Tech Tip: Macbook Spacebar

This may seem like an insignificant tip, however this can be a very nice time-saver.

Display Your iPad on Your Screen

Simple Ideas to Stimulate Creativity

From Visual.ly, published by Gonzalo Gomez Rufino; shared by +Educational Technology and Mobile Learning 

Marzano Research: Enhancing the Art & Science of Teaching With Technology

In reference to students reading content online:

“Research shows that when students cannot perceive the organizational structure of a text, they remember less of its content (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). Therefore, students must be taught to read texts that lack a clear organizational structure, as well as how to formulate keyword searches, use Boolean operators, identify characteristics of reputable journal articles, and distinguish library catalogs from bibliographic databases (Mittermeyer & Quirion, 2003).” 

Excerpt From: Sonny Magana & Robert J. Marzano. “Enhancing the Art & Science of Teaching With Technology.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/SuDCU.l

Marzano Research: Enhancing the Art & Science of Teaching With Technology

I have been reading Robert Marzano's book, Enhancing the Art & Science of Teaching With Technology.  He talks about the Flippped Classroom.  Here's an excerpt:

“One classroom-level example of the power of technology to restructure the old paradigm is the flipped classroom. A flipped classroom is one in which students listen to online lectures at home at night and then use that content at school the next day. Table 1.1 compares a traditional classroom to a flipped classroom.

In the flipped model, students listen to a short lecture (ten to fifteen minutes) and take notes as homework the evening before they cover the information in class. As shown in table 1.1, this frees up class time that would traditionally be spent introducing new content and resolving student confusion about the previous day’s homework. Therefore, students in the flipped model still complete the same amount of independent practice work as students in a traditional model, but they do it during class instead of as homework. Rather than complete assignments without teacher guidance at home, students complete them in school, where teachers are there to offer help or answer questions.” 

Excerpt From: Sonny Magana & Robert J. Marzano. “Enhancing the Art & Science of Teaching With Technology.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/SuDCU.l

Cancellation! November 7th CSM Training

I just received this cancellation notice from Juanita at MLTI regarding the two workshop sessions being held here at PIHS tomorrow, Nov 7th, due to the forecasted weather:

Good afternoon 

Sorry for the late cancellation right on the heels of a confirmation.
We were not aware of the winter storm warning in the region. Due to the impending storm we are canceling tomorrow's session and are working to reschedule it in the beginning of December. 

I'll be in touch directly with a reschedule date when determined.
Please contact me with any questions. 

Juanita

This is a reminder/confirmation of your registration for the following event: 

Name: MLTI Common Sense Media Trainings
Location: Presque Isle High School
Date: November 7, 2014 

8:00am - 11:00am: Skills To Help You Discover, Use, and Share Great Digital Tools for Learning Through Graphite by Common Sense Media
12:00pm - 3:00pm: Making a Better World: Teaching Digital Citizenship and 21st Century Skills 

Please ensure you arrive in a timely fashion.  Remember to bring your MLTI device and charger. 

Presque Isle High School is located at:
16 Griffin Street, Presque Isle, ME 04769 

Please check in at the Main Office upon arrival.

Start Your Google Classroom

Just in case I haven't mentioned this enough, Google Classroom is a product that came out this past fall.  It is not so much a "new product" as it is a nicely put together LMS (learning management system) that combines what Gmail, Drive and Calendar do into one easy to use communication device.  I am hearing teachers starting to use this in their own classroom environments more and more now.  Many teachers are choosing to try it on a smaller, easy to run class until they become more comfortable with it.  Though Google Classroom may not necessarily be "loaded" full of digital tools, it's simplicity and practicality make it a very valuable tool for communicating with your classroom digitally.  If you are flipping your classroom, this will come in very handy.

I couldn't give it a better description or do a better demo of Google Classroom than Google themselves, so preview the video below.  No need to worry whether there is enough help online in using Google Classroom; just search for it in YouTube.  There have already been hundreds of teachers sharing their view and experience of Google Classroom

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Student Academic Notebooks

While reading Robert Marzano's book, The Art and Science of Teaching, he refers to a student tool he calls an academic notebook, where students can record their ideas.  Taking from that, one of my favorite products for recording ideas and pretty much doing "almost" anything when it comes to digital procuring, is Evernote.  Evernote has grown to become a hugely used in app world, business world as well as the edu world.  There are dozens, upon dozens of creative ideas and solutions for how Evernote can become a powerful and amazing productivity tool for note/thought taking, image collecting, web bookmarking, document saving and more.  Student can benefit from this powerful tool as well as their academic notebook for collecting just about anything digitally.

