Web2.0 – Page 6 – iLearn Technology

Encyclopedia of Life: podcasts, videos, images, activities

October 10, 2011October 10, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3191 views

What it is: The Encyclopedia of Life (eol) is a beautiful website that celebrates the biodiversity of life. On the eol website, find podcasts where students can discover the diversity of life five minutes and one species at a time. Students can dig deeper into their learning with extra features like “Meet the Scientist”, “Educational Materials” or “Extras”. The “Extras” include Google Earth tours, videos, audio out-takes, images and contributions from listeners. Podcasts can be subscribed to via RSS or iTunes. The Encyclopedia of Life even provides a podcast guide for educators to use!

Teachers can create customized “Field Guides” on the eol website. These guides are collections of text and images from the eol website to fit your classroom needs.

Students can participate in their very own BioBlitz activities where they are led in observation of biodiversity in their own backyard.

The Tools page has great extra interactives and tools for students to use as they learn about life on earth. Find tools such as a Cool Iris eol plugin, Google Earth Species quizzes and Life Desk where students can create and contribute to eol.

How to integrate Encyclopedia of Life into the classroom: The Encyclopedia of Life is a gorgeous site for students to explore biodiversity. Students can engage with audio, video, images and activities to learn more about life on Earth.

My favorite part of the site is the BioBlitz activities that lead students through discovering biodiversity in their own backyard. These activities teach students to be careful observers, respectful of life and encourage curiosity and discovery. Choose a BioBlitz activity to complete in the school yard with your students. Use the eol site to learn about the different species you find. Students will love the image and audio collections here!

Are you studying a specific species in your class? Create your own classroom field guides. Better yet, put students in charge of this job. Split students into groups, each group can create a field guide to share with the rest of the class based on a species.

Tips: You have to login in order to create field guides on the Encyclopedia of Life. All content can be viewed without a login.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Encyclopedia of Life in your classroom!

Ever wondered what 10,000 young people could do to solve some of the world’s greatest problems?

October 5, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2875 views

My Twitter friend Ewan McIntosh recently shared an incredible opportunity for involving students in solving real world problems. I love putting kids creative minds to problems that keep us all wondering. I’m always so impressed with the unique approach that children take to problems. Kids don’t have the same life filters that we do. Some assumptions we make about the way things have to be done don’t exist for kids. They are free of those.

Ewan explains how your students can be involved wonderfully so I won’t reinvent the wheel:

“At TEDxLondon, BLC, Naace and a few other events this summer I asked if people wanted to join me in trying to encourage more curricula that were based less on students solving the irrelevant, contrived pseudo problems given to them in textbooks, and based more on finding great, real world problems that need solved.

A superb opportunity for action has come along.

Ever wondered what 10,000 young people could do to solve some of the world’s greatest problems? We want to know for the world’s most important ICT event, ITU Telecom World 11, by gathering young people’s vision for the future on world2011.us.

The October 24-27 event is the flagship meeting of the world’s telecoms industries, brought together by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialised United Nations agency responsible for information and communication technologies. In the run up to the event, and during it, we’ll be showcasing the ideas of young people, aged 8-18, alongside the debates, panels and corridor discussions of these influential delegates.

I’ve been at so many events recently that have either totally lacked the student voice, or made third party reference to it through second-hand reportag from their teachers. This is a real chance for your students to make a global impact on problems that matter, wherever they are.

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime real world project-based learning opportunity, that ties into most teachers’ curriculum at any given point in the year.

We’re providing some brief points of inspiration to get you started, over the seven key themes, and will open up a wiki space today where teachers can collaborate and add to each other’s resources on the areas.

By October 24, we hope to have videos, photos, blogs and examples or prototypes of what young people believe might help solve challenges on their own doorstep. Sign up your class, school or district to begin sharing the ideas of your students. We want you to tell us how technology could be harnessed to:

To take part, you just have to sign up your interest, and from there you’re able to submit posts to the project.” -via http://edu.blogs.com

Way cool! Thanks for sharing Ewan!

Goal Book: Personalizing Education

September 26, 2011Kelly Tenkely4 Comments2969 views

Goalbook Beta Overview from Daniel Yoo on Vimeo.

