March - Most Popular Posts

March was a pretty good month on the blog.  I found a lot of interesting resources and had 39 blog posts.  For the month of March, here are the most popular posts.

1.) 10 Resources for Teaching Writing with Technology - A lot of valuable resources out there for writers and English teachers. 

2.) 10 Resources for Teaching Reading with Technology - If you teach writing, you probably teach reading, so this list is worth checking out as well.

3.) 10 Wikis Worth Checking Out - I just posted this yesterday and it came in third place.  Not bad for 24 hours. 

4.) Idea Paint - A Technology in its own right, Idea Paint allows people to paint a whiteboard anywhere they want.  A fantastic idea. 

5.) INTEGRATING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY - An acronym of Web 2.0 resources for students, teachers, and administrators. 

Some Other Good Posts:
- It Isn't Going Anywhere - My 400th post about Social Media in Education. 
- Group Tweet - A valuable Twitter application for teachers who use Twitter with their students. 

The Independent Project

The Independent Project(Link to New York Times Article) is about a group of 8 students at Monument Mountain Regional High School who set out to form their own school.  The essentially formed a school within a school.  Each student involved in this project developed Independent Endeavors.  The idea was to find something that you are passionate about and create it.  What were some of those Endeavors?  Wrote a Novel, Wrote a Play, Created a Short Film, Experimented with Culinary Arts, or Learned to Play the Piano.

Students are coming to school and getting an education in material they have no interest in learning.  These students felt that if they were going to spend 6 hours of their day, 30 hours a week at school, they wanted to learn something that interests them.  I was very intrigued with the video below.  I applaud the school for supporting these students.  I also like the idea of an Independent Endeavor.  What would your students do?

To learn more, see the video below:

10 Wikis Worth Checking Out

Last school year I would dedicate Wednesday's to sharing a Wiki or a few Wikis that I thought were of value.  Looking back, it has been almost 11 months since I did a Wiki Wednesday post, so I guess I have a lot of catching up to do.  So I present 10 Wikis that I have recently discovered that I think are worth sharing.

1.) First Day - We all have our First Day of School routines.  The question is how many have activities for the content area that they teach?  This wiki provides some interesting ideas for First Day of School Activities.  Worth looking at.

2.) Project Elite Wiki is specific for Librarians.  With the advances in technology there is a fear (and in some states a reality) that librarians will soon be removed or replaced in schools.  The purpose of this Wiki is to encourage technology use by Librarians.  It is important to be able to present yourself with additionally abilities, and this Wiki is a great starting point for Librarians. 

3.) iPods, iPhones, and iPads in Education is a great homepage for all you need to know about integrating iTechnology into the classroom.  Several resources as well as descriptions of apps for various subject matter. 

4.) Open Source Graphics and Visualization Tools is a wiki providing links to web based resources that provides ways to create, share, and edit graphics and visuals.  Very well organized. 

5.) Paperless Posters is a wiki all about Glogster.  You will find helpful tips, samples, and ideas for using Glogster in the classroom.  A helpful link for learning how to use the website and worth sharing with teachers who are interested in using the site. 

6.) Backchanneling Wiki is a one stop shop for all things backchanneling.  The idea of communicating with students through a backchannel is gaining a lot of steam.  This wiki provides links to web-based applications, ideas for use, and links to other resources about backchanneling.

7.) Educational Wikis is all about how to use Wikis in education and it provides various links to articles, tips, ideas, and other resources for using Wiki's in education.  You will also find 100's of examples of educational wikis being used by teachers across the world.  They are listed in alphabetical order.....wow!

8.) Cool Tools for Schools is a great starting point for finding Web 2.0 based resources to use in the classroom.  Each resource is linked by category and provides a short description for them all.

9.) Book Leads is a Wiki all about books.  There is information about authors, information for librarians, information about eBooks, as well as Young Authors.  A valuable resource for Librarians and English teachers.

10.) Student Innovation is a wiki that has the single purpose of sharing how students are using technology to create innovative projects and how as teachers, we need to be sharing what our students are doing with others.  Although this Wiki is still a work in progress; I believe with all the great things that teachers are doing out there, that this will grow rather fast. 

Better World Flux

I am a graphics guy.  I think teaching with graphs, charts, infographics, etc makes learning material more interesting.  I came across the site Better World Flux which provides interactive visualization of information on what really matters in life. Indicators like happiness, life expectancy, and years of schooling are meaningfully displayed in a colorful flowing Flux. Better World Flux visually communicates the world state in terms of standards of living and quality of life for many countries and how this has changed, and mostly improved, over a period of up to 50 years. This site is a tool for building a consensus, telling a story and sharing it, all whilst raising awareness for the UN Millennium Development Goals.

When viewing the data you can look at individual countries or you can look at the world averages with all the countries included.  For students completing geography projects over countries, this would be a valuable resource.  I could also see this being used in other social studies classes as well.  You can look at the data change over time as well, at least from when data was made available.  You can customize your own data sets and combine them as well.

You can see an image sample of the data graphic below as well as a video that shows how to use the website.

goPileus

Becoming more and more popular are web applications that allow users to easily share files across the web.  I have previously written about Min.us and Ge.tt which provide that ability.  goPileus is another option for easily sharing files over the web.  There is a simple drag and drop interface or the ability to upload a file.  You can create an account providing just an email, username, and password.  This allows you to track the files you are sharing.

When you use goPileus you create a box and use it to keep files sorted and easy to find. Select one of them and see the files inside.  You can link your bit.ly account and get short-url for your files.  Once you drag and drop your files you will have a short URL available to share your files. 

As educators, sometimes we need to get files to our students who are sick or on home-bound.  Sites like goPileus provide an avenue for sharing files that we use in our classrooms.  It would be a great way to share images as well.