Digital Citizenship

There are many different tools out there for creating software presentations.  One family of presentation tools allows users to create a dynamic presentation that can be accessed from any computer without the need for saving to a hard drive or USB drive.  One such tool is Prezi.  Prezi has been around for a while and has some pretty big fans.  I personally found this tool fun to work with and was happy that I could access my work through e-mail or the Prezi website.  I was also pleased to learn that I had the ability to present my Prezi remotely.

This particular Prezi has been created to showcase an aspect of digital citizenship that revolves around appropriate and inappropriate use of technology.  Malware is an invasive part of reality in the technological age.  Sadly, there are individuals and groups who would seek to hamper others' ability to safely, peacefully, and securely use the internet.  As a digital citizen, it is important that we learn ways in which we can become vulnerable while using our computer and how to best protect ourselves.  I would like to invite you to look over this presentation and reflect on whether you are doing enough to protect yourself and the ones you may be responsible for.  This is an important topic, so let me know your thoughts/reflections in the comments below.  Thanks!  

Photostories

Photostories are a tool for sharing information that is fun and creative!  Basically, a photostory is a story told with pictures, captions, and background themes and music to liven things up a bit.  To make a photostory, you can use programs like Animoto, Photo Story 3, and iMovie.  This would be a great tool for students to share what they did over a break, what they learned over the course of a unit, or a way for them to simply share something in an interesting and dynamic way!  Teachers can also use photostories to launch unit or teach simple skills in a way that is fresh and new to the students.

The photostory I created was a hoot to make!  I thought it would be fun to introduce a health lesson on dental hygiene using lots of sugary images and some pictures of me preparing to floss, brush, and rinse my teeth.  Take a look and tell me what you think in the comments below!

Emerging Technology - Open Education

In today’s world, technology is advancing at an incredible pace.  As such, education seeks to take advantage of the leaps in technology for the purpose of remaining relevant and forward thinking.  While it is not always advantageous to try and include every new piece of technology into the classroom, there are some that we can pick and choose that just make sense to assimilate.  One of those technologies is open education.

Open education is a platform of education where all people have access to high quality content that is free from charge.  In open education, the cost of content is not the limiting factor for learners.  Also, the content is far more likely to be up to date because people who are at the leading edge of their fields are collaborating and improving the source.

One of the greatest aspects of open education for me is that I can utilize the quality resources being produced from any school I teach at anywhere around the world!  Another great component to open education is that it provides learners with the opportunity to be the people critiquing the materials and identify whether it is worth using!  What better way to learn than being critical of other’s work?

Some great sources for open education materials include:
edX - edX is a consortium of universities providing tuition free classes.
KhanAcademy - Do I need to explain this one? ;-)
Coursera - Coursera is also a partnership between universities and organizations that provides numerous courses for free.

Curriki - Curriki is for learners of all ages.  This site is also great for educating people about what open education resources (OERs) are.

Professional Development

You will find a host of professional development sites/resources available on my portfolio.  I focused my attention on professional development in the integration of technology into the classroom as well as mathematics instruction.  These sites provide many resources in addition to professional development opportunities that make them well worth looking over.  One of the downsides of most quality professional development resources are that they often times have costs associated with them.  I tried to include free and pay sources for you to peruse depending on your needs.  As with any profession, it is important that we take developing our trade seriously, so I hope this list of resources blesses you on your journey.  If you visited my sources, please feel free to leave comments below about what you thought and any additional resources are always welcome!

Educational Websites

I have created a webpage that highlights internet websites useful for students, parents and educators.  The websites contained on this page are a small sampling of the type of content available to educators, parents, and students online.  In today’s technological age, information and content specific materials are abundant and can be useful for enriching student education, providing educators with quality professional development or ideas, and helping parents become their child’s number one advocate and teacher.  You will notice that I have included five sites for educators, five sites for parents, and five sites for students.  Many of my choices are interchangeable between audiences and can be just as applicable for one audience as another.

The 15 selected sites highlight learning games, video lessons and practice forums, parenting tips for home and tips on interacting with school, and professional development for educators plus much, much more!  Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments below!  If you think I have omitted a crucial site, I would love to hear all about it!

