If you don’t manage your online presence, you are allowing search engines to create it for you. Source: chronicle.com See on Scoop.it - FootprintDigital

Beware of false teachers...The other day a representative from Google came to my school to give us a presentation about Google Apps for Education. I was feeling quite curious about the visit, and I think I was expecting something like... big, taking in count the all mighty Google was coming.Well, an apparently lovely woman came inside the room, sat down in front of a laptop and tried, for nearly 10 minutes, to log in in her Google account. She couldn't do it, in her own words because Chrome wasn't installed, and Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox weren't prepared enough to provide Google's full experience. That was her first lie, as I knew what was going on technically (one of Google's new features, so multiple prelogged accounts are shown in a list). But, she was the expert, so I preferred to stay quiet (not to bother her), as she continued wandering inside the mess, explaining nonsense, and getting more and more nervous. As she couldn't log in by any means, she plugged a pendrive and started a flash presentation. And, off we went...The whole Google package was presented: Drive, Gmail, Calendar... Apparently the only difference between the free account and the paid one was that that package would be running privately inside of our own domain, only for some fee she wasn't prone to clarify.But the best thing was her speech's style quite general and manipulative:1. Google has proven experience with educational tools: in my humble opinion Google has just packaged a bunch of common tools. Moodle, for example, does have it. In fact, Google's strategy's been to redecorate its products to resell them, but they just can't offer an integrated solution for school's daily management.2. The best educational institutions (no specific name was mentioned) are using this package: I wish she had given us any figures supporting that sentence.3. Google is the best solution for web designing. What about CMSs like Mambo, Joomla, Drupal and the like? 4. Google+ is the largest social site with thousands of Educational groups. Someone forgot to mention Facebook is, in fact, the real largest one, and that Twitter is the best site to share information about Education. Fireworks started when she asked me about my opinion. She didn't get it well, as she didn't know how to respond appropriately. Well, I suppose people selling things have to overrate their products to mesmerise their clients, even when they don't know well what field they are dealing with. I'm not saying I'm not pro Google (check my other articles), but I've been organizing my lessons, students and grades with Moodle for several years, combining it with Google Drive and other sites like Isuu, Youtube, etc. And believe me Moodle does work! What's the moral of this story? 1. There's not a single solution for everything, and as teachers we have to weave several products in an integrated useful fabric.2. Beware teachers! There are thousand of options to choose from, and sellers will tell you miraculous things about theirs.3. We teachers have to be constantly researching, analysing and testing products to know first hand what serves best for the purpose and what doesn't.4. Don't make a single trademark your favourite option. Google, Microsoft, Android... there's an interesting spectrum.5. Try always to choose an OpenSource one.6. And, to end, companies should be careful about what representatives they choose to represent them.

I recently visited our local mountains with my 6th grade class for outdoor science school and decided that I wanted to communicate some of the activities to our parents and families. So, I decided to produce a nightly, video enhanced podcast/movie that parents could view from my school website. Myself and another teacher shared the task of capturing still images and video throughout the day and I would create the podcast so it would be available to the parents. I really enjoyed producing the files and we had great interaction and feedback from the parents. About midweek I received and e-mail from my school district that asked if I knew what "copyright" was and that I needed to change or remove the music that I had used in conjunction with my images and video. Of course I knew what copyright was and is! I would like to think I am above the curve in techie-ness. I would agree in a heartbeat that I cannot recite verbatim the music copyright and fair use laws. My main focus was to create an experience that the parents could enjoy and obtain a glimpse into their kid’s lives at science school. I did not think I was supposed to be following a rubric and that my product was somehow, some grand assault on the music industry and that I was going to cause a major lawsuit against our district! But in the end folks, I was speeding and I was wrong. Have you ever been driving along and did not notice that you were speeding? You were breaking the law, but you slowly apply the breaks and continue about your day. You knew that you were not supposed to be driving faster than the posted speed limit, you know the law, so you self-corrected and all was well. I too, knew that there was a copyright law but I was distracted and did not focus on this aspect. I just wanted to get a video out and to our parents, so they might enjoy part of the experience. Again, this is not an excuse, I was speeding and I was wrong. I learned a valuable lesson and I will utilize this as a teachable moment. So, when the students walk into my classroom on Monday morning, I will explain to them how I had made a mistake and utilized popular music that was copyrighted in my project. Note, not a single student of mine has ever utilized copyrighted music in their projects but somehow that law did not pertain to me at outdoor science school. It is obvious that I need to teach by example and I believe I am. Here are is an example of a website that offers Royalty Free Music (Creative Commons Music).I was going to bore you with copyright music law, but instead I want to share this amusing video:

