I have long been a fan of Google’s releases for both personal and professional productivity.  The company is constantly adding new features and tools at a staggering pace.  Keeping up with all of the latest developments is a real challenge.

To keep track of all of the changes, Google has launched a blog named Google New that makes keeping current simple and painless.  Check it out at: http://www.google.com/newproducts/.

Mathtrain.tv is the work of Eric Marcos and the students of Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, California.  The students use screen capture software to create tutorials about what they are learning.  The videos are then reviewed, and if needed, edited by a math teacher.  Since the videos are social by design, their is an incentive for the student instructor to do their best since they are creating for and receiving comments from an audience of fellow middle schoolers worldwide.

Your students can create their own tutorials and submit them to Mathtrain.  Need screencasting software?  Jing from Techsmith, CamStudio (open source software), and the screen recording tools native to both Promethean and SMART software are all no cost options.

Mr. Marcos is to be applauded for this venture.  He has created a means for getting his students to reflect on their learning in a way that a math journal never can.  He is also making a contribution to the greater educational community in the process that we all benefit from. 

Thanks to the Internet, access to the real-time exploration efforts of scientists like Robert Ballard is now a possibility.  Ballard’s new website, Nautilus Live, provides 24 hour live video and audio streaming from twenty different cameras on board multiple ships and exploration craft.  Engineers will be exploring the Black and Aegean Seas as well as the Pacific in the pursuit of discovering ancient wrecks and learning more about aquatic life.

Microsoft has teamed with NASA to bring the cosmos to life with their Worldwide Telescope project.  The beauty of the Worldwide Telescope is that the vast amount of data and images has been blended together to create a rich visual experience for the user.  Information that has been traditionally limited to scientists working in observatories is now available for free.  The Worldwide Telescope can be download at http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/Home.aspx and includes various tours and tools for engaging astronomers of all ages.

Do you find either of these useful and how has it made learning science, math or technology more relevant?

One of the advantages of a blog is that it can act as a digital portfolio for a classroom or individual students.  Sites like www.blurb.com, www.mypublisher.com, and www.lulu.com take online publishing a step further by turning a blog into a print book (http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbook).  For example, one school turned a school mural project into a picture book using blurb.com (see http://www.blurb.com/books/1030436).  Books from blurb.com range in size from 7″x7″ to 13″x11″ and lengths from 20 to 440 pages.  Prices start at $12.95 for a single copy.

A book based on a classroom blog could easily turn in to a class or school fund raiser while giving students a meaningful purpose for writing.

Teach for Greenville County Schools and don’t have a blog?  Setting one up is easy by following the print or video tutorials at http://www.greenville.k12.sc.us/gcsd/depts/ets/its/blogs.asp.  Blogging ideas and research is located at http://timcushman.com/presentations.html.  Be sure to carefully follow the steps for configuring the “moderation” settings when creating your blog.  This is a critical step in exercising control over the content that appears on your blog.

Technology has played a significant role in the way we live, play, and most importantly – learn.  The social networking model has migrated to the world of education to create an outstanding, open source community for developing and sharing curricula at www.curriki.org.  Curriki is not “another cool site” worth glancing over some weekend.  In my opinion, it is the premiere destination on the Internet for any educator concerned with reaching all learners in his or her classroom.

One may assume the Curriki is simply another repository for lesson plans.  Curriki is so much more with over 20,000 resources and 50,000 members.

The reality of an open platform is long overdo.  The current paradigm of “educational knowledge” distribution limits the access of quality content to a select group of users.  This access is limited primarily by cost, but also by media type (we love our bound textbooks) and distribution method.  In contrast, Curriki is free and centers around the idea that content is “living” and should be exchanged and discussed.  That’s why Curriki includes a user rating system (similar to the idea of YouTube or Amazon) and a range of resources including lesson learning objectives, unit scope and sequence, multimedia to enhance instruction, and tools for creating content.  Differentiating instruction has never been easier.

The video below provides an overview of Curriki.  Watching a video clip does have its limitations.  Be sure to head over to www.curriki.org, create your free account and get started!

According to Google, Google Earth Professional offers “high-quality printing, image export, movie maker, data importer, premium support, and measurement tools.” (http://earth.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=21407) The real advantage of Google Earth is the resources you can incorporate into the software. Look for “Google Earth Pro plug-ins” with your favorite web browser if you would like specific functionality from the software. You can start with perusing http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-plugins-and-resources-to-make-google-earth-more-fun/ and http://www.gearthhacks.com/downloads/. All of this comes at a price though – $400 a year to be exact. However, Google is offering the professional version of their software absolutely free to educators.

Be sure to check out the Google Earth “how to” from Hall Davidson at http://www.halldavidson.net/GoogleEarthHD.pdf.

Steps For Applying For a Free Educator Account:

1. Download the Google Earth Professional trial version at https://registration.keyhole.com/choice_kh_initial.html. Make note of your Google Earth trial account user name and license key.
2. Send an email to GEEC@google.com from your school email account expressing your interest.
3. Wait for the reply from Google. They will send a short application for you to complete in email format.

We live at a time where all of the world’s knowledge is accessible through a singular and ubiquitous platform.  This is the unimaginable reality of the day in which we live thanks to the evolution of the Internet.  One would think that educators would be on the cusp of the knowledge revolution.  The fact is, many classroom teachers do not leverage the potential of the Internet.