Evernote, also, has a very handy flashcard maker from their app Peek (FREE), which allows users to create simple flashcards for studying by using the notes from their Evernote notebooks.

Below is a video demo of what Evernote can do.

Evernote Peek

Recent Changes in Google Forms

If you have not introduced yourself to Google Forms, you are missing out on a very handy feature of your Google Drive.  Google Forms is a part of your Google Docs suite.  Create a Google Form for quizzes, survey, gathering information, getting a better understanding of a group of people, and many other creative uses.  And because it is part of our GAFE (Google Apps for Education) domain, it is so easy to share with students and staff.

Recently Google has been doing some upgrading with Forms and have added some great new features, like Add Ons.  Below are links to Google Drive's blog describing some of these great new changes with Forms, making Forms much more inviting to use.

• Your Forms, your way
• A few more ways to make Forms you own
• Add ons for Forms bring a little something extra to your surveys

Discovery Education

Discovery Education is a large repository of much digital content like video, imagery, and much more.  You can set up virtual classrooms for you students and assign certain content.  At it's basic level, there is a ton of video from reliable and primary sources that you can not find anywhere else for free.  Not only can you view video from its site, but you can download the video to your machine.  Our district pays a monthly subscription to DE.  It is a valuable resource that I do not think enough of our district staff take advantage of.

Take some time to review DE for your self; search for content and see what is available for you and your students.

Using Video in PE

Thanks to +Clay Reisler I found some great ideas for using video to help students with some of their challenges in PE.   A teacher is using an app call CoachMyVideo (CMV).  This app allows the user to view the students performance frame by frame in slow motion, as well as allows viewing of before video and after video to the the students progress.  This teacher also uses Google Drive to store the video; since the iPad only has so much storage.  This way the teacher can share a Google Drive folder the video with the individual students and parents.  The teacher also documents the learning goals, the date, and a link to the video stored in Drive.  Here's an example they provided.

Below is a video demo of a teacher using CMV.  Also be sure to visit their site.

If you have any questions about this and/or would like to try this yourself, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Free STEM teaching materials available via iTunes U & iBooks

A message from our own MLTI:

Dear MLTI Schools,

The following information is being shared with you on behalf of Apple and the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. If you have any questions, please contact Jim Moulton at moulton@apple.com. 

Thank you 

The MLTI Team 

====== 

This summer, the E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation made a collection of powerful STEM teaching materials available for FREE via a 7 volume "Life on Earth" iBooks textbooks series, as well as an iTunes U course. 

        https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=lifeonearth 

We are reaching out to all schools participating in one of the Apple MLTI solutions with an effort to identify teachers who have begun using the FREE materials that are made available via iBooks and iTunes U. 

If you have begun using these materials, please let us know - and know that we understand that these materials just became available this summer, so we have no expectations of "degree of use."  Rather, we are simply seeking to identify educators who have begun to use these resources in some way with their students - as auxiliary or foundational materials in support of teaching and learning. 

So, if you have not taken a look at these great resources, please do, and if you have begun using them, please be in touch via e-mail to Jim Moulton at moulton@apple.com
In addition, if you have questions about these resources, please let us know by sending your questions to Jim Moulton at moulton@apple.com or (207) 449-8668

Free Images

Just wanted to feature a Google+ post I found yesterday by +Tony Vincent.   He gives a great explanation of the importance of giving attribution to whatever we take online for our own use and gives some resources of free imagery that can be used, royalty-free.  Giving proper attribution to imagery or any kind of digital content online is something that students do not know enough about.  I believe many students think it is ok to download images and video online without giving credit or getting permission.

This video would, also, serve as a great tutorial for students.  Tony, also, explains some methods to finding the right imagery for your presentations.

Creativity: The Future is Now

Here is what is going on outside our school systems.  "The Real World."  Growing businesses and organizations are realizing that this type of creativity is what makes them successful.  This is where our students are headed.  Will they be prepared for this?  How can we, as mentors, model this?

The Baltic Triangle - Liverpool's New Creative Hub from Baltic Creative CIC on Vimeo.

Gmail Labels

Learn how to be more email-efficient; learn how to organize your emails using Gmail's labels.

