Learning Goes Beyond the Classroom This Summer with All-New Programming, Digital Resources, Partnerships and Community Activities, Available Starting in June  As kids spend time outside the classroom this summer, PBS KIDS will release all-new content and resources to help keep them active and encourage exploration at home and outdoors with their favorite characters. As part of its annual summer learning initiative, PBS KIDS will air all-new specials and episodes from ODD SQUAD, NATURE CAT and READY JET GO! beginning in June, and will offer free digital resources at pbsparents.org/summer to make learning fun all summer long.Read the rest online.Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

In a storm of reflection and foggy thinking, I had lots of fun writing the first two installments of a new series for TCEA's TechNotes blog--The Self-Transmediated Learner. The blog series came as a result of two realizations:Millennials and Gen Z learners adapt themselves to technology, while teachers try to adapt technology to their needs.Learners that know how to navigate multiple technological systems enjoy the same privileges of adults.It seems obvious to me now, but I would love a conversation with other folks who might have an opinion on this. Read the restEverything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Image Source: http://tinyurl.com/hu25jueChange jobs recently? Your experience may yield some nuggets of insight that Harold Jarche found in his gold pan.Harold Jarche just put his finger on one aspect of them:Would you still be a leader if you lost your positional authority? How would you know? In networks, your authority is derived from your reputation and the value of your connections to others in the network. Value and authority come from engagement with a network, usually over a long period of time. It’s the sum of many small interactions. So what would happen if you suddenly lost your positional authority? (Read more) The answer to Harold's question is, "Yes, you would still be a leader if you changed your positional authority IF your authority is derived from your reputation and the value of your connections to others."When I worked in large urban school district and leadership changes took place, everyone on staff had to "re-establish" their value, to "prove themselves" to the new boss. Not surprisingly, only some were able to accomplish this...worse, it seems to happen frequently in schools, shaking loose existing staff (some who need to be shaken loose, others who are just frustrated, and others who are indifferent).Protecting my team and I, at least for awhile, was a lesson I learned many years ago in my late twenties. That lesson was that you had to get your story out there, to define your projects and programs before the Central Office did it. In fact, if you could do this, then you "took the stone out of the sling pouch."And that story needed to be shared with as many people as possible. Not because it was false, untrue, inaccurate, but because it was worthy of being shared, warts and all. And, you had to do your best to encourage others to share their stories. Before social media, we relied on email, press releases, etc. Did I tell you about the time I won an argument with my boss because I took advantage of the Texas Education Network (TENET) to get emails out to a district-wide email list? It was inconsequential, I don't remember what the argument was about, only that losing the argument would have hurt edtech in that District.It's not just about winning petty arguments with people who don't get it. From email, we've moved to better tools with a broader reach. Now, social media makes sharing those stories much easier. That's why Harold's point is so important--we have moved beyond organizational hierarchies that control individual's lives.Image Source: http://tinyurl.com/gwrn8pxWhen you build a successful professional learning network (PLN), one that connects you to global learners committed to improving teaching, learning and leading, then what happens to you in a school district or organization is less likely to upset your apple-cart. I can look back over countless interactions with Texas educators and confess to being grateful, profoundly appreciative, for each.Am I a leader? I'm less interested in being a leader, and more of helping others and sharing ideas and information. That's why I really like Harold's point here:Do people refer to your work? How often do people quote, cite, or repeat your work? If not often, then perhaps it’s time to start working out loud and contributing to your knowledge networks.The inclination for most folks in leadership position is to lock things down. Do you know district staff who aren't allowed to share their district's intellectual property, whatever they create during the day? I do. And have for years. In every case, keeping data locked down in a school district was the WRONG thing to do. Beautiful, wonderful work only benefited a few people, and because technology changes so quickly (heck, everything changes quickly), work that would have stood as a shining beacon for all to see, to recognize the organization that served things up rather than locked it in a safe, died a quiet, lonely death. What's more, the people who made that work moved on.The Internet now makes the shelf life of great thinking accessible and easy to share. Each of us, individuals and organizations, are building a reputation that says, "Yes, we are trustworthy and what we make is worth using to change the world."Harold says, "Start working out loud and contributing." Whether you're getting the word out via email and paper newsletters (wow, that was a long time ago) or social media, for goodness sake, get it out there. If you don't, you may find yourself stuck with some new boss who doesn't understand the value you bring. Harold shares more in a related blog entry, Leadership for the Networked Age:Hierarchy is necessary for (and only for!) building compliance. It is not networked. As formal power, It is not a form of leadership - but of management. In the presence of formal power, leadership is actually quite impossible to happen. Influence is necessary for social density and connection. It is networked. It is a form of leadership.Reputation is necessary for value creation. It is networked, as well. It is the second form of leadership.The response to Harold's question, How would you know? Your network would help you.Thank you.Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Periodically, I’ll get a request for help via email. Here’s a recent one: Dear Miguel, I  hope you are doing well . I need to create a  project presentation video and Instead of record my self, I would like to use an Avatar.Would you please suggest me any goggle app or software that can help me with this project? I am also need to create a Digital portfolio.  Below, you will find my brief response…what would have your’s been? Avatar Creation Tools: https://www.androidify.com/en/#/ http://www.voki.com/ http://www.buildyourwildself.com/ http://doppelme.com/ http://www.web.frenzoo.com/ http://en.gravatar.com/ http://clayyourself.com/ https://mybluerobot.com/create-your-own-avatar/ Digital Portfolio Google Sites - http://www.mguhlin.net OneNote.com - http://ly.tcea.org/connect Weebly.com - http://slcceportfolio.weebly.com/

