Reach Out and Read has a Prescription for Success Prescription for Success toolkit graphic. Boy reading a book between a library shelf. Reach Out and Read is pleased to announce the launch of our Prescription for Success Toolkit, designed to support collaborations between libraries, museums, and Reach Out and Read program sites, natural partners that have a collective impact on the lives of young children. - See more at: http://blog.imls.gov/?p=5942#sthash.5kIi6u0l.dpuf Stephen

Jeff sits down with Jason Valade from Techsmith Education to discuss how easy it is for teachers to be Screencasting in the Classroom for their students. In this video, Jason shows several great reasons for creating screencasts for the classroom. Learn how educators across the country are using video to transform teaching with flipping, project-based learning, and to get more choices in how they teach. Join former educator Jason Valade as he provides inspirational ways to teach more effectively and enrich experiences in and out of the classroom, including an introduction to popular video creation tool Camtasia. About Techsmith Education Based in Okemos, Michigan, TechSmith provides over 180 countries around the world with screen capture and recording software for individual and professional use. We’ve made it our goal to give you tools that work just like you do, across multiple devices and locations. Our desktop products, such as Snagit, Camtasia, TechSmith Relay, and Morae, make it easy to create compelling, polished content you can share with anyone. Paired along with our mobile apps and integrations we’re helping people collaborate and share across different devices and make sure you can be productive wherever you are. By constantly listening to customers and innovating new ways to solve technology challenges, TechSmith has moved to the front of the visual communication field. Now more than 200 employees strong, TechSmith develops a variety of applications that narrow communication gaps through images, video, online hosting, and remote usability testing. TechSmith has always helped you make great images and videos to communicate your ideas. Now we’re making a new commitment: to help you collaborate and share across your different devices and make sure you can be productive wherever you are. Links of interest www.Techsmith.com @TechsmithEDU Jason Valade, Customer Success Manager, TechSmith In Jason’s six years as an educator, he continuously tried out new digital tools in his classroom. Now Jason brings his expertise to TechSmith, showing instructors how to use technology to transform the way they teach, and the way students learn.   Thank You For Your Podcast Reviews Are you enjoying Educational Podcasting Today or other shows on the TeacherCast Network, please share your thoughts with the world by commenting on iTunes today.  I enjoy reading and sharing your comments on the podcast each week. Ask Me Your Podcasting or WordPress Question Are you interested in starting your own podcast? Do you need help creating an awesome WordPress website?  I am available for 1:1 consulting.  Please visit my homepage and I will help you launch your personal brand today! Contact Me Host: Jeff Bradbury @TeacherCast Email: info@teachercast.net Voice Mail: http://www.TeacherCast.net/voicemail YouTube: http://www.TeacherCast.net/YouTube iTunes: http://www.TeacherCast.net/iTunes Check Out More TeacherCast Programming TeacherCast Podcast (http://www.teachercast.net/tcp) TeacherCast App Spotlight (http://www.teachercast.net/appspotlight) Educational Podcasting Today (http://www.educationalpodcasting.today) The TechEducator Podcast (http://www.techeducatorpodcast.com) View LIVE Professional Development from TeacherCast Watch LIVE: http://www.TeacherCast.tv | Broadcasting Schedule (http://www.teachercast.net/showcal) TeacherCast Broadcasting Community: http://www.TeacherCast.net/broadcastingcommunity Need a Presenter? Jeff Bradbury (@TeacherCast) is available as a Keynote Speaker, Presenter, or to Broadcast your conference LIVE!

