Top 8 Web Tools for Teacher's Professional Development
I have been recently posting about teacher's professional development using web technologies and each time I do I would get emails asking for the tools I use personally. I compiled a list of the top 8 platforms I use almost daily for expanding my knowledge and staying updated about the topics that interest me the most. Being a graduate researcher in the field of educational technology and from my own experience of several years blogging in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, I highly recommend the tools below and I personally view them as the most important platforms for growing professionally.
The Teacher Tap: Professional Development Resources for Educators
The Teacher Tap is a free, professional development resource that helps educators and librarians address common questions about the use of technology in teaching and learning by providing easy access to practical, online resources and activities. Check out the Project Overview for more information. For a more indepth look at these topics, go to our online courses including: We're in the process of updating this resource, so you'll find a mixture of old and new pages.
3 Great Professional Development Guides for Teachers
Are you looking for some free professional development guides to read in the coming Christmas break? Edutopia has generously put up these three guides to help teachers and educators better improve their practice and enrich their instructional knowledge. I have just finished reading the second guide in this list and I must say they are really wonderful. Let me share with you a brief synopsis of each of them together with the links where you can access them. 1- Project-based Learning Professional Development guide This guide is divided into three parts: the first part is an introduction to project based learning in which the authors argue for the importance of PBL in learning together with some explanation on how it works. 2- Technology Integration professional Development Guide This guide walks you through the process of technology integration in education. 3- Assessment Professional Development Guide The content of this guide is structured in the same way as the previous guides.
23 Excellent Professional Development Tools for Teachers
Today we are sharing with you some web tools to help you grow professionally. These are probably the best you can ever find online. Check out the list below and share with us your suggestions and additions. 1- Education World This is a great website that offers all the resources you need to grow professionally. 2- Classroom2.0 In this networking group, you can get connected with other educators who are interested in Web 2.0, social media, and more in the classroom. 3- Diigo Collect, highlight, remember, and share all of the great resources you find online with your PLN on Diigo, and annotation and online bookmarking tool. 4- Discovery Education There is no way that you did not hear about this awesome website. 5- Google Rss With Google Reader or any other great RSS tool, you can subscribe to blogs and stay on top of it all. 6- Twitter 7- Staff Develop This is another great resource for professional development.It provides articles, books, workshops, and many resources links. 8- Yahoo!
Overview - Baseball, Race and Ethnicity: Rounding the Bases - Lesson Plan
Back to Lesson Plans Lesson Overview Students use primary sources focused on baseball to explore the American experience regarding race and ethnicity. Objectives Students will: analyze historical images; create an original argument using primary sources; pose historical questions after analyzing and reflecting on primary sources; employ search strategies to obtain primary historical data from targeted collections of sources; place the developments of race and ethnicity in America in historical context. Standards Time Required Five classes Recommended Grade Level Topic Sports, Recreation & Leisure Immigration & Ethnic Heritage Era Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929 Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900 Credits Jennifer Schwelik & Greg Deegan
Using Animoto in the Classroom
It’s unusual for me to write a blog post extolling the virtues of a single edtech tool – I usually prefer a rundown of several resource that can be used for any given subject, because there are so many brilliant tools out there to feature and usually so many advantages and disadvantages to using each one. But Animoto is a special case! It is incredibly easy to use, which is a huge plus for the classroom, but also presents a really wide and flexible range of possible uses, which isn’t always the case with the simpler end of edtech tools. If you’re not already familiar with Animoto, it’s a website that allows you to make your own videos by choosing a background template from a wide range of options, adding a piece of music, and then creating a completely unique compilation of photographs, video clips and text, which is then all magically pulled together into an incredibly professional finished product. The real beauty of Animoto is its sheer, joyful flexibility.
How to Create a ThingLink Tutorial
My Reflections on ThingLink and Interactive Presentations Major shifts in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require students to have opportunities to practice and master skills in the areas of speaking and listening as well as the ability to compare, contrast, incorporate evidence, understand primary source documents, and create arguments. In terms of student engagement and creation in these areas, the possibilities are endless. When I was attending the PARCC ELC in Chicago recently, I attended a workshop on close reads using primary source documents. In a classroom, I would have the students create a Thinglink with required elements. Remember to remind students of copyright and creative commons licensing. Source: Paula Dillon 3.17.13 Related Resources and Articles Thinglink Tutorial Slide Show by JGoodburn from Burgettstown Area School via HelloSlide Make Interactive Images on Thinglink Education by Ruchard Byrne via Free Technology for Teachers
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A Comprehensive Index to Educational Hashtags Teachers Must Know about
If you are still trying to figure out what educational hashtags teachers are using then you do not need to go anywhere else, I got it covered here thanks to Chiew Pang document. Pang created an open document using Google Docs and named it " The Unofficial Index to Twitter Hashtags ". I have gone thorough the entire page and found it really helpful so I thought you might want to have a look as well. See also : Teacher's Guide to The Use of Hashtags in Education Here is the link for the entire document that Pang created and below are the hashtags it contains.
How my students started using Evernote - Education Series
Buffy Hamilton is a teacher and librarian at Creekview High School in Canton, Georgia. Buffy is one of Tech and Learning’s 30 EdTech Leaders of the Future, Georgia School Library Media Specialist of the Year 2010, and one of the National School Boards Association’s “20 to Watch” educators for 2010; her media program at Creekview High School was also named one of two exemplary high school programs for the state of Georgia in 2010. In the spring of 2010, I decided to introduce Evernote as a research tool to a group of 10th grade Literature/Composition students at my school. I chose Evernote because these students (part of a learning and technology integration program), were preparing to start a research project using multiple sources of information, including database articles, web-based news stories, videos, photos, and interviews. Why I chose Evernote Class, meet Evernote I introduced Evernote to the students by giving them a peek into how I was already using it personally.