Last week I learned that I have been nominated for the 2011 Learning without Frontiers Awards in the category of Hero Innovator in Secondary Learning for the work I do here at Box of Tricks and in my post as Head of Modern Languages at Nottingham High School. Learning Without Frontiers is a global platform for disruptive thinkers and practitioners from the education, digital media, technology and entertainment sectors who come together to explore how new disruptive technologies can drive radical efficiencies and improvements in learning whilst providing equality of access. Simply being nominated, regardless of whether I win or not, is a huge honour. I can’t help but feel they’ve got the wrong guy, especially given the caliber of all the other nominees, so it’s hard not to feel a little out of place having your name nestled among so many great educators who are far more deserving of winning than I am and who have achieved far greater things in their careers than I could ever hope to. I am just happy to have received the nomination, that is prize enough for me. The ceremony will take place in London on Monday 10th January and, if you want to have your say as to who wins what, remember that you can vote for your favourite nomination in all the categories. I look forward to attending and being inspired.

Mi familia, mis amigos y yo on Storybird Storybird is a fantastic tool that allows its users to create and publish short stories. Teachers can set up accounts for their pupils and organise them into classes, the work pupils produce is then shared among the members of the class and, crucially, it can now be published for the whole world to see. But it wasn’t always thus. Storybird, in order to ensure content was kept to safe and appropriate standards, only allowed the publishing of Storybirds books that had been written in English. Therefore Storybird’s appeal for foreign language teachers was limited, as their stories and their pupils’ stories could not be made public. However, in an exemplary display of engagement with customers, Storybird listened to foreign language teachers who were calling - on social networks like Twitter and in blogs like this one - for the ability to moderate their own pupils’ work and changed their policies so that teachers could moderate and publish their pupils’ stories. Writing Controlled Assessments As a consequence Storybird has quickly become a very popular tool among my younger students, who love the intuitive interface and the beautiful illustrations. However, today I wanted to point out how Storybird can also be used with older GCSE classes as part of the preparation for the writing controlled assessment. I’ve found that, contrary to what the boards intended (i.e. giving the teacher more freedom as to what to teach when), the new GCSE lends itself to rigid teaching-to-the-task. Teachers (and pupils) are always preoccupied with preparing and completing the next assessment and little time is devoted to exploring tangents and experimenting with language. Setting up accounts for your classes is easy: you simply need to register your students and assign them a username (I like to use the format JohnS - first name plus first letter of the surname - that way you and your pupils know who it is but nobody else does). Storybird then automatically generates an account and a random password for them that they can change to something more memorable on first log-on. In the example above, I set a practice task for my Year 10s, who are new to the concept of controlled assessments, and encouraged them to use Storybird as the medium though which it should be written. Apart from the obvious something different factor - never to be underestimated! - by using the Storybird class account and our Departmental school blog, we ensured that the work the students produced could be shared among the members of the class and peer assessed. This way students were able to see and, importantly,  learn from what other pupils had written. If my experience is anything to go by, you’ll soon start seeing weaker pupils being supported by the more able ones while you take a less visible, facilitating role. How are you using Storybird?

