#IllRideWithYou

This morning I'm watching live streaming coverage of the hostage crisis currently taking place in a cafe in Sydney, Australia.  The hostage taker allegedly has Islamic ties, and has placed a flag with Islamic symbols in the windows of the cafe.

If you reg take the #373 bus b/w Coogee/MartinPl, wear religious attire, & don’t feel safe alone: I’ll ride with you. @ me for schedule
— Sir Tessa (@sirtessa) December 15, 2014

The reason I'm mentioning this situation is because of the way that social media has been used to assist Sydney commuters feel safe as they try to make their way home.  One Twitter user, known as @sirtessa, posted the tweet shown above, offering to ride with Sydney commuters so they could feel safe on their way home.  This tweet took off on social media, and the hashtag #IllRideWithYou has emerged as a worldwide effort to offer support to Australian Muslims.

#IllRideWithYou: Australians show solidarity with Muslims amid the Sydney siege http://t.co/5hFgbIp2C3 pic.twitter.com/czDCx7OdM4
— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 15, 2014

The situation is ongoing, but it's simply amazing how the power of social media can be used to further shine a positive light on a terrible situation.

Tech Tidbit video: SoundTrap

This week's Tech Tidbit video spotlights SoundTrap, a Web2.0 site that allows you to create, mix, and download your own original music tracks.

You can use SoundTrap to create original music for video projects, background music for dances, school news broadcasts, and much more!

Orion launches! (Finally!)

NASA was finally able to launch the Orion test flight from Cape Canaveral on Friday morning, Dec. 5th, after multiple delays. It will orbit Earth twice before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after a 4 1/2 hour flight.  This test flight is the first step in the process of planning NASA's eventual journey to Mars.



Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

Please donate to this Donor's Choose project!

I would like to encourage those who are sympathetic to the cause of helping teachers acquire new technology to donate to this Donor's Choose project that was launched by a colleague of mine in Wake County schools.  She is only a little more than $300 away from reaching her goal, and she has around 20 days or so left to reach it!

I would hate to have her miss out on acquiring this laptop and iPad mini when she is so close to reaching her goal!  Can you help her out?  Pretty please???

Tech Tidbit: ContextU.com

This week's Tech Tidbit video spotlights the American History research site ContextU, which is currently in beta test mode, and features 4 study units to this point, "American Revolution", "The New Nation", "Causes of the Civil War", and "The American Civil War".

Each unit has four main features: Timeline, Map, Cause & Effect, and Groups.  The Timeline feature allows the user to see a timeline of important events in that era of time, as well as important people in history who were alive during that time, as well as events that were happening around the world during that time in history.  The Map feature displays markers on a map that display where important events in that era took place.  The Cause & Effect feature organizes people and events into factors that contributed to that era of history, as well as results of what happened during that time.  Finally, the Groups features lists important people and events in the order that they happened in a streamlined view.

ContextU.com is in beta test mode, which means that additional features will be added as time goes on.  Regular users of this site might want to bookmark the site and return frequently to see what has been updated and made available.

President Obama speaks at the ConnectEd Conference

Tech Tidbit Video: FlipSnack

A quick demonstration video on how to use the FlipSnack webtool, which allows you to upload jpeg files or PDF documents and create flippable e-books that you can share, embed, and download.

FlipSnack is part of the SnackTools family of webtools, including Photosnack (slideshows for Facebook, Twitter, and blogs); PodSnack (podcast creator & hosting); TubeSnack (custom video players & playlists); PollSnack (polls & surveys); SlideSnack (online presentation sharing); and NotifySnack (smart notifications for websites).

WCPSS Convergence Symposium Reflections: Teacher Leadership & Collaboration with Administration

It's been a little while since I posted another reflection on what I learned from the WCPSS Convergence Symposium from early November, so I better get on the stick!

One of the most insightful workshops I attended dealt with teachers proposing ideas concerning the integration of technology into their school culture, and collaborating closely with their school's administration.  The workshop was led by Kristen Combs, a 7th grade teacher at Wakefield Middle School, and her principal, Jimmy Sposato.

                                               Kristen Combs

The first piece they made when making a proposal to one's administrator is to go to the principal with a plan for how to carry out your proposal.  It will provide your adminstration with needed information and will save them time in trying to determine how to implement the proposal.  In this way, they will be more prepared to make a decision on whether to act on the proposal or not.  

1. Begin with a vision. 
2. Set goals.
3. Make a plan.
4. Get to work. 

Wakefield Middle School's principal, Mr. Sposato, added his perspectives on this process.  

Climate/Trust

• Trust is essential for successful collaboration
• Does your current climate encourage risk taking? Innovation? If not, ask why? If yes, go for it!

