Using Thinglink

Even though I wasn't able to attend the MACUL (Michigan Association of Computer Educators) Conference back in March, I did attend virtually via twitter.  I followed a lot of commentary from those there about a site called Thinglink that was being presented.  I had already seen a little about the site, but I decided I would spend a little time investigating it and trying to use it.   As soon as I got there, the ideas started popping.  Light bulbs were going off in my head and I was inspired.  I could envision making my library visually digital (if that is a term that works).

Thinglink takes images and allows you to place access to links, video, text, whatever right on the photo.  It makes your photo interactive. How cool is that?

I have decided my summer mission is to make several of these interactive images to train my students how to use the library and how to locate books.  Right now, we have several categories in the catalog and several different locations, but they are all amuck.  It's hard to know where to find everything. My hope is if I make the library interactive and place it on the website- kids can see the points and know where it all is.

I started trying it just to see how it worked.  It was fast and simple.  It took very little time to add links and type a little text.  I linked a lot to my dropbox.  I am thinking I could also use this in my French class as a potential PBL activity.  Kids could take an image and link to some points of interest and write some text in French. It may turn out to be a fun activity for the kids and for me.

From the Archives: The Tween Tribune and some ideas for classroom use

One of my colleagues and I were chatting one day about the uninterrupted 90 minute reading block required by the state of Indiana to all students in grades K-3 and in some schools continuing until grade 6. One of the goals is to align with the common core and introduce students to more real life informational texts.  As a high school teacher, I don't see a lot of the components of elementary so I always have questions, especially since my own two children are in elementary.  She shared with me that a large amount of her informational texts come from a site called The Tween Tribune, so of course I had to check it out.

The site is curated by journalists, teens and tweens (you know that awkward age before kids hit puberty but think they are cool- I have one myself.) It is updated daily with articles from across the globe that are of interest to kids between 8-18.   It reminds me a lot of an updated Channel One News with a more fascinating flare for the eye catching story.  It isn't all news, it is also lifestyle, culture, arts and even cute and fuzzy.  Kids can read the articles, which are updated daily and comment upon them!  The tabs across the top are age based so the students can select articles based on their age level, a junior tween, tween and teen.  The fantastic thing-  teachers can set up classes and see what their students do.

If you visit the site you see a large list of subjects that students can sift through to find articles.  I can already see a lot of interesting ideas for this one.

1.  Read an article and discuss it with the class. Have each student find an article of choice, read it and share the information with the class.  I believe part of the common core includes presentations, especially for some of the mid grades like 4-7.

2.  Read and comment.  The kids can read the articles and comment upon them on the site or to the teacher.

3.  Letter to the editor.  Older students can read articles and write reactions/ letters to the editor about what was read.  It can be a way to teach kids to be involved citizens and use their local media to inform the public.

4.  Home share.  Have the students read an article and take the information home and include parents in the evening task.  It could be a simple Q/A with their guardian about it.  Maybe have the listener write a quick note on an agenda?

5.  History Classes. Students could read articles relating to history and delve a little deeper into them.  The day I evaluated this page, there was an article about Betsy Ross having three husbands.  Now isn't that something kids would want to investigate a little?

6.  Science classes. There are tons of articles about animals, discoveries, etc.  It could be a quick start to class to have kids read one short article each day about something your class is studying. (Ex: in the classification section of the Biology class, maybe there is an article about a new species discovered.)

As a non English teacher, I am not as keen to ideas for something like this.  As a librarian and a journalist, I feel getting kids to read news is a huge part of growing up.  So many of them love to read news but don't.  Why not provide them the time to do some reading during a class or a block?  Every little bit of reading matters and making our students global citizens requires them to know more than what is in a book.

From the Archives: Symbaloo and some ideas for use

A few months back, I came across a site called Symbaloo.  I dabbled a little and started building some.  Symbaloo takes links and makes them a visual block.  You can share the actual Symbaloo with others via social media. And, it's FREE!  There is a general site as well as an edu site.  They are intertwined someway or another.  If you are an iPad user, Symbaloo has an app to download.  You can do it here.

I have started establishing several symbaloo webmixes (the term symbaloo uses for their different pages) for teachers and for students.  There are so many options to use this.  My niece's teacher established a symbaloo for reading, spelling, math and science and the student started their lesson with a content specific one.  It is a fantastic way to keep students on task and working with websites you choose.  Especially with elementary students.

A few things about symbaloo:  you are limited to the number of tiles you can put to a page, so you may have to make several that relate to a topic and link them together.  Also, only you can edit the webmix, they can't be edited by others so for collaboration purposes, it may not be the best tool to use.

