-It-Yourself Podcasts"
The following post is by guest blogger, Sara Crawford.
The possibilities of Google Earth use in the classroom are endless and are growing everyday. Google Earth is a free software application that lets you virtually fly anywhere on Earth. It is a virtual globe, map and also a display of geographic information. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery and aerial photography. Google Earth allows you to explore the world beyond your classroom walls and allows your students to explore destinations they never thought possible.
To get started with Google Earth, you must first download Google Earth from earth.google.com/download-earth.html. After you read the terms, click Agree and Download. The program will automatically begin to download. To run the program simply click on the file that is downloaded has on your computer.
Of course you can find the Arizona K12 Center online here at 
Skype
We've all sat through our share of presentations that heavily relied on slides filled with bullet points. Rarely does anyone look forward to or remember much from these types of presentations, yet they are very common. It is frustrating for audiences to witness the speaker turn away from them to read from the projector screen. Nonetheless, presenters often rely on their slides for what they are going to say. Bullet points are routinely used because some presenters think by including so much information that they are being thorough. Another reason for slides with loads of text is that the presenter can print them out for an instant handout.
Wallwisher
Delicious.com is an online and social bookmarking service. It's social because the thousands of people who use it openly share their bookmarks with others. Delicious is home to the largest collection of bookmarks on the web, and that collection is searchable. In fact, it's a great idea to search Delicious when teachers are looking for online resources. The search results are websites that actual humans took the time to bookmark. This is different from Google since their 
Did you know that almost every Saturday you can participate in live online webinars for free? It's true! 
NASA provides raw digital materials for students that they can combine to make videos, audio recordings, and slide shows about selected science topics. The materials are available from NASA's 