Viruses, search boxes, trojans, adware… your computer only lacks bacteria or even fungi! Your students’ pendrives stuffed with primordial soups of life, your Internet researches with showers of malicious cookies… and all of the sudden your computer’s overall performance plummets and your files start to fade away mysteriously.No problem. We’ve just to apply a combined approach using different tools to get rid of all the rubbish. A teacher’s computer is the perfect element to be Pasteur’s lab desk (it usually happens to me), and every other week it’s recommended to deep clean the system following these next four steps.First, sweep your computer out with these freeware software packages:Trojans: Definition (Wikipedia) a Trojan horse, or Trojan, in computing is a generally non-self-replicating type of malware program containing malicious code that, when executed, carries out actions determined by the nature of the Trojan, typically causing loss or theft of data, and possible system harm.Solution: Superantispyware.Viruses: Definition: (Wikipedia) a computer virus is a malware program that, when executed, replicates by inserting copies of itself (possibly modified) into other computer programs, data files, or the boot sector of the hard drive.Solution: you have plenty of options. You can try Windows Defender (included in Windows), or other options as Avast or McAfee.Adware: Definition: (Wikipedia) advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically renders advertisements in order to generate revenue for its author. The advertisements may be in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during the installation process. The functions may be designed to analyze which Internet sites the user visits and to present advertising pertinent to the types of goods or services featured there. Solution: adwcleaner, adwareremovaltool (use both).Second, throw away other sort of dirt with CCleaner.Third, tidy up your harddisk with Disk Defragmenter (Windows).And, fourth… reboot to start afresh. Voilá!

» 21+ Things Every 21st Century Blogger Should Do in 2015 | Source: www.techchef4u.com See on Scoop.it - InformationCommunication (ICT)

Hundreds of educational tech enthusiasts flocked to the annual CUE (computer using educators) conference this past weekend (March 15-17, 2012) in Palm Springs, California. A lot was learned over the 3 days at the conference and here are some of the highlights: Day 1 Chris Fitzgerald Walsh spoke about creativity in the classroom. Some myth’s of creativity were explored: -Must happen in isolation -Happens during random aha moments -It’s what artist do -It’s innate It makes sense that creativity can happen to and by anyone. You don’t have to be alone with your thoughts for something magical to happen, in fact, creating in a group setting is healthy and the people that you are working with can provide a stimulus to your thought process. Sure artists can be creative but anyone has the ability to create and and is not just reserved for those artistically inclined. Some conditions for creativity: -Playfulness (having FUN!) -You need time -Exploration -Failure -Variety Having fun and just being playful can become a catalyst for students trying to create. We as educators need to give students the time to explore and allow them to FAIL! We also should not place judgements on intermediary work during the exploration process. The students should feel secure in their ability to explore without the hinderance of evaluation, which can provide students with walls to overcome or roadblocks to think about instead of moving forward and allowing creativity and maturation to take place. In order to be creative you must have a passion, an attitude towards what really matters and thus will provide the spark! It is important for anyone who wants to create to internalize a sense of permission to create. More often than not, we stop our selves from following through on an idea or thought instead of permitting ourselves to succeed and move forward. Discipline and commitment are necessary to be creative and it is this type of attitude that cultivates the wonderful ideas that are created on a daily basis.is a model model promotes creativity and asks students to stay in the moment and commit to an idea. Design thinking is a mesh of many disciplines, such as math and science and allows students to broaden the mind. Technology needs to be at the forefront of an education so that problems can be solved now and in the future. The ability to allow students to apply what they are learning at an early age, exposes them to a glimpse into their future. Tom Van Ark - The Pivot to Personal Digital Learning In this session we discussed the value of blended learning, which is a combination of face-to-face instruction, along with computer mediated activities. According to Web Learning @ Penn State website, we should blend learning to allow advanced learning, interactively in the classroom and outside of it, there is access to quality multi-media content anytime of the day. Conversations are still happening about this topic and they need to continue. There are many school in America and abroad that have adopted this and similar models and have reported positive to amazing results. However, there are skeptics out there, that say any and all data can be skewed to present any school in a positive light. No matter what you think of these systems, we can always learn and take the best of what people are trying to do to make education a better place for students and gives them and advantage when they leave school. Here is an example of a school that is using the blended model approach: About Carpe Diem Schools Frank Guttler - Lights, Camera, Learn 10 lessons for better video in the classroom lightcameralearn.com A call sheet is the order of business for any production day. For any movie there is pre-production, production and post-production. Celtx is a free pre-production software download that allows a film maker to create story boards, scripts and much more. What is the difference between a shot and a scene? A shot is part of a film between two shots, where a scene is a series of shots to tell a story. The evolution of a movie goes something like this: Shot, Scene, Sequence, Movie When shooting a movie, think point of view of a shot. For example shooting from high or above, from down low or find different angles. Here is an example of a quick exercise you can do with your class: Show a segment of a movie and count shots by clapping every time there is a new shot. Claps will increase in frequency as the action increases. Lighting Basics: 3 Point Lighting (Key Light, Fill Light and Back light - Lighting Basics at Media College Below I have a video example of how you can introduce your students to the process of film making by learning through experience, story boarding and reflection. Check the video out and begin your film making experience. Other ideas to teach students film making: Have students study the elements of genre (classical, western, etc). Complete a scene study (check out the Ikea Lamp commercial) Use pictures to tell a story. Here is a link to Frank Guttler’s Thousand Words project. A great resource is the Library of Congress website. Check out the American Memory Photo Archive for images that can be used to build a photo video/movie.