In week three of the Tinkering Fundamentals online course we made Scribble Bots! They are machines with drawing tools for legs and they can create fascinating works of art! We also explored how learning is possible through tinkering and play. Check out what I created!We first watched a few videos on student interaction and how to design an activity for scribble bots. Here are a few of my takeaways:An activity like Scribble Bots can really allow students' creativity to shine. It also allows for variability  in design and your students can end up with a wide range of bots!A simple and effective way to limit students to a designated workspace is to use hula-hoops.As a facilitator of the learning, we should draw attention to the small changes being made. Small changes can often lead to bigger impacts on the design.This type of activity requires dexterity which can lead some students to become easily frustrated, but we must try to let those frustrations play out. Frustration can sometimes lead to bigger breakthroughs!"The process of becoming stuck and then unstuck is the heart of tinkering." (from "It Looks Like Fun, But Are They Learning?")Activity Sharing: Scribble BotsFor week three we created Scribble Machines! This activity is all about creativity & iteration. I was given the basic necessities: markers, a motor, a battery, and a glue stick (for use as a counter weight). The rest of the materials were up to me and the goal was to design and build a Scribble Machine out of a variety of materials and in different ways.I started with an empty soda can (cause I like to drink soda). After attaching the motor and battery to the top of the can and testing it, I noticed that it rattled a lot. The motor would skip off the top of the can as it was running, causing all the noise. To dampen the noise I came up with the brilliant idea of placing a piece of paper towel underneath.Paper towel to reduce vibration.This greatly reduced the shaking of the motor and the noise (I was working on this late at night and didn’t want to wake my baby!). I gave the machine three marker legs and put it to the test. It worked b-e-a-utifully and created a circular design on the paper! The markers would hop and skip as the machine moved, creating dotted lines along the way. I wonder if the circular design was because of the shape of the container?Because we were encouraged to try different containers and designs, I also tried out this activity with an empty baby formula container (I’ve got plenty of these laying around!). After attaching the motor and battery to the top, I noticed the same issue with the rattling, so I stuck the paper towel underneath the motor again. Because of the rectangular shape of the container, I also decided to give it four marker legs this time instead of three. This scribble machine stayed on a rather straight path so I had to nudge it around a few times on the paper to create the design below. What I found intriguing about this machine is that every time I tested it, the markers would do something different. You’ll notice in the picture that the markers would sometimes create more solid lines, and other times would create dotted lines.Reflection: which learning dimensions and indicators from the framework are easy to see, and which are harder to pinpoint or recognize?For this weeks reflection, we had to refer to The Tinkering Studio's Learning Dimensions Framework.Easiest to See: Offering explanation for a strategy, tool, or outcome I believe the easiest indicator on the framework to spot is the student’s ability to offer explanation. Explanations of a strategy, or a tool, or an outcome can be achieved through conversation, group discussion,reflection, and journaling.Most difficult to See: Displaying motivation or investment through affect or behavior I think the most difficult indicator to detect might be a student’s ability to display motivation or investment. This can be described as show a variety of emotions. But if you’ve worked with children, then you might understand how it can be difficult to read their emotions sometimes. Motivation might often be displayed through emotion, but not always. A student can be invested in their project, but they don’t necessarily have to display it through joy and excitement. A teacher must sometimes employ other methods for determining a student’s motivation, if this is the case.We also had to find two other answers on the forum and respond to them as well.Reflection by John FredericksI feel for our fixed mindset students that persisting towards their goal in the face of setbacks can be a problem.  Disagreeing with strategies of others in a constructive way can be difficult for my high school students.  Connecting to prior knowledge is somewhat difficult for my high school students.The positive aspects of this program totally outweigh the above paragraph.  My high school students love hands on projects and I feel even if they couldn't figure something out with this project they would try a different method.  When it comes to roadblocks in academic subjects they are not willing to take as many risks.My response: I'll be teaching a class of middle and high school students for the first time this school year (we start in about 2 weeks), and lucky enough, the course is called "Make It 101"! I'm excited, but also nervous, to be working with older students. And I fear the exact problems you mention: fixed mindset, constructive disagreement, connecting prior knowledge. But I hope my students have chosen this elective course because they have an interest in making and tinkering and come with an open mind and ideas of their own, willing to share.Reflection by Diana RendinaI think that engagement is probably the learning dimension that is easiest to see.  For me, it is obvious when a student is deeply engaged in what they're working on.  Development of understanding is probably the hardest one for me to recognize.  Sometimes I'll see students working in our makerspace and it will look like they're fooling around and not really trying to be creative.  But then I'll come back later and they'll be working on an amazing project - they just needed that goofing off time to figure out their ideas.My Response: As teachers, we often confuse the "organized chaos" and the playful attitudes as distractions and being off task. But, we need to realize that this is exactly what our students need. Some students thrive on the chaotic (but organized) nature of the environment: the noise, the bustling, and all the activity. Maybe this is why our students like to visit the coffee shop to study sometimes. They also need the opportunity to be playful and to play. They need time to connect with their classmates, to have a friendly conversation about the weekend. This "goofing off" allows them to build stronger connections and relationships with their peers so they can get to the real work!Share with me: What's your take on the Learning Dimensions Framework? Do you see this as a valuable tool in your MakerEd classroom?