Here are some ways I can see a symbaloo used:

1.  Curate links from a webinar, a training or a conference all into one.  So many times, I go to conferences and see these amazing tools people are using.  I write them in my notes only to not look at them again or to lose the notes.  If you curate the links into a symbaloo and label the symbaloo as the specific conference, you have them handy all the time. I attended edcampindy this past month and established a symbaloo of the links everyone shared.  It was shared with the edcamp and now people can refer to it.

2. Develop a content specific webmix for your classes to refer to.  Let's say you teach history and you want your students to do some projects about the various topics you will focus upon.  You establish a symbaloo for each topic and drop in links... voila, your students are assigned that specific symbaloo, they find their materials here and stay on task.

3. Use it to collaborate with your colleagues.  Are you a department head?  Does your district have a collection of links and sites the teachers are encouraged to use for their planning?  You could collect the links from all of the teachers in your department and assemble a webmix for that purpose.

4. Blog collector/ organizer Do you have several blogs you read occasionally?  Have you come across some and think you can refer to it later?  I have bookmarked a lot of things in Diigo, but, I find it hard to sort my bookmarks.  You can use Symbaloo to sort your blogs.  Establish a webmix for each area of focus you look for.  (Mine for example would be:  Book reviews, EdTech, French, etc)  It would be easier to locate the bookmark this way.

These are just a few ideas.  I am certain after you look at the site and experiment a little, you will find some great ideas to make it work for you.  I know I am going to expand my webmixes.

Check out my webmix here:  hamiltonedtech

From the Archives: PD, Webinars and Web 2.0 tools

Let's face it, there are thousands of tools out there that can be used in the classroom, with kids or without, to make education better or worse, but, how on earth do we know what we should use and how to decide when to use it?  I have spent so many hours learning about things on my own until this past summer when I decided to embark on the free webinar.  I attended a lot of them and left with a huge amount of knowledge I wasn't expecting.  I decided my best bet is to share these fantastic sites with other educators so they might hop on board and try to dabble in the webinar method of professional development.
 So, let's look at some places that offer free and quality webinars.

SimpleK12.  First and foremost, SimpleK12 is a fantastic place to visit to learn about everything web 2.0.  The company has two methods to their use, first of all, everyone creates an account.  To access live webinars, you simply sign up using a free or paid version.  To access archived webinars, you must be a member.  Membership has a lot of perks, however.  You can get certificates for your attendance and access to thousands of free ebooks to assist you in the edtech journey.  I attended about 12 webinars through this site and folks, they get great people to do them.  I learned a lot about google, about polling sites, just to name a few.   They had a program called "A Day of Learning" that ran almost every Tuesday during the summer.  There were scads of free webinars those days. All of them are 30 minutes, you can usually join a few minutes before and stick around a little after to ask questions. I tried to attend as many as I could.  I am still registered for some upcoming ones, as the programs don't stop when school is in session.  This is a great site to check out.  It's worth the time because their webinars are great.

edweb.  Follett software company has donated to this organization.  It's set up a little like simplek12 with free webinars, etc.  But here, you join communities and find your lessons based on the communities you want to learn about.  Being a librarian, I have taken a lot of library webinars. The webinars are archived and you can access them after the fact. They run several series for educators that offer a lot of great services. Their speakers are often some that do simplek12 webinars as well.  I can honestly tell you, I have had nothing bad come from one of their webinars.  I have learned something in every one.

ASCD I can't lie, I have never taken one of their webinars but they have such an extensive collection that there has to be something for everyone. Most of them are geared toward administrators, but, as a teacher, it can't hurt to know policy and what's coming down the pipeline. They also have a massive archive of past webinars.

PBS Yes, the television station has webinars.  They offer an archive of classroom 2.0 techniques.  There are some good ideas here.

Eschoolnews I get a lot of email from eschoolnews but, sometimes a webinar pops up in the email.  I haven't tried one, but they exist and they are often free. Most of them are technology related.

Google Google has a training to be a google certified trainer.  You take the webinars at your own pace.  This is a great place to start if your district is adopting google for education as the platform.  There are hundreds of tools via google to use.  I am doing just the docs webinar.  It's six hours long but divided. Some are shorter.

Edmodo Last but not least, Edmodocon.  In August of each year, Edmodo has an online conference that teaches about edmodo.  If you can't make it, the conference is supposed to be archived.  It's a lot like a webinar.

This article just names a few places to attend free webinars.  There are a lot of other sites out there that offer similar opportunities. (Free online conferences, tutorials, web training, etc.)  A few suggestions: some send a lot of email.  You might set up a free account just for these sites.  Also, don't be afraid to ask questions.  Some places have archives and will send you links to see if you are interested in their site.  You might get a free webinar or two on a trial basis.