Scheduling, planning and gathering trainees’ data is like taking out the garbage. You simply have no other option than to do it, or you will hear about it from your significant other. Or, your training sessions will run amok. Unfortunately, there are no household trash robots yet Unfortunately, there are no solutions. There is no household robot yet which can stuff your trash in a container and then move the container in the street at the exact right day. (Was this Monday or Tuesday? I always forget.) But wait! For organizing your training sessions there’s always the option to use a learning management system. A learning management system, or lms, offers several tools to alleviate the boredom of simple administrative tasks. These tools are: User profile Intake form Bulk email User Profile Every learning management system that I know offers a user profile where training participants specify their name, title, activities and introduce themselves with a little story. And maybe they even put a portrait online. All in all, this is information that is absolutely not specific to the training they are about to get. Which brings us to the intake form. Intake Form The intake form is used to gather data about the trainee which usually pertains to the training. Using an lms means you don’t have to scan, copy and paste or even type in the data yourself. What’s more, if you need to perform a simple statistical analysis (the median age or something like that), most learning management systems support that. Bulk Email Tedious manual data entry Once you’ve collected everybody’s email address (the user profile form has a field for that), you can send out an email message to everybody, or a selected group of training participants. This helps you communicate things like changed schedules and welcoming messages. Here’s how one training company, Reframe, used the tools mentioned above to remove a lot of tedious paperwork and manual data entry. Case: Self-Registration for Online Training Training company Reframe is specialized in aggression management. In preparation of their training sessions, they used to send out paper intake forms to the participants. The data was manually processed. At some point they started using the learning management system Moodle to put the intake forms online. But they still had a lot of manual operations: registering the training participant as a user in Moodle and adding them to the course containing the online form. There is, to be sure, always the option to have trainees self-register in Moodle. But this was not deemed secure because anybody who knows the internet address (the "url") can register, not just trainees. Also, once a user in Moodle, you still have to enroll in an online training (Moodle can hold multiple online training sessions at once). Reframe is using Moodle for many clients, so self enrollment in an online training was not an option. That would have meant that any client’s trainees would have been able to enroll in the training session for another client (using Moodle’s "enrollment key" would have been a solution for that). Voucher Based Registration We created a solution for Reframe based on the concept of vouchers. As a trainee, you get a voucher for a specific course. If you visit the Reframe learning management system for the first time, you use the voucher code to register as a new user. This simply means filling in the user profile form, including the username and password fields. Once you are registered as a user, you are automatically also enrolled into the correct online training sessions. Needless to say, this saves Reframe employees an enormous amount of time previously spent on peddling data. Not as great as a household robot but still tremendously useful.

Didn’t you know you can control one computer through another? Even through your mobile device! And even use your webcam to check a place!The funny thing is that setting your computers up is really straightforward. You just need a Google account, Chrome and the Chrome Remote Desktop app.First of all, sign in inside Chrome with your Google account. Then install the app. You should see something similar to this (except for My Computers, which you are going to set up in the following steps):Click on "Enable remote connections" (gray button in the bottom), and enter a PIN (you’ll need it to access the computer you're configuring from another one). Once you’ve done it you should see a list of "My Computers" with their names.When you click on the other computer’s name you’ll be prompted to enter the PIN, and if everything has gone appropriately then you should see the other device’s screen:The interesting point is that you can do it from your mobile device with this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.chromeremotedesktop&hl=enYou’ll automatically see all the computers linked to your Google account. Just click on a name, type the PIN and start sliding your finger to make the mouse pointer follow it.The uses for remote control are abundant:Laptop control inside the classroom (you’ll need different accounts, including a generic one for your classroom; remember you can quickly change accounts using the upper left head-like icon).CCTV: configure your vigilant laptop not to sleep or hibernate. Switch on your webcam (Yawcam is a free app for that), switch the screen off to save power and place the laptop in a strategic location to record that corner you are interested in. I did it when I went on vacation this summer, checking my house through my mobile device.Parental control.Server management.

A Fresno State student is interviewing me through Twitter! Below are the questions and my responses. The Interview was recorded over the course of a few days Question 1 by: Jessica Zendejas ‏ @jessica84011 @teachusingtech Hi Mr. Diaz, I am going to begin our interview.How have you used twitter in your professional development?Thankyou #ci100 Question 1 response: I use Twitter on a nightly basis to improve my skills as a teacher, stay current with ongoing education news and also to help where I can professionally. Twitter is an awesome tool that allows me to reach out to teaching professionals on a daily basis and ask questions and/or provide help to those in need. I primarily follow like minded people on Twitter. What I mean by that, is that I follow people in the area of education. This allows me to ready micro-blogs that are written specifically for my area of interest. Follow-up Question 1a: Jessica Zendejas ‏ @jessica84011 @teachusingtech and why twitter, when there are so many other social media sites out there? Thanks again for your help Question 1a response: You are right, there are a lot of choices when it comes to social media, including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and so on. However, it has been my experience that Twitter allows for the most convenient and densely populated center for the type of information I am looking for. You get to populate your Twitter feed with interests that fit your needs. My needs are in the area of education and more specifically education technology and I follow like minded educators. My Twitter feed is populated with links to articles and videos, as well as 142 characters of thought provoking statements and conversations. Question 2 by:Jessica Zendejas ‏ @jessica84011 @teachusingtech Thankyou. Second question:what suggestions do you have for educators who want to use twitter as an educational resource? Question 2 response: My number one suggestion would be to try it out and see if it fits your needs. I am a fan of Twitter but you may not be and that is okay. On the other hand, the education conversation needs to continue outside of the classroom and being a good educator, one who works on making a difference, takes time outside of the classroom. Therefore, some type of social media allows you to access the minds and thoughts of thousands of educators all around the world who have a similar mission. Okay back to Twitter as a resource. Another suggestion I have is to find a hash tag, which is a grouping of comments tied to a specific idea, and begin browsing through content and comment when you can to add to the discussion. You can only be better for it and you begin to form relationships with people you can count on. If you want to follow education technology conversations, a suggestion would be #edtech or if you are a new teacher #ntchat is great! One last suggestion would be to have parents, students and/or teachers create a hashtag, so that you can create a conversation about a particular topic. For example, I have started a hash tag on the greatness of #dchilders. Please go there and comment when you can. We will see how popular this topic is?