A major barrier for the busy teacher is finding appropriate resources in a timely manner.  It is easy to spend several hours at several different websites looking for resources for a single lesson.  The incessant “needle in the haystack” searching for meaningful content gets old quickly and is abandoned in due course.  There is hope for bringing the best of the Internet into your classroom thanks to some great collections of digital resources.

I will not attempt to enumerate the “Top 10″ most useful teacher websites.  I would, however,  like to share a handful of sites for finding some really great resources.

1. Thinkfinity (free) – a very well organized, easy to use portal for instructional resources
2. Discovery Education Network (free) – register yourself and start collaborating with 25,000 other educators; browse by category
3. Nettrekker (by subscription) – available for all GCSD teachers; a search engine customized for schools that returns educationally relevant results to keyword searches; well worth the money

What other repositories of good educational resources have you found?

The primary challenge in the successful implementation of technology in the classroom is the buy-in from the individual teacher.  Many districts elect to channel all of their technology funds into the purchase of hardware and software at the expense of end-user training.  This short-sighted approach leaves many teachers floundering to learn the new technology on their own time, often with limited access to self-study materials.  This frustration is enough of a roadblock for many teachers to ignore technology tools all together or to use them only at a very basic level.

I do have to wonder, at one point do we as professional educators include the pursuit of learning technology under the umbrella of personal growth?  I am not referring to simply staying current with a variety of new products in order to continually “wow” a group of students as a means of crowd control (listen to Wesley Fryer’s “Strive to Engage, Not Enthrall”).

Image details: Single Image Set by picapp.com

Technology is a tool that serves as a powerful conduit to learning in the hands of the master teacher.  A colleague of mine, Tim Van Heule, often quips that, “the effective use of technology makes a good teacher better, but the misuse of technology makes a good teacher poor.”  Like a master craftsman building a house, it is about using the right tool in the right way.

I recommend the following method for staying current: read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch video tutorials.

Start Here
David Jakes provides an excellent resource on his wiki for teachers interesting in deepening their understanding of an array of technologies.  The tasks are straightforward and can easily be completed in fifteen minutes.  David’s site is full of great resources and is worth a thorough examination.  Do this if nothing else.

Blogs
Click here for a clear explanation of blogs and here to learn how to get blogs automatically delivered to your computer.

A few of my favorite blogs are dy/dan, edu.blogs, Ian Jukes, Steve Hargadon, The Strength of Weak Ties, and 2 Cents.

Podcasts
Click here for a clear explanation of podcasts.  iTunes is a great way to manage your podcasts.  Click here for a video tutorial on how to subscribe to podcasts through iTunes.

Video Tutorials
More video tutorials on the use of hardware and software packages are being posted online thanks in large part to the YouTube revolution.  Atomic Learning is well worth the money if you can afford it because of the volume of tutorials and the speed at which they load.  You can find some decent user content on sites like YouTube or TeacherTube if you don’t mind putting in extra time searching.

Comics and education?  Can their be a more juxtaposed pairing?  The idea of using comics to teach is inconceivable for many like me who spent tedious hours in the elementary classroom listening to a lecture on this historical character or that scientific principle while nervously eying my best friend the next row over as he drew the story playing out  in his head.  Inevitably, he would be caught and would face the full ire of a peeved teacher.  The fact is, telling a good story is a very difficult thing to do.  I don’t mean telling a story that simply entertains (although there is a place for that).  Rather, using storytelling, and in this case comics, as a means to communicate a powerful idea in a concise way.

The standard needs to be set high.  I like to make the comparison to Hollywood films.  A good movie that tells a powerful story in a powerful way wins an Oscar.  Movies that may enjoy a certain amount of the mainstream spotlight and are in some way sensational may generate revenue but do not necessarily reflect good storytelling.  We need to get our students to produce ”Oscar-worthy” digital stories.  This is very difficult and requires a great deal of thought and creativity.  The challenge to be creative and innovative is what our students need.  Jobs requiring knowledge are outsourced.  Jobs requiring innovation and cooperation within a diverse community never will be.  This is the future we are preparing them for.  Enough pontificating from my soap box…

Comeeko.com offers a new take on digital storytelling by turning your digital photos into a comic-style format.  The effect is appealing.  All you need is a digital camera for taking pictures of the “characters” in the comic.  Comeeko will add the unique comic-styling.  What could you do with Comeeko?

Creating screencasts can be a great way for teachers to maximize instructional time by making technical explanations and classroom lessons available for students to review outside of class.

Screencasting would also be a an effectual means of individualizing instruction for struggling students. How much more productive could the middle school math teacher be if a series of step-by-step instructional videos were created on solving equations or working with integers? Students can also create videos to either demonstrate knowledge of a process or as part of a classroom project.

Camtasia and SreenCorder are good, but money for software may not be in the budget. There are two free alternatives for you to consider – uTipu and CamStudio. Both programs are completely free and easy to use. I prefer uTipu, but both will do the job. Be sure to check your district’s policy regarding the installation of software.

Screencasting does require a time commitment. Consider using students to create and produce the videos. The result is mutually beneficial.