To Learn Twice

A couple of weeks ago I took a look at our district's twitter feed and it said that "school would be closed today". That was a post put up 2 weeks before because of a snow day. Our facebook page had the same news. If I was still in school I would have totally shown that to my parents to stay home. It got me thinking about what would be the best information to post to our social network sites in a timely fashion. I ended up with events because we have stuff going on across the district all the time, which could provide a steady stream of status updates and tweets. The problem is: "how do you get this stuff posted without handing out login credentials to everyone?" So this is what I came up with to solve the problem: Google Form To Google Spreadsheet To Google Calendar Via Google Script To Gmail Via Google Calendar Reminders To Facebook Via Gmail Filters and Forwarding To Twitter Via Facebook It actually works and now we just have to provide access to a Google fo...

Over my years as a teacher, and as an educator that spends a lot of time looking at technology, I have continually tried to come up with a simple model of how students should use the Internet to help themselves learn through researching. I guess the current model I have ended up with will work for anyone, not just students. In putting this together I have tried to reflect each of the steps in the learning/research process, included traits of information literacy, considered the effects of social networking, and mixed in the power of the read/write process. I feel the need to document this model and try to find a model that outlines the process of learning from online sources because the Internet is a dynamic system where new information is being created at a rate never seen before in history and existing content continues to change and mature. This rapid proliferation of free information is lowering the value of factual information and is putting more of a priority on the speed at whic...

This is the second in a series of posts about roadblocks organizations face in deploying Google Apps for Education (GAFE) . In the last post I went into depth about the FUD that circulates around Google Apps Deployments. In this post I will discuss CRUD, which are the reasonable Concerns, Reservations, Unknowns, and Decisions (along with some of the “ ilities ”) that emerge when choosing to use Google Apps for Education. As the person that feels the heat for anything that goes wrong with educational technology in our district, from PEBKAC errors to full network meltdowns, there is CRUD that goes along with any hardware, software, or cloud based deployment. A big part of my job is to be paranoid and critical about technology until I can be reasonably assured that it will work reliably, to the point of invisibility, to my schools. Although few products are actually invisible, to the level of a classroom chalkboard, my goal is that they all end up there. With that in mind I am alway...

This is the first in a series of longer posts that will discuss some of the common roadblocks I hear about, and help other schools work through, when trying to deploy Google Apps for Education in their schools Fear, uncertainty and doubt ( From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a tactic of rhetoric and fallacy used in sales , marketing , public relations , [1] [2] politics , propaganda and trolling . FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence public perception by disseminating negative and dubious/false information designed to undermine the credibility of their beliefs. An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product; to increase the general estimation of switching costs among current customers; or to maintain leverage over a current business partner who could potentially become a rival. This document is in regards to an an email I received from a coll...

YouTube - Evolution: Artificial Selection tags : science lesson_plans Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

BBC - Dimensions - Index Dimensions takes important places, events and things, and overlays them onto a map of where you are. Type in your postcode or a place tags : maps dimensions bbc history geography interactive Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

sigilt - BookStudies Welcome to our first book study! We hope that this experience helps you to work through the content of the book and to connect with other educators. Using Tech with Classroom Instruction that WorksOur first book will be Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works (ASCD, 2007) by Howard Pitler, Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Matt Kuhn, and Kim Malenoski. This book suggests ways in which the research-based strategies in //Classroom Instruction That Works// can be used with educational technologies, such as word processing and spreadsheet applications, multimedia, data collection tools, communication software, and the Internet. tags : 21stcenturyskills technology mcrel Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.