Google Classroom ( is available to schools with a Google Apps for Education (GAfE)domain. Classroom is a way to get all of your students in one place and allows you to easily assign work and for st… Source: www.alicekeeler.com See on Scoop.it - Educational News and Web Tools

How do you create your training programme in no time at all? Just buy the training materials and use them to compose your own online training sessions inside your learning management system. A scorm package is a container which facilitates sharing online training materials Every modern learning management system (lms) supports a universal standard for exchanging training materials: SCORM. Scorm stands for Shareable Content Object Reference Model, but you can forget about that (I always do). The really important thing about scorm is that you can create learning content or a training unit, package it in a scorm zip and export it to another lms. Of course, the reverse is also true: you can import somebody else’s scorm package as well. But what do these words mean, learning content, training unit? Most scorm packages I have encountered so far, consist of fifteen, thirty to 120 minute sessions about a specific topic. The training participant logs in to your lms, opens the scorm package (just like any other online training activity, usually by hitting a button or clicking a link), does whatever is inside the package and receives a score (or at the very least a "completed" check mark). Once the user clicks the link to the scorm unit, the scorm player takes over. The scorm player is the software inside the lms that "reads" the scorm package and "plays it back". In the background, it does the presentation, evaluates any answers the participant may enter and computes the final score (if there is one). The score is transmitted to the lms, which stores it together with the name of the user for future reference (e.g. to make it available in a grade book). How does this differ from using a training activity provided by the lms itself (e.g a quiz or test)? Well, it doesn’t until you would want to export the activity to another training platform. Okay, I told you to forget what scorm stands for, but one part is important: the shareable part. A scorm package can be shared across all e-learning systems which support the standard (and there are a lot of those out there). Practical Note on Using Scorm Your lms should already contain a scorm player, but I’m going to tell you to get another one. This way, in case of any problems with a scorm package you can always verify that the problem resides with the scorm package and not the settings of your lms. Simply try to play the scorm package in your standalone scorm player. If the problems persist, there’s probably nothing wrong with your lms’ settings. Download SCORM training materials So where do you find scorm trainings? Here are a few online markets where you can download scorm packages but also offer your own for sale. http://www.openelms.org/ http://www.skillsoft.com/catalog/default.asp https://www.opensesame.com/

There are a lot of easy to use QR code generators out there to be used in education. Some of them even create large batches of codes by simply cutting and pasting. There is one small problem with most of these generators if you are creating more than one, more often than not you lose track of which QR code belongs to whom. As a teacher, one way to double up on your productivity and create batch QR codes identified by a student name is to create them in a spreadsheet. Here is how: 1. Collect student’s digital projects via a Google form (optional) 2. The form that students fill out requests that students submit a link to their project which ends up on a spreadsheet. 3. Once in the spreadsheet, the teacher simply pastes the the following QR Code formula (not sure who created the formula but here is a link to where it is stored online: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/bf44024f-837e-4fd3-8f0a-61089874ca8d/155aae1d8d6bb1a777dc79f8755d5ec8) in the last cell of the first row of cells. QR Code Formula =image("https://chart.googleapis.com/chart?chs=150×150&cht=qr&chl="&A2) 4. Look at the formula and notice that the last couple characters are A2, which refers to the cell that QR code will be made for. If the links that you want converted into QR codes are on column D2 for example, then change the last piece of code to D2. 5. Click on the cell that contains the formula. The cell will highlight and you will see a small blue box that you can click on, hold and drag down, making QR codes for every single student link just like that! 6. Lastly resize the cells horizontally and vertically to increase the size of the QR code and print. Screenshot aided directions to create batch QR Code     Watch how to copy QR Code: QR Code Formula Copy Down (43 seconds) Watch how to re-size QR Code: Re-size QR Code in Spreadsheet (1 minute 45 seconds)  