Leadership

• Principals are looking for leaders (we are great first followers)
• You do not have to be an expert but you need to be proficient. 
• Principals will support about everything and effective teacher proposes (Your ideas are almost always better)

In conclusion, he stressed that technology was not a substitute for a lack of planning and that when implementing a new plan into a school culture, it is important that you:

• Be specific, be reasonable, be creative
• Ground your ideas in best practice principles! Make it about the learning
• Describe how will you bring others along
• Detail what you need from your principal

Tech Tidbit Video: FlipGrid

This week's Tech Tidbit video focuses on FlipGrid, a web2.0 tool that enables a teacher to post open-ended questions, allowing students to post video responses to the question, up to 90 seconds in length.

FlipGrid cost $65 a year, which provides subscribers with a maximum of 10 flipgrids with unlimited questions and unlimited video responses.  However, if you want to try out FlipGrid for free, you can opt for a 21-day demo account which allows for a maximum of 5 flipgrids with unlimited questions and unlimited video responses.

WCPSS Convergence Symposium Day 1, part 3

Another panel I attended during the WCPSS Convergence Symposium was "The 5 W's of a Successful Student Technology Showcase (plus the How)", led by Donna Hitchings.  She discussed the successful Student Technology Showcases she had organized at Sanderson High School over the years.

Among her arguments: Student technology showcases provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate how they utilize technology in the classroom. They provide students with the opportunity to present in front of a live audience, as well as giving recognition to students who have a particular "knack" for using technology.

WCPSS Convergence Symposium Day 1 Reflection, Part 2

The second panel I attended on the first day of the WCPSS Convergence Symposium was "10 Digital Tools (and a few extra) for Library & the Classroom", led by Shannon M. Miller.  She is a Teacher Librarian and Technology Integration Specialist from Van Meter, Iowa who is a prolific blogger, tweeter, Facebooker (?) and more about all things dealing with Instructional Technology. 

Shannon Miller discusses the numerous resources she shared!

She shared a great many resources with the packed ballroom that could benefit teachers in the library or the classroom, including:

• Google Presentation (use for student presentations or for teacher collaboration
• FlipSnack (upload PDF files and create an eBook!)
• TuxPaint (downloadable digital drawing program)
• Recite (converts text into a downloadable, embeddable, sharable poster)
• StoryBird (eBook creation site)
• Piktochart (infographic creation site)
• Smore (online flyer design site)
• Padlet (virtual sticky notes/comment wall)
• LittleBirdTales (digital storytelling site)
• BuildYourWildSelf (human/animal hybrid avatar creator)
• PicMonkey (online photo editor)
• SoundCloud (audio file recorder/hosting site)
• Buncee (incorporate multimedia files into a sharable digital environment)
• FlipGrid (teachers record a discussion question video and student record short videos in response.  These videos are displayed in a grid format.)
• ThePeanutGallery Chrome app (create silent movies with new or previously created footage)

Everyone in this panel was amazed at the variety of resources Ms. Miller shared, as well as the ways in which these tools could be implemented!  This panel was well worth attending, for certain!

Tech Tidbit: Creating Multimedia Timelines

Today's Tech Tidbit video discusses the Timeline JS webtool which allows you to create multimedia timelines incorporating the use of YouTube videos, images, maps,slideshows, and other multimedia artifacts.  It can pull multimedia from sources such as Twitter, Flickr, Google Maps, YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, DailyMotion, Wikipedia, SoundCloud, and more. 

Using Timeline JS does require you to have a Google account that you use to access a Google Spreadsheet that the site generates.  You access this sheet for future use by using Google Drive.  This tool can be used by teachers for presenting information to their students, or by students for presentations. 

Video: How Does Daylight Savings Time affect the human body?

Courtesy of Smithsonian.org:

WCPSS Convergence Symposium Day 1: Mediating Centers/Stations with technology in the library

Led by Kerri Brown Parker and Bethany Smith, this session was designed primarily for teacher librarians.
They mentioned 3 types of stations or centers that could be implemented in a media center.

• Rotating Stations--Set up stations according to learning goals; set them up so they can be accessed in any order; do not have one station dependent one the previous station; utilize                               collaboration documents; possibly use Edmodo or another learning management                                 system to collect students' work; and a presentation tool station.
• Progressive Stations--Transitioning course from traditional format to asynchronous online format; progressive stations work well by having students work through stations a chunk at a time
• Independent Stations

Opening Thoughts about WCPSS Convergence Symposium Fall 2014

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I attended the Fall 2014 session of the WCPSS Convergence Symposium at the McKimmon Center on the N.C. State campus.  It was designed to offer professional development workshops for teacher librarians and instructional technology specialists.

Marlo Gaddis

  Led by Marlo Gaddis, it offered over 70 distinct workshops and featured guest speakers including Shannon M. Miller, Bethany Smith, and North Carolina Principal of the year Carrie Tulbert.  As I begin to let the information from the symposium sink in, I will post my thoughts about my reactions, ideas, etc. that resulted from the different sessions I attended.  Stay tuned! 

Ready, Aim...LAUNCH!

I had a lot of fun watching a Social Studies teacher bring her class outside to the school courtyard to test the effectiveness of the trebuchets they had designed and built themselves.  Although this is an activity you would normally expect in a science class (or even wood shop!), it helped the students appreciate the topic of using catapults (or trebuchets) during medieval attacks on castles or fortresses!