What it is: Goal Book is a platform, currently in beta, that helps educators come together to create and track student goals. The interface is very Facebookesq in feel. Teachers can create and track student goals from within Goal Book, sharing those goals with any other team member that works with the student. Each time a goal or progress of a goal gets updated, the entire team that works with a student is updated. Educators can keep each other updated with progress of goals, celebrate students, and share messages in Goal Book. In addition to updating educators, parents are now in the center of the conversation. They can see all progress, communicate with the education team that works with their child, celebrate successes and send private messages from within Goal Book.

How to integrate Goal Book into the classroom: Goal Book is a fantastic way to keep every part of an education team up to date with IEP goals and progress. No more keeping track of email threads, assuming someone else is taking care of a particular portion of the goals, or wondering what progress a student has made with another team member. Goal Book brings all communication to one, easy to manage place. I like that teams are fluid in Goal Book. Here, the assumption isn’t made that every student has the same group of educators working on their goals. The students you have input in are listed in one place and the team members associated with that student show up as well.

Goal Book isn’t just for students with IEP’s, all students benefit from creating and tracking learning goals! Ask your students to think of a goal they would like to make for themselves for the semester/quarter/trimester in each discipline. Record the goals and progress with students throughout the semester/quarter/trimester. Celebrate with students when they have reached their goals and share these with parents.

At Anastasis Academy, we hold parent/teacher/student conferences at the beginning of each block. We call this conference “Meeting of the Minds”. This is a time where parent, teacher and student come together to write learning goals for the upcoming block based on the progress that was made the previous block. Students play a big part in creating their learning goals. One thing I would like to see from Goal Book is the ability to include students in the goal making/tracking process. It is important to include students in the planning and tracking of THEIR learning goals. Kids have to have ownership in their learning!

Tips: The Goal Book blog is worth subscribing to and following if you plan to use Goal Book at your school or in your classroom. The blog will keep you up-to-date with the latest updates and information about Goal Book.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Goal Book in your classroom!

Class Connect

September 1, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments2908 views

What it is: Class Connect offers teachers a students everything they need to work in one place. Class Connect brings social networking to the classroom, it can do everything from giving you a place to manage your files in the cloud to building a full online learning community. Files can be easily shared with a drag/drop interface. All of your files can be shared with multiple classes without having to reload them. Teachers can create and deliver interactive lectures, starting from scratch or importing existing PowerPoint files. All content can be dragged and dropped. Mini quizzes can be added for presentations that require something of students. Class Connect also enables you to build up community within your classroom by posting messages for the class, receiving student feedback and encouraging student-to-student collaboration securely. The interface for Class Connect is intuitive and easy to master with built-in video tutorials that guide you through. The learning curve here is small!

How to integrate Class Connect into the classroom: Class Connect gives your students a virtual environment for sharing and collaborating. Extend the walls of your classroom by making documents readily and easily available to students. Post assignments, reminders, “wonders” (statements/questions to make your students wonder) and class announcements. Allow your students to work together and collaborate on projects in a secure environment where they can safely learn to use and manage their online communication. Create “live lectures” where your students can continue their learning, or catch up on learning. This is great for kids who have missed days-or months- due to illness or travel.

Older students will appreciate the calendar that allows them to set up reminders as texts to their mobile phone.

Tips: Those of you who use Google Docs at school will love this feature: full integration of Google Docs! Woo hoo! Attendance and gradebook integration are on the way…stay tuned!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Class Connect in your classroom!

Pinterest: My new obsession

August 1, 2011August 1, 2011Kelly Tenkely33 Comments7552 views

What it is: Pinterest is a new obsession of mine. I signed up for the invite-only version a while ago but hadn’t done anything with the service since. In between Reform Symposium sessions I wandered back on to check it out. Wow. I know there are other tools out there that do what Pinterest do but none that are so immediately user friendly and visually appealing. I am impressed and addicted. Pinterest lets you “pin” things from around the web on virtual pin boards. You can create as many boards as you want and share them with others. Each time you pin something you can give it a description and tags if you want. Pinterest does the rest and automatically cites the source and provides a trail to get back to the original. As a teacher I love Pinterest for pinning all of those great ideas I find around the web visually. I can write a quick reminder to myself about what I was thinking when I pinned it or how I want to use the tool. SO great! A lot of times I come across some random craft or picture that spurs an idea for something I want to do for the classroom. Because it isn’t a tech-tool or related to education it often gets lost. Pinterest is helping me grab all of those ideas and keep them around so I actually put them to use. Very nice.