Garageband Airdrop Sharing for iPad

To some this may seem like an easy thing, but I thought it worth sharing because not everyone will know how to do this.  Also, this method of sharing projects or documents pretty much works the same way the most of the other Apple iOS apps, like Photos and Keynote, etc.

Two Excellent MLTI Workshops Here in Presque Isle

Just in from Juanita at MLTI yesterday, there will be two excellent workshops being held at our own Presque Isle Middle School.  Below are the detail from the email.  Please plan to attend.   This is going to be some good content.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dickson, Juanita <juanita.dickson@maine.gov>Date: Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 2:55 PM
Subject: [MLTI_MacBook] MLTI Common Sense Media - Fall Training Schedule
To: "mlti_macbook@lists.maine.gov" <mlti_macbook@lists.maine.gov>

MLTI has worked with Common Sense Media to bring a fall training dedicated to helping educators harness the positive impact of technology. Learning how to use media and technology wisely and safely is an essential skill for life and learning in the 21st century. The two workshops listed below will help educators guide students to think critically, act responsibly and interact positively in the digital world and to discover high quality resources.
Educators can attend one or both trainings scheduled.
We are currently working with schools to schedule additional sessions. If your school has space available and would like to host, please contact Juanita Dickson at juanita.dickson@maine.gov.
Additional dates will be posted on our events page as they are confirmed: http://maine.gov/mlti/events/index.shtml
Online registration can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/mlti_csm
Skills To Help You Discover, Use, and Share Great Digital Tools for Learning Through Graphite by Common Sense MediaThis session will run from 8:00am - 11:00am

• October 16 - Auburn Central Office

• October 21 - Saco Middle School

• October 28 - Harpswell Coastal Academy

• November 7 - Presque Isle Middle School

• November 13 - Jonesport Beals High School

As technology is integrated into classrooms, teachers need to know how to discover and use quality tools for learning, while meeting Common Core standards. Learn how to: discover high quality apps, websites, and games for students; evaluate the learning potential of these tools; curate tools into useful collections; innovate by reimagining lessons to seamlessly weave in technology using a framework called App Flows; and collaborate by sharing best practices with other teachers on how you're using digital tools in your classroom. Learn how you can achieve these five skill with Graphite, a free service by Common Sense Media. In a hands-on session, you'll practice these important skills and reflect on how they can help you integrate technology into your curriculum.

Making a Better World: Teaching Digital Citizenship and 21st Century SkillsThis session will run from 12:00pm - 3:00pm

• October 16 - Auburn Central Office

• October 21 - Saco Middle School

• October 28 - Harpswell Coastal Academy

• November 7 - Presque Isle Middle School

• November 13 - Jonesport Beals High School

Students grow up in a digital world with potential for communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creation. How can we help students participate safely, responsibly, and ethically in digital spaces? Learn about the 21st century learning skills students need to learn about digital citizenship. You'll learn about free, research-based curriculum to help teach students safe, responsible, and respectful participants in a digital world, while fostering 21st-century skills and meeting ISTE and Common Core Standards. The curriculum is available online as downloadable lessons, and as iBooks textbooks, with interactive activities, videos, and assessments that can be downloaded to computers, iPads and tablets. You'll also learn about Digital Passport, a game-based interactive for students in grades 3-5 that teaches the "rules of the road" for digital citizenship, and how to engage families with the Connecting Families program.  Workshop will include hands–on work by getting familiar with the curriculum, sampling lessons, and much more for classroom work or district planning.

_______________________________________________
MLTI_Macbook mailing list
MLTI_Macbook@lists.maine.govhttps://mailman.informe.org/mailman/listinfo/mlti_macbook

10 Tips For Using Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a newer product of Google that recently came out this Summer.  Basically, it is a method to seamlessly integrate your Google Apps into one communication-sharing location.  In Google Classroom you can set up your classes with your students, post notifications, share documents, video, and more.

Here is a handy infographic with some helpful ideas on how you can implement Classroom into your class.



Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics

Gmail Attachments

Because Google Apps are so seemlessly integrated with each other, you can easily move your email attachment to your Google Drive directly from your Gmail with the greatest of ease.  Here's how.

Activity Workshop Ideas

Middle School Teachers:

In my presentation at the Middle School faculty meeting last night, I believe I failed to mention that I would love to help you develop some creative ideas for your Learning Workshops using iPads or some form of technology.

Last year I worked with Tracy Fox with developing a lesson where the kids created words that described something using a collage of pictures taken of random, every-day objects that looked like a letter when taken and cropped in a certain manor.