Well folks, the summer sun is setting quickly and the school year is rapidly approaching. If you’re like me, you most likely did not accomplish everything you set out to do during the summer…I never seem to finish my list! If updating your classroom decorations with posters/printables customized for your students is on your list, […] The post Create Classroom Decorations with Canva appeared first on Teaching with Technology.

There were plenty of intriguing juxtapositions for teacher-trainer-learners to observe and absorb last week while attending the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC)  98th Annual Conference here in San Francisco—not the least of which was differing attitudes expressed toward serving audiences onsite and online. It’s a familiar and sometimes far-from-necessary either-or dilemma that exists in many of our contemporary venues—e.g., printed vs. online publication, onsite vs. online learning, onsite vs. online communities and collaboration—and often ignores the idea that looking for ways to blend those two proffered choices into something much more far-reaching and magnificent is sometimes (but not always) possible. The context for the first of the two stimulating panel discussions was the topic "Who Will Serve the Civic Communication Needs of Cities?: Legacy Media, New Media and Community Discourse in Urban Life," while the second, "The Experiment: Stopping All Print and Moving a College Newsroom Over to Medium and Twitter," offered the compelling story of how a journalism instructor and her students transformed an unread print publication into an online multi-platform publication reaching a global audience. Given the difference in focus—Civic Communication focused on the roles journalism plays in fostering community at a local level, particularly in urban metropolitan areas, while The Experiment was a success story drawing upon lessons learned by staff of the community college newspaper at Mt. San Antonio College in Southern California—there was plenty to be considered for those of us interested in contemporary journalism as well as for those of us committed to providing first-rate training-teaching-learning opportunities to those we serve. Civic Communication was a spirited conversation involving moderator Gary Gumpert (Urban Communication Foundation) and five other panelists (Chris Barr, Knight Foundation; H. Iris Chyi, University of Texas at Austin; Sharon Dunwoody, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Peter Gade, Gaylord College; and Jan Schaffer, American University), so there was far from complete agreement. There was, however, a strong foundation laid during the initial parts of the conversation suggesting that media outlets are making a huge mistake if they ignore the power print publications play in fostering community—particularly at that mid-level metropolitan newspaper level of operation. Among the concerns mentioned by panelists were the short duration of visits to newspaper websites (4.4 minutes); research showing that information read online doesn’t stick with us the same way information read in printed publications does; and an overall sense that online content is "inferior" to printed content—what Chyi referred to as the equivalent of Ramen Noodles as opposed to more nutritious products. Others on the panel suggested that the whole concept of "mass media" needs to be rethought as our online resources provide access to powerful niches well worth serving within markets/communities. Media today, one suggested, are networked, social, connective, and niche; the quality of the audience is every bit as important as the idea of reaching a mass audience—all of which suggests that journalists need a new "knowledge base" that allows them to engage with members of the communities they serve and to foster citizen participation within those communities. It’s a theme with parallels in our training-teaching-learning environments: we continue to seek ways to engage learners and foster learner-centric, learner-driven engagement that produces positive results within local, regional, national, and global communities through our blended onsite-online interactions. Moving to the conversation within the Mt. San Antonio College session, we heard instructor Toni Albertson and student journalists Albert Serna, Talin Hakopyan, and Jennifer Sandy describe how they responded to their target audience’s preference for online rather than printed publications by taking the campus paper online across a variety of platforms—and how that affected their approach to identifying and covering newsworthy events. Creating "sac.media: College news without the ink," the student journalists took on a newly-found enthusiasm for what they did, covering a variety of issues, including how journalism itself is taught and fostered. They also carried their publication across platforms including Medium, Twitter (through @SAConScene), and YouTube so they could give each story the attention and platform they felt it deserved. They also were—and remain—innovative in reaching out to their target audience: when promoting stories they believe are significant, each staff member identifies 12 potential readers who might be interested in that story, then uses Twitter to reach out to those readers—a nice echo of the Civic Communication panel discussion about the need for journalists to more directly engage with members of their communities. The result, according to Nieman Lab writer Dan Reimold, is "one of the most daring college media outlets in the United States." And if any of us manages to learn from and be inspired by what those Mt. San Antonio college colleagues are doing, perhaps our own writing-training-teaching-learning efforts will be the better for our having encountered them.

