Using Twitter Hashtags to Connect with Other Educators

Ever wonder how to connect with other educators who have the same interests as you?

You're a 2nd grade teacher in a small school and you have some 2nd grade questions.  Where do you turn?

You're a high school social studies teacher and you want to look for new ways to engage students in your subject.  Where do you turn?

There is a whole world of resources out there for the connected educator.  You can read articles or follow blogs but you will get the most out of direct interaction.  Twitter may be your resource.

I will assume that you know something about Twitter and Tweetchats.

• R U Following Education Tweet Chats (March 2, 2014)
• 9 Steps for Successfully Engaging in the #IAedchat (June 7, 2014)

What astounded me was when I found a directory Education Tweet Chats that was posted by Cybrary Man.    Not only are there hundreds of chats listed, it is organized by the day and time when they meet weekly.  It is an unbelievable resource.

Moreover, the hashtags that are used for the weekly tweetchats are wonderful ways to find other people with similar interests during the week.  You can use these hashtags to find others with your interests, or share ideas/resources that you think others in your field will enjoy.

Did you know that there are hashtags for each grade?  If you are a 2nd grade teacher and you want to see what other 2nd grade teachers are posting on Twitter, you just need to search for #2ndchat

If you want to connect with other Social Studies teachers, you just need to search for #sslap (Social Studies Teacher-Like-a-Pirate) or #sschat (Social Studies Teacher Chat).

What do you do?  How do you use Twitter to connect/discover with distant colleagues?
Which Tweet Chats do you find the most helpful?

Please share your ideas and hashtags with our other readers.

Z

Preparing Future Teachers to be Connected Educators

Friends,

pixabay.com

I have a challenge and I am turning to my PLN to try to address it.

As you know, I teach Instructional Technology at the University of Northern Iowa.  We teach both undergraduate (future teachers) and graduate (present teachers) about how to use technology to support learning.  It is much more than technology.  It is about building a mindset to use teaching/learning strategies that optimize the opportunities available through technology.

We need to develop Connected Educators.  Our undergraduates are connected through social media, but they don't see how this can be used for a professional purpose.  They are unaccustomed to connecting with people around the world to learn from other practitioners.

Our challenge: We are trying to trying to develop learning activities where they will actually engage with other educators through social media. It has to be something more than connecting with other students in the class because they see them face-to-face a couple of times per week. It needs to be more than following hashtags.  Experiencing a globally collaborative project is good, but I am looking at changing a mindset. It needs to be something where they are experiencing this type of connection in such a way that it carries on into their professional lives.

This is where I am calling upon the greater knowledge base of the many. YOU.

What do you do with your students and teachers?  How do you, as a connected educator, connect with other professionals as part of your daily routine.  What are some suggestions that you might have for activities/experiences that we might use with our future and present teachers to foster them toward being Connected Educators?

Thank you for your response.

Leigh Zeitz

Please forward this to your colleagues or others you believe would have an idea about this.

Gaming to Learn: Research Meets Classroom Practice

Today is the University of Northern Iowa College of Education's Education Summit.  

I was invited to talk about gaming in the classroom at this conference.  It was a great opportunity to discuss the topic with about 20 people.  These educators ranged from 19 - 60+ years of age.  It was a strong discussion with many points of view shared.

Below is an embedded version of my presentation.   The Youtube links should also work. Please contact me if they don't work for you. 

If you want to contact me, please leave a comment below or email me at zeitz@uni.edu

Gaming to Learn: Research Meets Classroom Practice from Leigh Zeitz

The Educational Background Behind Gaming - Part 1

It's NOT about the Games.  It's about the Gaming.

Creative Commons: UltraCommunications.com

I like to introduce my university students to Gaming in the Classroom. It is not aboutplaying games but rather about the opportunities and engagement that students experience when they are learning through a gaming framework.  

I would like to share with you the introductory sequence that I use in introducing this.  I would also like to share how I challenge my students to play a specific game for a while and then reflect on the process.  

ALERT:  Next week I will share the responses, reflections and insights that my students develop from this experience.