Safe Internet Search Tools for Students

Internet safety is one of the most pressing concerns for parents and educators alike. It is important that we consider safety measures to protect the innocence of our youth. To assist you with this important task, I have compiled a list of five child-friendly search tools that go the extra mile to ensure your kiddos are not exposed to inappropriate content.  I have also included what I think may be some of the limitation of Safe Search Kids, KidRex, Kid Friendly Search, Infotopia, and Kids Click.

Safe Search Kids

Safe Search Kids is a search engine by Google that provides your child/student with safe alternatives for finding appropriate content including images, videos, and even games!!  One of the neat things about this site is that it is also available as an application for phones - this is great for knowing that the content children are searching for away from home and school is being filtered to eliminate unwanted content.  I really appreciate the steps Google has taken to not only provide you with these options, but they also provide an amazingly detailed tutorial on how to get started.  This is also one of the possible drawback to this site - it can take a bit of time to set up for optimal content filtering.

KidRex

KidRex is another search engine for kids that is powered by Google's SafeSearch.  In addition to the SafeSearch, the KidRex organization has made their own list of undesirable sites that they include into the search parameters to protect your student/child.  One interesting feature of KidRex is that instead of searching for typical images and videos, kids can access a host of drawings by other kids that are a type of KidRex for their efforts to protect kids while they search through the internet.  From my perspective, this search engine is better tailored to kids and students up to about third grade simply because of the layout, design and the video/image restrictions.  I guess this is one of the limitations of KidRex as well - it is geared toward a younger audience.

Kid Friendly Search


This has to be one of my favorite search platforms for kids.  This is not really a search engine - it is more a portal to quality, content specific content.  If a student wants to get help with their math, they can simply click on the Math link and it will take them to a page that has high quality sites useful for building their skills.  This site also has a link to a number of search engines that are student friendly for when kids are ready to complete a broader search for content on the internet.  Another neat feature of this site is Fun Activities page where students can go to do anything from making puzzles or improve their typing skills.  I also found the Sites for Teachers link useful.  One of the downsides to this site is that a fair number of the links require you to set up accounts or even pay for the content.

Infotopia

Another great site is Infotopia.  Infotopia combines the best of both worlds - internet safe search using Google's SafeSearch and a compilation of quality, content specific sites.  Using Infotopia, students also have access to opinion polls, reference materials, current events/news, and language learning sites.  In my opinion, Infotopia is more geared toward upper elementary through secondary students.  One limitation of Infotopia is that it would be a bit difficult to navigate for the younger kids or students require more direction.

Kids Click

Kids Click is a really neat site created for kids and their parents by librarians.  One of the fun features about Kids Click is the Dewey Decimal Search section toward the base of the first page.   Students can click on the number categories used by the Dewey Decimal system and follow the links to learn the number/content association of the system through investigation!  Students can also use the embedded search field to find safe content.  One other neat feature on this site is the Digital Media search link that takes you to specific content useful for educational purposes.  While the content on KidsClick is thematic and detailed, the search engine itself is also powered by Google's SafeSearch which does not make it a significant alternative to the other Google powered search engines.

Well, that does it for my top five kid friendly search engines.  If you have any that you feel is a cut above the rest and that is not on my list, I would love to see your comments below!

Computer Screen Capturing

Computer screen capturing has many different useful applications in the realm of teaching and learning.  Not only does image capturing capture the image of your computer's screen, but it can often time capture a voice recording you make to annotate what you are explaining.  Some ideas you could incorporate into your educational setting include tutorials on how to access a given website on the internet from home, demonstrating how to use specific programs on the computer, or having students record a task they are completing as an assessment piece.  Some of the programs you can use for screen casting include: Screenr, Screencast-O-Matic, Screencast.com, Jing, Capturer, and Screen Record Utility Lite.

To show you a simple use for screen casting, I have made a quick tutorial on how to identify some fo your computer's important information.  The four main objectives of my screen cast was to teach you a basic method for finding your computer's operating system, the processor and its speed, the amount of RAM your computer has, and how to identify your hard drive space.  I would encourage you to check it out and consider ways that you could incorporate screen casting into your class!