Part of the Cool Sites series

Every Friday I am presenting free webinars thanks to American TESOL! We have an incredible time. Recently, we discussed the benefits of cooperative learning. Through cooperative learning students learn effective team work through:

• Accountability– students realize the contribution of each individual will determine the success of the task.
• Team building– students learn how to listen to each other, resolve conflicts, delegate tasks, set deadlines and support each other.

The teacher acts as the facilitator walking around the class and ensuring teams are supporting each other. The teams will have problems. A student from at least one of the teams will be lazy. Kids are this way, but this is a teachable moment. We get to help the students learn to resolve these conflicts. If we do not teach them they will not learn. When using cooperative learning, the teacher will think about the:

• Team formation– It’s important that teams consist of students with different abilities, skills, and cultural backgrounds.
• Structuring of tasks– Tasks should be designed so that one student cannot complete the task but each member’s contribution is needed.

Students will need to learn how to effectively work with others on problem solving when they enter college and the workforce. Imagine the teams you have been part of and the nightmare it has been!

Please check out the incredible thoughts shared by many educators in this Voicethread!

And here is the webinar I recently did on Cooperative Learning!

Cooperative Learning Classroom Activities

Check out these resources to integrate cooperative learning activities effectively.

Kagan Cooperative Learning-Structures for Success Part 1
Cooperative Learning Research
What Cooperative Learning Looks Like in the Classroom
What Works: Cooperation vs. Competition- Read about my experiences integrating cooperative learning into my young learners classroom
Cooperative Learning Games for Young Learners (PDF)
The different job titles and explanations along with links to Melissa Smith’s Cooperative Learning Project
Silent Card Shuffle (Video)
Several Cooperative Learning Activities on the Kagan Youtube Channel (Videos)
9 Cooperative Learning Activities
The Jigsaw Classroom

Alfie Kohn Resources

Workshops by Alfie Kohn relating to competition and rewards
No Contest: Podcast featuring an interview with Alfie Kohn
Punished by Rewards (Article) by Alfie Kohn
No Contest Excerpts of Alfie Kohn’s book

More Resources

What is Cooperative Learning? Research by the Institute for Character Education
Cooperative Learning Elements Kennesaw State University Resources
Several Cooperative Learning Resources by Cybraryman
Cooperative Learning in the Library by Cybraryman
New Teacher Chat (#NTChat) Archive: How can new teachers make cooperative learning more effective in the classroom?
The Cooperative Learning Network
Cooperative Learning Research and Education Programs

Challenge:

Try a cooperative learning lesson this semester!

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

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

Part of the Cool Sites series

Many schools have cut out the Arts from the curriculum due to budget cuts and the emphasis on raising standardized test scores. Art is important in our lives. Many students express themselves through art. In my personal experience I have seen how painting community murals, creating music, choreographing a dance, designing a stage set, taking incredible photographs, or reciting self-created poetry has given children in hopeless situations hope. I have helped provide summer art programs and creative writing programs for children who were in juvenile detention centers, living in homeless shelters, or struggling with peer pressure. For other children, art becomes an outlet for feeling achievement. Many children who struggle with reading and math need self belief that they are not stupid and can be successful in school. Art, music, dance, photography, and creative writing programs can help these students receive this confidence. In society, we admire and praise artists, but we send a mix message to children when we abandon the Arts at our schools.

Maybe we do not have an Arts curriculum in our schools, but we can and should incorporate the Arts in our lessons. I love letting my students get creative when it comes to projects. My students are given general objectives to achieve but are allowed to use whatever media they wish to show their work. Some make videos, some use posters, some create live productions with other students playing the guitar, and some create online presentations. I have even let my students create poetry or comic strips for their journal entries. I just found that some of my students would learn the material better if I let them choose how to learn it. What did I observe when I no longer limited them? I found many came alive, shared their passions, and got the rest of the students in the class excited! I found that they would approach their classmates or others in the school to be part of their presentations. The entire school would want to come to my class to see the collaborations! We had so much fun and the students enjoyed learning.

Top Art Sites

These are my favorites free tools and resources to get students creating! Included is a brief description and helpful links to facilitate using these tools more effectively.

