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11 of ’11 Projects Transforming Education

Posted by  on Tuesday, December 13th 2011     

Adam Simpson, an educator in Turkey, recently challenged bloggers to reflect on and post 11 of their best blog posts of 2011 (11 of 11). Reading several of the blogger’s posts and different takes on it has spurred me to reflect on my past year blogging and collaborating with my passionate/personal learning network (PLN) who inspire me and support me daily. I am a better person and educator because they share and believe in me. Daily, I am grateful for being blessed with such an incredible Passionate Learning Network.

My 2011 Journey

I will take a spin and post 11 projects I take part in that I believe are transforming education. These projects are the reason why I haven’t blogged as much as I would like to, because I believe that part of transformation is taking that bold step to act upon what you believe. I believe a quality education improves the world because it opens minds, breaks generational cycles, and perpetuates new positive cycles. Every child to adult I help realize their potential means they are helping the world become a better place. I am helping them stay away from poverty and crime. I take that job very seriously and whenever anyone tells me it can’t be done, I just do it. I don’t worry about the criticisms and I don’t even look at any obstacles. As Henry Ford says, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.”

Over 11 of ’11 Projects

I hope by sharing these projects you will be able to see the potential of what you can do when you collaborate with others to activate your passion. With the support and collaboration of my PLN, I have been able to be a part of projects that have impacted tens of thousands of people worldwide. I have been collaborating with educators online for less than 3 years. Imagine the possibilites of every person activating their passion with the support of their PLN.

  • The 30 Goals Challenge- Over 7000 educators worldwide have participated in accomplishing goals to transform their classrooms and impact their students. Educators who join receive a free ebook and have access to several videos and podcasts to help them achieve their goals. More importantly they get to reflect upon these goals on Twitter (#30Goals), Facebook, or on their blogs and receive the support of 1000s of educators also accomplishing these goals.
  • The Reform Symposium Free E-Conference- This past August we had 80 presenters and 12 keynote speakers that impacted over 4100 educators worldwide in 100 countries! Organised by educators for educators, it was FREE but offered more valuable and inspiring Professional Development than money could buy! If you didn’t manage to attend you can catch up by viewing the Recordings.
  • The Virtual Round Table E-Conference- ELTon nominated free online conference focusing on language and technology. Unique in that participants can attend via a live video conference or in Second Life.
  • #Edchat- Join over 2000 educators on Twitter every Tuesday at 12pm EST/6pm EST to discuss various educational topics you get to vote for and suggest.
  • #ELTChat- Join English language teaching educators worldwide on Twitter every Wednesday at 12:00 pm London time, at 21:00 pm London time to discuss various educational topics you get to vote for and suggest.
  • TESOL’s free Electronic Village Online (EVO) sessions- These are free online 5 week courses that start January 9th and end February 12th. You can choose from several courses including the Digital Storytelling for Young Learners one I am moderating with a dream team (Esra Girgin, Barbara Sakamoto, Özge Karaoglu, Jennifer Verschoor, David Dodgson, Michelle Worgan, and Sabrina De Vita)
  • 140 Character Conferences- Jeff Pulver has been amazing in getting celebrities, educators, and leaders in various fields to speak passionately about how social media is revolutionizing their fields. If you cannot attend physically, then attend virtually. I help organize the educational panels so if you hear of one coming to your city and would like to take part, please let me know. Jeff live streams the talks! Follow the hashtag, #140Conf for continuous updates.
  • Cooperative Catalyst Blog- Read about the projects and ways educators are transforming education daily. Several bloggers challenge readers to rethink traditional education models. I have enjoyed adding a few posts to the mix.
  • Free Friday Webinars- Thanks to the American TESOL Institute, I conduct free 30 minute online webinars on the Adobe Connect platform every Friday at 4pm EST (New York Time), 3pm Austin, TX, 1pm LA, California, 9pm London Time, 10pm Paris Time, 11pm Athens/Istanbul Time, Sat 8am Sydney time, and Sat. 6am Tokyo time. This is the Adobe Room to join! http://americantesol.adobeconnect.com/terrell/,  Check out the Livebinder resources and past recordings-  http://americantesol.com/tesol-lectures.htm
  • Simple K12 webinars- Attend free webinars with experts on various topics. I often present for Simple K12 and they won a 2011 Edublogs Award!
  • The Educators’ PLN Ning- The Educator’s PLN is a great place to interact and learn from other educators. We have hosted free live chats with various educational leaders. In the past we featured Alfie Kohn, Howard Rheingold, Diane Ravitch, Chris Lehmann, Steve Hargadon, Jim Burke, and others.
  • The Horizon Report, K-12- This amazing free e-report was curated by education thought leaders worldwide. We identified 6 technology trends to transform education and show examples of them in schools worldwide.