How to integrate Pinterest into the classroom: Pinterest is a great way to organize yourself as a teacher. Gather up all those ideas you see online and then share them with other teachers (who may or may not be Pinterest users…it really doesn’t matter).

Because you can share Pinterest boards with non-Pinterest users, this is a great way to share things with students. The resource could be anything- pictures, a website, a video. Create a board for every unit that you do and share those boards with students so that they can continue exploring and learning.

Students can use Pinterest too, invite young students to help build boards in a class Pinterest account. Create a board for every letter of the alphabet and let students add pictures that they come across to the letter board that it matches. Pinterest has a bookmark tool that you can put in your bookmark bar to make this as easy as one click! Students can put their first name in the description so you (and other students) can keep track of who found what. Like a year-long web scavenger hunt!

Older students can create their own Pinterest boards. Pinterest would be a great place for them to collect images that they feel say something about them-an identity board. These boards can be shared with others and added to all year. Not only will you get to know your students better, but other students will find connections they didn’t know they had.

Pinterest is a nice visual way for students to share their web findings. Pinterest even lets students decide if they want to be the only contributor to their board or if they want to open it up for collaboration so others can add their findings to the board. Way cool.

I have two Pinterest boards that may be of interest to you, one is Classroom Inspiration where I am keeping ideas of things I want to do with students or for our classroom. The other is School Design where I am collecting inspirational designs that I want to see in our school when we build our own building.

Tips: Right now Pinterest is an invitation only site. You can sign up to receive an invitation (I received mine in about 10 min) or you can let me know you are interested in an invite and I can get you on the list. See that? It is worth reading to the bottom of posts- VIP access! Leave a comment if you want an invite and be sure to use a real email address because that is how the invite gets to you.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Pinterest your classroom!

Pegby: Online Collaborative Peg Board/Organizational tool

July 19, 2011February 12, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3774 views

What it is: Pegby is a neat online organizational tool that has fantastic customization features. With Pegby, students (and teachers) can share boards enabling them to collaborate with friends, family, coworkers and classmates. Pegby is organized by a series of columns, students can decide on the number and organization of columns. Columns can be easily expanded and collapsed so students can focus on exactly the columns they need at any given moment. Students (and teachers) can add cards to each column. The cards look just like a 3×5 note card and can include a title, content, tags, attachments, a due date and color coding. Note cards can be dragged from one column to the next, shared with others or added to a stack of cards. Students can filter all of their cards by tags to find exactly the cards they are looking for when they need them! Pegby lets you have multiple boards so you can organize life to your heart’s content. A Pegby board can be downloaded as a .yaml file (not familiar with that file extension, it is a unix executable file.)

How to integrate Pegby into the classroom: Pegby is one of those tools that I get totally geeked out about. I love the 3×5 note card look, the columns, the tagging, the associated calendar dates. A recipe for edu-love I tell ya! Pegby is a great tool for organizing your teacher self this year. Add ideas for the school year, tasks, lesson plans, to-do items, etc. to your board as cards. Create columns that make sense to you and organize to your heart’s content! Want one better? Share your board with colleagues so that you are all on the same page and can share lessons/resources/task responsibilities.

Older students can keep their school year organized by adding assignments, tasks, uploading work, taking/keeping notes and sharing their board with Pegby. As students work on and complete tasks, they can move items from one column to the next. Those unit tests won’t be a problem because they can tag pertinent information and easily study and review tagged information.

Pegby would also be a great tool for organizing research projects (even collaborative research projects). Students can decide how they want to organize their research and notes, tag information and attach documents. All of the research is in one place and tagged for easy reference when it comes time to compile the research. Pegby could be a useful tool for students attending college classes online.

Does your school use standards to keep track of learning? Why not create columns of Standards headings, and associate each standard with a note card? Students can upload any files or work associated with the standard. OR instead of making each column a standard heading, columns can be associated with mastery level of the standard. As a student moves through levels of mastery, they can move that standard card from one column to the next making stacks out of the standard subject. Students can keep track of their own learning, share their “Standards” board with teachers and parents.