• Drawing: How to Draw- Several drawing tutorials.
• Deviant Art- World’s largest online community of artists and art lovers.
• Digital Storytelling Resources and Ideas Wiki- Find several ideas for claymation, stop motion, and other films.
• 40 Writing, Music, and Art Resources
• Animata- Free software for editing and creating brilliant animation films.
• Dismantling the Bomb- Great interactive website that explores the fine line between art and graffit.
• Onemotion- Sketch and paint on a canvas with many tools, play games, or make music on the drum machine.
• Odosketch- Fantastic and easy tool for students to create detailed sketches. For more information see David Kapular’s post.
• Slimber- Draw on this canvas, choose the background color and the dimensions. The best drawings are featured on the front of the website so gives the students some incentives.
• Artpad- Similar to Canvastic where students paint and can playback. However, you can select frames and this has a nicer look. Also has an iPad app.
• Canvastic- An easy tool for students to paint. Students are able to playback how they painted their masterpiece.
• Rate My Drawing- Nice chat and collaborative drawing feature. You can also draw on a sketch pad which is animated. Huge community of artists that share their work.
• Guess A Sketch- Draw online and others try to guess what it is! Great collaborative online game and has an iPhone app (the app costs $1.99).
• Artsonia- Kids can display and sell their art on this online museum.
• Playful Learning Experiences- This wonderful site provides you with many activities in writing and arts and crafts!
• Artopia- Teachers can create art galleries of students work. See Kelly Tenkely’s post for classroom application ideas.
• Sketchcast- Students can draw in several different colors, add text, narrate the drawing, and embed it into a wiki or blog.
• Doink- Students create free animation videos.
• VoiceDraw- Draw with the sound of your voice. A high voice goes one direction while a medium voice creates a straight line. It’s in beta and a bit tricky but a fun experiment.
• Art, Drawing and Art Educational Freeware- Whatever your students want to do artistically you can find a free tool on this website!
• Best Art sites for Learning English- Larry Ferlazzo provides you with many tools and explains why they made his best list.

Challenge:

Integrate art in at least one lesson this semester.

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

What tools inspire your students to be creative?

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

Please explore any website before using with your students. Many of these have Google ads and community forums!

Part of the Cool Sites series

Collaboration is the real step to education transformation. When we gather to produce, our ideas, talents, and skills embody our final outcome. Each person who participates has the ability to add full attention to the designated task versus one person spread thin over several tasks. Collaboration is also important for students who will have to work with others in some capacity to be able to problem solve or brainstorm.

Why Teaching Online Collaboration is Important

While completing my Masters online, I discovered that many people lacked collaboration skills. I observed 20+ global teams in which members fought or offended each other by their lack of communication and team building skills. These skills include having the ability to compromise, lead, meet deadlines, deal with disagreement, and communicate in an effective manner. When we collaborate online many forget that online communication is very different than person to person communication. Sometimes an online message can be misread or come across quite differently than the message we originally tried to communicate.

Why is Online Collaboration Different than Face to Face Collaboration?

Online collaboration is very different than in person collaboration mainly because we don’t have nonverbal cues to support our messages. Many researchers believe that nonverbal communication is as high as 60% to 93% of all communication. This means that a majority of our online messages could be misinterpreted, yet many of us do not communicate with this in mind. When we accidentally offend others we shut down the lines of communication, which jeopardizes the final outcome or our efforts. In our digital world, online collaboration will become increasingly important, yet schools rarely teach students to collaborate online. We can change that by ensuring our students participate in at least one online collaborative project this year. I would love to see the day when schools teach all learners to collaborate effectively with their peers worldwide. We would be able to solve issues like the environment, the economy, and possibly prevent wars. Wow! That’s pretty powerful potential!

Top Collaboration Sites

These are my favorites free tools to get your students and you collaborating! Included is a brief description and helpful links to facilitate using these tools more effectively.

