NCCE 2014 just wrapped and a constant theme throughout the conference was the idea of being connected.  Connections are key to any successful person, but in many professions the connections are automatically put in place.  Think of any CEO of any company in America.  They have a board to guide them and staff to fill specific tasks and to be experts in one piece of the overall company.  I was really struck by this during my surreal time in the Rose Parade.  Watching a successful company work an event of this magnitude really opened my eyes to the built in connection structure of business.  There were handlers to make sure people were where they needed to be, people coordinating drivers to pick up and drop off, publicists to shape the messages going out in real time, social media people tweeting and facebooking, and the list went on and on.  All of these connections were prebuilt to make sure that the company and everyone involved was successful. Now contrast that with being a classroom teacher.  Think if the classroom had all those built in connections.  The reality of teaching is, from morning bell to the end of the day, sometimes it feels like  you are on your own.   Unfortunately not as many connections are built into the traditional school model. That system has created the isolation many teachers feel everyday. Thankfully, technology can play a role in solving this problem.  Participating with other teachers online, building connections, asking questions, pushing yourself to be better: This is all possible through social networking.  By connecting with other teachers you start to build a network of people to push, give ideas, collaborate with, help, and inspire you.  Networks are the key to breaking the feeling of isolation. So how do you jump in?  This is a common question and I will answer with an invitation.  Montana educators are in their fourth week of a Twitter Educational Chat.  I can vouch for the group and tell you they are an amazing group of educators who care about their profession, the students they teach, and helping  others in the group maximize their potential.  The group meets on Tuesday’s at 8:00 pm MST for one hour.  You can view all the past sessions to get a sense of the discussions and the people active in the group at https://sites.google.com/site/mtedchat/  The hour is broke down into five questions with about 10 min per question for people to respond, share, evolve. The next question/statement: But I am not on Twitter?  I have two options for you: #1 You don’t have to be on Twitter,  just go to https://sites.google.com/site/mtedchat/ and watch.  The drawback is you won’t be able to join the conversation, but the amazing part is you will get to see everyone’s thoughts and will learn something new that you can use in your classroom.  Don’t get caught up in the fact that you haven’t explored Twitter yet, just watch and learn. #2 Go to Twitter (On the WEB or download the app iOS, Android), Sign up for an account.  PRO Tip: Give some thought to your username (aka Handle).  Mitt Ray wrote a great post on some things to think about when choosing a Twitter Username.  Once you have your account setup go to Tweetchat.com to join the #mtedchat.  Tweetchat a great website that will make participation much easier.  Make sure you login on the upper right hand side of the screen.  Once logged in, type the hashtag #mtedchat in the upper left hand corner.  This will show all the Tweets that people have added the hashtag #mtedchat to somewhere within the tweet.  Tweetchat has a pause feature to help if the rush of tweets starts to come too fast.  Don’t worry about reading everything, just read what you can.  You will see the first question has a Q1 at the start and then people answering Q1 will start their tweet with A1 (Answer to question 1).  This patter will repeat through Q5.  Look for @mikegusto and send a tweet like: @mikegusto This is my first #mtedchat You had me at Connected Educator! Below is a screenshot of Tweetchat with a recap of the information you just read: You do not have to feel isolated in your classroom.  This is just one of many ways to fight the disease.  It is a difficult time to be a teacher, but you are not alone.  I am inspired and reinvigorated about my profession every time I take part in an ed chat.  I hope to see you Tuesday 8pm MST… I have a lot to learn from you. As always share your comments and thought below…  

Jason and I are excited that we are starting to receive some questions from our readers.  Remember, at the very top of the page there is a link entitled "Ask a Tech Savvy Teacher".  Clicking on that link will bring you to a form where you can submit your question.  We have some additional questions we will be wrapping together in our next Ask a Tech Savvy Teacher podcast.  We love being able to help, so please keep the questions coming.  On to the question….drum roll please: Why do people start tweets with a period?   Great question!  This trend has become more common place in 2014.  The answer requires a bit of background so bear with me: When you start a tweet with a users hashtag, Twitter interprets that tweet as a reply to the user.  For instance: @techsavvyteach is a great Twitter handle In this statement I want to proclaim this vital piece of information to ALL my followers. The problem is Twitter is interpreting this tweet as a reply t0 Jason.  Twitter will only show this tweet in people’s streams that have followed both Jason and myself, not all of my followers.  (AKA: Common Followers)  So to make this proclamation to everyone of my followers I have to add a period in the front.  And now you just became a little more Tech Savvy.    