Did you know that in 2011:

• 65% of US households play video games?
• Almost 1/2 of the video gamers are adults < 49 years old?
• The average gamer is 32?
• 2 out of 5 gamers are women?

Gaming is not a fad. Video gaming is a way of life. Gaming is an activity that provides sufficient positive feedback to cause players to exclude all else. It is challenging enough to entice gamers to continually attempt to beat their last score.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if school was like gaming? Where students would be so motivated by their learning activities that they would get up early and stay up late to engage themselves in the learning process.

Our understanding of learning has taken a HUGE leap forward in recent years.  It is time that we were Rethinking Learning with the 21st Century Learner.  This video explores how we need to rethink our students' learning experiences to best fit their interests and learning preferences.  This video includes interviews with John Seely Brown (discusses how today's learners are gamers to the core),  Nichole Pinkard, Diana Rhoten, Mimi Ito (Lead Researcher for the Digital Youth Project); Katie Salen (Executive Director of The New School for Design); and Henry Jenkins (Media Guru). 



Is it about playing the game or getting involved in something that is rewarding and challenging.  Maybe it has something to do with "getting into the flow of things . . . "

Flow - The Psychology of the Optimal Experience

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Chick-sent-me-hi) has studied states of "optimal experience" for over two decades. He is exploring the conditions and attitudes that engage people's concentration and attention to the point of total absorption. He calls this state of consciousness Flow.  In this state of attention, learners are at their most receptive level.

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi discusses his theory of Flow in this 5-minute video. 
It is the primary introduction to the Flow concept. He further explains its application to education in this short interview on Edutopia.org:  Motivating People to Learn.

9 Characteristics of Flow have been identified. Learn these characteristics so that you can later relate them to the apparent aspects of gaming and learning.
Pay careful attention to this concept of Flow because while it may seem like "good common sense," it is an underlying principle of learning.
Gaming's Elements Make for Good Learning
Gaming is a directional process where the player is guided towards a selected goal through positive and negative reinforcement. Isn't that similar to a good learning situation? How does that relate to the 9 characteristics of Flow?

Read this posting which discusses a list of 8 characteristics of Gaming. Relate these to those of Flow. What similarities do you see? What distinctions?  You will also find a video of a leading gaming researcher, Dr. James Paul Gee.  Watch this video and correlate it with the connections we have been discussing.

Gaming in Your REAL Life

Gaming is the basis of living and learning.  When you do something correctly, you are rewarded.  When you faultier, you fail.  It's about how you interact with the world. Before you can explore how you would do this in the classroom, you need to know something about how it works in your life.  Seth Priebatsch and Jesse Schell share some interesting ideas about how Gaming appears as a layer in your real life.  Read this posting and watch these two videos to get a new perspective on how you are gaming on a daily basis. 

If you are interested in really applying gaming to your real life, Explore Chore Wars.  It is a quest game where you can claim experience points for housework.

Consider your present concepts about gaming. Have they changed in the past 24 hours? If so, what have you realized?  How does this affect your perspective as a trainer, teacher, educator?

Using Gaming Practices to Improve Learning
In this 10-minute video, Paul Anderson explains how he reinvented his course to make it a gaming learning experience. Pay attention to the insights that he shares about the elements of active student-centered learning environments.

 
 

Time for Real Gaming

In my university class, Using Digital and Social Media, I challenge my students to apply what they have just learned.  These resources have identified how the gaming and learning are two sides of the same coin so I want them to play a game and then reflect on what connections they are seeing.

Another benefit for this homework is that my students get to tell their roommates/friends/ siblings/parents/children that they get to play Kingdom Rush for 3 hours for homework.

Tune in Next Week

I will share with you the gaming reflections that my students generate as well as some educational perspectives that I add to the mix.

5 Question Structures to Improve Higher-Order Thinking

Looking to improve the discussions in your class so that they are engaging your students in Higher-Order Thinking?  Here is an InfoGraphic that I found on the Four O'Clock Faculty website.  It has a number of great ideas.  I especially like the Question Flooding idea.  It involves your students generating as many questions as come to mind about the topic at hand.

