Reform Symposium which is a free online three-day event that brings together educators from all over the world, has started today. RSCON5 features50+presentations/open talk discussions, 11 keynote speakers from across the globe, panel discussions, tech/app/lesson swaps, and plenaries. You can join the Future of Education community to keep updated with these events and connect with over 10,000 educators worldwide. You can also collect badges for each session you have attended. I and Jennifer Verschoor who is my co-author and a great educator from Argentina, will be giving a keynote on Sun. July 13th, 12pm  ET. Our title is "My First Digital Journey: Children and Technology", so if you are interested in learning some tips and tricks in integrating technology in young learners’ classes with a few free web tools that you can use immediately in your classes, please join us! Our room link is here: https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=2008350&password=RSCON5Part19 Please be there to share our ideas, grow and learn together.  

Our second grade teacher, Ms.S., was ready to "upgrade" a traditionally taught unit on reptiles. We met to discuss how she could incorporate the 5 C’s of 21st century skills as well as support new emerging literacies. The basic idea was to upgrade a typical report,  using books from the library to research and fill out a "research" template on a piece of paper. "Upgrading" meant to find ways to go beyond the traditional text based resources and local classroom community and AMPLIFY… the skills being introduced or supported… the reach students’ voices (in a myriad of media) have… teaching as a skill of learning… the audience they are writing, talking or presenting to… With that in mind, we came up with  VoiceThread, as a tool to allow for this amplification to happen. We wanted students to become "docents", responsible to research, learn about and teach others about a specific reptile. A docent is defined as 1. A teacher or lecturer at some universities who is not a regular faculty member. 2. A lecturer or tour guide in a museum or cathedral. The classroom teacher set up a visit from our local Reptile Store, who came to school with live animals. Each student had an "assigned" reptile they were researching. We took pictures of each student with "their animal" (to be inserted as the main page of the VoiceThread. Students were able to ask specific questions of the reptile expert during the visit as well. Two students were assigned the role of photographer and videographer to document the visit and question and answer session with the expert. Our first lesson back in the classroom, in preparation of using VoiceThread, was about Avatars. Since we were going to use VoiceThread under a school account, each students received their own identity complete with an avatar. We talked about the movie Avatar, which most of the second graders were familiar with and how the "alien body" was a representation of the humans and allowed them to breath on planet Pandora. Since we are not able to "physically" move on the Internet, we also need to use an avatar to represent us in the virtual world. We talked about how our avatar should mean something to us and be a representation of how we want to be "known" online. Students had a choice of taking a photo of themselves (not the entire face, but a non-identifying body part, ex. eye, ear, elbow, hand…) or take a picture of a drawn self-portrait. They could also take a picture of their pet or favorite animal at home and send the image file via email to me to be uploaded to the VoiceThread account.     Here are the logistics of how I set up the VoiceThread to be used with the iPads. Create the VoiceThread "Blazin Reptiles"  under teacher’s own VoiceThread account. Create a separate VoiceThread account for students (with individual identities for each student). Invite the student account to view and be able to add comments on the VT from my account. The idea was to be able to log into the student account on each student iPad without them having the ability to delete the the VoiceThread project. The student account houses all the student identities. Side Note: Although this sounded good in theory and USED TO work in practice (!!!), we found out that VoiceThread no longer allows multiple logins from multiple devices After logging into the student VoiceThread account on each iPad, in order to save time and problems with students trying to log in themselves during class, we received multiple "Session Expired" warning windows pop up. We tried to sign the iPads in as quickly as possible, so students could continue recording their prepared voice comments. After tweeting about the problem, VoiceThread replied on Twitter: Once students had created their avatars and they had been loaded under one account as different identities, we brought the iPads for each individual student to the classroom. I connected one iPad wirelessly to the projector via the Reflection app  and walked through the steps of Finding the VoiceThread app Changing the Identity in the Account setting Opening up the Blazin’Reptile VoiceThread Navigating to the specific image with the picture of their reptile Choosing between text, audio or video comment Recording their voice comment Reviewing the audio (discarding or saving the comment) One student volunteered to demonstrate the steps as an example in front of the entire class. After we ran into the problems of students being logged out continuously, we reduced the amount of iPads connected to the student VoiceThread account and grouped students around one iPad to take turns. We are envisioning: First round of audio comments: Students create audio recordings from their research notes. Second round of comments: Students listen to each other’s comments and leave questions for their peers about reptile, that was not covered in the first round comments. Third round of comments: Student docents listen to their classmates’ comments left on their reptile’s page and answer by elaborating and digging deeper into research if necessary. Fourth round of comments: VoiceThread being embedded on classroom blog (and Langwitches Blog). Comments with questions or facts about the reptiles being sought from outside "experts", possibly another second grade class who studied reptiles. Note: Time ran away from us…summer break arrived …The VoiceThread did not make it past round one