Today’s post is a gift for Mac users that follow our blog.  Have you ever had a bunch of picture you needed converted to .jpeg format?  If so, I have small program that will take a folder of different picture files and automatically convert them all to .jpeg file and build a folder on your desktop to put them all in.  I used a program on the Mac called Automator.  If you like tinkering with things, Automator is a fun way to make some basic tasks automatic.  This is a great program to show students.  Share the link above with them and set them loose.  If you just want the function of converting many picture files at once into the .jpeg format, download the Automator program to your desktop.  Once downloaded and unzipped, you just need to drag the folder of pictures you would like to convert to the Automator icon and the rest will happen, well, automatically. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/529536/Covert%20to%20Jpeg.app.zip  

Microsoft announced this week that OneNote, the note-taking and information-gathering application, is now available for free on all platforms, including the newly-released OSX version. The news was met with a positive response from Mac users, vaulting the application to the top of the Mac App store. As you may know, the Tech-Savvy Teachers are devoted Evernote fans.  We presented twice on the topic at NCCE 2014 in Seattle, and have covered the software a number of times on the blog. However, with this new, value-priced edition to the marketplace, OneNote seems positioned to become a value alternative to Evernote.  OneNote is as cross-platform as Evernote, available on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.  OneNote integrates well with the Microsoft suite of tools, still the dominate player in office software across all platforms.  For teachers in districts with a heavy Microsoft preference, this might be an easier sell than allowing installation of a third party application (although, to be clear, there is practically no risk in adopting and using Evernote!). Mike and I are keeping a close eye on this platform and have started looking at some of our recommendations and training materials to see if OneNote can stand up to the incredible function of the Evernote platform.  Stay tuned.  :)

Hello from beautiful Eureka, Montana, just minutes away from the US-Canada border! I am here today to facilitate workshops at "Eureka! It’s A Google Fest" presented by Rob "Rocket Rob" Reynolds and the rest of the fabulous staff at Lincoln County High School.  Rob is Montana’s local Google Guru and has been preaching to the world about Google Apps, Chromebooks and Androids before those concepts were cool. I am humbled to be amongst a group of excellent presenters, including Wisconsin phenoms Michael Jabber and Dan Sitter, Beyond the Chalk‘s Jeff Crews and Dean Phillips (who was constantly confused for Mike at NCCE in Seattle… Dean is the one with Google Glass on… ) and Eurkea’s own Rocket Rob, Heather Dunn, and Angela Price. I am presenting three times today, and wanted to share my slide decks and a little of my angle.  I certainly do not need to be talked into the power of Google tools and, in particular, the Google Apps for Education suite.  However, I have been challenging myself lately to stop saying "technology is great!" and instead, talk about what you can do with technology, i.e., "technology is great for building world-changing widgets." Here are my presentations and slide decks: Presentation Zen: Google Style Inspired by the excellent work of Garr Reynolds, I take a stab at crafting simple, effective slide deck techniques using Google Presentations. I like the simplicity of Google Presentations and argue that the simple interface actually advantages those looking for clean, effective presentations. We have ChromeBooks!  Yay!  Now what??! I am now asked several times a month from teachers, "I have been stuck with these Chromebooks… any suggestions what to do with it?"  The Chromebook can be an awesome way to provide a good, scalable experience to students in a 1:1 environment but requires you evolve your expectations and integration practice to utilize this platform’s strengths.  This is my first presentation with my picks for the best tools you can adopt in a Chrome-only world. Up Your Assessment Game with Google! Similar to a number of talks I have given over the past year, I take on the notion of how a teacher can utilize Google tools to increase their effective classroom assessment practice. I am excited to be part of this event in a school district and region that embraces technology as an empowering force to help students change the world. Check out the tweets today at #googlefest… I know I will be on Twitter! If you are interested in these or other trainings in your district, contact NCCE to discuss bringing a tech-savvy teacher to your district! Thanks to Team Eureka for being excellent hosts!

The CUE conference just occurred last weekend and I wanted to use this space to summarize some of the information I gained through this conference.  It is important to understand that I wasn’t in Palm Springs this past weekend, I was in Montana. (Apparently I prefer arctic weather).  We now live in a time were we don’t necessarily need to be physically present at a conference to gain knowledge, we just have to be connected.  I  used Storify to grab a few tweets from the conference that I thought most of you would find valuable.  In addition, Mary Jo Madda wrote a great article for Edsurge about some highlights of the conference for her. Enjoy!   [View the story "CUE conference" on Storify]

We have featured Chelsie Jolley, a teacher in Stillwater, Minnesota, previously on the NCCE blog.  She has also written a guest post on this blog about geocaching with her students. Chelsie was recently featured in a video promoting the educational foundation in her district for writing grant proposals to bring geocaching technology to her classroom.  The two minute video is nothing short of amazing as you can see her students engaged in some amazing activities outdoors with technology: I am particularly interested in Chelsie’s story here.  She was first introduced to geocaching at the NCCE conference in Portland.  Inspired by the technology, she has, year after year, honed her craft to bring a wonderfully engaging platform to her primary classroom.  The ultimately result is inspired students.  That’s why technology can be so powerful: if it inspires you to think differently about teaching, learning or engaging, the ultimately winners are our students. Enjoy.

