Category Archives: Web 2.0

Twitter Really IS the Best PD Tool Available to Teachers

I’ve made this claim before, and I’ve written in this blog about how great Twitter is at building Personal Learning Communities that stretch beyond the walls of your school. While some in the MPS teaching community have gotten on-board and started using Twitter to connect to other educators’ ideas, most have not. One reason for this is obvious: time. The whirlwind pace of the typical school day makes it difficult to squeeze in a healthy lunch and bathroom breaks, let alone search for inspiring instructional ideas on the Web. Other reasons teachers have been slow to get on Twitter include the misconception that it’s just a repository for jokes or mindless drivel about what people had for lunch, or more generally, a lack of know-how or a compelling example of how it can benefit them.

For some compelling examples, read this article by educator/author Mark Barnes. Then watch his simple how-to video on some of the basics for how you, as an educator, can harness the power of Twitter….


Once you’re all set with your Twitter account, you’ll be able to curate only the content that matters to you. And while it’s nice to contribute ideas to the Twitterverse from time to time, it’s certainly not necessary. You can simply read what comes into your Twitter feed. You can participate in a live Twitter chat, or just follow the stream and learn from others’ insights.

Speaking of live Twitter chats, I (@MadisonITS) will be live tweeting next week’s Meet the Author book talk in the Hammonasette Room and our guest speaker, Allison Zmuda (@compclass) will be encouraging others who attend to do the same as she discusses her book Breaking Free from Myths About Teaching and Learning.  All you have to do to join or follow the discussion is log in to Twitter next Monday at 7:00 pm and search the hashtag #kidsandlearning.

Hope to see you there…in person, or on Twitter!

Addendum: If you’re interested in checking out some regularly occuring live weekly Twitter chats specific to your interests or subject area, click here for an extensive list containing meeting times and hashtags. Thanks to Paul Coppola for passing this on.

More Ideas for Digital Learning Day…Let’s Make It Digital Learning Week!

Today is Digital Learning Day, so for the rest of the week I will be posting some quick suggestions/recommendations for how you can incorporate meaningful digital learning activities into your lessons. Today I’d like to focus on Wallwisher. This collaborative web-based tool gives students a great way to process information, reflect on what they are learning, and share their thinking with others. Some elementary teachers in the district have been using this tool during reading/writing lessons with awesome results. Click here to see an example from Renee Pardo’s 3rd grade class.

Like many of my favorite digital learning tools, Wallwisher doesn’t require any student logins or extensive setup on the teachers part, and it can be used with mobile learning devices. Check out the video below to see how easy it is to set one up for your classes. And if you’ve used Wallwisher with your students, please leave a comment below to share your experience with others. Was it a success? Is there anything you’d do differently? Any lessons in particular that are a good fit for this tool?

Addendum: Since this post was originally published, Wallwisher has officially changed its name to Padlet.

Professional Learning through Blogs and Wikis…and Twitter!

Despite their best efforts, school districts everywhere struggle with providing teachers with professional development activities and opportunities that meet the needs of all teachers. While we all educate students, we all have different needs due to the variety of subjects and ages we teach, not to mention the variety of learning styles we each have as adult learners. Some activities are a no-brainer…when there’s a new student information system that all teachers will be using (think Infinite Campus), everyone will benefit from a workshop that shows teachers how to use it.  However, when it comes to professional growth related to instructional practices, a one-size-fits-all doesn’t usually work. This is why some districts are encouraging teachers to develop professional/personal learning networks (PLN’s). A PLN is basically a personalized social network, developed by the individual teacher, full of digital resources that pertain to his/her specific needs or interests as an educator.

One great way to start developing a personal learning network is by reading blogs, using an RSS feed aggregator, like GoogleReader. This article does a great job discussing the role of RSS feeds and wikis in developing PLN’s.  To learn about the basic concept of RSS, click on the video below.

Another great PLN tool is Twitter.  This article by New Milford High School (NJ) principal Eric Sheninger explains why Twitter should be a vital component to anyone’s PLN. How many of you are on Twitter and use it as a means for professional growth? Leave a comment below to share your experiences. Then hit me up on Twitter…my handle is @MadisonITS.

SlideShare Makes Sharing PowerPoints Easy

When teachers give students the opportunity to show what they’ve learned through a PowerPoint presentation, the most enjoyable part comes at the end of the project when students share their work with the whole group. Unfortunately, this is often the most cumbersome part for a variety of reasons: compatibility issues due to different versions of PowerPoint, trouble downloading student work from a Finalsite Dropbox, students forgetting the flash drive they saved the project to, missing media files, the list goes on.

If you’ve ever experienced any of the above issues, then you should definitely check out SlideShare–a website that was  recently voted amongst the World’s Top 10 tools for education & eLearning. So what is it? It’s the world’s largest online community for sharing presentations. Basically anyone with a free SlideShare account can upload a presentation to the site and access it from any computer that has an Internet connection. SlideShare even has a mobile version of their site, so you can access uploaded presentations from a smartphone! And besides presentations, SlideShare also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars. So if you’re students upload their presentations to SlideShare and provide you with links and/or keywords for them, you’ll have no problem accessing them from your computer at home or at school. It’s also a good learning tool that allows you to browse presentations other people have shared with the world, and evaluate the quality or veracity of their contents.

