WHS May Professional Development Series

Learning in a Networked World  Add to Planner

Wednesday, 5/9/2011 2:30pm-3:30pm (CHANGED) Where:                    Mac Lab Prerequisites: Connection to the Internet/MLTI Laptop Theme: Digital-age Teaching & Learning online—Literacies for the Information/Creativity Age Audience: Admin, Teachers, iTeam and interested students Skill: Beginner to Advanced NETS•S: 3- 5 NETS•T: 2- 5 NETS•A: 1- 3, 5 Keywords: web20found, networkedlearning, lms, literacies E-mail: tsteelemaley@svrsu.org Primary URL/Discussion: online resource site coming online                Purpose & ObjectivesPurpose of this session is:  introduce faculty and admin to WHS Canvas LMS. to provide examples, techniques and online resources for teachers to use in the classroom and in online spaces through the creation of a Personal Learning Network (PLN). Introduce current research/resources on digital literacies and citizenship Supporting Research Introduction to Canvas: Canvas K-12 Site Introduction Video: Canvas PLN Personal Lerning Networks for Educators: Video via Dr. Skip Via Follow Richard Byrne http://www.freetech4teachers.com/  Join: Classroom 2.0: http://www.classroom20.com/ Twitter in Plain English http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter  Brief and engaging video look at how Twitter works. Twittering not Frittering http://www.edutopia.org/twitter-professional-development-technology-microblogging  Explanation of how Twitter can be used as a professional development tool. TwittGroups ADE and Teachers http://twittgroups.com/groups/ade and http://twittgroups.com/groups/teachers  Listing of many Apple Distinguished Educators and Teachers who are using Twitter  Alan November, Web Literacy  Howard Rheingold, Crap Detection 101  Bud Hunt,  Lie of Community  Internet literacy is a hot media/govt topic... a sampling: Digital Literacy is important

What part of connected learning do we do well?

Connected Learning

The Essence of Connected Learning from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

We are living in a historical moment of transformation and realignment in the creation and sharing of knowledge, in social, political and economic life, and in global connectedness. There is wide agreement that we need new models of education suited to this historic moment, and not simply new models of schooling, but entirely new visions of learning better suited to the increasing complexity, connectivity, and velocity of our new knowledge society. Fortunately, we are also able to harness the same technologies and social processes that have powered these transformations in order to provide the next generation with learning experiences that open doors to academic achievement, economic opportunity, and civic engagement. Specifically, we now have the capability to reimagine where, when, and how learning takes place; to empower and motivate youth to pursue knowledge and develop expertise at a pace, to a degree, and on a path that takes advantage of their unique interests and potential; and to build on innovations across a growing spectrum of learning institutions able to support a range of learning experiences for youth that were unimaginable even 15 years ago. We propose a new approach to learning -- connected learning -- that is anchored in research, robust theories of learning, and the best of traditional standards, but also designed to mine the learning potential of the new social- and digital media domain. Connected learning is a model of learning that holds out the possibility of reimagining the experience of education in the information age. It draws on the power of today's technology to fuse young people's interests, friendships, and academic achievement through experiences laced with hands-on production, shared purpose, and open networks.

DML Central Connected Learning

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Great Google Docs Tips for Students