When someone talks about actually having several thousand people come to class, I’m all ears—as I was again last weekend while serving on a panel discussion on the closing day of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC)  98th Annual Conference here in San Francisco. The conversation, built around the question of how massive open online courses (MOOCs) are changing universities, gave moderator Amanda Sturgill (Elon University School of Communications) and the four of us serving as panelists a wonderful opportunity to explore, with session attendees, some of the pleasures and challenges of designing and facilitating these still-evolving learning opportunities. Each of the four of us—my colleagues on the panel included David Carlson (University of Florida College School of Journalism and Communications), Daniel Heimpel (University of California, Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy), and Bozena Mierzejewska (Fordham University Gabelli School of Business)—has had hands-on experience with designing and facilitating MOOCs. Each of us, with little discussion, agreed that we see MOOCs augmenting rather than posing a threat to higher education. We acknowledged that preparing for a MOOC is a time-consuming, intense experience requiring plenty of collaboration and coordination of efforts. And we seemed to be in agreement that a MOOC can be means to an end: a MOOC on journalism for social change, for example, engages learners as journalists whose work has the possibility of being published, and a MOOC on educational technology and media engages trainer-teacher-learners in the act of learning about ed-tech by exploring and using ed-tech while ultimately (and unexpectedly) leading to a sustainable community of learning that continues to evolve long after the formal coursework ends. But perhaps the most meaningful observations were those that took us to the heart of why we are engaged in designing, delivering, and promoting MOOCs: we became teacher-trainer-learners because we want to help people, and MOOCs are a great way to achieve that goal if learners have access to the content and if they are supported in learning how to learn in our online environments. Furthermore, MOOCs provide additional ways to meet the ever-growing lifelong-learning needs so many of us encounter. As each of us discussed projects in which we have been involved, we and our audience members gained a deeper appreciation for the variety of explorations currently underway. Heimpel, for example, brought a couple of his own somewhat overlapping worlds together to the benefit of learners in his solutions-based journalism course, Journalism for Social Change, earlier this year. Combining the platform he has through UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy with his role as publisher at The Chronicle of Social Change, he was able to nurture course participants in their explorations of a specific social issue (child abuse) while providing publication opportunities for those whose work reached professional levels. Mierzejewska, in her position at Fordham, had an entirely different opportunity: the chance to work with colleagues at four other academic institutions (Autonomous University of the State of Mexico, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Simon Fraser University, and Stanford University) in an Open Knowledge: Changing the Course of Global Learning MOOC while creating something that another of my colleagues (Jeff Merrell, at Northwestern University) has been exploring—a MOOC that has its expected online presence along with onsite interactions among some of the learners. Her preliminary report online is a fabulous case study of what this type of blended learning produces; it includes her up-front observation that being involved in the MOOC "was actually very inspiring and eye-opening to what students can learn online only and how you can enrich those experiences with classes that are flipped." Carlson was our resident rock star with his description of what went into the making and delivery of his Music’s Big Bang: The Genesis of Rock ‘n’ Roll MOOC that attracted 30,000 registrations and brought several thousand of those potential learners into his virtual classroom. He mentioned challenges that many of us face—producing engaging videos, having to coordinate his efforts with a variety of colleagues to bring a massive undertaking of that nature to fruition, and the attention to detail required while making videos (e.g., if videos shot on different days were later edited together, obvious discontinuities such as the fact that he was wearing different outfits or had hair that changed in length from shot to shot became obvious). But while all of us in that room last weekend might have laughed together over the small challenges of clothing changes and changing hair lengths, few of us could have walked away thinking MOOCs were any less than an important and still growing part of our learning landscape—one with tremendous potential to augment our short- and long-term learning opportunities for willing and able to explore them.

The first website I put up there for English learners was ugly. The colors didn’t work. The icons were generic. And the copy didn’t excite. But it worked. And over time, my website evolved into what it is now. I’ve made lots of small and big changes along the way. It will never be ... The post Creating Your First Website: The Tools to Use and What to Include appeared first on Teaching ESL Online.