Increasingly, professional trainers and coaches are requested to deliver their training online, in part or even entirely. This post shows you how to fulfill that request by creating an online version of your training. What I cover here is relevant even if part of your training is delivered face-to-face, as is often the case. Use an LMS to Deliver Your Online Training Before we get started, let me give you some advice: don’t just digitize your existing training materials. Instead, familiarize yourself with a learning management system (lms). If you’re not a professional trainer or coach, you probably can make do with a bunch of powerpoint  presentations, pdf documents and so on, and put them on your website. An LMS is not an abstract futurist concept However, professionals in the field of training and coaching use a learning management system to deliver online training.  Yes, I know it has "learning" in the title, but don’t let that misguide you. An lms really is the natural environment for an online training. Moreover, it’s not an abstract futurist concept but a tool that’s being used by organizations big and small on a daily basis.   Preparing the Online Training In many ways, the preparation of an online training is not that different from preparing for delivering any other training. You should: Find out what the skill deficiencies are, compared to the goals the business or organization is trying to achieve Create the outlines of the training Get all stakeholders aligned (engage domain experts, get management buy-in, inform participants) This is your field of expertise, so I’m not going to dwell on this much longer. Just one more tip regarding the actual participants of your training. If online training is new in their organization and they’re skeptical, you need their buy-in as well. For instance, you should think about asking them what they think they need to learn for their job. Gathering and processing this kind of information is easily done through a survey on your lms. And it signals that online training offers added value to the recipients. Engaging the Stakeholders Create a role for each stakeholder. Typical roles are: trainer participant (trainee) domain expert (subject matter expert) participants’ manager The manager usually only gets to see the end results of the training (aggregated data for each participant). So let’s talk about the other roles. Trainer - Your role should be to guide the training, to respond to questions and to initiate discussion among participants. Participant - It’s important to have participants interact with each other. Consider creating discussion groups supported by forums. Ask all participants to create, in the lms, an online profile which includes their picture, job title, skills and interests. Domain Expert - If your training focuses on a specific domain, get the domain experts involved. I don’t mean just in the course of creating the training, but also as advisors who will chime in during the training. For instance, ask them to participate in forum discussions. Creating the Content Creating content for an online training is basically applied instructional design. Applied where? In a learning management system. An online training then, corresponds with what’s usually called a course in an lms. A course consists of smaller components called topics. A topic exists to fulfill a training need: it should address a specific (part of a) skill deficiency. Topics are composed of activities and (multimedia) sources. An example of an  activity might be an online assignment ("list your professional goals for the next five years") or a test or quiz. Here’s a simple format to create a topic in an lms: Goal: what skill deficiencies are we addressing in this topic, what is the topic about? Criteria for evaluation: how do we know that the participant has successfully tackled the topic? Time investment for the participant: how much time does the participant need to tackle the topic? Resources needed by the participant: what information does the participant need and in what shape do we offer that information (e.g. a text or a movie)? Activity type: what should the participant to do to alleviate the skill deficiency? Typically, each activity is designed to create a specific training experience. Do a Pilot First Once you have created the content, you should do a pilot first, especially if you are new to online training. If the organization has doubts about online training, establish credibility with a pilot. As a matter of fact, instructional designers I know who are working within large enterprises always test a new online training with a subgroup first. Evaluate After the pilot, and indeed at the end of each online training session, evaluate the results. A typical lms accumulates a wealth of data about the participant: Grading or scoring results (provided you’ve been using scored training activities of course) as a group average, for each participant, or for each activity. For each participant: total time spent in the lms, time spent on each training activity. Actual raw data such as test results, contributions to forum discussions, survey results. Of course, the results should ultimately always be evaluated against the goals of the organization or the business. More specifically: how does the training transfer to the workplace? Rinse and Repeat There is no reason to stop the training once the official course is over. Keep the LMS open and encourage all participants to share their experiences in putting the training to work. You can even reinforce the training at regular intervals (say, every two or three months) using micro-interventions. But that’s a topic for another post. Sources I found these sites of great value while writing this post: Don’t Convert! Redesign Instructor-Led Training for eLearning How to create interactivity in online training How to Create Online Training Modules

It’s kind of funny to me that I up and decided to write a post on how to blog efficiently, especially since I didn’t post but once last week. Ha! While I do get a lot of things done, other things u… Source: theturquoisehome.com See on Scoop.it - InformationCommunication (ICT)

The following video discusses the features of two iPad mounts that I have used with my students in the classroom.  