At first, I was thinking "How can I write fast enough to get all of those questions written down so we can discussion them?"  Further consideration brought me to the realization that this should be a student centric process.  Just getting the flow of ideas is enough to kindle the fire of examination.  Field the questions and then go back to them to see which ones stuck out in your students' minds.  Another idea would be to have your students post them in the cloud through Tweeting (with a specific hashtag) or entering the questions into a Google Doc or Padlet or Etherpad.

Which one makes the most sense to you?  Do you have any ideas that you would add to these 5 question structures?

TERRORISM: How to Talk to Your Students, Say This, Do Not Say . . .

http://www.jackstreet.com/jackstreet/WECM.Berkowitz.cfm

In this ever-changing world we need to consider how to talk with our students about terrorism.  Not only must we deal with what is coming through the media, but we must also discuss with our students the possibility of that happening in our own schools.

Recently, Vicki Davis (CoolCatTeacher) interviewed Dr. Steven Berkowitz at the University of Pennsylvania about how teachers can respond to this.

Click here to listen to Vicki's 11-minute discussion about Terrorism.

Is this your future classroom? Does this represent your future vision of Education?

This is a student film festival award winner.  It shows some great special effects and portrays some cool technological possibilities, but is this how you envision the classroom of the future?  The teacher is still at the front and the students are following his/her lead.   Is that what we want?

What are your thoughts?

ISTE Webinar: Global Collaboration in Higher Education resources

Click here to access the recording of the hour-long webinar

The ISTE Global Collaboration PLN webinar that we presented tonight was a HUGE success.  After Anne Mirtshin introduced us, David Stoloff and I began the webinar at 7:00 pm CST with a single member of the audience.  The purpose of this webinar was to explore how Global Collaboration is and can be used in higher education.  I provided the introduction and shared some of the experiences I have had in teaching students from around the world and having them collaborate with learners on the other side of the globe.
Dr. Stoloff shared the many global collaboration projects that he has been doing over the years and provided an introduction to the Connecticut-Taiwan connection that he is presently doing with his undergraduate teacher education students.

David has been working with a professor in Taiwan, Julie Chen.  His intention was for them to to share their experiences as a team, but he has been unable to contact Julie for a couple of weeks and didn't plan on her joining him for the event.  HOOORAY!!!!  About half way through, Julie arrived in our ZoomRoom and they were able to share their experiences and discoveries.  As the evening progressed, our audience increased and it was a great experience for all.

Enjoy the recording of the presentation above and you can review the slideshows below. The website used for Dr. Chen's presentation is the dCCU-ECSU global connections website. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Slideshows Used in the Webinar

Created by Leigh Zeitz

ISTE Webinar: Global Collaboration in Higher Education from Leigh Zeitz

Created by Dr. Julie Chen 

Global Connections between First Year Undergraduates in Taiwan and Connecticut from Leigh Zeitz

Global Collaboration in Higher Education: An ISTE Webinar presented by Dr. Z and Friends - Wed @ 7 PM CST

Date: 12/9/2015

Time:
--Wed at 7 pm in Iowa (CST)
--Wed at 8 pm on the East Coast (EST)
--Thurs at 9 am in Taipei
Please, check your local time at: http://tinyurl.com/ISTEGCwebinarDec

Join:
Dr. David Stoloff (Eastern Connecticut State University)
Dr. Julie Chen (Chinese Culture University - Taiwan)
Dr. Leigh Zeitz (University of Northern Iowa)

Session Description:
Join our exploration into the wonderful world of Global Collaboration in Higher Education. as they explore the present and future of Global Collaboration in Higher Education.

Leigh Zeitz will serve as discussant to this project presentation. He will begin with an overview of global collaboration in higher education, explore the types of projects that might be completed as well as share some of his experiences with Global Collaboration across the globe.

Julie Chen and David Stoloff will then discuss their on-going transcontinental project where 1st semester undergraduates are collaborating between Chinese Culture University (Taiwan) and Eastern Connecticut State University.  They will share their successes and challenges as well as plans for the future.  This presentation will use these resources eCCU-ECSU Global Connections. It includes a short video and  a powerpoint presentation.  Undergraduates at these two institutions will be encouraged to share their experiences following the presentation.