The unstoppable rise in online shopping has undoubtedly been the retail story of the 21st century. As more and more people became internet savvy, the more they found buying goods from the comfort of the armchair a preferable option to trekking down to the shops. The popularity of online shopping has threatened the traditional high street as boarded up shop fronts have become a symbol of Britain’s love affair with internet shopping. Many analysts believe that our shopping habits have now changed forever and that the function of the high street will have to change significantly if it is going to survive in the future. Online shopping has brought down physical barriers and opened up a world-wide market for retailers. Put simply, if you have a business selling goods or services then developing an ecommerce strategy is essential in order to boost sales and grow the business. One of the biggest problems online retailers and technology companies faced in the early days of the internet was convincing consumers that it was safe to make a purchase online. Customers soon began to realise however that while shopping online does carry some risk, so does shopping at a traditional bricks and mortar store. Security responsibilities for business Security should be a priority for any online entrepreneur with a shopping cart or ecommerce ambition. After all, if customers aren’t confident that their credit card details are safe in your hands they won’t make a purchase. On top of this if a customer’s account or credit card details are hacked and you are found to be at fault an expensive court appearance is likely. It may even result in credit card companies barring you from accepting plastic in the future. To avoid such a data breach investing in a security system that includes AES Encryption and a locked down shopping cart system.  Using an established and reputable third party security system will allow you to accept payments without any risk to either you or the customer, and enable you to accept payment from most of the big credit card providers. You should also tell customers how you will protect their details, publish your privacy policy on your site and register with the data protection authorities. By taking the appropriate steps to ensure that your website is secure you will gain the trust of your customers and increase your sales revenue considerably. Failure to do so could be costly for your business. Sources http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/17/online-internet-shopping-high-street-record http://www.shopsafe.co.uk/shopping/  

