StoryCorps

Everyone has a story.  Sometimes, everyone has a story to tell.  The problem is that throughout history, there has never been someone or something to document people's stories so that we have a historical perspective from many people.  StoryCorps hopes to improve our ability to document peoples thoughts and lives.

The mission of StoryCorps is "to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives."  Every story will be recorded to a CD for free.  It is also stored at the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress.  Recently they released an iPhone App that allows you to listen and share stories.  It only has tips for recording your own, no recording from the Phone yet.

I can see this as a great tool in education.  Especially when you have a guest speaker in class.  Record the conversation and upload it.  Interview family members before they pass away and get stories of their life so that it can be shared with future generations.  It would make a great project in Sociology.

What's Your Story?

National Geographic Image Collection and Shape Collage

I recently became aware of the National Geographic Image Collection while looking around the Internet. most of us remember growing up and looking at National Geographic Magazines in amazement of the pictures that they were able to capture. Now you can obtain many of those same photos on the web.

The pictures are broken down into the following categories: Exploration, Wildlife, People and Cultures, and Science and Climate Change.  When you scroll over the image you get a brief description of who took the picture, where the picture was taken, and what the picture is.  You can also find a history of photography, a video looking "Behind the Pictures," and an area where you can purchase the book.

The National Geographic Photo collection is in Flash, so you won't be able to right click (they do want you to buy the book), but that does not mean you can't take your other photos and turn them into a Shape Collage!  I came across Shape Collage, a free automatic photo collage maker and thought it would be a new way to share groups of photos with students.  Especially since you can create so many different collages.  Below is the image from the front page of Shape Collage as well as a short video tutorial explaining how the site works.  Take a minute and play around with the site to see what you can create.

Must See Monday - Tools for the 21st Century Teacher

Recently I did a Professional Development where I introduced teachers to several of my favorite Web 2.0 tools to use.  The tools can be used with students, can be used on a professional level individually, and others can be used in both ways.

I decided to expand on that Professional Development by creating a "Tools for the 21st Century Teacher" Handbook.  The idea was to provide a handbook that administrators could provide to new teachers in their building, teachers who are interested in integrating technology, and teachers who need a little extra guidance of the types of tools that are available to them and are scared to start integrating technology in their classroom.

The document includes what I consider to be the top 15 tools, or the tools that I find myself using most often and suggesting other teachers use most often.  I know that there are others that could be included in this list (Digital Story Telling, Image Websites, Video Websites, etc), but I felt that if I started to add too many the handbook would lose its purpose/focus.

I hope that you find this handbook useful.  Please feel free to share with staff, administrators, teachers, parents, and students even.  Especially share with former students that you know of that are entering the education field.  We need to get them started early.  You can find "Tools for the 21st Century Teacher" at Issuu as well as see it embedded below.  I have also added a new Publications page where I will publish any handbooks I create in the future.

Open publication - Free publishing - More web 2.0

Twitter Tweecap - May Edition - Part I

Been a very busy month so far.  The state of Kentucky is transitioning all Districts to Live @EDU email and part of my job is training teachers at several schools on the new email system and several of its features.  So my blog posting will be rather limited over the next couple weeks.  So until that time, here is a recap of some links I received via Twitter during the month of May.

1.) Ten Websites for Changing Text to Speech. - A great list and all of the websites are free.  Be a great resource to share with special education.

2.) Virtual Compound Microscope - Share with your science teachers.  Kind of interesting.

3.) Five Essential Characteristics of Leaders in Education

4.) A Great Web 2.0 Tools Handout

5.) An article that received a lot of attention on Twitter when a Principal asks parents to deny students the ability to use Social Networking like Facebook.

6.) A great Blog post by The Nerdy Teacher about Everything He Learned about Technology he Learned from 1990's Nickelodeon Television

7.) Online Drum Machine.

8.) 100 Inspiring Ways to Use Social Media in the Classroom

9.) 50 Free Collaboration Tools that are Awesome for Education

10.) 52 Incredible Useful Sites - A Pretty Good List

11.) The Power of Facebook in Education - A Great Story of its use

12.) Is Summer School the Key to Education Reform?

13.) TeachMeet Kentucky - A Date has been set.  If it is as successful as the one in Nashville I attended, it will be a conference worth attending.

Wiki Wednesday - A Great Idea

Recently while viewing the wonderful tweets by people that I follow on Twitter I came across a tweet by Andrew Marcinek (Here is a link to his Blog).  He was sharing a Wiki that he created for his staff and students.  The Boys Latin School Ed-Tech Resource Wiki serves as a home for all the links that he shares with his staff broken down by content level.

I really like this idea.  Take a Wiki for your school and create a place for you to house links, resources, videos, lesson plans, publications, etc., organized by content area.  By creating the Wiki, you are also allowing faculty and staff to add to it as well, therefore the burden does not always fall on you to update the site.  Teachers can do that as well.  You will probably still have to maintain it, and have a Professional Development on how to use the Wiki, but it makes for a great way to organize the information for your staff.

Every time that I received a great link or resource from a blog, I would just email it to the teachers who teach the subject matter that it related too.  What if they delete that email?  How will they be able to use that resource later when they finally do have time?  What are the chances that I kept the email to send to them again (probably slim)?

I asked Andy for permission to copy the idea.  I have not gotten around to it.  We are busy with changing Email Servers among other things going on in our district.  But writing this blog post has motivated me to get started.  I will be working on a Wiki for my teachers in the coming weeks.  Once I have started it and included some links, I will share it with you all.

Thanks for the inspiration Andy!