Edutopia, in conjunction with Facebook, has just produced some wonderful resources for creating social media guidelines for your school. It sets out a step-by-step approach with questions for reflection as well as resources to help the school team think about the issues. You can read it online or download the primer as a pdf. There is also a link to resources on diigo that were bookmarked as part of the research to create this resource.

How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School

Download the pdf version from Edutopia

Steven Anderson’s (the author of the Edutopia article) links on Diigo

Has your school or board created guidelines for your staff and / or students? Share them with us.

With information exploding every day, it is important to develop good search skills to find what you really need. Google has set up a site to help students develop these skills. There are lesson plans to help teach

• picking the right search terms,
• understanding search results
• narrowing a search to get the best results
• Searching for evidence
• evaluating the credibility of sources

There are also training videos to help you improve your information literacy skills. Well worth exploring. Go to: http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/

TED (of TEDTalks) has a new initiative: TEDEd They are hosting an education section – a bank of lessons on a variety of topics.

From the site:

TED-Ed’s videos aim to capture and amplify the voices of the world’s greatest educators. To achieve this, we pair extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of exceptional educational videos. This website, similar to TED.com, is ever-evolving and we depend on you, the TED community, to nominate inspiring teachers that have touched your life or clever animators who have the skills to bring a gifted teacher’s lesson to life.

They are worth exploring, whether you recommend them to your students or use them to get inspired for your own teaching. It would be great if you would share here, by commenting on those you find useful or inspiring.

The 2012 virtual Social Learning Summit (http://www.sociallearningsummit.com) is this coming Saturday, April 21st, from 8:50am – 3:00pm US-Eastern Daylight Time.  This is a free event, and registration is not required to attend any of the 70+ scheduled sessions on the use of Social Media and Web 2.0 in teaching and learning.

The session schedule has been posted!   Using the following page, you can look at the schedule in one of 26 different time zones views in order to make sure you know exactly what is taking place and when.  http://www.classroom20.com/page/2012-sessions-schedule

Recordings from the sessions can be found here: http://www.classroom20.com/page/2012-recordings

A collaboration between The GoodPlay Project and Project New Media Literacies, Our Space is a full curriculum for teaching responsible digital citizenship. It is fully downloadable as a pdf.

 Projects by Jen

Dorothy Taker teaches at Grosse Ile School on the Magdalen Islands. She has her students participate in a number of online projects hosted by Projects by Jen. These are a good entry into online projects, a way to connect your class with students in other classes.

Listen to the Podcast

Click to Listen - A new window will open.

Recorded over Skype on December 13, 2011.
Apologies for the sound quality of parts of the podcast. It was recorded over Skype and the connection was a bit unstable.

Music: Modern Jazz Samba from http://incompetech.com

Learn More

Visit Dorothy’s class blog

Projects by Jen: Jen Wagner has been hosting a number of projects each year.

Learn more about Jennifer Wagner’s projects through her presentation for the K12 Online Conference 2009: If You Host It, They Will Come

Jennifer Wagner talks about a variety of projects in her 2011 presentation for the K12 Online Conference: The Power of Projects

Tools to use

Skype : Skype is a free voip (voice over internet phone) system. You can go to Skype in Education to find partners for classroom projects.

Flipping

Audrey McGoldrick teaches an online mathematics class for LEARN.  She decided to try flipping her class after hearing a TED Talk with Salman Kahn.

Listen to the Podcast

Click to Listen - A new window will open.

Music: Modern Jazz Samba from http://incompetech.com

Learn More

Audrey’s blog, McSquared where she reflects on her practice.

Check out the blog for a great example of a reflective teacher. She thinks about what she does, tries to find solutions and shares her many discoveries of ways to track her students, structure her class and make sure that the needs of all her students are met.

You can also find a list of links to blogs Audrey consults to get ideas and inspiration.

Tools to use

Voicethread - the online application Audrey uses for her lessons

Camtasia Studio - software Audrey uses to record from her computer screen.

Geogebra - free math software for teaching and learning

Twitter - microblog platform. Audrey uses this to connect with her PLN (professional learning network)

More Resources

ExploreLearning

The Flipped Classroom Network

Vodcasting and the Flipped Classroom from the University of Colorado

ETSB

Blogging

Catherine Barnard was inspired to try blogging with her elementary cycle 2 class at North Hatley School in the Eastern Townships School Board after reading blogs from classrooms around the world. She is starting her fifth year at the school and is looking forward to another blogging year.

Listen to the Podcast

Click to Listen - A new window will open.

Music: Modern Jazz Samba from http://incompetech.com

Learn More

Catherine’s 2011-2012 Blog

Archive of 2010-2011 Blog
Edublogs

Catherine decided to use Edublogs because of the ease of use. She could create and manage as many student blogs as she wanted. It had the features she wanted (easy to embed media). She paid for a pro membership (3,33$ per month) as there were more themes, she could have up to 50 student blogs and she appreciated the support she got from Sue Waters.

Edublogs User Guide
Mr. Toft’s Blog: http://mrtoft2012.edublogs.org/

This is one of the blogs that inspired Catherine

Interactive White Boards

Lisa Diner is the RECIT animator for the Western Quebec School Board. She is a master trainer for SMART boards and has given many workshops on interactive white boards for teachers.

Recorded on April 12, 2011

Listen to the Podcast

Click to Listen – A new window will open.

Music: Modern Jazz Samba from http://incompetech.com

Learn More

Learn more about interactive white boards.

Ideas for use in a variety of disciplines

SMART Exchange – find teacher-created lessons

Teachers Love Smartboards – a blog on interactive white boards with many ideas and suggestions for their use

Ways to Use an Interactive White Board in the Classroom – a collaborative document created by teachers

Le tableau blanc interactif information en français

Animation – Tools for Students

LEARN gave a workshop on FlipBoom, an animation software. FlipBoom is available to  all the English Education Community of Quebec through a partnership between LEARN and ToonBoom. Once the software is installed, you are ready to start animating. It is a good idea to get a drawing tablet with a stylus.

When you participate in a LEARN Flipboom workshop, you automatically become part of the ToonBoom community. You have access to resources and a forum where you can ask questions, share ideas and get support.

The samples shown below were done by teachers in the afternoon of LEARN workshops. Just imagine what your students could do!

Listen to the Podcast

Click to listen.  A new window will open.

Recorded on April 12, 2011

Music: Modern Jazz Samba from http://incompetech.com

More about FlipBoom

Finalists of the FlipBoom contest for Quebec elementary students
http://contests.toonboom.com/

FlipBoom tutorials

Introduction to FlipBoom
http://vodpod.com/watch/1927335-flip-boom-special-edition-kit-tutorial

Bouncing Ball on FlipBoom Classic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5dngIHIhIY&feature=youtu.be

Drawing a Character in FlipBoom Classic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNA81v563s&feature=youtu.be