Challenge:

Try activating your passion project in 2012! Let us know about it so we can help you get the support you need.

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What 2012 passion project will you activate?


category: Effective Technology Integration, Month in Review, PLNs, Teacher Development Reflections
tags: , , , , ,

30+ Holiday Apps for Creativity & Learning

Posted by  on Tuesday, December 6th 2011     

Part of the Cool Sites series

Recently, I presented a webinar with Simple K12, Holiday Apps for Creating Gifts. Children, adolescents, and teens can create very meaningful gifts for friends and family members using several fun apps. The apps are very easy to use, often free, and have various multimedia options. Many integrate images, audio, text, video and extras. Moreover, students write, read, and present digital stories that tie into their real world experience! Children can also easily send the messages, videos, and cards Christmas morning for parents to wake up and see on their phones. Many of these apps have the ability for users to share their productions through online communities, e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter! Some even allow editing online on a website and embedding options.

The Presentation Slides

Holiday Apps for Creating Gifts & Learning

Holiday Video Creation Apps

These are some of the great video apps that are especially geared with Christmas and Hanukkah backgrounds and extras!

  • Flixlab (I-friendly)- Great way to create collaborative holiday videos!
  • Holiday Video by Vlix (I-friendly)- so many cool effects and options.
  • Animoto- Upload up to 10 images, choose a soundtrack from the library (many nice holiday tunes to choose from, and click a button to make a 30-second video. Sync your videos with your Animoto.com account, download videos for offline viewing, and make longer ones with an All-Access Pass.
  • Talking Santa (Android/I-friendly)- search on the app market for your phone’s free version; mimics your voice in the form of a Gremlin
  • Talking Gremlin (I-friendly)- free for a limited time; mimics your voice in the form of a Gremlin
  • Talking Gingerbread Man (I-friendly) mimics your voice in the form of a Ginderbread
  • Wishstix (I-friendly)- record a video of you as an elf telling Santa what you want for Christmas and email to friends.
  • StoryRobe (I-friendly)- It’s incredibly easy for children to adults to create audio/visual stories on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos and videos. You have the option to upload to Youtube or send it through e-mail. You don’t need an Internet connection to create the stories, but you do to send them!
  • Super Dance Elf Christmas with Friends ($0.99; I-friendly)

Holiday Card Apps

These are some of the great apps that are especially geared with Christmas and Hanukkah personalized cards!

  • RedStamp (I-friendly)
  • Holiday Cards by Sincerely (Android/I-friendly)
  • A Card for That (Android)
  • Fotobabble- Quickly create and easily share talking photos in 3 steps (Snap or select or a photo, speak into the microphone to record audio, share with friends via email, Facebook or Twitter). You do get various holiday themed backgrounds. Example- Here’s Rosco, my pug’s holiday card to you!

Holiday Reading Apps

Inspire kids to read holiday classics with these great apps!

  • MeeGenius- helps kids read (Android/I-friendly)
  • Christmas Tale- Interactive ebook (Android/I-friendly)- Search for the name in your phone’s app store for the free version
  • Santa’s Village- Interactive games/reading (Android)
  • Tales2Go- Audio Stories (free for 30 days; I-friendly)

Holiday Music Creation Apps

Create holiday music or send a singing carol with these great apps!