Most trainers and coaches find it hard to combine their super busy schedule with customer acquisition. They always tell me how, towards the end of a job, they start worrying about getting their next assignment. So, on top of delivering a training session, they now start making phone calls and send out emails to follow up on leads. Too many things to do at once. How can you fix this problem? It’s not necessarily a problem that acquisition takes time. Marketing always takes time. But it would be nice if you had more options on when to spend that time, instead of frantically trying to make a few more phone calls during lunch hour. In this post I want to show you how you can employ online marketing to generate new business and free up your schedule a bit. Yes, I know, you’ve already got a website. But putting a website online is like hanging out your shingle. It’s just a statement that you’re in business. The shingle basically says: "We’re in business" You don’t just need a website, you also need a strategy for how to use that website in your online marketing efforts. Now, online marketing is not a magic bullet. It’s just a form reactive marketing, meaning that customers call you instead of you trying to reach out to them all the time. The question is: how do you get customers to contact you? Just ask them! Make it an actionable item on your website. In the remainder of this post, we’ll dive into getting traffic for your site, converting visitors into prospects, and converting prospects into customers who contact you. Getting Traffic Get your potential customers to talk about you. How? Well, first of all, don’t just try to sell them something, offer them valuable advice. Establish credibility as an expert first, and people will come to consider you an authority. Next time they’re dealing with a problem you’ve discussed before, they’ll call you for a solution. How do you reach that goal? By separating the expert part from the selling part. Let’s start with the expert part. There are several means you can employ to establish credibility as an expert: Create a mailing list: at a regular interval, send out nuggets of information, useful tips and hints. Deliver a presentation for a conference - you don’t even have to be super experienced to do this. People always like to hear a "lessons learned" story. And this creates an online presence too, because videotaped conference talks are almost always put online after a few days (e.g. on Youtube). Create a presence in social media (Facebook, LinkedIn). Tell little stories about how you helped out a company in your target market. Keep a blog and post free but valuable advice. But watch out: your blog is not the same as your commercial website. As a matter of fact, try to keep them separate. Write a book. This is the number one way to establish yourself as an actual expert. It provides instant credibility because your expert status has been validated by a publisher. In all instances mentioned above, it doesn’t hurt to drop your company’s name. Just don’t try to sell anything - that’s what your commercial website is for. The goal here is to establish yourself as an expert. If you also give away freebies, e.g. free but valuable advice, people will start referring you. This is when you start noticing new visitors on your commercial website. Who you will track using  a (free) tool like Google Analytics. By the way, your blog is also a place where you can measure results: Keep track of how many people visit your blog. See how many visitors sign up for your email list (because your blog is the place where you invite people to do just that: "Sign up for the mailing list and receive a fact sheet on common but easily avoidable mistakes people in your business make"). Measure how many people click through to your commercial website (but again, don’t push them, keep a clear separation between "selling" and "establishing authority"). To summarize, "getting traffic" starts by establishing credibility first. Selling comes much later. Converting Visitors into Prospects We have talked about two websites: your blog and your commercial website. Your blog is where you turn visitors into prospects. Once you have established your credibility as an expert, people are more receptive to your advice. Including advice on hiring you for training sessions. Now, let’s stress this point one more time: do not try to sell people anything on your blog (or in your email news letter). Instead, simply mention the options people have when it comes to solving a problem you happen to be an expert on. For instance, if you are an expert on crime prevention training for shops you may want to announce the dates for new training sessions on securing shops against shoplifting. Don’t do that. Instead, offer specific advice ("ask a friend or relative to visit the store, act suspiciously and find out how alert personnel are") and then mention that you also provide additional training on this topic. At that point, it’s okay to say something like: "Check out my website, yourwebsite.com, to find out more", in your newsletter. On your commercial website, make sure there’s a landing page specifically for the training you discussed. The internet address you printed in your newsletter should actually be a hyperlink pointing to that landing page. For instance, if your landing page for your shoplifting training is yoursite.com/training.html, then the code for the link in your email news letter should be: <a href="http://yoursite.com/training.html">yourwebsite.com</a> Once a visitor clicks this link, they are fully qualified prospects. In other words: they are now potential customers. Converting Prospects into Customers The next step is to convert your prospects into customers. To facilitate this, put a clear "call to action" on your commercial site. Following the example of the crime prevention trainer, you should include a mini form titled "Enroll into training" on your landing page. Collect only essential data: information you need to get back to the customer as soon as possible to actually subscribe them to the training session. At this point, you should use all means available to maintain a high level of trust. On the selling page include your: address phone number (preferably a land line) an email address containing your full name (e.g. john.adams@yoursite.nl) Also think about including your Chamber of Commerce registration number (if you’ve got one) and vat number (for Europeans). Getting Expert Help What if all of the above sounds too cumbersome? Then just hire experts who know all about this stuff. They will advice you on specific software for each part of the online marketing we just discussed. Here are a few tips about what tools you could use: WordPress for writing and publishing your blog MailChimp for managing your email newsletter Google Analytics for keeping track of your site’s visitors There are even agencies who specialize in dealing with all of the above for you. A final piece of advice on hiring experts: nobody knows your customers as well as you do. So make sure that the experts’ recommendations are applicable to your specific situation.

This is a recap of my observations and notes at a mathematics workshop in Pasadena, CA. This was by far the best math workshop/conference that I have ever attended. One of the primary reasons I felt this workshop was elite was the way it made me feel and act as a professional educator. The main catalyst of the presentations that I attended was Juli Dixon (@thestrokeofluck) who is a dynamic speaker and thought provoker. The information received mainly revolved around how to develop a strong math PLC at work. When team building sign-up for a duty that compliments your #passion Be aware of sellout stories when building strong learning communities. Stay away from phrases such as ‘nothing I can do,’ ‘it’s not my fault’ and ‘it’s all your fault.’ Here are what high leverage teams should be saying: What do we want students to know, how will we know they know it, how will we respond? Checking for understanding without meaningful feedback for the student is diagnostic not formative Students need to take action on feedback so there is growth and learning If you give homework, make it formative so students get feedback that goes beyond diagnosis Focus on strategies for struggling students in math. Fluency takes a back seat for the moment & will support all learning over time Model the mathematics by mathematizing the lesson. This means use math language Time to come back to the math practices and use them during instruction We have an understanding that word problems make math more difficult when in fact it makes it more believable & supportive To make sense of a student explanation and check for understanding, ask students "what did he/she say." If you dont hear what you need to hear in a discussion, guide the conversation w/ "I heard…" Even if you did not hear it from them at least the students have a buy in You have to ask students questions when students are right, not just when they are wrong Scaffold questions to students, don’t bail them out too quickly Create enough imbalance that a student gets back to equilibrium w/o turning the student off When creating math tasks, make sure that you keep common errors in mind to treat the misconception. During every math lesson choose only one or two math practices to focus on. Others will be there, but keep the focus! Dont teach students to use key words in math. Allow them to think abstractly & quantitatively In Summary, create high level cognitive demand questions balanced with lower level cognitive demand questions that grade level teams agree on. Introduce more word problems as tasks to teach math strategies. Finally, support place value, fact strategies, addition and subtraction with re-grouping and fractions as a basis for math fluency.

