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"EdTech Toolkit"
If you are a teacher and you haven’t set up a classroom blog to help communicate with students and parents, you are missing out! A blog is such a great way to share assignments, post updates and events, give parents insight into your thinking, and more.
Our blog platform of choice is Blogger. For one, it’s very easy to use. Also, it’s a Google product, so if you have a Google account, you don’t need to register.
We created a nice 10-minute tutorial that tells you everything you need to know to get started. Take a look:
Be sure to contact us or leave a comment if there’s anything we left out in this introductory video. Stay tuned for a follow-up tutorial on some more advanced (but still pretty easy) techniques. And if you’re interested in building your EdTech Toolkit a bit more, check out our tutorials page or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Note: If you’re reading this, you’re probably already more edtech savvy than most. So, take the time and share this post with a non-twitter-using colleague. Spread the word and help connect the teaching profession!
Our top two ideas for becoming a “connected educator?” Use Google Reader and Twitter. Both of these bring information directly to you and both exponentially expand your Personal Learning Network (PLN). Spending a few minutes a day with each provides individualized professional development that you can’t put a pricetag on. We know because we use both. And both have made us better teachers.
Thanks to attention-seeking celebrities and whining athletes, twitter is a bit off-putting to some. But if you look beyond the riff-raff, there is a community of educators tweeting away. All of them with the common goal of connecting, sharing, learning, and helping students.
Twitter is pretty easy to get started with. But just in case you need a little extra help, here’s a tutorial video we made:
You can also find more tutorials on our YouTube channel and find free PDF handouts in the Resources tab of our homepage.
Welcome to the third of our Google Reader tutorial videos. You can access all of them, and others, via our YouTube Channel.
Today we look at “Bundles,” groups of feeds that you create to share with colleagues, followers, or friends. Creating them is very simple and a great way to help others subscribe to all the great blogs you follow without sending them a slew of links.
Take a look…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RqkZBKXms4
Be sure to check back regularly, or better yet, subscribe to our blog so you won’t miss out on our upcoming free tutorial videos.
There are so many options when it comes to using Google Reader to manage your RSS feeds. As we wrote about last week, Google Reader is a great way to get started with subscribing to blogs. That way, useful information can get delivered directly to you. You’ll really be amazed how much your teaching can improve from following blogs. There are so many ideas and thoughts being shared in the blogosphere that without a program like Google Reader, it’s impossible to keep track of them.
Today we want to talk about starring, sharing and subscribing. First of all, you can “star” individual feed items that you want to be able to easily access at a later time. You can also easily share feed items with friends and colleagues within Google Reader. Finally, Google reader features a special “Subscribe…” bookmark that allows you to subscribe to blogs while surfing with just one click.
Check out our tutorial video to see how all of this is possible:
And please stay tuned (or, better yet, subscribe) for more EdTech toolkit tips. Next time we examine Google Reader, we’ll look at an advanced sharing feature: Bundles. We’ll also be expanding the toolkit to include social bookmarking and blogging!
At Engaging Educators, we believe that the 21st century teacher should have a set of technology skills that they are comfortable using both on their own and in the classroom. Call it an EdTech Toolkit, if you will.
This toolkit should contain tools that enhance students’ learning experiences and help the teacher become a learner, [...]
At Engaging Educators, we believe that the 21st century teacher should have a set of technology skills that they are comfortable using both on their own and in the classroom. Call it an EdTech Toolkit, if you will.
This toolkit should contain tools that enhance students’ learning experiences and help the teacher become a learner, too. That way, professional development is a continual process and the teacher is able to create a broad Personal Learning Network (PLN).
So what’s the first thing that should be in that toolkit? That’s a toughie, I know. But I think I’m pretty confident about my answer: RSS. RSS feeds, or “Real Simple Syndication” for the uninitiated, allow web content to be delivered via subscription.
If every teacher regularly used a feed reader to have useful, interesting teaching ideas and articles delivered directly to them, just imagine the possibilities.
Take for example an average fifth grade teacher. They could get ideas about writing projects from Two Writing Teachers and The Small Nouns, news about new books from 100 Scope Notes and Jen Robinson’s Book page, inspiration from TED, and technology integration tips from Free Technology for Teachers, Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day, and iLearn Technology. All for free. All in one place. And all it takes is a little time to set up and a few minutes each day to log in and peruse.
I read once that only 10 percent of Americans use RSS feeds to subscribe to web content. As startling as that is in our fast-paced high tech world, if that stat applies to teachers, it’s even more concerning.
So we feel that knowledge of RSS feeds and subscribing to blogs is something every teacher should know how to do. And to get you started, here’s a little video:
And here’s a link to a list of some of our favorite educational technology blogs to get you started. Please let us know how it goes–feel free to post questions in the comments area or use the “Contact Us” link at the top of the blog.
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