Social Media for Educators: Lesson Two

Click Home

Social Media for Educators

Lesson Two: Best Practices for What Matters Most
http://lone-eagles.com/social-lesson2.html

Return to Social Media Educators Home Page
http://lone-eagles.com/social.html

Required Submissions Checklist for Lesson Two:

_____ Read the lesson below and conduct the Blog activity; create a simple blog.

_____ Send your instructor a private message on what you have successfully created.

_____Contribute links and/or encouragement to one of our NING discussions.

_____ Send your instructor an email on what you have learned exploring the resources in this lesson.

Information Overload and “Less is More.”

If you read all the listserv postings, and looked at all the shared links and videos, reviewed all the new wiki pages and comments, and viewed the videos and comments posted in our Ning social media site, you might feel overwhelmed. If you didn’t, then you might well feel already intimidated before you’d even begun lesson one.

Having arrived at a teachable moment, please note you are not required to follow everything posted, your minimum for a Pass/Fail is clearly boxed at the top of each lesson. This IS a class on social media however, and while some have high interest and high capacity for keeping up, for many reasons, time and/or temperament, others differ and may have a lower tolerance for information overload. This is a developed skill, much like physical exercise. No Pain, No Gain?

We can agree to accept our differences, and that we can save time sharing opportunities to explore with those who share our interests, using social media tools smarter.

Information condenses to knowledge which condenses to wisdom, and VALUE is created in our age of Information overload.

What value on what topic as perceived by whom, relates to What Matters MOST – to you and yours.

To earn a living, you will be increasingly required to create value in our knowledge economy – perhaps in competition with a lot of other smart people.

A Blogging We Will Go?

A blog is a web-log – a linear list of our own writing with the option for others to praise your posted wisdom or to comment otherwise.

View the Blog web tour at

http://web2fork12classrooms.pbworks.com/w/page/13186097/Blogs%20Training%20and%20Educational%20Resources (recopied below)

A Hands-on Instruction to Blogs

Web Logs- called Blogs, number roughly over 20 million with 60 million people regularly reading blogs. There are many innovative educational and business models and applications. View the two short videos below to quickly understand how they work and how handy RSS can be.

Never have so many written so much to be read by so few.

VIEW these three minute introductory videos at the place to begin.

Video: Blogs in Plain English

Video: RSS in Plain English

An RSS reader is a software program that automatically collects blog posts from all the blogs you've subscribed to. Google discontinued their Google Reader in 2013. But you can google "RSS Readers" to find your options.

More such tutorials are at http://www.commoncraft.com/

What is a Widget?

http://www.widgets-gadgets.com/2007/08/what-is-web-widget.html

LESSON TASK:

If you don't already have a blog you need to create one; to promote your new skills and business (or to just play around with inserting videos, graphics, etc.)

It is important to "learn-by-doing" how fast and easy it is to create a blog as most social media tools are just as easy to create and use.

Blogger

https://www.blogger.com/start

BETTER BLOGS AT TUMBLER?

There is always something new and better popping up, and many people will tell you http://www.tumblr.com is better.
Visit the site and see why – for yourself.

Better means easier, in the age of info-overload.

Get a Google Gmail account (optional):

Go to Google.com and create a Gmail account (optional.) Why? A gmail account gives you access to all Google's tools, noting they have begun to focus more on resources for educators.

While some people go to blogs to read new postings and add their comments, most use RSS Readers to subscribe to the blogs they like, such that all new postings are neatly collected inside their RSS Reader for whenever they might like to read them.

Google has outstanding tools for educators http://google.com/edu and is suddenly buying up dozens of educational companies. Yes, you do need a google account, and all their tools will be integrated to increase efficiency. You’ll want to know about Google Docs – to easily share editable documents with your students, and Google Groups, to create private or public spaces for education, and Google Drive (cloud storage. ) As a Tech Leader, Google tools keep evolving so how to stay current is one way blogs are used.

Briefly look over the blog search engine (Techorati) and aggregator (Alltop)

Logically, someone will create service than condenses all the best blog posts by topic, and will intend to make some money doing so,
such as Guy Kawasaki's http://alltop.com blog aggregator.