You are a professional trainer who has, over the years, delivered hundreds of training sessions about more or less the same topics. Maybe you are even renowned for one specific topic. In that case, you are probably always booked full. If you had a duplicate, you would have no trouble at all delivering twice as many training sessions. So, why not create that duplicate? Or rather, an automated version of your most successful training. No, using a computer to deliver your training does not create the same experience. Your personal presence and interaction with your trainees adds irreplaceable value. This is because during every training session, you know how to address the customer’s unique needs. But think about this: you know so much about your specialty, that even a training addressing the lowest  common denominator of all your customers’ needs is still very valuable. Let me put that in other words: you have been to so many customers, that you know which problems they all have in common. So, I am going to tell you that you should distill your experience in an online training. In this training, you address the problems all of your customers have experienced. After having completed the training, your customers’ employees will now operate in a level playing field. This will do two things for you: Create an independent source of income Increase demand for your expertise Wait, why would you need that last bullet point? You were already overbooked, right? Yes, but now you can refer your customers to your online training for their basic training needs. During your live training sessions you can focus on the unique needs that set one customer apart from the other customers. In other words, you first help them enter a level playing field (with your online training) and then you assist them in creating a strategic advantage by leveraging their internal strengths. Let me give you an example: suppose your specialty is in training supermarket cashiers. All of your customers (franchise owners or higher management operating supermarket chains) require that you train their cashiers in operating the cash register. This is what I have called the lowest common denominator. You should create an online training which contains a simulation of a cash register and a line of supermarket patrons. Yeah, I know, an actual simulation would require hiring a programmer - but it’s the idea here that counts. (And given enough customers, the return on investment demands that you actually hire that programmer). Now you are free to focus on the unique requirements of each supermarket. Maybe one supermarket has a focus on providing excellent customer service to the elderly and disabled. So your training for this particular client focuses on these aspects of the job of the cashier. Another supermarket chain wants to emphasize the "no questions asked refunds", so you incorporate that into your training. In short: you have just productized (a part of) your training. Selling your training as a product allows you to create an independent source of income. While you are away delivering a training for a specific customer, the employees of ten other customers are concurrently taking the online training. In another blog post I have addressed the software and online tools you can use to productize your training, specifically through e-learning. If you already have experience using online training to complement your live training sessions, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section.  

When teaching English as a second language it can be challenging to make your students read or even write something. But when reading becomes an adventure, then... learning gets better! When it comes to reading you have many options. One of them, for common books reading, is explained in my other article the reading corner, which may be more appropriate for students inclined to books.The other option is a game type called text adventure game. In it you have to go through many landscapes, houses, dark spots, castles… all described in pure text. And your actions are introduced likewise, typing text. Nowadays it’s not easy to find such jewels, as technology has given game developers complex tools to produce close to reality games. So, what’s the plan? Easy, we have to use an emulator, playable in a computer and in a mobile device.Let me introduce you to ZXSpectrum, my first computer (yes, I’m 40). For this device tons of text adventures were developed. It happened the same for other contemporary computers, like Amstrad, Atari, Commodore… Some nostalgic people have generously maintained a website called World of Spectrum with an abundant  archive of games and a list of emulators for your computer.But things get easier for you and your students. Forget about installing, downloading and executing anything when you can do it automatically with this marvelous android application: USP - ZX Spectrum Emulator. It not only emulates, it also has an integrated game downloading system.Follow these simple steps:Start the application.Pop the menu (left button), and click on Open File.Choose the WOS tab and select a game.The RZX tab is for showing how to complete a game! It’ll give you a glimpse of what to do if you get stuck. The app will download the game and make it run. From that moment on use the keyboard to control the flow. Look at this video. I’ve used the RZX option so the game goes ahead on its own. Just relax and see how these games are played.Now think a plan for your lessons:Make your students play for a week or so to see who goes farther.They’ll record words they didn’t previously know (e.g ColorDict).The same for collocations, expressions, etc.They’ll have to rank the game.After playing for some time they’ll write theirs (I’ll explain it in a future post).As you can see it’s fantastic to go back in time to find resources for your classroom.

There is absolutely nothing like engaging with motivated educators, sharing ideas and making a stronger workforce of teachers. It is evident of a teacher’s will to improve on their craft when they arrive early on a Saturday morning, either towards the end of their school year or in some cases already on their summer vacation. The 3rd Annual Think, Create, Share Conference at Cal State Fullerton was kicked off by the very engaging and inspiring poetry of Taylor Mali . Mali is a former classroom teacher who can now be found speaking all over the world, reciting his poetry and supporting the teaching profession. It is the teaching profession and the educators who make the wheel of learning go round and round, that inspire me, to care enough to share ideas and make a forward moving difference in education. This is a simple message to all teachers. Care enough to know that teaching….   is demanding is rewarding is not following a step-by-step procedural textbook is not over when the last bell rings requires you to be open to new ideas requires you to love children requires you to differentiate requires you to be early and leave late requires you to stop making excuses requires you to create or find solutions requires you to engage with technology requires you to seek out the latest teaching strategies requires you to love teaching Thank you to all educators who inspire me and thank to all educators who care enough to know what teaching is!

This infographic paints a very interesting picture on the relationship between social media and our students. This provides more justification on why we need to teach the proper ways of using social media to our students.