Great Google Docs Tips for Students

1. Access your documents from anywhere: Whether you’re in your dorm room or the school library, you can access your Google Docs. Take advantage of this to make it easy to do your work on-the-go.
2. Use Docs reference tools: Take advantage of the Define option to use Docs’ built in dictionary, as well as a thesaurus and an encyclopedia available for use right in your document.
3. Go mobile: Google Docs is available on most smart phones, and has a number of capabilities available on the go.
4. Save to different file types: You can easily save your documents and spreadsheets to commonly used file types like DOC, XLS, CSV, and HTML.
5. Use keyboard shortcuts: With keyboard shortcuts, you can speed through all of your tasks in Google Docs.
6. Use templates: Google Docs has a template gallery for just about anything you can imagine, from an apartment bills organizer to a doc for organizing college visits.
7. Convert PDFs to images and text: Use Google Docs to make PDFs easily editable.
8. Create forms: Gather research information, ask for opinions, and more by creating Forms in Google Docs.
9. Search EVERYTHING: Search through pretty much everything you’ve got by searching Docs and Gmail together, thanks to Gmail Labs settings.
10. Autodetect links: Simply add links in Google Docs by having them automatically detected, instead of having to input full URLs.
11. Adding video: You can embed video in documents, slides, and more to dress up your presentation.
12. Insert photos with drag and drop: Instead of going through the process of attaching, you can just drag and drop files from your hard drive into the document, then wrap text around the photo.
13. Create graphs: Visuals are great tools for getting your point across. Using charts in Google Spreadsheets, you can create your very own information-sharing graphs.
14. Look up live finance data: In Google Spreadsheet, you can use special formulas to pull live information from Google’s finance service.
15. Self-update spreadsheets: In addition to inserting live finance data, you can create a live link to that data for a document that constantly updates itself as accurate.
16. Draw in Docs: Using Polyline, snap to guides, and other drawing features, you can easily create the images your documents need.
17. Insert facts: Using Google Spreadsheet, it’s easy to insert facts, like the population for a city, which is simply pulled through the Google search engine.
18. Simply add equations: Google Docs has found a way to make it easy for students to take notes in class, offering an Equations editor for adding equations onto your pages.
19. Embed Docs anywhere: Get a link to your document or spreadsheet, and you can embed or publish it anywhere, including Facebook or a class blog.
20. Just share: Get the ball rolling on collaboration through Google Docs by sharing your document through email links.
21. Turn it into a webpage: Download your document in HTML, and you can share it as a webpage with a minimal amount of hassle.
22. Chat away: In Google Docs, you can see anyone who is currently editing the document, and if needed, send a message to chat with them.
23. Team up with anyone: Using Google Docs, you can collaborate on a document with friends, classmates, and professors.
24. Share an entire folder: If you’ve got a collection of documents to work on together, just open up a shared folder that everyone can access.
25. Work on documents all at the same time: Google Docs allows users to simultaneously work on a single master document, so you can come together with other team members and professors to work on a document at the same time.
26. Allow editing without signing in: If you’re sharing a document with classmates who don’t have a Google login, just make it available to edit without signing in.

1. Track visits: Using Google Analytics, you can track how much traffic a published document is receiving.
2. Set notification rules: Find out about the changes made by your collaborators on any given document by setting up notification rules.
3. Use Docs instead of emailing attachments: Rather than emailing revised versions of documents over and over again, you can just use Google docs and see revision histories.
4. Kick slackers off of a project: Simply remove collaborators doing more harm than good by clicking None next to their name.
5. Freeze to stop editing: If you’ve perfected certain rows and columns in your spreadsheet, just freeze them so they’re not accidentally edited.
6. Revert back to old versions: If your group doesn’t like a certain set of changes made, it’s very simple just to revert back to automatically saved previous versions in the revision history.
7. Save brainstorm notes for group projects: Get everyone’s ideas all together in one place by using Google Docs for brainstorming.
8. Use data validation: Make sure that your collaborators aren’t adding a mess to your spreadsheet by using data validation on shared documents.
9. Use color coding: You can change text colors based on rules, like setting green for one classmate, blue for another, and red for yourself.
10. Clean up your main Google Docs page: Move items to individual folders, and you can make your landing page a lot cleaner and easy to navigate.
11. Insert a bookmark: Make it easy to access other parts of your document, like a table of contents, by inserting bookmarks throughout.
12. Create subfolders: For an extra step of organization, create folders within folders.
13. Get color coded: Color code the names of your folders for quick and easy identification.
14. Get synched: Using tools like Syncplicity, you can get all of your Google Docs synched up with documents from Microsoft Office.
15. Create your own shortcuts: Put together shortcuts to launch Google Docs, create a new document, and even access frequently used documents in a flash.
16. Print multiple Docs at once: If you need to speed through printing several documents at one time, just download and open them as a zip file.
17. Quick View PDFs: When you see PDF files in search results, you can just Quick View them to open them up in Google Docs.
18. Check your translation work: Google Docs has added a translation tool, which can easily be used to double check your work when writing a foreign language essay.
19. Get a grade before you turn assignments in: Using Flubaroo on Google Docs, you can get quick feedback on your assignment, giving you a chance for improvement before you need to turn it in.
20. Write in full screen mode: Make your toolbar, menus, and other tempting distractions disappear by displaying your Google Docs in full screen.
21. Automatically correct your common mistakes: If you have words that you just can’t spell to save your life, set up a preference to automatically find and replace your mistakes with correctly spelled words.
22. Customize your styles: If you like a consistent look for your documents, set up a customized style so you don’t have to go back and fix it with every new document.
23. Work offline: Use the offline feature of Google Docs to work on the bus, plane, or anywhere you plan to go without an internet connection.
24. Save web pages to your Google Docs account: Turn any web page into a PDF for viewing later by using the send to Google Docs extension for Chrome.
25. Back it all up: Google Docs itself offers a great way to back up your documents, but it never hurts to save elsewhere, right? Back up and download all of your Google Documents and save them to a hard drive for safekeeping.
26. Use Google Docs for everyday stuff, too: You can use Google Docs to track expenses, maintain your calendar, and more.

