The Flipped Classroom

As an instructional tech facilitator my goal is to help teachers progress through the stages of technology adoption to get to the point at which they are using technology as a tool for learning, rather than using it as an add on to supplement traditional learning activities. To do that successfully, teachers must adjust their roles, moving from traditional teacher to learning coach or facilitator. Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams are a couple of innovative teachers who have developed an approach to teaching and learning known as The Flipped Classroom, which certainly supports the idea of teachers as learning coaches. 

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Edublogs Free Tools Challenge

The Free Tools Challenge is a great online professional development opportunity for busy teachers provided by Edublogs. Designed to help participants learn to use free Web 2.0 tools, this 30 day challenge encourages us all to try one new tool each week through challenge activities created by by guest bloggers. I got the opportunity to be a guest blogger for the challenge and the activitiy  I created,  Free Tools Challenge #25: Using Jog the Web in the 24/7 Classroom, was published earlier this week.

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Text Compactor: Simplify and Summarize Text

Text Compactor is a free online tool for summarizing and simplifying text. It is extremely user-friendly and requires no login so it's a perfect tool for students to add to their own toolkits of resources.

Just copy and paste some digital text into the box, use the slider to determine the percentage of text you want to end up with, and view the simplified text.

Use it as a tool to help struggling readers of all ages. Try it at textcompactor.com.

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JogTheWeb for Guided Student Learning

One of the best ways to use JogTheWeb is as a tool to create flexible, guided activities to help all students learn. It's easy to design a Jog for success if you set a goal of providing students with multiple ways to access and acquire information. Design your lessons to include video,  text written at a variety of reading levels, simulations and interactive websites then see if it makes a difference in the success of all students. Take a look at a very simple Jog I created, Let's Explore the Nervous System, to view multiple ways to present information to students.

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Tweet Topic Explorer

If you appreciate a good word cloud you might be eager to learn about a tool that creates a word cluster out of the information people post on Twitter, commonly referred to as tweets.


This word cluster identifies the most frequently used words tweeted and also groups them to show relationships. Although the sample of my tweets below is only an image, you go to the actual website then  click on any word to highlight it in the tweets.

View on Tweet Topic Explorer and try it

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Photosynth - Capture the World in 3D

Photosynth is a cool tool for capturing and viewing the world in 3D. This tool takes a series of photos and weaves them together to create a virtual tour. You and your students can explore the many photosynths already created simply by visiting the website, or create your own by signing up for an account.

Please enjoy this photosynth of the Chicago Skyline.


Try it for yourself at phyosynth.net

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10 Minutes of Tech for Busy Teachers

I used JogTheWeb to create a mixed-bag of quick tech tools for teachers to explore in ten minutes or less. All of the tools in this jog are extremely user-friendly, free and require no login. The tools are simple and versatile enough to assist in the teaching of just about any content to students of all ages. Ten minutes is all it will take to check out one of these tools and add it to your tech toolkit of resources.
10 Minutes of Tech for Busy Teachers

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Jog The Web

Jog The Web is a cool tool that allows users to assemble tidy packages of web content. For teachers it can be a tool for providing students with easy access to guided learning.

The websites within a Jog are live and can be explored right within the page frame, which solves problems related to students getting lost within multiple windows. Even better, Jog authors can annotate pages within the Jog and also create original pages with unique content.

This appears to be a very promising tool for education because it's user-friendly, engaging and interactive.

View Sample: A Jog for teachers, featuring several Web 2.0 tools
Using Glogster to Construct Knowledge

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Why Glog?

Glogster.edu is a cool tool for creating online multi-media posters that supports flexible learning paths. I created this glog to briefly introduce the concept of glogging to students. It includes a video that says it all, a glog of samples created by students and some simple directions to get you started. 

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Blogger: More Ways to Share

Blogger is always making changes. Recently I've discovered several 
newer options that make sharing your blog easier.  

• Share Buttons:
  You can add share buttons to the bottom of your posts so visitors can quickly share your post on one of their favorite social media sites, like Twitter or Facebook. This is a handy feature, but unfortunately the buttons are small and appear in gray scale. Maybe blogger will work on this. In the meantime, add these buttons by going to Design, then click on the Edit link in the Blog Posts box. Try the buttons for yourself at the bottom of this post.
  
• Follow by Email:
  This is a new gadget that allows visitors to quickly enter an email address into a box in the sidebar to receive automatic blog updates by email. When you add this gadget Blogger will walk you through the steps to get you up and running. See sample in the sidebar
  
• View Options:
  Everyone has a preferred method of viewing, and while I'm going to stick with the traditional web log format, it's nice to know your visitors can choose to view your blog in a variety of ways. To do this, simply add a backslash followed by the word view to your blog address. Modifying the address will take you to a new page with a variety of viewing options. As far as alternate views go, I am fond of the timeslide view. Here is an example:

My blog address: http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com
Alternate viewing options: http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/view/timeslide
Look in the upper right-hand corner of the new screen to switch views.

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Google Apps Aligned with Bloom's Taxonomy

Kathy Schrock, has aligned Google Apps with Bloom's Taxonomy. Please visit her site to access the amazing interactive map she has assembled, then submit a quick form to add your ideas and justifications for why you might have students use these tools in the respective cognitive areas in which they appear. Thanks Kathy!

Go to Kathy Schrock's Bloom's Revised Taxonomy page:

http://kathyschrock.net/googleblooms/

View live version, courtesy of Kathy Schrock
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide

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Wordle Flashback

Two years ago I was excited enough about Web 2.0 tools to actually start this blog. I started with Wordle, a simple word cloud generator. After all this time, I must admit I am still passionate about using Wordle. I find myself using it regularly in my teaching, even though several new word tag generators have evolved, including Taxedo, Tag Cloud, and the ever-popular WordPress rotating tag cloud.

Still, I love Wordle for it's simplicity. Just go to the Wordle website, type some text into a box, click a button and your text becomes a Word Cloud. Anyone can do it, but the real trick is in how it's used. After all, words that appear more frequently within the text appear larger in size within the word cloud.

Here are my top 3 favorite ways to use Wordle:

1. Copy and paste the text from a few good articles about a specific topic into Wordle to get the main ideas and vocabulary. Use it as a starting point for a lesson to help students construct knowledge.
2. Copy and paste student generated text into Wordle for self-analysis of writing. Words and phrases that are overused will jump out.
3. Wordle a current event topic, then use it to generate a classroom discussion.

My goal this week is to see if we can build on the Wordle ideas we started a long time ago. Please view the list of ideas and contribute ideas of your own.

• View Wordle Ideas
• Contribute Wordle Ideas
• Try Wordle 

This Blog, Wordled

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