Is your class collaborating with other classrooms? Create a collaboration board where all involved classes can organize a project together.

For younger students, create a class Pegby that can be accessed on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. The Pegby can be added to and organized as a whole class. Make Pegby updater one of your classroom jobs that happens first thing every morning. Each student will have the chance to be in control of the board throughout the year and all students will benefit from observing and helping organize the day. (Something we don’t model enough for kids in my humble opinion!)

Tips: Pegby does require a verified email account for access!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Pegby in your classroom!

Google’s Me On the Web- keep track of your digital footprint

June 15, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3109 views

What it is: Me On the Web is a new tool from Google. Announced just today, Me On the Web is part of the Google Dashboard that allows you to set up custom Google Alerts for your name in news articles. This was always possible with Google Alerts but now those alerts are coupled with tips and resources for helping students manage their online identities. Now everything can be tracked from one central location instead of scattered around in different places. Me On the Web is easy to set up, just visit your Google Dashboard to get started.

How to integrate Me on the Web into the classroom: There was a day when you could get away with not knowing and following your digital identity, that day is no more. We all carry digital footprints, and now more than ever it is vital for us (and our students) to know how to manage those digital footprints. Teaching students about their digital identity is the first step, Google’s Me on the Web takes that a step further by helping students manage their online identities through Google Alerts and helpful tips. Students must have an account with Google to fully utilize the Me on the Web features. After students have their account set up, they can create a set of Google Alerts related to them. This could be their name, email address, a sports team that they play on, the name of the school they attend, etc. Students will quickly see just how big a memory the Internet has and get a first hand look at their digital footprint and learn some strategies to take care of it.

If you are working with younger students without Google accounts (and most likely with a smaller digital footprint) you can share the School’s digital footprint or if you are brave (and after you know what will come up), your own. This gives even young students a good idea that their digital lives are not private and that what is shared their needs to be managed.

Me On the Web is a great way to begin discussions about social media, character education and respecting yourself and others.

Tips: Google even shares a section about how to remove content from a Google Search. Here is a hint, it is not as easy as just managing your identity PRIOR to needing to remove it. Good choices my friends, good choices. Anthony Weiner could learn a thing or two- just sayin’.

**By the way, if you haven’t seen the Google logo in honor of the lunar eclipse, it is definitely worth checking out- today only! 🙂

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Me On the Web in your classroom!

Web 2.0 Library

June 13, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments2167 views

What it is: Many of us are heading into the summer vacation months, a time when our non-education friends and family view us with envy over our “2 month break”. I don’t know about you, but I NEVER had a summer where I wasn’t working on education in some capacity. Summer is a time to prepare for the next school year, dream up new projects and explore all of those things we didn’t have time for during the school year. Web 2.0 Library is a fun one to explore this summer for some new resources for your classroom tech tool box. Find web tools that will help teachers and students connect, collaborate and create. When you choose a topic, you will be taken to a login page. Click “login as guest” to proceed. Icons accompany each tool that offer additional understanding for each tool. The i give more information about how to use the tool, the @ gives activities that can be done using the tool and the video icon includes a video that teaches more about the tool.

How to integrate Web 2.0 Library into the classroom: Web 2.0 Library is a great one-stop shop for Web 2.0 tools that can be used in the classroom. These tools are well organized and the supporting information makes it a snap to find the perfect tool for your classroom. Quickly get ideas for activities, get more information about the tool and view a video about the tool. You are sure to find some new goodies that can make your classroom more connected and creative!

Tips: Don’t forget to login as “guest” to access all of the web 2.0 goodness.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Web 2.0 Library in your classroom!

FlipSnack: Turn a PDF into an embeddable Flash Flip Book

May 27, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments3555 views

What it is: FlipSnack lets students turn PDF documents into embeddable Flipbooks quickly and easily. Students upload a PDF (or multiple PDFs) to be included in the book and FlipSnack instantly transforms it into an interactive flippable book. In order to login to FlipSnack, students will need an email address (this can be a temporary email such as Tempinbox or Mailinator). Students can also login using a Twitter account, Facebook connect, Google connect or MySpace connect. FlipSnack has some neat options available that other pdf to embeddable book services like Issuu do not have. Students can choose a template for their Flip including classic, hardcover, coil bound and interactive. Student also have the ability to customize the background, size and buttons included in their embed. Students can share their FlipSnack with a unique url, on social media sites and email, or embed it in another website. The free version lets students embed the finished FlipSnack on a website or blog with a FlipSnack watermark.