Ample time will be reserved for an online discussion on expanding global collaboration for university classrooms.

Session plan:

0:00 - 0:15  Introduction to Collaborative Learning in Higher Education by Leigh Zeitz
0:16 - 0:45 Discussion of the Chinese Culture University - Eastern Connecticut State           University Global Collaboration experience.  
0:46 - 1:00  Questions about the Collaboration Experience and an opportunity for attendees to share their experiences.

Access the Video Conference through   http://tinyurl.com/z-zoomroom

• You will be asked to download a small program to run Zoom.  After you have downloaded it, DON’T run Zoom.  Return to your browser and go to http://tinyurl.com/z-zoomroom again.  It will take you directly to our meeting room.

• Please use your first and last name followed by your province/state and Country

World's Slowest Rube Goldberg Contraption - a REAL Learning Experience.

Rube Goldberg Contraptions are defined as "a series of chain reactions designed to accomplish a simple task."  These are incredibly fun and always include a good dose of mirth.  Notice that there is nothing that says anything about the length of time this contraption will take to accomplish the task.  

I just found a video about the slowest and longest Goldberg contraption (Thank you, Marcy Seavey).  This contraption involves all of the slowest materials that you can imagine. It involves a tortoise, a stream of molasses, melting popsicles, and even growing grass that pushes the golf ball along to its destination. 

Below I have included a video of this contraption running from beginning to end.  No, it is not a 6-week YouTube video.  It is carefully parsed and includes time-lapsed photography that takes you from the beginning to the end in 3 minutes.

Wasn't that amazing?  Below is a Behind the Scenes video of how Bob Partington conceptualized and created this sluggish invention.


Wouldn't this be fun to do?  What else would you include to create a slower contraption?

Z

11+ Apps to Organize Your Life

This fall I was invited to speak at The Way Up Conference 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa.  This is an organization that is engaged in "Developing Women Leaders to Enhance Iowa Higher Education."

I have spoken there twice before and it is quite an experience.  First off, this conference is completely women.  It is fascinating to listen to the woman's perspective on how things are happening in the world. It is enlightening to hear women discuss their experiences in leadership.

Anyway, I was asked to share something about using technology to benefit professional lives.  After I ruminated a little, I decided to share apps that they might find handy in organizing their lives.  This proposal was accepted and I will be discussing it Thursday, November 6.

This session will be replete with firsts. This will be the first time that I have spoken on using phone apps.  I will be using Google Presenter for my slides - that's a first.  I will be running sharing my phone on the screen and controlling everything from my phone - another first.  Whether I will be directly connected or wifi connected to the projecting computer will depend upon how the wifi and other technologies are configured tomorrow.

While I am going to be suggesting apps that they might find useful, I don't want it to be a show-and-tell.  I want it to be more of a show-and-share.   While I have been doing oodles of research on this presentation, I am by no means an expert on organizational apps.  I plan to begin with sharing about what their phones can already do with Siri and/or Google Now.

To begin with, there are definitely more than 11 apps.  I used that number when I proposed it because I had no idea how many I would find.  At last count, there were 34 apps to be discussed. For the sake of organization, I have identified 9 areas of organizational tools.  I will be sharing suggested apps in each of these.  As I explore each of these areas, I will share what I know and ask the attendees to share their favorites as well.

The Question is "How can we capture all of these ideas for the future?"

tinyurl.com/AppsOrganize

I have answered this ominous question with a Google Doc.  I have aptly named it 11+ Apps for Organizing Your Life with Your Phone. This document contains all of the apps and resources that I will be sharing.  It will also be open for public editing so that the participants will be able to add their own suggestions or add the great ideas that they hear in the room from other people.   This way, if any of the attendees want to follow up on these apps, the information is there for them to use.

You can find my elaborate slideshow at:  11+ Apps to Organize Your Life

• If you attended, please leave a comment about your opinion of the presentation.
• If you didn't attend, please visit the Resource Page to find, read about and add apps to the collection.  Tell us what you did in a comment below.

Thanks,

Z

Building Innovative Thinking through Rube Goldberg Invention

Innovation is what separates the winners from the losers - Steve Jobs.