Web applications are fun for both teachers and students, but often both teachers and students can become too preoccupied with the tool itself and forget what its purpose ought to be: to support teaching and learning. Here’s a little guide to using three fantastic web applications successfully and effectively. In fact, time wasting and lack of academic rigour are two criticism often levelled at the use of web applications in the classroom. However, just like any other tool, when used appropriately, these web applications will soon prove their worth to you  and your students as an effective learning tool and I am certain they will become an essential part of your schemes of work. Whilst the tool may change the principles remain the same. Let’s look at how to plan a series of lessons before we look at each of the tools in more detail, but first a note of caution: Not a magic bullet I use web applications regularly. Regularly does not mean so often that your class gets bored of them. To me regularly means once or twice every half term - roughly 6 weeks. I also vary the web application so that any single class uses a variety of tools throughout the academic year. In my experience, overusing any of the tools below may lead to your students quickly becoming weary of any particular tool, as the novelty factor wears off and their interest and engagement wanes. In order to stop the tool itself becoming an obstacle to successful learning, how you plan and deliver the series of lessons leading up to actually using the tool is therefore essential. Lesson Planning Approximately once every half term I will plan a series of lessons culminating in the use of one of these web applications. I generally follow this pattern: Our first lesson in the sequence focuses on revising the appropriate vocabulary and/or grammatical structures. At the end of the lesson, I set a relevant writing task for homework, with the aim of basing the eventual use of a specific web application upon this task. I make sure that pupils are made aware of what we are doing, perhaps by showing them examples of work by other students who previously used this particular web app, but I also make sure I tell them why we are doing it, for example "to increase the range and complexity of your Spanish". Setting clear tasks that are perceived as useful is fundamental to the pedagogically successful completion of the task. In subsequent lessons we develop the topic further and I return their exercise books with highlighted errors and corrections to their homework. Eventually, I will take the class to an ICT room and introduce them to the web application in question, perhaps handing out individual user names and passwords if the tool allows for this. I will give them five or ten minutes to familiarise themselves with the app, however I will soon explain very clearly what they need to do. For example: "use your homework and your corrections to produce  a 80 -100 words description of xxxx, ensuring that you use xxxx and xxxx". As these web applications are available online, the task can be finished for homework. Finally, I will publish my students’ work in our blog and encourage them to peer-assess by leaving comments for one another. So, which tools have been essential for me this half term? Glogster Glogster has been a regular feature in my lessons for a couple of years now. Its intuitive interface and visually attractive results has made it a popular addition to our schemes of work for both students and teachers alike. Since my students and I first started using it back in October 2008, Glogster has developed an EDU service that caters specifically for schools (under a freemium model), allowing teachers to manage classes and students to have their own accounts, through which they can share and comment on each other’s creations in the safety of a closed group. Here is a recent example of Glogster that includes text, speech and video, courtesy of Raghav in Year 9 (13 years old). Which other tool allows your students to practice all four skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) in the one activity? Tip: these Glogster posters, or Glogs, can also be printed out, resulting in wonderful classroom displays. You can view more of these Glogs in our school blog. Storybird This term I used Storybird with my Year 10 (14 years old), as writing practice. Storybird recently changed its policy to allow the creation and, crucially, publication of storybirds in foreign languages, which has resulted in it becoming one of my favourite tools in my box of tricks. With storybird, my students are able to write creatively in Spanish and share their stories with other students in their group. The tool allows teachers to create and manage classes and it allows students to leave comments for one another. Here is an example of a story by Adam: Tip: If you use the print screen function on your keyboard (or shift+command+3 on a Mac) whilst in full screen mode, you can then paste each page into a word document or powerpoint presentation, which can then be printed to create fantastic classroom displays. You can see further examples of Storybird in our school blog. Voki Voki is close to my heart as it is the very first web app that I ever used in my classroom. Voki allows our students to create speaking avatars and it regularly features in my teaching, especially with the younger groups.  Voki is also currently developing it’s Voki for Education scheme. I can’t wait what the futire will bring. Here is a Voki by Max, from Year 9: Tip: Voki is a fantastic way to set speaking homework. Every now and then, instead of the old writing tasks, you can ask your students to speak for a minute about a given topic. It’s a brilliant tool to assess speaking. You can see more Vokis in our school blog. If you have any comments about the above tools or wish to share your own, I would love to know. Please leave a comment below.

