Tech Institute Day 1

[Meghan Murray]

Tools for making students' thinking "visible"

myWebspiration- cool online mind mapping app like in/kinspiration. Collaborative through email invites similar to google docs and with cool history feature that saves each incarnation of a map to track student progress- useful for student reflection and teacher assessment.

Microblogging in class to get instant visual brief feedback from students about their progress to gauge how to proceed with pacing and how to address student needs in the moment. Forces students to distill their ideas for limited. Saves history so you will have running record of student responses over the course of a school year/semester.

Twitter for US students. Content is public so outside people have access. Useful for PS teachers to use for PD and on behalf of PS students.

Tweetdeck- tool to help organize and group twitter info.

hash tags using # to tag tweets. Tag for tech institute, MKA, conferences, etc. #mkatech09

Edmodo- like twitter, but private and appropriate for < 13 year old students. Can create accounts for students in a class that can only be viewed by teacher and other students in class. There is option to share publicly, but default is private.

AWESOME genius bar w/ Damien on using passpack for managing login/pw info. Will save so much time personally and professionally, esp. with all the new apps we always learn at tech institute!

FORGET-ME-NOT: Web 2.0 tools for Conferring and Feedback

Jing Example of a scenario where you can use Jing to record your voice and editing choices while assessing student work- as a tool to provide feedback. Students could potentially use this tool to record themselves reflecting on their own work. Incorporate acrobat tools to also markup document, recording as you go. Helpful to share the assessment experience with the student so they understand the teacher's thought process. It models critical thinking and puts the focus on learning about the editing/assessing process.

Teachers can also make a jing movie with audio and visual instructions and examples for a task, which can be shared on moodle. It's like D.I.Y. atomic learning! Just took a Jing movie of typing this blog. Jenny suggested that maybe 3rd grade might want to use Jing as a tool for the Colonial Inquiry- I'm thinking in the classrooms as they write and edit their paragraphs or as they work on their maps in the library maybe? Damien thinks it could be a way to document student work for parents. Ex- show parents jing movie of student typing and talking.

Evernote Digital place to track all your web activity. Just dl'd the blackberry app to sync my account. Love the idea of using it personally instead of saving so much to my google acct and docs on one particular computer. As always, trying to figure out how to use with primary students. Possibly for dumping data from online research, but there is so much set up required for each acct. I love the idea of teaching them about bookmarking and digital storage, but have a lot of questions about the right way and the tools to use to do it.

[Stacy Nockowitz]

Thanks for all of the excellent info, Meghan! I learned about jing just last week, and I can't wait to start using it. I will be checking out a lot of these resources in the upcoming days and weeks. I'm always looking for technology to integrate into my classroom with all of the varied learning styles.

[Wendy Eiteljorg]

Meghan,
This is some interesting information. I am particularly interested in myWebspiration since I use inspiration a lot in class, but then students can't access it at home unless they have inspiration too. I will look into it.

I don't know Jing. The way you are describing it, makes it sound similar to voicethread. Are you familiar with that, and if so, are they similar? I like the idea of somehow recording (jing, flip camera, podcast) thinking through something as a model for students to be able to refer back to later.

Are these new tools to you or do you have any tips to pass along in terms of ease of use, etc.

thanks.