Holiday Miscellaneous Apps

Create holiday books, write letters to Santa, and so much more!

  • StoryKit- create a holiday book (I-friendly)
  • Letters to Santa (I-friendly; search for the free version)- kids write unlimited letters to Santa Claus who responds
  • Toca Hair Salon Hair X-mas- style Santa’s hair (I-friendly)
  • Christmas coloring (Android/I-friendly)- search in your app store for free versions
  • Santa NaughtyorNice- upload pictures of your friends to see who’s on Santa’s list (I-friendly)
  • Christmas Advent Calendar Kids (Android/I-friendly)- search in your phone’s app store for free versions
  • Norad Santa Tracker (Android/I-friendly/Blackberry)- search in your phone’s app store for free versions; track Santa as he drops off his gifts.
  • Audio Boo (Android/I-friendly/Blackberry)- Free app that allows you to record and upload audio for your friends, family or the rest of the world to hear through Facebook, Twitter, and email. Idea- Share a poem, song, or story inspired by your loved one! Example- Here’s a story about my father called, 2 Feet Tall Trophies! My father used to be a championship bowler!

  • Santa Hat Sewing (I-friendly)- is a brand new arts and crafts app that will lead you all the way to design and sew that perfect Santa Hat for your kids. This art and craft app has been specially designed for the kids to take an active role in making a Santa hat.The Santa Hat Sewing app will teach you and show you how to make a great one. Idea- Create a Santa hat for a favorite doll or loved one with a cute title like Mrs. Claus!
  • Comic Touch Lite (I-friendly)- Create a comic by adding various bubble captions to photos. The free version has the company logo. Example- Below is Rosco’s example!

Rosco the pug

Challenge:

Try these apps with your students and blog about any exciting ways you use them!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What apps do you love using to send your friends holiday cheers?

category: Cool Sites, Effective Technology Integration, Mobile Learning
tags: , , , ,

18 Educational Apps for Halloween

Posted by  on Monday, October 17th 2011     

Part of the Cool Sites series

Halloween is one of the most fun holidays. Kids love the spooky monsters, sounds, music, dances, treats, traditions, haunted houses, and costumes that surround the holiday. As an educator or parent that has an iPad, iPhone, or iPod you can capitalize on this time to help kids learn while celebrating the holiday. Here are free apps to help encourage math, literacy, and problem-solving skills. Some of the apps are just fun!

Apps

ScrapPad Halloween- Kids create a scrapbook with various creatures, words, and their own images. Have the students write stories to accompany their books. They can even work in pairs. They can email the scrapbooks to their parents or friends or post on Facebook. Only works on the iPad.

Halloween Card Creator- Kids create e-cards with various choices in backgrounds, characters, and their own images and text. Have the students e-mail the e-cards to friends of family members.

Halloween Origami- With this great app, kids learn to create various spooky creatures in origami. Kids can watch videos after seeing the step-by-step instructions.

Halloween Counting & Words Games- Created for the iPad, this free app features 8 different learning games for kids to celebrate Halloween and learn math, spelling, and vocabulary.

Carve A Pumpkin- With this great app from Parents magazine, kids create a jack-o-lantern that lights up after it is carved. Kids can even add spooky stickers to their pumpkin. There are various pumpkins to choose from and backgrounds. Have the students e-mail the e-cards to friends of family members. A follow-up task includes having students get into pairs. Student A describes the pumpkin created. Student B must try to recreate the pumpkin by the verbal description. Make sure the students save the pumpkin to their photo library to compare. You can also have students try to carve their pumpkins in real life after the drawing.

Halloween ebook- Students read this story and it has a personal touch. Kids upload their own photos for a surprise ending at the end of the story.

Talking Skeleton- Like the famous Talking Tom app, kids speak and an animated skeleton repeats their words in a funny voice. Their messages can be recorded through video and sent to parents in an email. Have the students send Halloween greetings to their families or friends or create a video of them doing a Halloween rap.

