A Supplement to the “Finding Resources” Event

Links You Might Need During the Event

http://tinyurl.com/survey0414 – This is a link to the survey I would like to administer and speak to at the beginning of the event.

https://www.diigo.com/list/mrsedick/finding-resources – This link opens a diigo list of interesting resources I found while preparing this presentation.

The Presentation

If you are using a Droid, you can follow the presentation via a SlideRocket. Advance the presentation yourself by using the controls on your screen. On the iPhone, you have to swipe to the left; I assume it is the same for a Droid. It is unfortunate that Prezi does not play nicely with Android. Still, I feel it important to model this very useful app that does play nicely with iOS and Windows. (By the way, Prezi has a subscription program just for teachers; it’s an upgrade of the free subscription at no cost. I highly recommend it.)

Finding Resources You Can Really Use

When I started my journey searching for resources to help me teach, I first turned to SymbalooEDU and I still use it as my home page when I launch Google Chrome. SymbalooEDU (and its vanilla version, Symbaloo) is a visual bookmarking site. Bookmarks are assigned to icons you can customize. The icons can be moved to any available spot on the webmix, you can share webmixes or make them private, and you can search for webmixes on a topic and add them to your collection. The second site I found quite useful was diigo. As opposed to symbalooEDU, diigo is a text-based content aggregation site that uses toolbars and extensions to capture web content and add it to a library. The list I reference above is a good example of one way to use diigo. Diigo has a membership program for teachers that is very generous, and a school district program also. It’s highly recommended.

Twitter and Hashtags for Teachers

I retrieved the infographic for this presentation from Edudemic, a blog that I think is terrific! The one hashtag I want to remind you all to investigate is #edchat. The Educator’s PLN dives deeper into the #edchat conversations on its Wikispace wiki.

Content Curation

I would love to see every teacher on Scoop.it. There are so many excellent content curators there. The site appeals to people with various preferences: visual, textual, auditory, and interpersonal, for example. (Would you like to find out what your learning style is? Here’s a quiz from edutopia.) You can find me on Scoop.it. Perhaps I will “see” you there!

Pinterest, too, is quite popular among teachers. The Pinterest Education boards are amazing. A search for Common Core yielded a multitude of boards dedicated to this controversial topic. Pinterest really appeals to those who are visual in nature. Give it a try, if you haven’t already. Please note that you have to log in to Pinterest before you can use the links in this paragraph.

The last resource I want to write about here is Zotero. If you are in graduate school or want to help your students write papers, you must check out this application and browser extension. It saved my life during my graduate studies, helping me to gather content and, more importantly, to create APA citations. It also formats citations in MLA style and others. The browser extension often finds the bibliographical data you will need to build your citation. If you are using your library database services, you can export the citations you find in RIS format, then import them into Zotero. It will take care of the formatting for you. Please check it out and recommend it to your students. You’ll be glad you did.

Other curation sites I recommend: Learnist, MERLOT, and TeachingChannel. This infographic from eyeoneducation.com will recommend some other ways to start curating content.

Link to the “Social Media Landscape” Image

This is the page from which I sourced the “Social Media Landscape” image.

Blog Suggestions

I’m simply going to list my blog suggestions here. Please visit them and decide for yourself. Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything will NOT disappoint. I promise.

SAS – Standards Aligned System

The SAS site from the PA Department of Education is quite robust. Not only can you find resources for standards-based instruction, but there are many professional development courses offered by the site – and they are free! I have taken two so far and found the instructors warm, attentive, and knowledgeable. The courses are self-study; however, the instructors provide feedback quickly and with attention to detail.

Personal / Professional Learning Network

Please visit the Educator’s PLN and join. I think it is worth taking the time to navigate through the site and join some groups. You might find yourself meeting colleagues who will be very helpful in the future. From that PLN, you will also find links to other nings that are worth a look, such as a ning dedicated to the flipped classroom.

Social Learning and Learning Management System (LMS) Suggestions

The term “social learning” is hot right now, but Vygotsky and Dewey first claimed that all learning is social a long time ago, so I’m not sure why it hasn’t been a topic of discussion since then. At any rate, the site I recommend you look at for social learning are Schoology and Edmodo.

As for a LMS, many of you may know Moodle already. I happen to be developing a Moodle site for our company at this time, because so many of our customers use it and I think it important our employees understand tools our customers use. It’s an open source learning management system with a dedicated community of users and a robust development cycle. If your district or school is already using Moodle, perhaps you would like to build some courses or class sites? If not, perhaps you would like to investigate it and recommend it?

Lesson Plan Ideas

For MOOC ideas, please visit Coursera.

For creating infographics and / or visual projects, try these resources:

You can find Purdue OWL at this link.

Finally, you can find lesson plans for NaNoWriMo here.

Thank You

Thank you for taking the time to come to Barnes and Noble this weekend and talk about technology, resources, and education. We appreciate it!

 

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