We also taught the students how to make stop-motion movies.  Students were able to demonstrate their knowledge of cause-and-effect systems by animating inanimate objects in a series of cause and effect actions.

Here's an example of one I put together as a demo to help the students understand the concept and expectation.

A Feature From My Google+ Profile

Google+ Feature Follow

Apple's Reminders Desktop and iOS Apps

If you haven't discovered Apple's Reminders desktop and iPad app, you may find this a very useful tool.  Simple, yet effective the Reminders app allows you to create reminders and lists for anything you want to be notified or "reminded" later on.  Sometimes just making a checklist of todos or goals for a projects is all you need.  Reminders is a simple way for you to manage several tasks or todos.

The great thing with having both Reminders on our MacBook Air and our iPad Mini is that you can sync your reminders and be notified on both devices.  If you have an IEP scheduled and you want to be notified later, you can set it in Reminders.  Perhaps you have a list of goals for a project or activity and you want to be able to prioritize and organize your workflow.  Reminders is a great way to accomplish that.

The video below demonstrates how Reminders is used on iOS (iPad) and on your MacBook Air.

iOS 8 & iCloud Drive - Important Information for Primary Solution Teachers

Today, from MLTI, I received this important email notification that would be good for all in our district, who have the iPad mini and MacBook Air, to review before Apple's updates this Wed, Sept 17th:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dickson, Juanita <juanita.dickson@maine.gov>Date: Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 10:07 AM
Subject: [MLTI_iPad] iOS 8 & iCloud Drive - Important Information for Primary Solution Teachers
To: "mlti_ipad@lists.maine.gov" <mlti_ipad@lists.maine.gov>

Dear Apple Primary Teachers, 

iOS 8 will be available on September 17th. The Apple MLTI Project team will start supporting iOS 8 on that date. As such, we highly encourage all users to update to iOS 8 when it becomes available. If you want to learn more about iOS 8 you can learn more at the overview page (http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/).

After upgrading to iOS 8 the setup assistant will ask you if you would like to upgrade to iCloud Drive. iCloud Drive is a new feature of iOS 8 that can replace "Documents and Data." iCloud Drive will allow you to safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and any other kind of document in iCloud and access them from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC. 

During the iOS 8 upgrade, it is highly recommended that Primary Solution Teachers DO NOT enable iCloud Drive prior to the release of OS X Yosemite. 

Teachers that have received an iPad mini and MacBook Air as part of MLTI should be aware that if they enable iCloud Drive when updating their iPad mini to iOS 8, they WILL NOT be able to access the updated versions of documents stored in iCloud Drive on their MacBook Air until they upgrade to OS X Yosemite. OS X Yosemite will be released this fall. 

Once OS X Yosemite is supported by MLTI, users are encouraged to upgrade their MacBook Air devices to OS X Yosemite and then upgrade to iCloud Drive on all of their devices upgraded to OS X Yosemite and iOS 8. 

If a teacher does turn on iCloud Drive prior to the release of OS X Yosemite, it is important to note that no data will be lost. The files can be downloaded, edited and uploaded on a device that has not been updated to OS X Yosemite by going to https://www.icloud.com. 

If you have questions on this or other MLTI-related issues, please call the MLTI Help Desk at 1-800-919-2775 and use the pin# 4MLTI. 

Thank you,
The Apple MLTI Project Team
_______________________________________________
MLTI_iPad mailing list
MLTI_iPad@lists.maine.govhttps://mailman.informe.org/mailman/listinfo/mlti_ipad

What Is Blended Learning?

What is Blended Learning? from The Learning Accelerator on Vimeo.

#blendedlearning Tweets

Introduction to Technology Integration

This is an older video from Edutopia, however nicely describes what Technology Integration in the classroom is.  One of my favorite pieces from this is from +Adam Bellow :

"If you can do this lesson without technology, that's great.  But, if you can do it better with technology, then that's why you use it"

Sharing in Google Drive

I have been hearing from some in our district how they may not fully understand the "Sharing" process in Google Drive, and/or how to access shared documents received from others.  This is a handy document that should help explain this process.