I am proud, so very proud of my mother… Let me explain… As a child growing up, I was not surprised to have my mother bring strangers to our house… Strangers she "picked" up at train stations or airports, like the two young American girls who were stranded in Heidelberg and did not speak German, nor had a hotel to go to…or the young Israeli who was backpacking through Europe and also had no place for the night. They all ended up spending a few nights and days with us. All of them left behind something more than a letter of thank you or a souvenir, like the Star of David (made out of nails, that I still have today). Later on in life, as my mother frequently traveled to visit me in the US, she seemed to develop an affinity for meeting and picking up fellow travelers on airplanes too. Last year, a  young girl from the US, traveling to study for a semester in Argentina, got stranded at the airport in Buenos Aires after a delayed arrival only to find out that her reservations had been cancelled. She ended up staying at my mother’s apartment for several weeks. Now, some of you having grown up in a different era (The "Don’t talk to Strangers! era) or maybe from a different cultural background, might think how brave or how risky to pick up a stranger. Isn’t the young girl who is "going home" with this strange "grandmother" type woman in a foreign country playing with fire? Didn’t her parents teach her better not to talk to strangers? If I wanted to trace the reason for her ability to find, pick up or rescue strangers in these situation, I would probably think of her own history of being a refugee during WWII. As a five year old, she was strapped on a sled and fled with her mother and brother from East Prussia towards the West. Along the way, they relied on the kindness and "humanity" of others to get them through and survive. Once in the West, my mother grew up feeling a harsh distinction between the refugees from the East, who lost their homes, their sense of belonging and possessions and the ones who didn’t. My mother, as a child, played the leading role of a theater production of "Sterntaler" (The Star Talers) at her school, a fairy tale from the Brother’s Grimm.The short fairy tale always symbolized  my mother’s personality for me. An orphan girl was so poor as to have no home; she had only her clothing and some bread. She gave a hungry man the bread, three cold children her cap, her jacket, and her dress, and in a forest where it was dark and she would not be seen, another begging child her shift. Then stars fell to earth before her. They became talers, and she found herself wearing a fine linen shift. She was rich thereafter. Two days ago, my mother returned from yet another visit to the US back to Argentina. She was routed from Florida via Illinois to Newark, NJ, where her flight to Argentina was cancelled with the explanation of "weather". She endured hours of waiting to speak to "customer service" until way into the morning of the next day. Fellow travelers in line lost their patience, got frustrated…"customer service" agents were rude, impatient and not caring. Note: I know…since I was stranded at the same airport, not three days prior to her being there,  with 3 cancelled flights and the same service and chaos erupting everywhere around me with frustrated tired travelers left to fend for themselves. My mother took the time in line to befriend a young girl ( the same age as one of my daughters) from India. Due to lucky circumstances ( or pity from the agent), my mother was the only one from the line to receive a voucher for a hotel to spend the rest of the night. I was not surprised to hear when I called my mother the following morning, that she had the young Indian girl with her. That she had shared her room and had taken her under her wings. They returned to the airport a little while later and my mother made sure she got on her flight to India. A few hours later, my mother was also able to leave too with a rebooked flight for South America. When she arrived the following email was waiting for her: Dear Ms. Rosenthal, Humanity is intact indeed! It’s about an incident that will stay in my memory forever. I am Kanika’s mother, the girl you shared your room and support with, at Newark. She hasn’t arrived in India yet but allow me to pen down my thoughts. Am overwhelmed and wish to express how grateful I feel right now;I wonder how to convey that to you without being a verbose. A mere ‘thanks’ seems limp. Apart from bailing out Kanika during a crisis, you have left a lasting impression of humane quality on her, which I hope she would emulate in future if circumstances demand. With respect and gratitude I am so very proud of my mother and with respect and gratitude I would like to say: Thank you for having been and being such an amazing example!

I was really sad when Google had stopped Google Search Stories, but Google has a much better tool than this: Google Story Builder It’s actually a fun tool that your students from all levels can use to improve their writing skills as they are creating their own stories in a unique way. Google Story Builder doesn’t ask you to have an account, you simply start writing the names of the characters in your story and writing what they are saying or editing lines of dialogues in a word document style. When you are done, write the title and choose your music. You can watch and listen your story and share it with others. How to use it: You can use this tool with whole class to write a story together. Use the characters in a story that you have just read to write the dialogue between them. Use famous characters as you create your story. Teachers can create their own stories and ask students some questions about it. An easy and fun tool to give it a try. 

Our wonderful Art teacher, Shana Gutterman, has been a wonderful supporter to collaboratively work with classroom teachers (I wrote about her collaboration with the Language Arts teacher in a previous post - Transliteracy- QR Codes and Art) to test out iPads to not only have students create analog artwork (water-colors, ceramics, etc.), but also to create a digital image to be able to share and disseminate her work on her Art Blog with the parent community and other Art teachers from around the world. She is becoming (or maybe already is)  fluent in "upgrading" traditionally taught Art lessons to include much needed skill practice (communicate, collaborate, connect, create) with transliteracy methods. Shana is also growing as a reflective professional and blogger. It is a pleasure to read and follow along as she is expanding her curation, reflection and social networking arena to amplify her connections and learning. If you are interested in Arts, check out shoshyart on her Blog Twitter Pinterest Boards Take a look at Shana’s first attempts in incorporating iPads, as she was expanding and upgrading a traditional lesson on contour lines with fourth graders. Students started out with drawing their hands with a pencil and moved on to using the app "Brushes" for their self-portraits. Shana’s reflection below: I had my second lesson teaching iPads in art. Its so easy for me to teach an old fashioned art lesson, with paints. Teaching on the iPad will require some more practice. We used an app called Brushes. The students learned about contour lines and created a self portrait. I am still trying to figure out the best way to demonstrate the app- do I do it before the project or demonstrate as we do the project? The first group of fifth graders  got a demonstration before and during the project- it seemed too lengthy. The second group of fifth graders just got the step by step demonstration and that seemed to go better. When they are drawing on paper its easier for me to scan to see if they need assistance. The iPads are harder to tell where everyone is at. The students liked it and we will try it again next week now that they mastered Brushes.

