I attended the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) conference the past 3 days. One new cool tool I learned about was Wiffiti. Wiffiti is a site that allows you to use the hash tags from Twitter to “aggregate” them in one place. It takes the hash tags (up to 5) and creates an interactive screen. As the tweets are tweeted, the most recent pops up and then it rotates all tweets around. It also provides you the option to list them in a timeline format. Here is one I created from the VSTE conference.
Drop.io is a cool tool used for simple real-time sharing, collaboration, and presentation. Teachers can use it for any content area at any grade level. Drop.io allows you to share text, video, and audio media. Users can share their “files and collaborate in real time by web, email, phone, mobile, and more. Create each drop in two clicks and share what you want, how you want, with whom you want.”
You can also use Drop.io as a bookmarking service. Drop.io’s free voicemail service allows you to make mp3 recordings without the need for any software. Drop.io can also be used to conduct online, real-time, presentations. Best of all, Drop.io is free.
Google Docs has now added an Equation Editor as part of their Back-to-School features for students. The equation editor allows you to easily complete problem sets online or write papers that include equations. You can even take notes in your math class or answer questions using Google Docs. Also added is superscripts and subscripts that can be used for expressing chemical compounds or algebraic expressions. Check it out on the Google Docs Blog which also has a list of links to other sites of interest at the bottom of the page.
The International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) is one of the greatest conferences I have ever had the pleasure to attend. This year makes my 4th NECC and I look forward to next summer when it becomes ISTE2010 in Denver! Below is a short video about the conference and some cool tech tools. Fast forward to 5.22 and you will see yours truly being asked about what cool tools I learned about. Of course, it was Twitter Fountain that day. Just don’t understand the eye thingy though, do you?
Wordle is a cool tool for generating “word clouds” from words that you provide. You can make some words that appear more often than others to stand out more. You can also use different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The end result is a page that is unique as you are. This cool tool allows you to express yourself with words. Check it out, creat one, print one, or even save it to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. This would be great to use with students for them to have a place to display key content words and then share it with the class. Enjoy!
I recently attended the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) Educational Technology Leadership Institute and had the pleasure of hearing again Dr. Tim Tyson, former principal of Mabry Middle School in Marietta, Georgia. Dr. Tyson is a dynamic and motivational speaker – one that puts you on the edge of your seat to hear and learn more. He models technology integration like no other principal I know of much less technology educators! In his session he used his iPhone to control his presentation and also record his session as a podcast. He used Screencast to record his presentation to share with others online as well as Ustream.TV which allows the user to broadcast live. He also showed a demo of Cooliris which is a way to transform your browser into 3D mode. This man Rocks! However, what impressed me the most was two things. One was how he helped to turn his school and faculty around to become tech savvy and increase student achievement. Check out the archived website of the school to learn how they did it.
The second impressive idea Dr. Tyson shared was how we are all immigrants, including our students. He stated how with all the technological advances over the last few years, we are all immigrants. It is just that some of us are younger than others. None of us knew 10 years ago much about what we know today and that even goes for 5 years ago or even 1 year ago. Heck, 1 month ago! So, how can we say our 14-15 year old students are natives? Yes, using tech tools may come easier to them but we are all immigrants – all learning about these emerging technologies and way cool tech tools. I agree!
Inspiration software has launched the public beta of Webspiration, the new online version of Inspiration. With Webspiration, Inspiration Software offers powerful visual thinking tools combined with Web 3.0 capabilities to create a visual thinking and collaboration environment that creative thinkers can use anytime and anywhere. For those of us who are having budget cuts and need more Open Source applications, this is it! What a great resource for teachers and students. Plus, it can be accessed from anywhere! Cool tool!
Will Richardson shared on Edutopia about an 11 year old girl named Laura who started a community volunteering project in memory of her grandfather. This project has reached out to TONS of people in just 25 days last December. It was such a success that she decided to do it all year long. Because of her efforts, vision, and determination, this little girl has changed the hearts and lives of many. Please check out her blog site at http://twentyfivedays.wordpress.com/ or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/twentyfivedays. Talk about collaboration and displaying 21st Century skills! Way to go Laura!
Google Mashups combine content or data from different web sites into new applications. A mashup often involves a map, photo, video and/or news. Educators are using Mashups for so many things in the classroom such as displaying flickr photos on a spinning sphere to displaying the locations of the 30 most recent earthquakes in the world on a map. Using Popfly is the way to do mashups. However, you will need to install Microsoft’s Silverlight which is a plug-in that delivers interactive applications. This is a great tool to check out and experiment with. Send me a comment and let me know how you like this tool and how you are using it. Thanks!
I have been working on a staff development session on Marzano Strategies Using Technology. Below are some slideshows I found on Marzano strategies. Here is a Slideshare on Marzano’s take on homework.