The Guide to Google Drive Sharing

Moodle: Student Self Enrollment

In the past, as teachers of a Moodle course in our district, we were able to instruct our students to simple enroll themselves to our Moodle course.  In our recent upgrade to Moodle, you now have to manually adjust your settings to allow for student self enrollment.  It is a simple process, and here is how you can adjust this:

This Week's Itinerary

For this week, due to iPad deployment at the Middle School, I will be at the Middle School for most of this week.  However, I will be at the High School sometime in the late morning through the rest of that day.  Thank you for your understanding of this.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerning and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Reality of iCloud Storage and Your Photos

Apple's iCloud service and storage offers some amazing ability to share documents and images across all of your compatible devices (Apple products, or iCloud Control Panel for Windows), making much easier to share, view and use your digital content pretty much any time, any where.  This, today, is not new technology necessarily, but is always drawing up questions and how it works.

As a member of the MLTI contract in our state and having an educational Apple ID, Apple has given us 15GB of iCloud storage; which is a lot more storage than what most people have with personal Apple IDs.  What does that mean?

That means that when I create events in my iOS calendar on my iPad or iPhone, that event is automatically added to my Macbook Calendar.  When I create a Pages document on my Macbook and save it in iCloud, I can access and edit that same document on my tablet.  I can save my iPhone pictures to my laptop at home automatically.  This is very handy when you want to quickly access all of your photos and/or share them.  These are just a few features iCloud offers.

There are, however, like anything, some limitations to what iCloud can do that we should be aware of.  iCloud is not designed to be a long-term storage container for your images.  This article from How-to-Geek, explains nicely some of iClouds boundaries when it comes to saving your valuable photos.  Be sure to review this one.

When it comes to valuable digital content, it is always advisable to have a hard drive backup of it; and then another back up of the back up wouldn't hurt.

Also, here is Apple's support page on Frequently Asked Questions regarding iCloud that is very informative.

Creating a Screencast Using Quicktime Player

Quicktime Player is already installed on our MLTI Macbook Air laptops and is super easy to use.  Learn how to create your own video screencasts for your students with this helpful video tutorial.

The New Google Drive Cheat Sheet

I was purusing through Pinterest just now (yeah, one of the few dudes who have a Pinterest account) and stumbled across this cheat sheet for the new Google Drive from +Kasey Bell .  Some of you may have see a different layout and look to your Google Drive since you've been back to school.  This downloadable cheat sheet from Kasey should be helpful.

The cheat sheet is here embedded in this post from Scribd, which, like Drive, allows you to store documents online and share them like you see below.  You can scroll through the separate window or you can click on the label at the top of this sheet and you will be able to download the document from there.

New Google Drive Cheat Sheet

And speaking of Pinterest, check out Kasey's Pinterest boards.  Looks like a lot of great, helpful Edu content.

If you would like to start getting into Pinterest or any social media like this, please feel free to contact me and I would love to stop by and walk you through it.

The New Google Drive

Some of you may have noticed a new look with your Google Drive.  This video should help you understand some of its new features.

Accessing Google Drive Files Faster and Easier

Sometime you may find, at least I did, while using Google Drive that it would be so much easier if certain files where located in more that one spot in my file organization on Drive.  Well, you can do that.

If you are familiar with how tagging works when it comes to organizing digital content in information systems (i.e. Evernote, web and social bookmarking, Macbook, etc), then you will understand how handy this features is when trying to find something quickly and efficiently.  Your Google Drive has provided this feature; and, unknown to me, it has had this feature for a while.  Though Google does not call it "tagging", it has roughly the same principle.

This video explains how you can place files in your Drive within multiple folders.  I think it's stupendous.

What Is It That I Actually Do?

This is my fourth year now as a Tech Integrator.  I still find many faculty who may not fully understand what it is that I do or what I am used for, as a Technology Integrator.  I would like to help make clear on how I can be of service to you, your curriculum and your plans.

In years past, staff have come to me for help or special instructions, and on some occasions I have to tell them that unfortunately do not have access to Admin functions, passwords, or staff or student personal information.  I'm sure some may think, "Well, what good are you?"

The basis of what my job is as a Technology Integrator is to help and support your curriculum and classroom experience, and professional career through the use of creative ideas and strategies when using technology devices, software and any tech product we may use on a regular (even irregular) basis.  Although, I am salaried through the Tech Department, I am not a IT specialist (like Daren or Sherry).  I work mainly with planning and developing creative ideas and strategies for your curriculum and classroom experiences through the use of tech.

If you want to learn how to make the most of your SMART Board and/or the SMART Notebook software that goes with it, you can schedule me to meet with you and I will be able to walk you through some best practices and help you get comfortable with using it in your classroom.