Stripgenerator is one of the most intuitive cartoon strip generators currently available. Its simple drag and drop interface ensures that both teachers and students immediately grasp the basic skills necessary to begin to effortlessly produce professional looking cartoon strips. In the example below, one of over twenty cartoon strips delivered by my Year 10 class as homework,  Stripgenerator has been used to develop the topic Los jóvenes y la tecnología - Young people and technology - and to assess my students’ recent vocabulary acquisition and understanding of the different strategies we have been working on to produce the more complex and sophisticated language necessary to both sound more authentic and excel in public examinations. Stripgenerator lends itself to the development of language - add speech bubbles under the Text tab - in a variety of topics, as its Characters and Items tabs are populated by an assortment of people, creatures and props which can easily be dragged onto the canvas to create simple yet effective scenes and situations. I personally rather like the stark, black and white standard theme pack because students can then focus their efforts on linguistic content. Its simplicity also appeals to my sense of style and I look forward to printing the strips all the cartoon strips to update the wall displays in my classroom. Cartoon strips can also be published and shared on the usual social networking sites and embed codes for classroom blogs and wikis are automatically provided. Homework is often quoted as one of the least favourite tasks a child can look forward to. In my view, it has an invaluable role in consolidating knowledge acquired in the classroom (and, more and more these days, beyond) but it does not have to be the dull and repetitive task it often becomes in the eyes of our students. There is an alternative. Would you not prefer it if your students actually looked forward to their homework? Would your students not prefer it if you set them academically challenging yet enjoyable and creative projects? Stripgenerator is a free web application with some premium features. The work displayed here has been produced using the free, basic features. As ever, your thoughts, comments and recommendations of your own are always very welcome.  

Popplet is a fun and intuitive web application that allows you and your students to create galleries, mind maps and diagrams quickly an incredibly easily. I mean it. Ridiculously easily. Pictures can easily be searched and added directly from Flickr and Facebook. The same applies to YouTube videos. Popplets can then be shared on social networks or via email, exported as .jpg or .pdf files and embedded into websites. You can even invite others to collaborate on your popplets, enabling teacher-pupil collaboration or pair- and group-work. The popplet above was created in the classroom with the aid of my students, live on the interactive whiteboard. I chose some relevant pictures from Flickr and then proceeded to elicit vocabulary from the students, which I then added to the popplet and linked to the relevant picture. At the end of the lesson my students had a resource to help them with their written homework which they themselves had helped to create. I am also planning using Popplet as a presentation tool and I look forward to my pupils using Popplet to produce homework tasks, which can then be printed and turned into classroom displays. This tool offers fantastic classroom potential and I can’t wait to get my students working with it. What do you think?

Last February the kind folk at Lenovo sent me a brand new Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z for evaluation. The M90z is a high performance desktop computer with a 23 inch touchscreen and an all-in-one form factor. The video, above, shows the moment in which my son realised he could operate the computer simply by touching the screen, after I set it up in his room deliberately omitting to connect the mouse or keyboard (which the computer does come with anyway, by the way). The delight in his face is evident. And it’s not surprising. At 6 years of age, most of his computer experience comes from interacting with his classroom computer via the interactive whiteboard and from using my iPhone. Touching the screen, as you can see above, was the obvious thing for him to do. The people at Lenovo think, with quite some justification in my view, that the new generation of multitouch screen computers beginning to hit the market has great potential for use in schools, which is why they are putting another brand new Lenovo M90z at my disposal to give away to Box of Tricks’ readers. That’s right, you could have a brand new computer sent all the way to you from the USA courtesy of Box of Tricks. So what do you have to do to win it? Well, there will be a competition and a draw. Details will be announced midweek next week, so, as they say, stay tuned! Below is a schedule outlining who will be giving away a brand new Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z and when. Good luck! Lenovo M90z Promotion Participants Site Start Date End Date Free Tech 4 Teachers Apr 14 Apr 18 Ilja Coolen \ ICSS Apr 15 Apr 19 Physician Mom Apr 16 Apr 20 Scrubd In Apr 17 Apr 21 KathySchrock’s Kaffeeklatsch Apr 18 Apr 22 Steve Hargadon.com Apr 19 Apr 23 Box of Tricks Apr 21 Apr 25 Clinton Fitch.com Apr 22 Apr 26 Around the Corner Apr 23 Apr 27 Tech Savvy Ed Apr 25 Apr 29 Small Biz Technology Apr 26 Apr 30 Ablet Factory Apr 27 May 1 Click Newz Apr 28 May 2 Geekazine Apr 29 May 3 21st Century Education Technology Apr 30 May 4 A GeekyMomma’s Blog May 1 May 5 Marsha Collier’s Musings May 2 May 6 VA Insiders Club May 3 May 7 Your Virtual Assistant May 4 May 8 Jake Ludington’s Media Blab May 5 May 9 Mobile PC World May 6 May 10 Dangerously Irrelevant May 7 May 11 Bud the Teacher May 8 May 12 Kikolani May 9 May 13 Geeks To Go May 10 May 14 Chad Lehman.com May 11 May 15