• Wiggio- Developed by college students this free site has everything from meeting planning, your own whiteboard, updates, group mailing, a calendar, video conferencing room, group text messages, and much more! I love this website. Read more about it in the ILearnTechnology blog.
• Enter the Group- create project pages and online classrooms for free. Includes features like to-do lists, tasks widget, chat, message boards, group email, file sharing, an online calendar, checklists, blogs, polls, and more!
• Juntos- communicate in real time through audio, video, and chat. Supports a multivideo chat and scheduling option.
• iBrainstorm App for iPad and iPhone- Allows up to 4 to collaborate on a brainstorming diagram or group thinking process that can be emailed. Has drawing and writing tools.
• Scribblar-Real-time multi-user whiteboard, image upload/ download, text chat with userlist, live audio
• Google Tools for Educators- One of my favorite ways to collaborate! Collaborate in real time to create slideshows, drawings, documents, and more that are on the web and can easily be embedded and organized in folders.
  • Google Tools Tutorials by Free Tech 4 Teachers
• Zoho- Collaborate on PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, word documents, and more. Similar to Google Apps, but shows a condensed view of all recent project activity and includes group chat rooms, forums, wikis, and a tabbed interface.
• CrocDocs- Collaboratively highlight and comment on PDFs, Word documents, images, and more!
• Prezi-the alternative to PowerPoint. Create non-linear presentations with images, text, video, and cool transitions. Now with the ability for students to collaborate on one Prezi together in real-time.
  • Prezi as a Presentation Tool wiki- Lists several tips, resources, and examples. You will also find useful information in integrating Twitter and other tools with Prezi.
  • Prezi templates
  • Work together in real time with Prezi Meeting post with great ideas!

Collaborative Document & Whiteboard Tools

• Twiddla- real time collaboration on documents, websites, and images. Includes writing and drawing tools and audio to talk in real time. No registration needed.
• Skrbl- Multi user whiteboard that can be embedded. Sketch, text, share files, upload pictures all in one common shared space. No registration required.
• Groupboard- Free online whiteboard and chat that can be easily embedded into your website. Also is an iPhone, iPad and Android app.
• Titan Pad- real time collaboration on document that assigns everyone their own color. Includes formatting options like MS Word. No registration needed.
• Meeting Words- nearly the exact same service as Titan Pad.
• Type With Me- Like Titan pad with the ability to save as a PDF, website, bookmark, pdf, and more.
• Writeboard- real time collaboration on document that tracks changes from each person, no registration needed.

Online Sticky Boards

Most of these services allow you more options if you sign-up for free. You can also make your walls of post-its private in all these services.

• Wallwisher- Put messages up to 160 characters on an online board. Looks like post-its but these can include videos, links, images, and audio. This online board is embeddable which is its best feature. Additionally, you can choose from a variety of backgrounds and pictures from Wallwisher’s library! You don’t have to be registered to post. I love Wallwisher and am registered since I have around 30 walls. The problem is that this service is unreliable and often down so here are other options below.
• Pindax- Post text, images, and files, also the ability to embed and search your posts! Not as nice looking as Wallwisher but a good alternative.
• Linoit- Include links, images, video, and audio as well as change the size and color of your fonts. Has various background options and other attractive options. It’s embeddable as well.
• Stixy- Add tasks, appointments, files, photos, notes, and bookmarks to boards. More options than Wallwisher but doesn’t have an embedding option.
• Listhings- It’s a corkboard template, but has the ability to change the color of notes and create several note pages! I haven’t found the embed option. Read more about Listhings here.
• Spaaze- Described as a virtual corkboard, add images, video, and more. No embedding option but does allow you to search content.
• EditStorm- Brainstorming board that allows collaborators to post ideas on different colored notes. Has an idea bot idea bots that look up related concepts, synonyms and even words that rhyme with any term that has been used. You can also poll ideas but you can’t add video, audio, or images. Some html is supported. There’s also templates to choose from and an iPad/iPhone app. Not embeddable.

More Resources

• Cybrary Man’s Collaboration Page- Many, many resources
• Best Online Tools For Real-Time Collaboration by Larry Ferlazzo- Many, many more tools with great descriptions

Challenge:

Use one of these tools to get your students collaborating online this year!

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

What collaboration tools do you love?

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

Part of the Cool Sites series

On Tuesday, May 18th, Google announced that Google Wave is now available for everyone! Now you may have tried Google Wave in the beginning and felt it was not your cup of tea. Initially, Google Wave did have some annoying problems. However, like most technology, it has improved with time. Google Wave uploads faster, notifies you of updates through your e-mail, has many collaborative features, and now lets anyone join. Some of the collaborative features on the wave include video chat, embedding all sorts of documents within the page (PowerPoints, videos, and text documents), collaborative mindmapping, collaborative drawing, and much more! The video below will show you how to get started and wave.

Why Wave?