It is the same with Google Apps.  Confused on how you can share your documents?  Or are you interested in having your students create portfolios on Google Drive?  Or not sure how to create groups in your Gmail?  I can help you get very comfortable with using these applications flawlessly.

I thrive on helping you be successful and I understand that, even with teachers, there are various learning styles and speeds.  I excel with patience and I want to help you make sense of it all.  There are many IT-related problems and issues that I can assist with and would be happy to.  For anything that I may not have an immediate answer to, I can sure find out for you.

I also can assist with:

• PowerSchool/PowerTeacher
• Flipped Classroom strategies
• Blended Learning strategies
• Gmail
• Google Drive
• Google Docs
• Moodle
• iPad and iPad apps
• SMART Response hand-held devices
• Macbook use, file/folder management; making the most of your laptop
• MLTI apps - OmniGraffle, etc
• Apple Macbook apps - iLife, iWork, etc
• Self Service
• Use of your web browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox), web bookmarking and internet tips
• Digital Citizenship

...just to name a few

I hope this helps explain how I can be more effective for you and your students.

Please contact me any time, and as my slogan says:

Share with me your ideas and I will help you get there

Google Maps in the World Language Classroom

Here I demonstrate how Google Maps is an excellent medium to use in the World Language classroom for contextual value and familiarizing student with famous locations.  Go to locations from around the world without having to tip the cab driver (...and those other expenses of travel).

These two articles below explain the "Padlock Love" phenomenon:

The Padlocks of Paris - David Lebovitz

 Love Padlocked in Paris - Forbes  

Here is a video from Google giving a brief overview use of Google Maps.

More About Blended Learning

Previously, I talked about Blended Learning and how you can utilize Twitter search to find content and ideas for Blended Learning in the classroom.  Blended Learning is not necessarily a new concept, however the practical use of Blended Learning in the classroom (and outside) may be a new idea.  Educators from around the world are coming to the understanding that with the use of technologies administered appropriately, student learning and engagement can grow tremendously.  Understanding what Blended Learning is is the first step to allowing us to utilize this method in our own classroom experiences effectively.

Edutopia has several resources on this topic [Side note: If you have not visited the Edutopia site, you are missing out on a very valuable resource].

Here is a collection of 9 short videos explaining what Blended Learning is and how to use it.  Here is a highlight:

Two more articles from Edutopia:

Blended Learning: Resource Roundup

4 Tips for Getting to Know the Blended Learning Instructional Model

Learning Google Apps?

Here are some of great collections of small, bite-sized video tutorials on making the most of Google Apps - like Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Forms, etc.  These collections of video are set in a YouTube Playlist for easy watching.  These videos should be very helpful for you, especially if you are still learning the basics.

Simply click on the Playlist drop down menu in each Playlist collections below and select videos from the list.

Google Documents Playlist

Google Drive Playlist

Google Calendar Playlist

Gmail Playlist

To see more playlists regarding Google Apps please visit +Sam Rosenfeld YouTube channel.  Thanks to Sam for the work in putting this together.

Google Search Tips Infographic

This infographic, originally posted by HackCollege, is an older creation, however is an amazing visual and tool for learning how to create an effective web search.

Update (5.29.14):  Because of the issues I had with the embedding of the infographic previously posted, I had to post an image of the infographic.

To view the original infographic in full size, please go to HackCollege.com

#EdChatME

Every Thursday from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM join educators from around our state of Maine on Twitter sharing and discussing several pre-determined topics.  Tonight's (May 15) discussion is on Digital Citizenship; which is an excellent topic.  Why?  Because it is a topic that so many of us know so little about, and it so vital to understand its impact on our students, not to mention ourselves.  For more information on the #EdChatME Maine event, go here.

How do I join?
If you are new to Twitter, here's how you can join.  Simply search for the hashtag #EdChatME in Twitter.

The great thing about joining a hashtag discussion like this is that you can find other contacts (Tweeps) of interest that you can follow.  Look at their list of Tweeps they follow and find more Follows; to help build your Personal Learning Network.

You don't need a Twitter account

You can "listen" in on any Twitter hashtag dialog without a Twitter account and full ability to find idea and content from the sharing.  Simply go to tweetchat.com and search for the hashtag #EdChatME.