John Vaille, PSESD Assistant Superintendent/Chief Technology Officer, named CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking) Volunteer of the Year Award 2014 Winner John is the CTO at Puget Sound ESD in Washington and one of the leading champions of CoSN’s CETL certification program. As co-chair of the Certification Governing Committee, the body that oversees the program, he has dedicated countless hours to ensuring that our certification is rigorous, fair, and up-to-date. He has also built community among CTOs in the Northwest by organizing and managing CETL study groups, including a new one online. John’s volunteer commitment and spirit of innovation have been critical to CoSN’s work. Congratulations John from the entire NCCE community on your well deserved honor!

I presented a session on Twitter 101 for educators a few weeks ago at NCCE 2014.  This post is the evolution of that initial presentation.  One attendee of that session was Matt Rosenberg @MattRosenberg3. From my presentation he just created a great YouTube video building off of his learning to share with his followers.  Meanwhile, Peter, a reader of our blog, posted to the Ask a Tech Savvy Teacher section: "I’ve heard about the many promising uses of Twitter, signed up a long time ago, and every now and then am reminded by Twitter users that I should be embracing it, but I still don’t "get it". Can you recommend any good resources so I can fully/finally understand its appeal and uses. Interested in both the "big picture" WHY I want to use it, and the "nuts and bolts" HOW to make it work." This is a great example of how we can all work together to increase our collective knowledge.  By being an educator that is willing to share, ask questions, and seek new knowledge, the sky’s the limit for the learning opportunities we can provide children.  Thank you Peter for being willing to ask for more information and to Matt for creating a great online resource.  Bringing educators together is what NCCE is all about and I am so happy with how today’s post came out of collaboration.  Here is Matt’s video and to all of our readers, keep the questions coming and let us know if you create a resource for others we can share in this space.

I had a wonderful time a few weeks back in Eureka, Montana for their GoogleFest!  I met so many great teachers and Google users and I was very inspired to continue looking for ways to integrate more Google tools into my program’s workflow. I did receive a great question during a workshop sectional from a Columbia Falls teacher that is worth discussing in detail.  She uses Google Drive documents in her middle school language arts curriculum to create a back-and-forth workflow between her and students.  She currently has students share each document with her directly using the Drive sharing settings.  This works, but, is creating a massive number of documents in her main folder, creating an organizational headache.  She asked… "what can I do to make this less chaotic?" There are a number of ways you could approach this, but, my suggestion was to set up a share folder with each student and have them drop in their assignments when complete.  Depending on the tech-savvy of your students, you could either set this up yourself, or have students set up the folder and share back with you. Option 1: YOU Create Dropboxes for Your Students Creating dropboxes for your students is easy, but, will take a little setup.  Essentially, you are going to create a folder for each student and share each folder with your student directly.  When a student drops a file and/or assignment into that folder, it will be shared back with you automatically.  Nifty, huh? Step 1: Create the folder Pro tip: To help keep this process organized, you can nest these folders by period and/or subject.  In this case, I have created a folder called "Period 1," and then "Student, Sally - English I Share" for my English I class for Sally student: Step 2: Share the folder Start by right-clicking the folder, then:  Enter the student’s email address and allow "can edit."   Press send! At this point, the student will be able to log into their account and see the folder under "Shared with me:"   Now, all a student has to do is drag-and-drop documents into that shared folder and they will be automatically shared with the teacher with editing rights!  No additional sharing is required. This option is best if your students are new to Google Drive or if you don’t mind investing an hour or so of time to make it "just work" for your students. Option 2: Your Students Create a Dropbox FOR YOU The other option is to have your students create a dropbox and share it with you.  You will have less ability to decide on naming conventions, etc., but, it means you can accomplish this with a quick 10-minute lesson to start a class and then some time to clean up and organize. That’s it! There are other ways to accomplish the sharing tasks and if you have a preferred method, hit us up in the comments below. Happy cloud computing!