Google Wave is best for collaborative projects with a small amount of people. I find that larger Waves of 50 or more educators is overwhelming and difficult to follow. Personally, I prefer to be a part of a Wave of 3 to 15 active participants. I have mostly used Google Wave for organizing various virtual events, but have been part of Waves where educators have their students collaborate on projects. I urge you to try waving as part of a project. You can start with a simple meeting or project with your Personal/Passionate Learning Network to get the feel of how useful Wave is for collaboration. I would advise trying to Wave with someone who knows the ropes. I realize you may not know anyone who has used Wave, therefore, I am listing some resources for you to get started!

Resources and Tips

Educators on Google Wave:

• Google Wave Educators group on the Edu PLN ning- 400 educators actively invite you to participate in their projects and waves. Several members of this group actively help mentor those new to Google Wave. Also, you can propose Wave projects for others to join! Don’t worry that the group will disappear, because the Educator’s PLN ning is not going anywhere!
• List of Educators on Google Wave and their Twitter names- This list by @concretekax will help you see who is already waving on your Twitter network.

Useful tutorials and tips:

• Google Wave Versus the Rest- If you’re not sure which collaboration tool is best for your project, you will love this chart that compares Google Wave features with other collaborative tools!
• The Complete Google Wave Guide- Scroll down to the Table of Contents to see several of the chapters that are free to view. This incredible e-book will let you know about the several gadgets and extensions available!
• Google Wave for Dummies- Read this free e-book to find out how to use Google Wave. You can embed this or download a copy
• Wave Extensions- Learn the difference between robots and gadgets and how to install each in a Wave.
• How to embed a Wave on your blog or wiki
• How to remove participants from a Wave

Youtube video tutorials and tips:

• Getting Started with Google Wave
• How to Integrate Google Wave with Google Apps
• Collaborating on a Prezi Using Google Wave
• Google Wave Conversation Model- some basic listed and a great presentation on how to add bots and how they change the conversation.

What are the best gadgets, extensions, and bots?

• Google Wave Gadgets- A chapter from the Complete Google Wave Guide
• Wave: Best Education Gadgets, Widgets and Extensions- click on the links to visit the Waves. See how several educators test out various gadgets!
• Ten Gadgets to Make Google Wave More Productive and Fun!- A thorough exploration with images of 10 useful gadgets
• Google Wave Extensions by Life Feast blog- This post covers information like how to tweet and drag and drop files.

Google Wave and Education:

• Wave Education Index- A comprehensive site for educational uses of Google Wave
• Wave College- witness how several educators are building a virtual college using Google Wave!
• The Power of Potential: 19 Educational Uses for Google Wave
• 25 Tips for Students and Teachers Using Google Wave
• The Ultimate Google Wave Guide for Students: 100 Tips and Tricks
• Google Wave in Education- several more links listed in this post!
• A Short Presentation on Using Google Wave in the Foreign Language Classroom by TeachPaperless

Challenge:

Try using Google Wave for a collaborative project or have your students try it for a team project.

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

What useful tips do you have for collaborating on Google Wave?

New Year’s Eve edition of the What Did They Tweet weekly series!

2010 is around the corner! Through my PLN on Twitter, I have found some fantastic tips, tricks, and projects. If you are viewing this from an RSS reader, you may want to check the homepage to see the embedded videos and frames.

Be the Hit of Your New Year’s Eve Party

Several of us will be attending parties, perhaps with our educator friends. @RiptideF shared this video, Top 10 Quirky Science Tricks for New Year’s Parties, which is filled with cool ways to liven up the party. Try these if you dare, then share them with your students to motivate them to learn the science behind these incredible feats!

Tips on Becoming a Creative Teacher

@ahrenfelt created this wonderful Wallwisher of tips to becoming a creative teacher. Use these suggestions from various educators to help you become more creative as an educator or add your own sticky note. Wallwisher is one of my favorite tools that you can read more about in this previous post!

Bloom’s Taxonomy Poster

In the New Year, most of us will be updating our curriculum objectives. @Nharm shared this beautiful Bloom’s Taxonomy Butterfly poster which is a nice touch to any classroom as well as an important reminder of what our students should be doing daily- remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Click on the image to access the pdf of the poster!

December 1st edition!

My guilty pleasure is…. Twitter… as you can tell by this weekly series, What Did They Tweet?