WordSearch Halloween- This app provides several word searches. These are divided in levels from easy to difficult. Listen to scary music or your own while you play. There are over 200 puzzles under 3 categories- Halloween, costumes, and treats. This app would be great to encourage students to learn various vocabulary. Try getting the kids to then use the words the find in a story or poem.

Word Search- Another Halloween wordsearch app with cool backgrounds but less features than the above app.

Haunted Hangman- Guess the Halloween word and get a pumpkin with treats. If you lose the pumpkin is carved then becomes sad.

Make a Zombie- Students create zombies and choose from various backgrounds, bodies, clothes, eyes, hairstyles, heads, pair of legs and mouths.  A follow-up task includes having students get into pairs. Student A describes the zombie created. Student B must try to recreate the zombie by the verbal description. Make sure the students save the zombie to their photo library to compare. You can also have your students create stories about their zombies and read them in a circle aloud.

Mash-o-Ween- This app is for teens. It is based on a famous game that I played in my teens before mobile devices were mainstream. Teens type in various options for categories and at the end this app tells their future. Have the students work in pairs then after read the fortune to each other. Some of these deal with romance, costumes, and more.

Landon’s Pumpkins- This book has several features to help kids follow along the story and learn vocabulary. At the end a recipe is given for Roasted Pumpkin seeds, which would be a great reward for a teacher to make with a class after reading a story.

It is Halloween- Kids create Halloween scenes with characters and backgrounds. They can even animate them. Have the students write stories to accompany their scenes. They can even work in pairs. They can email these to their parents or friends or post on Facebook.

Halloween Countdown- Features include a Halloween countdown with sounds, various sounds (some you pay for so be careful), ringtones, background music loops, 100s of costume ideas, wallpaper images, trivia, and a flashlight for trick-or-treating.

Halloween Voice Transformer- Only the reaper voice is free, but kids speak into the mic and record their message which then is played back in a spooky voice. Have the students email Halloween greetings or messages to their families or friends or even record a spooky story or song. Thanks to Tara Benwell for recommending this app and sending me a spooky message in my email!

Ace Math- Learn multiplication, division, and addition and celebrate Halloween. This is basic math.

MouthOff Lite- This app works best on the iPhone/iPod. Kids choose between various silly mouths and hold the device to their mouth while they talk. This always brings a lot of laughs. Encourage students to repeat vocabulary or even tell spooky stories in a circle.

If you enjoyed this post, check out other apps I recommend to encourage learning!

Challenge:

Try one of these apps and let us know how they worked for you!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What Halloween apps have you discovered to encourage literacy?

category: Cool Sites, Effective Technology Integration, Mobile Learning
tags: , , , , , , ,

What Will You Learn this Summer? 26 Professional Development Resources

Posted by  on Thursday, May 26th 2011     

Part of the Cool Sites series

Photo adapted by Kevindooley's photo The Teacher Creative Commons Attributes 2.0 Generic

Photo adapted from Flickr by kevindooley licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Summer has officially started for many of you! I know that you will probably be relaxing for the first few days, but eventually you may feel the need to be inspired and motivated for the upcoming 2011-2012 school year! Social media provides us with incredible opportunities to choose the way we want to develop professionally. You can choose the topic, the medium, and who you want to learn from. You can choose the way you like to learn, because social media provides us with several multimedia experiences, such as webinars, LMS, live video, and more. The experience is usually dynamic and motivating because you are learning with others around the world! Additionally, you will be developing your Personal/ Passionate Learning Network (PLN).