Because #edchatme is not in session there were no live tweets at the time I created this video.  You will notice #edchat is used instead for the purpose of demonstrating the use of TweetChat

If you are interested in creating a Twitter account and making a Personal Learning Network out of it, by all means, please contact me and I will walk you through how to make the most of Twitter.

Blended Learning

Blended Learning is a new(er) buzz word floating around the Edu arena.  This is +Common Sense Media 's definition of Blended Learning:

A pedagogical model that combines online and on-site learning and supports some element of student control over the time, place, path, and or/pace of their learning experience

 You can find a great deal of idea and content on Twitter using the hashtag #blendedlearning in your search on Twitter.  Here is a Twitter stream using #blendedlearning.

Tweets about "#blendedlearning"

graphite From Common Sense Media

Have you signed in to graphite yet?

If not, you are missing out on a valuable resource for your 1to1 iPad or "One-iPad" classroom.  A product of +Common Sense Media, graphite is a type of social network where teachers share, search and create reviews for the best apps (web-based or tablet), games, websites, and other digital curricula.  

You can find and share the best app workflows (App Flows) for you or your classroom.  And graphite's content is searchable by grade level, subject, type of content, and by Common Core Standards.  If you are not sure where or how you can start, try the Top Picks and explore some of the more popular choices by teachers.

graphite can serve as your Personal Learning Network (PLN) when it comes to finding the right digital content for iPad or other devices.

The account is FREE and easy to sign up.

What Are App Flows?

Two Proficiancy-Based Learning Hashtags

Here are two popular Twitter hashtags that are associated with Proficiency-based Learning.  If you are not familiar with what Twitter hashtags are, they are specific search quarries that are used within tweeted messages and using the "#" symbol to make it a hyperlink.  Hashtags in general are a great way to find common tweets and content.

Proficiency-Based Learning
There are two hashtags that I have found that will deliver to you a lot of great content when trying to learn and incorporate proficiency-based learning.

#SCLChat (student-centered learning)
Click on the label to view full Tweet stream

Tweets about "#SCLChat"


#competencyed (competency-based)
Click on the label to view full Tweet stream

Tweets about "#competencyed"

Google News

If you haven't already, you should check out Google News.  Yes, you can get news from many different sources depending on what kind of news you are looking for.  And, you can search a topic in Google and select News on the Google Menu.  However, the news.google.com News is different.  I'll tell you why.

Google News not only sources news from hundreds of popular news sources for the latest national and global news, but you can customize your Google News.  If you are more interested in sports, or business, or entertainment, you can customize your Google News to view articles regarding one of these topics only.  Or, you could include all of these topics, but make adjustments to how much of news from each of these aforementioned topics is presented in your Google News.

You can, also, add in your own customized News "section".  A devoted section of news pertaining to a customized topic you pick.  For example, I love reading about the global coffee market, so I added in a section devoted to Coffee Futures.  All new in this personalized section is devoted to the coffee market.

Ok, one more thing I like about Google News.  Be sure to check out "Realtime Coverage" in any of the news sections.  In realtime you can see up-to-the-minute articles as well as Google+ posts regarding the news topic of that section.

Read more features from Google's About page on Google News.

Here's a helpful video (Update:  this tutorial is actually rather dated; there have been recent changes since the posting of this video):

RSS Is So Last Year...

I don't necessarily mean that, however, if for any reason you are a frequent, somewhat frequent, or first-time viewer of my blog, you will notice that my commitment to posting content on a regular basis has failed miserably.  The reason for that is because I almost never now communicate via blogs; at least these kind.  For that matter, I almost never even view my Feedly account any more (if you are not familiar with what Feedly is, they emerged and grew when Google Reader announced its closing; basically it collects and aggregates feed from blogs like this one using RSS feed).

In a nutshell, it seems that blogs and blog readers are becoming a thing of the past for many.  I share and communicate almost entirely (apart from the necessary email) through social media.  If the writer of a blog has a social media profile, I'll follow that instead of the blog itself.  Not only is social media the easiest to filter and search through, but it is easier to share content.  It is not necessary to generate blog posts with a bunch of links, material or ideas for Technology Integration.  I can do the same with small, bite-sized pieces through social media.

I primarily use Google+ and Twitter.  I do find lots of great ideas and content through Pinterest as well.

So, whether you see more posts to come or not from this blog, you can guarantee I'm talkin' on either Google+ or Twitter.  Find me and follow me.

Google+:  +Benjamin Nason 

Twitter:  @Ratkacher

January/February Schedule