Kid’s Digital Stories

@JohnMikulski’s students have created beautiful digital stories using Storybird. Storybird is one of my favorite applications that you can read about here! John describes the project which has students write a short story in which the protagonist discovers something he/she would have been better off not knowing. Please read the stories and leave these students comments on their stories. Below was one of many of my favorites!

The Tower on Storybird

Using Scenarios in Your E-learning

This brilliant Slideshare presentation provides a wonderful reflection of how we design our instruction. Although the focus is on e-learning, this really relates to the instructional design of all courses. Cathy Moore challenges us to reflect on our instructional methods to answer the question, “Are we teaching our students to solve problems?” This presentation was tweeted by @EthanKuniyoshi.

View more documents from Cathy Moore.

Project Peace for Students

@ddeubel has created an international global project for students everywhere! If you are looking for an easy project to connect your students with other schools worldwide, then you may want to check out the details here. Join the ning, choose 1 of 8 songs about peace, download the song cards, have students decorate them, then make a video! Here’s an example of one of the video projects.

Find more videos like this on PROJECT PEACE

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference

One extremely valuable part of Second Life is the various free conferences you get to attend. @barbsaka, an amazing educator who has attended several Second Life conferences, tweeted about the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference taking place on March 12-13, 2010. Last year, over 3800 educators attended the event. Below is an example of what you can expect. If you feel comfortable with your Second Life skills, the conference is looking for volunteers, paper submissions, and presentation proposals. If you are new to Second Life, please join the SLife is Life ning where you will find educators like @barbsaka and me willing to show you around.

Dec. 4th Students Save the Rainforest!

This Friday, December 4th, at 12:25pm GMT, your students and you have the opportunity to ask Javier Dril Bustamente, a native of the rainforest, questions about saving the rainforest via twitcam. DM @chickensaltash to participate in the project. This will be a wonderful opportunity to get students involved in a project that helps them reflect about their responsibility to protect the planet.

Add the people in this post to your PLN by using this mass Twitter tool. Just copy and paste this list!

ddeubel, JohnMikulski, ethankuniyoshi, barbsaka, chickensaltash, larryferlazzo, kalinagoenglish

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

If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to check out these posts with a more extensive list of favorite tweets:

• Monthly Best Tweets by Larry Ferlazzo.
• Monthly Tweets by Karenne Sylvester, Kalinagoenglish.

Challenges:

Leave a comment for the children’s stories or have your students leave a comment! Join many of the other collaborative projects in this post! Attend the free Virtual Worlds Conference in March!

What do you think of these tweets? Leave a comment below!

Collaboration has become the key concept to learn and engage ourselves through web. Web tools offer us the opportunity to collaborate and learn from each other; so this week, I would like to share my top collaborative tools for Shelly’s Cool Sites Series.

Palbee is a free online service that allows you to set up online video meetings with your friends or colleagues. You also have a whiteboard and it lets you draw, write texts, highlight or erase using different tools. Wetoku is similar to Palbee though you can set video meeting with one person, you can consider Wetoku as an easy interview tool.

Springnote is a web notebook service based on a wiki. You can create your own personal notebook or you can collaborate with others using group notebooks. You can create pages, share links and your bookmarks or share your files. Webnote and Writeboard are similar tools to take notes on net and share and make changes together. We have used Writeboard with Shelly while creating our proposal for IATEFL this year, it really worked!!

Wallwisher is an online and collaborative notice board maker. You can make announcements, lists, share your bookmarks with others or create together. You can add pictures, videos or give links. You can write anything you want to write on post-its and you can do more than that. Have a look at Nik Peachey’s Wallwisher as a great collaboration example.Stixy is a similar tool. You can try it too.

CoSketch lets you visualize and share your ideas as images using a whiteboard with others. You can upload pictures and draw on it, add shapes, you can draw at the same time with others and you can save your sketch as an image to embed it to your blog. DabbleBoard can be considered as a similar site. It’s another collaboration tool based on a whiteboard.

Wiggio is an online toolkit that lets you work in groups easily. You can send emails, text messages,voice mails. It makes it easy to share files and polls. You can set video conferences and also keep shared calendar, keep track of group’s tasks and resources.

Mindmeister is an online collaborative mind mapping tool that you can brainstorm with others real-time. You can create your own mind map on a award winning interface or share your mind maps with your friends or collaborate with others to create a collaborative one. Here is a good example with many other collaborative tools that you can use.