How do we foster innovative thinking in our students?  Do it through invention. 

Today I have the opportunity to share my ideas and experiences with doing just that. I will work with educators at the Iowa Technology and Education Connection conference in Des Moines.  It should be a rocking event.

Here are some of the materials I used and the resources I have consulted for this presentation.   Some of the materials I will be covering are also covered in previous Dr. Z Reflects postings so you will find some links at the bottom of this post.

Innovative Thinking Presentation on Slide Share

Rube Goldberg-Related Resources:

• Videos - Shown before the presentation.
• OK Go - This Too Shall Pass
• Gold Rush
• The Page Turner
• Rube Playing Bach in the Forest
• Invent Tomorrow Links - List of the links I used sharing Rube Goldberg resources.
• Rube Goldberg Ideas video - List of videos that you can use to give your students ideas about the simple machines that create an invention.
• Video version of this lecture at K-12 Online Conference - This is a 20-minute version of this presentation that I submitted to the K-12 Online Conference.
• Nationalacademies - STEM Integration in K-12 Education - GREAT 4 minute video!!
• StemAdvantage.org - Good source for STEM Stats
• TeachThought - Incredible Education Blog 
• Difference between Projects and Project-Based Learning
• Buck Institute for Education -  Leading resource for Problem-Based Learning
• Rube Goldberg Inc. -  The company that supports Rube Goldberg projects.
• Purdue University 2014 Rube Goldberg Winners - See how University students create "Complex Chain Reactions to Achieve Simple Tasks."

Have You Seen the Taxonomy of Global Connection?

In their 2012 book, Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis created a Taxonomy of Global Connection that shows a hierarchy of 5 different levels of online interaction.  It begins with connecting students in a class using Web 2.0 tools and ends with students managing their own global connections with other learners across the world. 

The interesting part of this hierarchy is that it isn't just about the technology.  It has multiple strands of complexity:

• Geographic Location: This strand begins within the classroom and then extends into the school/district and finally traverses the globe.
• Project Management: The second strand involves who is in control of the interactions.  The bottom two levels are local interactions controlled by the classroom teacher.  The middle level involves an online global collaborative experience that is managed by an external educator or group of educators.  The top two levels involve student-to-student connections in an effort to achieve agreed upon goals.  Level 4 is managed by teachers who manage, facilitate and monitor the project as well as managing the timeline.  Level 5 uses teachers as facilitators but the students are actually running this peer-to-peer project.

This is a fascinating way to look at global learning.  How does it fit your collaborative projects or your idea of how global collaborative projects should be organized?

Z

Iowa Education Hashtags

How do we contact the educators in Iowa?

• We could email them, but we would need all of their email addresses.
• We could send them post cards, but that is costly.
• We could text them, but we would have to know their phone numbers.
• We could tweet them, but then we they would all have to be following our twitter persona (i.e., @zeitz)

BUT WAIT!  THAT'S NOT TRUE!!

They would hear our short but important messages if they were following Iowa-Specific Twitter Hashtags.

It's easy, it's quick and it segments specific sectors of people . . . It's PERFECT!!!

The other day I was trying to find Iowa Education specific hashtags when I realized that I didn't have to do this alone. There are thousands of Twitter-using educators in Iowa who could help me.

I created a Google Doc (editable by anyone with the link), Iowa Education Hashtags.  I then created a tweet asking colleagues to help me create this collection of hashtags. I tweeted it a couple of times and the content began to grow.

Presently, the list looks like the one that is below, but it is growing.  Please visit it, Iowa Education Hashtags, and add any that Iowa-specific Education Hashtags that you might know.  Please include your name and the URL of a website that might be linked to the hashtag.

Thanks.