Via Open Colleges

Web 2.0 Foundations Joins the Canvas Revolution

This week Web 2.0 Foundation students break the mold of online and blended learning. Canvas LMS has arrived at Wiscasset High School.

Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) is more than a LMS, its an ePortfolio Builder, Social Networking and PLN hub, Google Apps integration, mobile learning and much more. Teachers see the stats on Canvas LMS HERE. Students see some of what Canvas has to offer: http://www.instructure.com/students

W2.0F Week of 12 March 2012

Topic: The Power of Social Media
ISTE NETS S: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Welcome 

Tools now in USE: OpenClass, Google Apps (Including Docs, Blogger, Reader) Del.ico.us, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube and Vimeo (see tutorials and ask questions in the Q and A forum or if you would like F2F in learning lab!)

This Blog Post Schedule is cross posted from OpenClass!
Please ask questions in the comment form here!

Daily Schedule

Meeting discussion: Questions & Clarifications
Video Presentations
Discussion and deliberation: Kony2012 and the power of social media
PLN Research Tools and Tutorial
Always: Student Directed Action Projects (What do you want to do?)

Whats Due

PLN Updates (del.ico.us)-Daily
PLN Gadgets-Wednesday
Youtube or Vimeo Channel-Friday
Reflection Blog Post-Sunday

Review 

Delicious and RSS
You will want to follow and/or participate in the following tags including web2.0found (general), web2.0foundreadings (articles, audio, video), or (new!) web2.0foundtools (tech tools or info about tech tools). Also, by tagging blogposts, tweets (if you are using Twitter), videos (do you already have a Youtube Channel?), or really anything digital with web2.0found, we are then able to find relevant course content via Google Search, Google Alerts, or visual type search engines such as Spezify.

Blogging
You should now be posting regularly to your own blog with reflections about what you are learning in (or around) the course, in response to related tasks (including Relevant Reading reflection assignment (required once a week), audio, video, etc.) and interactions. You should also have now linked to at least the course participant blog bundle provided and have begun commenting on student posts.

A Reminder



Twitter
There are several students who have now connected via Twitter. I am hoping that the majority of students (if not all) will give Twitter a try for at least the duration of the course. Students in the past have found it to be conducive to better understanding the content of the course and building learning networks for their practice and professional development. We will formally go over Twitter next week.

Relevant Readings (Review)
In addition to relevant readings for the week I will suggest other weekly material (i.e., 'Media to Get You Thinking'), but those particular readings are not required. However, "reading" widely about the related topics and concepts (available through various media), reflecting on those readings, and sharing your knowledge via interactions (e.g., blog posts, Delicious postings, and Twitter interactions) should be seen as a core activity of this course.

Relevant Readings For this Week! (Social Media) (Due Sunday)
In your blog post respond to the questions using the readings below as a starting point and anything else you research:

• What are the new media literacies (including social networking) and how should young people use them for learning?
• How do you think social media helped the Kony2012 campaign reach people? What are some arguments for and against this phenomenon?

Readings 

Kony2012

• (A Students View) Kony2012 - The Hype, The Technology and The Success

• Unpacking Koney 2012

• #Kony2012 and Understanding Networked Symbolic Action (hint:”Slacktivism” is Conceptually Misleading)

• Teju Cole on Kony and the White Savior Industrial Complex    

  Invisible Children's Response to International Criticism 

  Social Media

• The New Media Literacies: Members of the research team at Project New Media Literacies discuss the social skills and cultural competencies needed to fully engage with today's participatory culture.

• Social Media in Plain English: Common Craft

• Social Networking in Plain English: Common Craft

PLN
You should be bookmarking and posting towards your PLN topics all week.  As a gauge, remember 5 annotated bookmarks and at least 4-5 posts per week (video's, images, writings, quotes....) are the norm for meeting expectation in Web 2.0 Foundations.  We will add Youtube this week so make sure you are being effective in your research.  We will discuss how Youtube or Vimeo can be used in place of a few of your Blogposts this week.

Tools of the week!

Video (Research, Fun) "Vimeo" or "Youtube" (Due Friday)

• http://www.vimeo.com/
• Vimeo Tutorial 1
• Vimeo Helpdesk
• http://www.youtube.com/ (Personal Google Email or Using FirstClass) 
• Youtube Tutorial

• Create and Account.
• Create a Channel.

 Building Your PLN: Blog with Gadgets (Due Wednesday)

We will discuss adding other gadgets to your Blog this week also.

Media to get you thinking
 

• Keynote Web 2.0 conference: Speaker: Clay Shirky

• The Kony Kerfuffl