Professional Development Opportunities to Choose From…

Free Programs:

  • The 30 Goals Challenge- Over 5000 educators have participated in the 1st and 2nd editions of this global challenge for educators with the premise of getting you to complete 30 professional development goals by 2012. These are short-term goals, such as guest posting, changing your classroom environment, providing effective feedback, establishing an online presence, and more. How do you participate?
  • SEETA Courses- The South Eastern Europe Teachers Association offers several week courses with a guest author or expert in the field. You will have to register, but the courses are free!
  • 31 Days to Become a Better Edtech Leader- With his vast experience, Terry Freedman offers excellent goals to accomplish each day that help you use educational technology effectively. Goals include conducting a SWOT analysis to organizing an inservice! Here’s a handy list of each post and the links.
  • The 23 Things Project- Take Steven Anderson’s 10 week course that shows you how to use various web 2.0 tools effectively in the classroom.
  • ASCD Free Summer Boot Camp- Webinars by various guests. First one is Lisa Dabbs, @teachingwthsoul
  • Arts Integration E-Course on Education Closet- Registration is happening now for an online arts integration professional development course this summer. This was submitted by Susan Riley!
  • Integrating Technology for Active Lifelong Learning (IT4ALL)- provides free online workshops on Moodle for Teachers (Orientation, Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced), Professional Electronic Portfolios (PEP), WebQuests, Facilitating Online Classes, Grant Writings, TESOL, Integrating Technology and using Web 2.0 in the classroom. This was submitted by Nellie Deutsch!

Attend Live Events in Real Time!

You can attend several free conferences, webinars, Twitter chats, and presentations online with your PLN! These usually last one hour, but many conferences also offer free all day live streaming of their keynotes.

  • Free Friday Webinars- Thanks to the American TESOL Institute, I conduct free 30 minute online webinars on the Adobe Connect platform every Friday at 4pm EST (New York Time), 3pm Austin, TX, 1pm LA, California, 9pm London Time, 10pm Paris Time, 11pm Athens/Istanbul Time, Sat 8am Sydney time, and Sat. 6am Tokyo time. Check your time zones here!
  • Attend the free Reform Symposium E-Conference along with 8000 other educators from over 50 countries. This takes place Friday, July 29 to Sunday, July 31, 2011 and we hope you will join us for what promises to be our biggest yet global online conference for everyone concerned with education. With up to 60 presentations and 12 keynote speakers it is sure to be an incredible event!
  • The Educators’ PLN Ning Live Chats with Guest Experts- The Educator’s PLN is a great place to interact and learn from other educators. Join us for free live chats with various authors. In the past we featured Alfie Kohn, Howard Rheingold, Diane Ravitch, Chris Lehmann, Steve Hargadon, Jim Burke, and others.
  • Watch Live Streams of the 140 Character Conference- Jeff Pulver has been amazing in getting celebrities, educators, and leaders in various fields to speak passionately about how social media is revolutionizing their fields. If you cannot attend physically, then attend virtually. Jeff live streams the talks! Follow the hashtag, #140Conffor continuous updates.
  • Edublogs Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar on various topics. Usually, Jo and Phil Hart hosts these free webinars that cover effective use of web 2.0 tools or instructional methodologies.
  • Future of Education- Join Steve Hargadon live as he interviews some of the greatest minds in education. Past guests included Sir Ken Robinson, Alfie Kohn, Diane Ravitch, and more!
  • Classroom 2.0 Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar with an expert in a field or listen to some great authors speak live and ask them questions.
  • Simple K12 webinars- Attend free webinars with experts on various topics.
  • Attend Second Life Live Events- Second Life has several educational groups that meet weekly for free conferences, talks, workshops, and more. Download the software and register for free. Consider joining these educational groups:
  • ISTE on Second LifeDiscovery Educator NetworkEDTECH RetreatEDTECH CommunityVisit Edunation Island- a safe place for educators
  • #Edchat- Join over 2000 educators every Tuesday to discuss various topics you get to vote for and suggest.
  • Education Chats on Twitter- Find out the dates and times of educational conversations that occur on Twitter.

Free Online Classes:

Ever dream of studying at Stanford or MIT or being taught by George Siemens? Well you can attend several free online courses taught by authors, subject matter experts, and university lecturers. Below are useful links to find a free online course in any subject!