One of the most popular Blog aggregator search tools is:

Technorati

http://technorati.com a search engine for blogs, get to know this site to become an expert in a hurry...
For resources and information on Blog search and Photo blogs and much more

How to Change the World

http://blog.guykawasaki.com

The Promise of Broadband?!

Broadband – ever faster because what we really want is less information, but of higher relevance and value.

Broadband can be slow and unreliable, using wireless, satellite, or phonelines, or it can be very fast and reliable, using microwave, cable, or fiber options. “Bandwidth” is the measure of how fast your broadband is. Much confusion has been the result of the use of this very general term. Most leaders can tell you exactly what broadband is – just ask them.

Instead of using the word broadband, use the term “connectedness” which begs the issue of who, what and why?

Your time is precious, most people want less information, but more targeted to their genuine needs. Most broadband is used for more TV, instead of better education. The history of new communications technology has been an initial focus on the potential for education, and then it becomes dominated by entertainment because that’s what people mostly will pay for.

BUT, new jobs won’t come from using broadband for more TV, unless it IS targeted Education.

VIEW this video!

How Web Video Powers Global Innovation

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html

(18 minutes)

Links in this broadband section are OPTIONAL.

$7 billion was given out for the ARRA rural broadband stimulus initiative called BTOP. Broadband Technology Opportunities Program.

Details and resource toolkits at www.broadbandusa.gov

Alaska Broadband Task Force
http://connectak.org

Lesson Feedback: Optional, but much appreciated.

You're invited to privately email your instructor:

       1. What areas, if any, did you have trouble with during this
            lesson?

       2. What questions remain now that you've finished this lesson?

       3. Approximately how much time did you devote to this lesson?

       4. What improvements would you like to suggest?

OPTIONAL RESOURCES

National Ed-Tech Standards:

ISTE NETS: www.iste.org
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)

Short Introductory Documents are at this site; NETS for students, teachers, and more.

21st Century Learning in Alaska

Alaska's Consortium for Digital Learning
http://web.mac.com/aasb.cdl/Consortium_for_Digital_Learning/Home_Page.html

Critical issues and 21^st century literacy

21st century 1 page article with links to a presentation, other articles, etc

http://web.mac.com/aasb.cdl/Consortium_for_Digital_Learning/21st_Century_Skills.html

Alaska's Apple 1:1 laptop program and Educator created videos

http://web.mac.com/aasb.cdl/Consortium_for_Digital_Learning/About_Digital_Learning.html

The New Literacy; 21^st Century Learning in Alaska
http://web.mac.com/aasb.cdl/Consortium_for_Digital_Learning/Home_Page_files/CriticalIssues-21stCenturySkillsWeb.pdf
six page report

National Partnership for 21^st Century Skills
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/index.php

21^st Century Skills, Education and Competitiveness; A Resources and Policy Guide
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/documents/21st_century_skills_education_and_competitiveness_guide.pdf
20 page report from the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills

Virtual Architecture, by Dr. Judi Harris
http://virtual-architecture.wm.edu/index.html
Teleactivities, and more.

MORE EXCEPTIONAL VIDEOS:

The Kevin Kelly video at http://ted.com (19 minutes) on the next 5000 days of the web

is a great example of what rural folks don’t know they need to know. 5000 Days link:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms - YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

You can easily search for more videos from Sir Ken Robinson.

Online Course Models to Review:

Conspiracy Code
http://www.360ed.com/Products/Conspiracy-Code-American-History/
An animated edutainment approach to teaching American History

Fast Track Math and Science Program in Ketchikan is using this curriculum:

http://www.education2020.com/ Take a Tour

Florida Virtual School Course Tours - one of the first and most successful virtual High Schools http://www.flvs.net/areas/flvscourses/Pages/CourseTours.aspx

McGraw Hill's Spark -Engaging Learning Management Environment

http://www.360ed.com/Products/McGraw-Hill-Spark

Steve Spangler Science – Easy Science Experiment Videos

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/video

MISC. Innovations of Interest:

Lone Eagle's online course innovations; 1988-2011

http://lone-eagles.com/online-innovations.html

Designing K12 Internet Instruction

1998-2010 Lone Eagle's discontinued course

http://lone-eagles.com/currmain1.htm

IPAD Classroom Application Videos and APPS

Skip Via's one transformed classroom video on Ipads for K-5