I hope you enjoy all the tools! And don’t forget to check Shelly’s cool sites every week.

Özge is an EFL teacher and a teacher trainer in Istanbul,Turkey. She is also the educational coordinator, script and screenplay writer of “Yes,I Speak English” DVD series in America.

Visit her blog: http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/ Follow her on Twitter:@ozge

This has been an honor for me to write as a guest blogger on Shelly Terrell’s wonderful blog! I would like to thank her for this opportunity,her inspiring ideas, motivating words and lovely smile. She is forever a favourite on my PLN and real life!!

Last week of October edition!

Have you ever come across a tweet that you really wanted to discuss and share with others? Here are the ones that grabbed my attention this week. Check out the rest of this weekly series, What Did They Tweet?

Cool Claymation Tips

The educator in me loves student projects, which is why this is my favorite tweet of a claymation video by four students. The music is amazing, the story plot resembles Romeo and Juliet, and the creativity is off the charts. How could this tweet get any better? Maryna Badenhorst‘s tweet also provides a link to a list of claymation resources and tips to get your students started in creating their own claymation videos! I really enjoyed browsing through the rest of the website which offers very cool educational technology tips! I am sure this will become a favorite part of my daily read!

Good Tech/ Bad Tech Debate

In this brilliant post, Jamie Keddie explores the parallels in describing the relationship between technology and the classroom. He uses the medical field as an example and illustrates with images how two pediatricians use technology to save lives in Sierra Leone. Read this thought-provoking post!

Hip-hop and Shakespeare

I attend several webinars and in nearly every one of them run into my webinar buddy, Mary Beth Hertz. During one of the webinars I sought some advice in teaching English language learners Shakespeare. Mary Beth later tweeted me a link to this amazing article about the rapper, Akala, hosting workshops for teenagers that relate Shakespeare to hip-hop. These types of projects are incredible for closing the achievement gap. Watch the inspirational video below about the project.

Creative Use of Pocket Change

Ashley Allain shared this wonderful post about a very creative lesson using pocket change. Dan Meyer walks the reader through this math lesson in using a jar of change to motivate students to critical think. The post is illustrated with amazing infographics and explains the process in more detail.

Wiki Full of Tech Tools

Janet Bianchini tweeted this wiki full of various educational technology tools. In the wiki, you will find extensive tips and resources on:

• Blogging
• Podcasting
• Voicethread
• Videoconferencing
• Wikis
• Social Bookmarking and Annotating
• Information Management
• Microloans
• Research and Reading
• Hearing Voices
• Presentations

Add the people in this post to your PLN by using this mass Twitter tool. Just copy and paste this list!

marynabadenhors, cheimi10, mbteach, aaallain, janetbianchini, larryferlazzo, kalinagoenglish

On the mindmap, click on the earth icons to follow the links to the Twitter profiles, blogs or websites! You can also make this mindmap smaller or larger and move it around. If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe to receive regular updates!

If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to check out these posts with a more extensive list of favorite tweets:

• Monthly Best Tweets by Larry Ferlazzo.
• The Blogosphere, the Twitterverse by Karenne Sylvester, Kalinagoenglish.

Challenge:

Add a new blog to your reader or bookmark one of these websites!

Which tweet really inspired you? Leave a comment below!

Have you ever come across a tweet that you really wanted to discuss and share with others? Here are the ones that grabbed my attention this week. I invite you to check out the rest of my favorite tweets in this weekly series, What Did They Tweet?.

Students Making an Impact

In my last post, I shared my desire to raise students who are passionate about making a difference. This video shared by Lika, who often tweets about activism, shows a powerful speech given by a teenager to the UN. The girl does not paint a pretty picture, but reveals her frustration at the continual destruction of the environment by adults. Share this video with your students and witness their reactions. I believe students will be inspired by the video.

Wiki Projects You Should Support

Inspire students to improve their writing and reflect upon it by leaving a comment on one of the several projects listed in the Comments4Kids wiki. This wiki was created by WMChamberlain. If you have a student project you would like people to leave comments on, then you can add your project to the wiki!

Have a presentation you are proud of and want to share it with your PLN? Add your presentation under the several categories listed in Beth Still‘s presentation wiki page. You are welcome to use any of the presentations on the wiki. This project has several presentation formats and would be great to share with students examples before they begin their own projects or to share with other teachers during a training session.

