great book!

I've started a new book that has me blown away, and I've only read the Table of Contents, Foreward, Introduction, About the Editors, and About the Contributors sections.  It's called What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media.  I follow both editors (Scott McLeod and Chris Lehmann) and several of the contributors on Twitter.  It's like I know these people already.

I found a couple statements in the Foreward and Introduction that left me shaking my head and saying, "Yah!  You're right!"  You know you're reading a good book when you respond out loud to something you've just read!!  Here are those statements:

• "We are rethinking the classroom and the definition of teacher, making transparent the boundaries that defined traditional education.  We are preparing for a new generation of learners within a new information environment for a future that we cannot clearly describe."  -David Warlick (p.vii)
• "Whether it is the expansion of social networking technologies, the power of digital media creation tools, or the ability to publish to the world instantly, our students and teachers have access to more information than ever before.  We all possess the ability to interact with learning networks much wider than at any other time in history.  We all now have the unprecedented ability to create powerful artifacts of learning.  It is an exciting time to be a teacher and a learner."  -Scott McLeod and Chris Lehmann (p.2)

After browsing through this book, I like that it has short chapters that are packed full of information.  It addresses a plethora of social media topics, and I can't wait to start reading.  Check out the book's Table of Contents and Author Information.  If your school doesn't have a copy of this book already, you definitely need to get it.  It appears to be a great starting point for those reluctant to use digital technology and social media.

I wish I could say I'm getting paid to give a shout-out to the following educators, but I'm really not.  Whether you're new to Twitter or an old pro, here are the editors and a few of the contributors in this book that you should really be following if you're not already:
Editors
Scott McLeod: @mcleod
Chris Lehmann: @chrislehmann
Contributors
Richard Byrne: @rmbyrne
Vicki Davis: @coolcatteacher
Karl Fisch: @karlfisch
Will Richardson: @willrich45
Joyce Valenza: @joycevalenza
David Warlick: @dwarlick

And, if you're an educator without a Twitter account...well, that's a whole new lecture that I'll save for another post!

I Symbaloo--do you?

We all know that feeling of being overwhelmed with 14 new websites and not a clue how to remember them.  I've tried adding them to my favorites, but somehow my favorites keep disappearing into cyber space.  When I find something I like on Twitter, I just click and add it to my Twitter favorites, or will email the link to myself.  I also have a Microsoft Word document with 8 pages of websites.  It's an organizational NIGHTMARE!

That's all changing, thanks to a new website I learned about recently--Symbaloo.  This is the ultimate way to organize websites, and the best part is that it's visually appealing!  Perfect for me!!  I can organize the resources in different folders by adding new tabs at the top of the page.  If you really want to be OCD about organizing, you can even color-code your resources!!

I love the idea of adding student websites to a Symbaloo account and adding it as your student's homepage.  Brilliant!

Apparently I'm a little behind the ball game, because here's a 2010 article I found about SymbalooEdu--a definite must-read!  I have a feeling I've only scratched the surface on this amazing educational (and personal) resource!

AdDiCtEd to QR codes!

This week QR codes hit the school when a 4th grade class embarked on a QR Code scavenger hunt.  Setting up this activity didn't take tons of time, and the students loved it.  They even want to create their own QR codes now!

Not sure about QR codes?  Check out the document I created for students before we began the hunt.  By the way, I couldn't figure out how to imbed video into issuu, so I just had to make hyperlinks to videos on pages 2 and 12 (by clicking on the words).

Open publication - Free publishing - More qr code

Creating the scavenger hunt was fairly easy thanks the time spent collaborating with the classroom teacher.  Bouncing ideas off each other definitely helped us work out all the kinks.  Then her student intern created 5 story problems for us to use.  Once we had these, I typed the problems in PowerPoint, added fun backgrounds, and saved them as JPEG images.  My biggest challenge was figuring out where to post each problem.  I finally created a new blog and uploaded each Math problem as a photo.  I used Kaywa to generate the codes.  This was the easy!!!  I then copied and pasted each code into a publisher document so I could print them and cut them out.

The logistics for the scavenger hunt were the hardest to figure out.  We decided that each station would have 2 codes for students to scan.  The first code was the problem they had to solve, and the second code told them where to find their new problem.  We also downloaded a PC QR code reader from QuickMark.  Each team had a laptop computer they carried from station to station to use when scanning the QR codes.  Here are examples of each:
Story problem
QR code location

On Monday when we had the scavenger hunt, we were fortunate to have our principal and district leaders come help us.  This allowed us two adults for each group of students.  The only issue some groups had was QuickMark kept freezing on us.

Now that we're addicted to QR codes, we have big plans for bringing more into the school by adding them to the inside of library books with links to book trailers and/or other student book reviews.  The 4th grade teacher I worked with also has other thoughts about implementing them in the classroom, and I can't wait to keep brainstorming ideas with her!

By the way, I found lots of good ideas and information about QR codes online.  Here are some of my favorites:
Steven Anderson's LiveBinder: QR Codes in Education
Gwyneth Jones has a couple great links on her blog, including QR Code At-a-Glance Comic Tutorial and QR Code Scanning for Parents.

Scan the QR code below for a link to a video about EDIBLE QR codes!

Did you know you can create QR codes in color?!?  I used QR Stuff's website.  Too cool!

Cool Tools for School

Here's my first great website find.  It's on issuu.com (which in itself is a FUN website for uploading presentations).  This is Cool Tools A-Z, and is an alphabetical listing of great resources for the classroom.  Click here for the Cool Tools.  This came from Jeremy Renner's website.  It's chalk full of great resources.  Check it out!

If you're like me, you like posters but don't have a drawing bone in your body.  Never fear, The Poster Maker website will help you create a poster in about 10 minutes.  You do have to sign up for this website, but it's free.  Go forth and create!  Click here for The Poster Maker.

This blog post was short and sweet tonight, but gives you plenty to explore.  Have a great week!

A new chapter...

In an attempt to share my knowledge about technology and books, I decided to start a new blog dedicated to ideas, standards connections, and more.  But, you'll still find my random thoughts weaved into each post.  I'm excited to start this new chapter in my blogging adventures!  Stay tuned in the next couple days for my first topic: QR Codes.

Here's what I learned to do this weekend--embed something in my blog!  The glitter text came from a flash glitter text generator website.  Too much fun!  By the way, if you stumbled upon my blog by scanning a QR code from a mobile device, you might not be able to see the flashing glitter text below.  It says "Read."