How to integrate FlipSnack into the classroom: FlipSnack is a neat way for students (and teachers) to share pdf documents online. Students can save their work as a PDF and upload into an interactive book that can be embedded on a blog, wiki or website.

Use your classroom computers as a student created library. Students can upload original stories to a class FlipSnack account to create a library of student work. During silent reading time, give students the opportunity to enjoy their peers as authors. This is perfect for an elementary classroom that may not have the email addresses for each student to sign up for a separate account.

Create custom books for your students by combining PDF documents into one customized text-book. These can be embedded on a class blog, website, or wiki for students to access from anywhere they have internet access.

Upload school handbooks, resources etc. to the classroom and school website for easy access by students and parents.

One of the features I enjoy about FlipSnack is the ability to view statistics for the flip books. Find out how many views a Flip has had by day, month or all time.

Tips: I often use Issuu to share and embed PDFs. It has been my go-to favorite for personal use. I hesitated to use Issuu with students because of the collection of ALL user publications on the home page of the website. Sometimes these were inappropriate for elementary students. I like that FlipSnack doesn’t share user-created publications with little eyes.

Take a look at the FlipSnack I created for my new school, Anastasis Academy, embedded below:

Please leave a comment and let us know how you are using FlipSnack in your classroom!

Tiki-Toki: Create gorgeous multimedia timelines

April 26, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments5816 views

What it is: Tiki-Toki is an absolutely GORGEOUS multimedia timeline creator. The results are truly a work of art-no joke! Tiki-Toki is very easy to use, after registering for an account, students are guided step-by-step through creating an interactive timeline. Students can add text, images (Flickr) and video (YouTube or Vimeo) to a timeline. Images can be uploaded from a student computer or found through a search on Flickr. Throughout the creation process, tool tips pop-up to guide students through creation. Students can share saved timelines with a unique URL.

How to integrate Tiki-Toki into the classroom: Tiki-Toki is a fabulous new way for your students to create and share online. Timelines are an obvious choice for history projects but can be used throughout the year for a variety of subjects and learning focuses. Students can reflect on and share learning using a Tiki-Toki timeline. Students can begin a timeline at the beginning of the year sharing videos, links, pictures and reflections each unit, week, month, or semester until the end of the school year. This is a nice way to encourage students to reflect on learning while providing them with a record of what has been accomplished throughout the year.

Students can create timelines based on books or literature they are reading. Young students can create a timeline with information about beginning, middle and end while older students can add supporting details, action, climax and concluding thoughts. A timeline book report is a welcome change for your logical/analytical thinkers- seriously, offer it as an option!

Timelines can also be used as KWL charts (Know, Want to Know, Learned). At the beginning of any learning, students can list the facts that they know about the topic. Next, they can brainstorm and write about what they want to know about a topic. At the end of the unit or semester, students can detail what they have learned including any relevant videos or images.

In science, students can use Tiki-Toki to detail an experiment or scientific method process they go through in a lab.

Tiki-Toki is probably too advanced a tool for primary elementary to use independently, but it can be used with an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer to create a timeline as a class. This is a good way to teach students about timelines while recording learning.

Create an account on Tiki-Toki and record a few pictures of your classroom along with a description of the learning that happened each day. At the end of the week the timeline can be sent to parents and administration to share what you are working on in your classroom. This is a fun change from the traditional newsletter and, because it is added to a little at a time, it will give you a break from the Thursday mad-dash-to-finish-Friday-newsletter thing you have going (oh, is that just me?). 😉

Tips: The basic Tiki-Toki account is completely free and contains enough features to keep kids creating with no problem. The paid accounts include features like shared timeline creation which would also be useful in the classroom. I’m hoping that Tiki-Toki catches on to the uses for education and comes up with an education version just for us!

A minimum age for use of Tiki-Toki is not specified in the terms of service. If you work with students who do not have an email address to share, consider using a tempinbox account or mailinator.

A BIG THANK YOU to @anderscj for mentioning Tiki-Toki on Twitter, I have a new favorite timeline creator!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Tiki-Toki in your classroom!