20 Ways to Use Comics in the Classroom

TNschatz shared this slideshare presentation, which demonstrates 20 wonderful ways to use comics for student learning. Comics are great to use in the classroom, because they are visual, fun, and accessible to English Language Learners! The presentation also includes various links to free comic creators.

New Features in TweetDeck

Do you wish you could see your new followers’ bios? Karenne Sylvester has been asking Twitter to bring back the bios. However, this time Matthias Heil came to the rescue by sharing a link to TweetDeck’s version 0.31′s new follower feature. This feature will show you a column of your new followers and show their bios so you can quickly follow, block, or report them to spam! Watch the video below that Matthias shared!

Add the people in this post to your PLN by using Russel Tarr’s mass Twitter tool. Just copy and paste this list!

808lika, wmchamberlain, bethstill, tnschatz, matthiasheil, larryferlazzo, kalinagoenglish

On the mindmap, click on the earth icons to follow the links to the Twitter profiles and websites! You can also make this mindmap smaller or larger and move it around. If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe to receive regular updates!

If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to check out these posts with a more extensive list of favorite tweets:

• September Best Tweets by Larry Ferlazzo.
• The Blogosphere, the Twitterverse (ELT 08/09) by Karenne Sylvester, Kalinagoenglish.

Challenge:

Share one of the websites with a fellow teacher or join a wiki project!

Would you like to be a guest host on this series with your favorite tweets? Please contact me!

Have you ever come across a tweet that you really wanted to discuss and share with others? I experience this so often that I have created this weekly series to bookmark these tweets and start a discussion with you about them. I invite you to check out the rest of this weekly series, What Did They Tweet?, if this is your first time.

If the mindmap is not coming out in the RSS reader, you can click on the image to go to the original mindmap.

The Fun Theory

Can we change students’ behaviors by making learning fun? Ed Webb shared this video and started a great discussion on his website about the pedagogy of fun. I would like to continue the discussion here, because I do think that the educational system is programmed to make learning tedious. Exploration, discovery, problem-solving, and collaboration should be fun, but often this part of learning is lacking in curricula. I believe it is the best part of learning, which is why I hope this video inspires you and maybe your staff! This tweet was recommended by Valentina Dodge, Karenne Sylvester, and Larry Ferlazzo.

Preaching to the Choir?

Often I hear we are preaching to the choir on Twitter, but I think people forget that the conversations we have on Twitter are extended to our schools. Bill Montana demonstrates how he enlightens other educators at his school in his post, Starting Conversation. He shares several resources, which any educator could use with their PLN to begin a conversation, therefore, challenging educators to reflect upon their teaching methodologies. Included in this post is this inspirational video by Alan November.

Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November from Brian Mull on Vimeo.

Famous Failures

Nancy Blair introduced the following video, “If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.” This video of famous failures would be a great way to spark discussion with students.

Photoshop App for the IPhone

Kyle Pace shared important news about Adobe Photoshop’s app for the IPhone! To find out more about this incredible app visit this post!

95 Websites to Bookmark

Paula Naugle shared this website that describes 95 websites to bookmark! I found some really interesting websites I had not already bookmarked like FlashEarth.com which could be used with students to explore the earth virtually! This tweet was recommended by Amber Teamann.

Would You Please Block?

Paula White recommended a thought-provoking post in which an instructional technologist shares his response to those who request he block distracting websites. You really should visit this blog and read the letter! I loved it!

**Add the people in this post to your PLN by using Russel Tarr’s mass Twitter tool. Just copy and paste this list!**

edwebb, bmontana, blairteach, kylepace, plnaugle, 8Amber8, paulawhite, larryferlazzo, vale24, kalinagoenglish

On the mindmap, click on the earth icons to follow the links to the Twitter profiles, blogs or websites! You can also make this mindmap smaller or larger and move it around. If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe to receive regular updates!

If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to check out these posts with a more extensive list of favorite tweets:

• September Best Tweets by Larry Ferlazzo.
• My Week in Tweets by Valentina Dodge.
• The Blogosphere, the Twitterverse (ELT 08/09) by Karenne Sylvester, Kalinagoenglish.

Challenge:

Share one of these videos with at least one teacher at your school or with your students!

Would you like to recommend a favorite tweet for next week? Please contact me to share your favorite Tweet! Please mark the tweet as a favorite so that I can find the tweet!