  • MOOC- Massive Open Online Courses where 1000s attend for free through discussion forums and free webinars. Follow the hashtag #MOOC for the latest MOOC. University professors, TED speakers, and notable educational theorists moderate these courses. You learn from the very best in our field! Topics range from Personal Learning Networks to Mobile Learning!
  • MIT Open Course Ware offers over 1900 free online courses in over 20 subjects. You can subscribe by RSS or get e-mail updates.
  • Stanford on iTunes- Download courses, faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports that will play on your iPod, iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC.
  • 17 Universities with free online courses- Find out how to access these free courses from some of the most respected universities in the world! This article also describes the experience of learning through these online classes.
  • 250 Free Online Courses- Find a list of several more free online courses from the top universities categorized by subject.
  • Edufire Free Live Online Classes- Register for free and have access to various topics such as using various web tools or learning a different language. You get a live tutor on a video.

Find several more professional development opportunities by clicking on the tabs of Mike Fisher’s Live Binder.

Challenge:

Try any of these professional development opportunities and blog about your experience. Blogging helps you reflect and decide how you can apply this learning to improve your instructional methods.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

What are your favorite ways to learn online? Did I miss any other great professional development opportunities?

category: Cool Sites, Teacher Development Reflections
tags: , , , , ,

A Student’s Voice about Technology & Learning: Interview with Shantanu Bala

Posted by  on Saturday, February 5th 2011     

Interview 15 of Education Voices

In the move for education transformation, we need to listen to many voices including students. I was fortunate to meet high school student and web developer, Shantanu Bala. We met online while collaborating on a project to further improve education. Shantanu is a high school student who developed this really cool software to help his fellow peers and other students worldwide, Quicklyst. Quicklyst is a free notetaking tool that does really cool things such as if you type a ? next to any word it searches through Wikipedia and other sources to find more information. I was so excited about Shantanu’s motivation to develop Quicklyst and his motivation behind joining a teacher led reform project that I asked him if he’d mind me interviewing this past week. So glad he agreed!

Bio

Shantanu Bala is a high school student in Phoenix, Arizona, and one of his interests is computer science. He learned programming when he was in elementary school, he was introduced to formal web development when he started working with the Joomla! Project. He volunteered and contributed to that free software project for about a year during his freshman year of high school, and states he really enjoyed it. He was introduced to the Joomla! Project through the Google Highly Open Participation Contest. After that, he started becoming more confident with his programming, and decided to find other projects he could work on. After looking at Arizona State University’s website for information about the university (towards the summer of his sophomore year of high school), he stumbled across an interesting laboratory called the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing , and asked for a tour of the place since he was very interested in applying to Arizona State. He found some of their research really interesting, and asked if there was anything he could work on. One of the PhD students became his mentor, and with his help Shantanu published a few research papers at a couple conferences (http://www.chi2010.org and http://have.ieee-ims.org). This past October he presented at the IEEE HAVE Conference in Phoenix.

Shantanu reflects:

Quicklyst merged a couple of my passions. I enjoyed taking part in academic pursuits at Arizona State University, but I’m also very interested in education as well. I’m currently the chair of the Education Workgroup of the Arizona Governor’s Youth Commission, and I’ve always been interested in the possibility of starting a company.

Previous Interviews

Check out the previous interviews Twittering for Education- Jo and Phil Hart, Twittering for Education- Eric and Melissa Sheninger, Twittering for Education- Will and Elle Deyamport, Connected Principals- George Couros, 1:1 Programs- Rich Kiker, Mobile Learning with Kids- Scott Newcomb, Effective Leadership: Interview with Patrick Larkin, Using Skype for ELT Lessons: Interview with Marisa Pavan, Teachers as Leaders and Continuous Learners: Interview with Dr. Doug Green, Blogging with Students: Interview with Greta Sandler, What Does the Innovative School Look Like? Interview with Dr. Tom King, How Do We Animate Lessons? Interview with Ken Wilson, Building the Twitter Academy: Interview with Kelly Tenkely, and Leading by Example and Teacher Evaluations: Interview with Akevy Greenblatt.

If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe for FREE!

What do you believe is the ideal education students should be receiving?

category: Cool Sites, Interviews
tags: , , , , , , , ,
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