Z

Here is a snapshot of the Hashtags on the Iowa Education Hashtags site.  Take a look to see what the updated list includes:

Similar Job Types

#IowaTL - Iowa Association of School Librarians (http://www.iasl-ia.org/)
#IACoPI - Iowa Communities of Practice on Blended Learning
#Iowa1to1 - 1:1 in Iowa
#iaedldr - Iowa Administrators
#ialegis - Iowa Legislature - @jasonellingson

Iowa Specific Topics

#IAEDFuture - Future Plans describing ideas after the Iowa Education Summit
#iowacore - Iowa Core Standards
#iowaaiw - Authentic Intellectual Work - @jasonellingson
#iacomped - Iowa Competency-Based Education - @jasonellingson
#iaedreform - Iowa Ed Reform - @jasonellingson
#NoBullyIA - used before/after the bullying summit - @jasonellingson
#SBAC - SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium - @jasonellingson
#iastem - Iowa’s STEM initiative - @jasonellingson
#iowa1to1 - 1:1 schools in Iowa
#iowatl - Iowa teacher-librarians - i.e. @scsdmedia

AEA Hashtags

#gpaea - Great Prairie AEA - @sethdenney
#gwaea - Grant Wood AEA - @sethdenney
#plaea - Prairie Lakes AEA - @jasonellingson
#nwaea - NW AEA
#aeatech - Iowa AEA instructional technology consultants - @sethdenney https://sites.google.com/a/gwaea.org/aea-statewide-technology-integration/

Specific Schools/Districts

#BCLUW - BCLUW school district
#VanMeter - Van Meter School District
#2020HowardWinn - Howard Winneshiek School District
#Westmonona - West Monona school district -@techytweecher
#soloncsd - Solon Community Schools
#newellfonda--Newell-Fonda School District

Iowa Technology Organizations

#itec - Iowa Technology and Education Connection - @sethdenney  (http://itec-ia.org)


ALERT:  Here is a GREAT schedule of Education TweetChats across the country.  
It is created by CyberMan.  He is an AMAZING educators who has catalogued everything.  

Can you add any hashtags?

The Benefits of Blogging in the Elementary Classroom

This is a wonderful 4-minute video by Linda Yollis and her 2nd/3rd grade students provides a realistic examination of how blogging in your classroom can turn writing projects into communication projects.   

Mrs. Yollis shares how she has used it to change how she is teaching and her students share what they are learning.  I especially like how the students talk about how they rate their comments on other people's postings.  They rate them using 1 or 2.  The 1 comment responds to the posting but the 2 comment asks questions and continue with the discussion.

I know that I will be using this in my Using Digital and Social Media class.  What about you?  Is it benefiting your blog use?

Z

Please respond with a 2-type comment below.

Opening Day for Educators at the Iowa Lakes Community College

I have the privilege sharing some ideas with about 80 educators at the Iowa Lakes Community College today.  Should be an exciting time.

This was originally organized as a lecture, but I have requested that everyone bring their own computers or smart phones or that the college supply laptops so that it will be a hands-on experience.  My strategy is not to tell them about using technology to support learning but to actually have them take collaborative notes, share their discussions from group work, analyze data collected through a Google Form, Blog, video conference and even video capture with the new YouTube Capture app.

Ths is the full slideshow which is stored on Slideshare.com

Taking a New Look at Learning from Leigh Zeitz

Here is a list of resources used in the workshop.  It is a collaborative notetaking document so much of the materials will have been added during the workshop.

Inspirational Videos to Get You Ready to Start the New Year!

TEACHERS, IT'S HERE!!!!

The new school year is here and 

                                       we are set to blow the doors off!

I was prepping for a class when a tweet crossed my screen that lead me to this inspirational video with Jeff Goldstein.  They turned his words into a musical creation (how did they do that?) that is quite moving.   

We've Got to be that Light - A Gift to American Teachers
A message from Jeff Goldstein about who teachers are and what is important.


I'm a Teacher: An Educator's Anthem
This is an inspiring video with a catchy tune.


A Salute to Teachers
The GLOBE program provides this thank you to teachers like you.  

 Have a WONDERFUL SCHOOL YEAR, EDUCATORS!!! 

 You DO Make a Difference!!! 

Dr. Z

The Anatomy of a 21st Century Classroom

We have talked about the differences between 20th and 21st century classrooms, but here is a chart that describes the anatomy of a 21st century classroom.  You will see that it is divided into the 4 C's of the Partnership for a 21st Century work suggests plus Research.

You will also notice that this chart separates the roles of teachers versus students.

