Talk Moves

The video above stood out to me for two reasons. The first being the excellent techniques for encouraging and yet managing discussion in the classroom.  We need better dialogue but also more polite and civil conversations.  The techniques you can see in the video do a lot to encourage that. The second item that is worth consideration is the use of silent signals.  The idea of silent signals is a great one and one that could be utilized in a variety of ways.  What are some of your ideas for silent signals?  Post them in the comments

en.linoit.com

Web Address: http://en.linoit.com 

There are a variety of tools available to take notes online and to keep track of favorite websites.  en.linoit is one more.  It allows you to create online sticky notes.  There are apps for smartphones and all of this helps you keep track of the things you most want.

Scan it

In our modern day and age it is becoming ever more useful to get rid of paper.  Recently I have been using a tool that I love.  We upgraded our copy machine with a module that allows it to send PDF files instead of just making paper copies.  I have gone through over 2000 pages of old materials and scanned them in as PDF's.  Some of these are materials that I could probably find doing a Google Search or using Pioneer Library to look through old Journals and Magazines, but in this case I had taken notes on items and had handwritten notes to go along with them.  Most of these I haven't referred to for a while but they still matter to me so I wanted to keep them available. This new add-on on the copier has been a wonderful tool and allowed me to scan multiple sheets all at once.  It even does double sided and larger sized documents.  Our system was about $200.00 to add on to the current copier we had.  This is relatively inexpensive for a scanner that can be shared by all who have access to the copier.

 

There are other ways also, there are several apps that allow a Smartphone to take a snapshot and turn it into a PDF.  I have talked about that in a previous post but you can also do a search in your favorite App store to find and compare them.

Mixing Art + Politics

Integrating curriculum is a valuable way to effectively reach the whole student. This video for this week shows an effective method for doing just that.

You can learn more about this at: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-integrated-studies-york-resources-video  as well as seeing instructions for downloading the video from iTunes if you are having trouble viewing the video above.

Utah Governor's Summit

Web Address: http://www.uen.org/govedsummit/

In just under a month Governor Gary R. Herbert will be hosting and educational summit.  This summit will address issues of education and instruction here in Utah.  This will be a unique opportunity because there will be a chance to gather together at local schools to view the event live as well as to have conversations with your local colleagues.  UEN will be streaming the event live as will Utah.org so that people from all over will be able to participate and see what Utah is doing to accelerate learning.

Improving Utah Schools

Most people agree that we want to see education improved, but it is difficult to agree on what that means.  Doug Fabrizio and @RadioWest have been broadcasting a series about Improving Utah Schools.  The issues facing Utah schools are similar to schools throughout the United States.  The series has one more episode yet to come but the first two are worth a listen.

web address: http://radiowest.kuer.org/topic/improving-utah-schools

Center for Science and Mathematics Education

Web Address: http://csme.utah.edu

The University of Utah is the home of the Center for Science and Mathematic Education.  A group dedicated to improving Science and Math education by enhancing teacher preparation.  The CSME has programs both for Undergraduates and for those pursuing a Graduate work.  There are also a wide variety of  resources and materials for enhancing education.  Take a look around the site and see what you  think.

Geology songs

@lauhun forwarded the first video in this playlist to me so I took a look around the interwebs and found the above playlist full of geology songs and it got me thinking about two things?

First, how could we use playlists as teachers.  I have suggested creating playlists on YouTube before in a course I teach and I still think it can be great.  There are lots of sites out there that let you create and share playlists: UEN's eMedia, YouTube, TeacherTube, SchoolTube.  But it could also be simply creating a list.  I often thought when teaching that I couldn't show all the amazing movies, documentaries and videos. So I developed the idea of Enrichments.  I would ask students to watch and summarize videos (or books, or other materials). These assignments were extra and allowed students to engage with materials I couldn't make time for in class.

Second, I loved the parody element in several of these videos and although it wasn't something I did, it is a terrific strategy for getting students to engage with the content.  Having students produce these kinds of videos with accurate science or history or whichever topic necessary.

What are your ideas for using video or writing parodies?

Science Friday via @iraflatow and @scifri

Web Address: http:://www.sciencefriday.com

The theme this week seems to be science.  There are a variety of science websites available.  Lots of good ones. But one of the exceptional ones has to be Science Friday.  The site is a complement to the NPR Radio program of the same name which airs Friday's ( I know, a shocker right!) my favorite feature is the exceptional Video Pick of the Week


Enjoy a visit around the site.

Cloud Features you didn't know about.

I am not always a fan of countdowns, but here are 9 cloud features you may not know about and could be hugely helpful:

1. Cloud Favorites.  For Android, and iOS users your favorite browser can keep your favorites together.  When you sign in to the Chrome Browser your favorites are kept in sync.  The same is true of Safari.  An iPad user with a Windows computer, never fear Safari is available for Windows and is an option when you download iTunes. Added Bonus: When you are logged in to two devices on Chrome or Safari you can open tabs that are open on other devices.
2. Photo Storage: When you turn on PhotoStream on iOS devices it allows you to see and then download to your device photos taken on other devices.  For example if I snap a shot with my iPhone I can see it and edit on my iPad and then share it to Facebook from my computer.  Similar to this is Google+ this app on iOS devices allows you to choose to upload your photos automatically as a backup.  Every photo you take is added to a private folder that allows you to share to Google+.  If you are an Amazon fan their app will automatically back up photos also.
3. Notes - There are several services that will keep notes in sync.  Apple's Notes does this with iCloud, but also if you enable the feature with other accounts it will let you store notes in a Google account or an Exchange account. Others include Catch notes and Evernote.
4. Music - Apple has a service for this and will make all of your music available on any device.  The cost is about $30 a year.  Google and Amazon both have free services with varying limits.  Amazon allows you to listen to anything you have purchased from them and upload a limited amount of other music.  Google handles things similarly, but with a much higher limit on what you can upload.
5. Books - Books have changed from a commodity to a resource.  Formerly you purchased a physical book that belonged to you but now largely your are licensing the rights to access that material.  Services like Amazon's Kindle, Kobo, iBooks and Nook make your books available on a variety of devices.
6. Movies - There are many services that allow you to stream you movies and Apple is good about allowing you to access iTunes purchases on your devices, but are there others?  Ultraviolet allows you to access movies in several apps including Flixster, and from the VUDU website.  Amazon Instant video allows you to purchase from Amazon and view on a variety of devices as well.
7. Website updates: With apps like Blogsy, WordPress, Blogger, EduBlogs and EduTecher you can update resources and information on your website from a mobile device or any internet connected computer.
8. Mail - We don't often think about this anymore, but since most of us are using a web based email system our email is cloud based.  Outlook.com is a major update for Hotmail, Live, and MSN users and allows you to claim a clean @outlook.com mail alias without having to get used to a new inbox.  Gmail has long been cloud based and with the ability to rapidly switch between several accounts also allow you to keep up with more than one inbox.
9. Audiobooks - ok so I am fudging a little since this is sort of covered by #5 but Audible is a great service with apps on both iOS and Android that allows you to listen to your books on any device directly from the device.  It does download the file to your device so it is best to do the downloading over WiFi but once you do you can earn awards, badges and achievements for how much you listen.  It will even keep different devices in sync and sync with Kindle copies of the text for certain books. Pretty amazing?

So, what cloud based features and services are your favorites? What are the cloud features you can't live without.