Why would you be interested in niche marketing? Because marketing to a very specific audience is a lot easier - and cheaper! - than using a scatter shot approach. Working in a niche means you will be an expert sooner. This is because all your customers face the same kind of problems that they want to see solved by your training sessions. In no time at all, you’ll be able to advise new customers based on what you’ve learned from your existing customers. Now, put the advice online, publish recommendations on your website or blog about it. Wait, putting advice online for all to see? Completely for free you say? Well, yes. You are a trainer, your added value comes from your face-to-face training sessions. Sure, people could implement your advice without your involvement, but they wouldn’t be completely sure if they did it the right way. So don’t be afraid that people will take your advice and run without paying for it. If you’re really specialized, your online recommendations will definitely be valuable to all people who fit in your niche. Let’s look at an example. Suppose you’re a trainer who decides to specialize in presentation training. From that moment on, you no longer have to compete with all the other "general" trainers. I mean, look at it from the customer’s perspective. I’m a CFO and I want to prepare my quarterly results presentation. Who do I turn to? I’ve got two ads in front of me: one is from Ted the Trainer - for all your training needs. The other is from you, the trainer who is specialized in presentations. I’ll pick you over Ted of course because you’re answering my specific need. It’s even better: nowadays everybody looks on the Internet. And there, I don’t even get to see Ted’s ad, because I’ve typed in "presentation training" in Google. I get to see your ad - but only if you’re specialized in what I need; if I’m a customer in your target niche. How to Find a Profitable Niche If you’re already specialized and your training business is running well, great, your niche has been validated. You can skip this section. But if you are still casting a wide net, stay tuned. Where do you find a profitable niche? On the Internet of course. Start with some customers you’ve had pleasant experiences with. Who are they? What are they doing? Also important: did they pay you well? Once you’ve got a specific niche in mind, your first task is to find out if it’s the right fit for you. This is where the Internet comes in. Is the Market Large Enough? Go online and simply check the Yellow Pages website (or the equivalent in other countries), google for "trends and figures" in combination with the name of your niche. See if the niche is large enough to support a trading magazine. If you actually decide to pursue this niche, you may even want to place ads in the trading magezine, later on (after all, not all marketing needs to proceed through the Internet). Is There an Inexpensive Way to Reach Them? Can they be reached by building an audience such as a mailing list, or a blog, or through search engine optimization? We’ll discuss these topics in more detail in other blog posts. You may also want to consider looking at forums, trade organizations’ websites and LinkedIn groups. What are the advertising prices there? Do They Have Problems Which You Can Solve? Reaching out to a target audience is easier if you are able to actually help them. So, revisit the forums, blogs and LinkedIn groups of your niche and write down all the issues they’re discussing. Is there a pattern? Do they have problems which you can solve? Create an Audience Once you have chosen and validated a niche, you need to reach out to them. Help out your customers. Build trust and an expert reputation by consulting your customers in a very real way, with advice derived from your experiences with existing customers. Use your blog, website and mailing list to actually present the advice. You can also go out and post tips on forums, LinkedIn groups and blogs from the members of your target audience. From there, you can also link to your own blog, when appropriate. Just remember one thing: you cannot be a specialist in everything, not even in a niche market. So choose your topics with care and empathy.

The Internet usually looks like a mare magnum for young students. So many things, so less time... They end up wasting their energy looking for resources, being absorbed in social sites or playing silly games. The solution? Make them curate their own PLE. Personal Learning Environment, that’s what PLE stands for. And the process of building one is called curation. Everyone has ever done something like this, in fact bookmarking interesting websites for any kind of personal growth is to curate, and that especial folder you keep with several useful links for your work is a sort of a PLE.Nowadays there are many tools to fabricate a PLE, but if you are going to choose one be sure that it is social media friendly, i.e, that you can share and find others’ works in the Net. I used to use Delicious, but I didn’t find it student-friendly enough, so I decided to change it for Symbaloo. This last one’s main advantage is its ease of use and its board-like interface.As PLEs deal with many different things (presentations, social networking, documentaries and videos, research, production, publication, citation, collaboration, storage, project management, coding, augmented reality, virtual worlds, gamification, gamecodization...) you can also curate different boards according to the subject you are working about.Let’s see an example. This is a board I use to teach the concept of PLE to my 13-year-old students. Everything is mixed but visually arranged. As it’s obvious there are hundreds of applications and this is but a mere mini collection.There are some points to bear in mind about a PLE:It’s dynamic. A link which used to be valuable can be unuseful all of the sudden. Keep some, discard others.It’s flexible.It has to be social: make it be known and know others’.It’s not only about school: whatever you do you should have your own personalized one.It’s curated: you have to invest time and effort to make it of good quality.It’s a magnifying glass to focus on certain aspects of the Internet and avoiding wasting time.It’s a productivity tool.

                                          Here is an activity that can be a class starter or center or a stand alone assignment that allows students and teachers to incorporate technology and writing. Have the students go out with their iPad or mobile device and capture two images that they they believe compliment each other. Next, using a photo blending app such as the iOS app Photoblend, edit the images to their liking and have them use the image as inspiration to create a poem. Students can save their edited image to their camera roll and them import into a writing or presentation app that allows them to combine their image with their writing that they can then share with the teacher and the world! Here is my example poem: On The Tracks When I’m on the tracks I can go where I want I dream Arizona, Boston or even Vermont When I’m on the tracks I feel the movement of the train With every forward bump and sway there is excitement to gain When I’m on the tracks it reminds me of my past As kid putting pennies on the track to get smashed Most of all it just peaceful with lives moving about At the end of their journeys with with families no doubt