Here’s a list of the different file types SlideShare supports, as well as some other features:

Supported Formats:
Presentations: PDF, ppt, pps, pptx, ppsx, pot, potx (Powerpoint); odp (OpenOffice); key, zip (Apple Keynote).
Documents: PDF, doc, docx, rtf (MSOffice); odt, ods (OpenOffice); Apple iWork Pages, txt, csv
Video: Pretty much all the usual formats, except WMV.

Other features:
Upload presentations publicly or privately (PRO version needed for private uploads)
Download presentations on any topic and reuse or remix
Embed on blogs, websites, company intranets
Embed YouTube videos inside SlideShare presentations

Of course, to sign up for a free version you must register with an e-mail address–something you cannot require students to do–and be aware of the fact that uploaded presentations will be available for the whole world to see. So make sure that your students understand this and caution them against including any personal information in their presentations.

Go ahead and check out the presentation embedded below. It’s one of my own that I created with Apple’s Keynote software.

Digital storytelling slideshow

View more presentations from mkiefer18

Richer Class Discussions Through Backchannels

As final exams approach, I’m sure you’ve been reviewing key concepts from the trimester/year with your students.  If that is the case, then you might want to consider an approach that seems to be catching on in classrooms across the country.  The Times recently published an article about the growing use of online tools to enhance class discussions. This strategy involves setting up online “backchannel” discussions that run concurrently with the primary live discussions that are happening in the classroom.  Using web-based platforms like Today’s Meet, teachers can set up a real-time digital discussion stream that allows students to post their thoughts and reflections as the primary discussion evolves. While this may sound somewhat chaotic or conducive to distraction, when the activity is well-designed and expectations are clear, teachers see a significant increase in class participation.  The key seems to be engagement.  When a high percentage of students are engaged, it’s okay for students to temporarily tune out of the primary conversation as they post their own relevant thoughts.  This happens anyway…people naturally tune out as they formulate and synthesize they own thoughts.  By posting them on the backchannel, students can release these thoughts and get back to focusing on the discussion at hand rather than dwelling solely on their own ideas.  A good moderator will then make sure the discussion comes around to the more interesting or insightful backchannel comments. The result: more synthesis, deeper conversations.

todaysmeetThere are a few important things to understand about tools like Today’s Meet.  First, the convenience.  Setting up a real-time online discussion takes seconds. You create a discussion and share a link to it with students, who access the discussion from their laptops.  Next, vigilance.  Because students create their own usernames and can post live in real time, it is essential that you require students to use their first names as part of their handle. Equally important, if not more so, you really need to keep a close eye on the backchannel so that you can swiftly delete any inappropriate comments and deal with them as you would if the comment were stated orally.  However, this shouldn’t be a problem for most classes as long as you set high expectations and get student buy-in from the start. Bottom line: You know which of your classes can handle the responsibility involved.

You may be wondering how this is any different than using what we already have at our disposal–Finalsite’s Discussion Board feature.  The key difference is the real-time nature of a backchannel discussion. Because Finalsite’s discussion boards are asynchronous, they are perfect for homework, allowing students to apply and reflect on what was learned that day in class.  On the other hand, Today’s Meet is perfect for in-class discussions, as they are live.

So if you’re up for trying something new, check out the links above, and let me know if you’d like to give it a shot.  I’d be happy to help set it up, and I’d love to witness it in action.  If not this year, then next.

Update: It turns out student comments cannot be deleted until the discussion expires, which you determine when you create the room. The minimum lifespan for a discussion is one week. This means you have to REALLY trust your students to behave like young adults.

The Blog is Back!

So after almost a year-long hiatus, I’ve decided to get this blog back up and running.  Why did I abandon it for so long? Part of it had to do with Finalsite.  I thought that platform would replace this one as a technology resource for teachers.  However, I’ve realized over the past several months that while Finalsite is great for posting technology tutorials, it’s not as flexible as this blog and, therefore, is not the best platform for discussing and sharing technology tools. Think of it this way–I see Finalsite as place for reference materials and tutorials, while this blog is more a place for inspiration and conversation.

As I continue to work on my Masters in Instructional Media, I am constantly reminded that our students today are different than they were 10-15 years ago.  They grew up with high-speed Internet access and the read/write Web, and spend way more time getting information from screens than they do from books.  They are digital natives, and they learn differently, like it or not.  So if you’re interested in the latest in educational technology tools and best practices in terms of how to engage and inspire your students through technology, please visit this site often. My goal is to post regularly about various tech tools and how they can be used in your classroom in meaningful ways that actually enhance learning. I’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions through the commenting feature at the bottom of each post.

That said, the first technology teaching tool I’d like to address is digital storytelling.  I’ve seen a couple English teachers at Polson recently employ this as a mode of assessment with great success, but for those of you who are not familiar with digital storytelling, take a listen to this podcast I put together about the basics, then take a look at the example further below that I put together for one of my course’s final projects.

A new teen web obsession…Formspring

A relatively new social networking site,  Formspring.me, is reportedly catching like wildfire among teens.  The main appeal? The ability for kids to gossip and post insults about their peers anonymously.  It’s fueled by the adolescent obsession of needing to know what others think about you, and the comments they are posting about each other can be downright nasty and demoralizing. The NYTimes posted a great piece about the site early this week.  The most shocking thing about it is the way it shows what little regard many of our students have for their own privacy.