Expert Views on "What Makes Great Teaching?"

The Guardian has published an article written by Sarah Marsh and Kate Hodge titled "What Makes Great Teaching? Expert Views" describing the results of a study which reviewed 200 pieces of research on what makes great teaching. The two most important elements of great teaching practices were the quality of instruction and how well a teacher knew their subject.

Some of the topics discussed in the article included:

• the merits of overly praising children in the classroom
• damaging beliefs about effective pedagogy
• investing in professional development for teachers
• the receptivity of teachers to research evidence
• the need to clarify expectations of good teaching practices

Overall, the study mentioned in this article concluded, among other things, that conventional approaches to teaching seemed to be the most effective. Do you agree with that conclusion, or is it more complicated than that?

Happy Halloween from the FVHS Media Center staff!

Wait until they invent Bing Binoculars!

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO...wait...doesn't that stand for something else?) has effectively banned the use of Google Glass and other similar wearable technology devices from movie theaters across the country.

This is done to prevent the possibility of Google Glass wearers from recording a movie during a showing and then bootlegging it digitally on the internet or otherwise.  Of course, a Google Glass' recording capacity is a max of 30 minutes, and the battery would surely give out long before the end of the movie.  However, this is seen as a preemptive measure because of the eventual improvement of such devices.  

Now if only they could find a way to ban moviegoers from constantly staring at their smartphone during a movie showing.  The glows coming from them remind me of flat rectangular lighthouses reaching into the darkness.

Edutopia has posted a "Digital Citizenship Resource Roundup" has released a one-stop shopping list of resources dealing with a slew of digital citizenship topics, including: 

• Internet Safety and Cyberbullying
• Digital Responsibility
• Media & Digital Literacy

There are also a variety of other resources related to digital citizenship listed in this article.

If Teachers Were Treated like Sports Stars...

Courtesy of BuzzFeedYellow...

Article: Why Educators should spend 15 minutes a day on social media

CenterDigitalEd.com has published an article written by Tanya Roscoria titled "Why Educators Should Spend 15 Minutes a Day on Social Media".  She explains that most teachers don't spend time on social media for professional purposes due to a lack of placing a priority on it.  Roscoria asserts that by spending a minimum of 15 minutes a day on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+ can help teachers discover lesson ideas, strategies, and methods using technology (or in general) that can help improve their instructional performance.  

Investing time in social media sites for professional growth can serve as an informal type of professional development and build professional learning networks between educators close together and from a distance.  It can serve as an efficient source of lesson ideas as well as inspiration for classroom activities you conduct yourself.  

Digital Citizenship can be learned by students and teachers

The website Edsurge has posted an article concerning the importance of teachers and students learning about digital citizenship.  Titled "Why Digital Citizenship is an opportunity for students and educators to learn together",details how adults often fall into the trap of becoming too open with their social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more.  These habits can be learned by children as well, causing them to share way more and less indiscriminately because they don't know proper "Netiquette".

The website Flocabulary has created a rap video citing 10 rules for how to (and how not to) behave online, titled "Think Before You Post".  This video could serve as an excellent discussion-starter when teaching students about how to be a responsible digital citizen.

Tech Tidbit: ProfessorWord.com

This week's "Tech Tidbit" video focuses on ProfessorWord.com, a bookmark toolbar add-on that identifies SAT or ACT vocabulary words on any given website or news article.  It is free to install and activate.

This tool can be used by Language Arts students on the high school level, but could also serve as a vocabulary builder for older elementary school and middle school students.

The Wake County Public Schools Instructional Technology department has put together a one-stop shopping wiki that contains digital resources for a wide array of purposes, including Internet Safety, Learning Models, Literature & Writing, Educational Blogs, SmartBoard resources, Google Apps, eInstruction, and much more.  It is called Enhanced Education Through Technology (EETT).

Created by Kristy Meyrick, this resource also provides a list of digital resources categorized by function.  Teachers who are looking for a quick list of reliable web resources for any number of instructional purposes in the classroom would find this wiki invaluable.  

It can be found by clicking HERE.

My Instructional Technology website

I maintain and regularly update an Instructional Technology website for the purpose of cataloging links and resources that are useful for the teachers and students of the schools that I serve.  On the front page I have my work calendar embedded so teachers know where I am working on a daily basis.

I have also archived a number of instructional "how-to" videos that I created that demonstrate how to use a number of web tools.

http://russellsmith1972.wix.com/russellsmithtech

Introduction

Welcome to my introductory post on my new instructional technology blog!  My name is Russell Smith, and I am an Instructional Technology Facilitator for Wake County Schools in North Carolina.  I currently serve at two schools: Carpenter Elementary School in Cary, NC; and Fuquay-Varina High School in Fuquay-Varina, NC.  

My purpose for this blog is to update it on a regular basis with posts containing news, links, and opinions on topics relevant to the field of instructional technology.  I hope that this blog becomes a resource for the teachers at both of my schools to refer to on an ongoing basis.