Interested in teaching online? Creating an online training course and offering it for sale is a great way to bring your expertise to life and make money from it. The most challenging part of the course development phase can often be getting started. You may have dozens of course ideas dancing in your mind before you even begin writing, making you unsure about where to begin, what to share, and how. Follow this 3-step approach to convert your ideas and expertise into marketable courses. Step 1: Decide on a topic The first step of writing an online course is selecting the most appropriate topic. A precise course topic helps you determine a particular section of a subject to cover in your course. For example, a web development expert doesn’t have to write a course that covers every aspect of web development, which can range from web page design to communication with a backend database. Pick a focused, well-defined topic for a course. You can always create additional courses to expand your course offerings. Many people find it easier to create and manage short courses. Step 2: Answer these questions After you’ve finalized the course topic, it’s time to prepare a draft of your course. Before you start researching and gathering up the training material, answer these questions: What are you trying to achieve through this course? Determine the depth of knowledge you are planning to deliver to online learners. Is your course providing an overview or high-level understanding of the subject matter, or do you want to provide in-depth knowledge? What format? Simple PDF training or a full-fledged online course or perhaps a webinar? The breadth of your content and the teaching styles you use rely heavily on the course format. Who will be taking this course? Who’s your audience? Are they students, experienced professionals, skilled workers, or people trying to start a new career? What is your students’ knowledge level? Beginner, intermediate, advanced What will be the most difficult concept? How can you make it easier to understand? Can you add real-life experiences and scenarios to make the training relevant to the real world? How can you measure learners’ understanding? What sort of questions should you ask? What are learners expected to do at the end of the training? For example, identify the architecture of computing, discuss different types of cloud applications, etc. These questions may be daunting at first, but they provide a solid foundation on which to build an online course. You’ll be ready to craft a framework for your course, organize course topics and content in a logical order, identify the additional material needed, and select the best learning experience to meet the desired learning outcomes. Brainstorm different concepts as you seek answers for these questions and jot them all down. Then select the most relevant thoughts and organize them into levels of difficulty. This process will also help create a complete course outline. Step 3: Design the course. After the brainstorming session, it’s time to get started laying out the course. This phase is twofold. If you already have the course content written, you can start by writing a short course description, dividing your content into lessons and/or modules, and developing the learning objectives to go along with each section. During this phase, you need to decide which content would go in the course’s slides and the elements that can go well with the content. For example, images, audio, and video can help reinforce and potentially take the place of text. Interactive elements such as activity and game templates generate interest. Assessments give students feedback on how they are doing and can help correct misconceptions. Also consider what content should be presented as support material or job aids. If you are building a course from scratch, you need to: Decide the topics that will be included in your course. Gather the content and resources. Organize the course content in a logical order. Write short introductions and summaries for each module. Determine the learning objectives of your entire course. Learning objectives serve as a foundation for writing content and assessments. Write comprehensive assessments to evaluate learners’ knowledge. The lesson learning objectives lead to lesson quizzes, and a comprehensive final exam will evaluate the learning outcomes of the course. For modules and lessons, an activity, game, or short quiz can be sufficient. However, for most courses, we recommend that you have a proper final exam at the end to test the learners’ knowledge of the entire course (summative assessment). Parting Thoughts Teaching online is not merely about writing content and watching the money roll in. It is about sincerity and dedication to your profession. The right blend of knowledge and technology results in a better future for you and your students. Ready to teach online? Get started today!

Lord Byron said it well …  Filed under: Curious David Tagged: Dogs

In today’s poll we wanted to ask our blog readers if they use email marketing to promote their online courses. In a recent blog posts we published a case study that showed that for one particular client on our roster that their average revenue per newsletter subscriber was over 300% more valuable than a "regular" visitor on their site (i.e. a visitor referred through organic search, advertisements, social networks etc).   The case study showed that the revenue per visitor metric jumped from $1.20 (regular visitor) to $4.99 (newsletter subscriber). We see results like this for many of our clients. We have yet to see a case where email marketing has had a negative impact on sales or lowers conversion rates.   That being said, we also know that many people selling courses online are so overwhelmed with many other facets of their eCourse company that they either forget to implement an email marketing campaign, or they just haven’t had the time to do it yet.   So today we wanted to ask you a simple yes or no question. If you’re selling courses online are you currently using an email marketing campaign to help you sell your courses? Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.