What do you think?  Does this do an admirable job of describing the anatomy or do you have something to add?

http://gahs-math.wikispaces.com/page/diff/21st+Century+Skills/158840901

Google Apps and Collaboration Presentations at Iowa Central Community College

I have the wonderful opportunity to provide a few workshops at the Iowa Central Community College faculty conference called Tools for Teaching (T4T).

I have two sets of workshops that I will be presenting.

Dr. Z's Creative Cookbook for Collaborative Learning workshop - This is a workshop where we will be reviewing what it means to learn collaboratively and then explore tools and strategies for making it happen in the classroom.

Here is the Slideshow that I used in this workshop:

Dr. Z's Creative Cookbook for Collaborative Learning from Leigh Zeitz

Google Apps in the Classroom workshop - This workshop will cover a variety of apps that we can use to improve the Learning and Teaching experience for Students and Teachers.  It is difficult to identify the proper tools to introduce, because there is a wide and varying range of skill levels in this faculty.  I hope that it will be a mind-blowing revelation for those who don't have much experience with Google Tools and an interesting mind-expanding experience for those who already use these tools with their students.  Most importantly, I hope that I learn something from my attendees that I will be able to use in my future teaching.

Here is the list of Resources used with the workshop.  This is an open, interactive Google Doc so it will include information beyond what Dr. Z originally posted.

Here is the Slideshow that I used in this workshop:

Google Apps in the Classroom from Leigh Zeitz

I would love to receive your feedback in the comments below or share it using the icons below.

Z

5 Unique Google Apps that You Haven't Seen . . . yet.

It is amazing what Google is continually innovating. As if it is not enough for them to create revolutionary ways to organize, access and create data, they are constantly pushing the envelope with new inventions.  You should review this WHOLE page before enjoying the videos to learn about what can happen in the World of Google.

Gmail Tap


Gmail Motion


Gmail Blue


Gmail Nose


Gmail Fiber

These are AMAZING applications.  They are creative, thoughtful and probably FAKE.  (I told you to Review This WHOLE page before enjoying the videos.  =-)

Z

Dr. Z Has Gone Pink!!!

You know, Angela Maiers says that when you engage in social media at least 30% of it should be personal.  Including the personal part in your blog provides an opportunity for your readers to see who you are and what you do.

Here It Is!!!  Time for RAGBRAI!!!

Every year I get together with 20,000 of my best friends who I haven't met yet and we ride our bikes across Iowa in a week.  This is called RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa).   The route varies each year but it is a great way to see Iowa.  This year the route is 462 miles. 

This is my 13th year.  It is an annual extravaganza that is too exciting and fun for words.  I find that riding RAGBRAI provides a great sense of accomplishment so that what I confront the rest of the year doesn't seem so daunting.

I ride with Team Flamingo.  I am Z-Bird.  It is a great group of friends who train all spring to get ready for this trip.  As you can tell, we really get into the Pink Flamingo thing.  If you go to our website you will see some pretty scary pictures.

I just wanted to tell you that life involves more than using technology to support learning.  Life is filled with opportunities to do new things and confront new challenges and meet new people who interestingly become part of your life.

Go out and do something CRAZY this week.  Maybe I will see you on the RAGBRAI road.

Developing Innovation through Invention

While I was at the ISTE conference in Philadelphia last month, I had the opportunity to meet with Bob Greenberg who recorded a few minutes of me talking about how we might integrate this into our classrooms. This is the basis for the presentation I shared at ISTE on using Rube Goldberg in the Classroom to teach STEM with our students.

Bob Greenberg's Brainwaves Video Anthology

Bob Greenberg has been recording a number of education leaders for his Brainwaves Video Anthology.  These recordings include discussions with leaders in education like Alan Kay, Sir Ken Robinson, David Jakes, Vicki Davis, Julie Lindsey, Yong Zhao, Noam Chomsky, Robert Sternberg, Nicholas Negroponte, Tony Wagner, Linda Darling-Hammond - The liste is endless. 

Watch a couple of these videos and share them with your friends.  Share in our comments what you learned while watching them discuss their ideas.

Z