Pimpampum has always been on my top tools list and Bubblr is one of its amazing web tools. Without getting an account, you can start creating your comic strip using this tool. Go to the tool, begin searching for Flickr images by writing a tag. Bubblr will bring you many Flickr pictures that you can use for your comic strip. When you find the perfect picture, drag and drop it on the blank and choose a bubble from different styles. Add your text and write another tag or a user name to find and add more pictures. When you are done, you can share it with a link or embed the strip on your blog. How to use this tool: Choose the pictures and ask the students to add in the pictures collaboratively. Ask students to turn a story into a comic strip. Ask them to use their own pictures as they create their comic strips on a given topic. Students can present themselves on a comic strip. Bubblr is another cool that we should keep in our digital toolbox.  

Back in January, I made a commitment to: walk the path of Action Research…. to find out if blogging: teachers, who are "actively" learning about and participating in the blogging process (beyond attending a workshop or reading "about" blogging), are setting the stage and building a solid platform for their own ongoing professional development and life long learning? educators, who are blogging with their students,  can (are) learn(ing) to teach through a 21st century lens (skills & literacies)? improves students’ writing skills? motivates and engages students? touches on multiple 21st century skills and literacies, as well as contribute and support learning fluency. amplifies curriculum content, objectives and skills? You can read my train of thought in the following posts: Walking the Walk: Action Research Action Research- Quadblogging Trailer My reflection is structured on three levels: Student level Classroom teacher level Coach or (Tech) Coordinator level (support for classroom teachers) The question we posed ourselves at the beginning was, if four weeks of blogging could improve quality student writing. We wanted to see if blogging with an authentic global audience would engage even the "not so motivated" writer. After the quad blogging concluded, students talked about how they  appreciate the time and enjoyed writing at school. They discussed in class how they felt about getting grades for writing, specific writing assignments vs. writing about what they chose and liked. All of them felt (and could see by looking and comparing posts and comments), that they had became better writers over the course of the four weeks. Picking their own "best work" (comments) and using the rubric,  seemed to help them be confident in their improved accomplishments. A comment left during the first week of the Quad Blogging month: The same students wrote this comment at the end of the month: Here is a blog post from before the Quad Blogging started: and here is a post after the quad blogging month Take a peek into the classroom and hear students talking about their blogging experience. Other student reflection about the quad blogging experience: Quad Blogging Reflection by Zoe Quad Blogging Reflection by Elior Reflection by Zach Quad Blogging by Jamie My Quad Blogging Reflections by Ben Quad Blogging Experience! by Evi Blogging Mania by Itamar Quad Blogging Reflection by Jonah Quad Blogging Is Almost Over! by Rebecca Quad Blogging Feedback! by Liam After writing, Stepping it Up- Learning to Blog FOR Your Students, I was keen to observe the learning curve of the classroom teacher as a participant in the quad-blogging process. It was, no doubt, an intense four weeks. As a disclaimer, you need to know that I chose the classroom teacher I was going to work with during the Quad Blogging month carefully. I chose our 4th grade teacher, Stephanie Teitelbaum, because of an already established coaching relationship and her willingness and openness to try new methods, projects or "crazy ideas" Stephanie was committed to being a student right alongside the children in the classroom. She was willing to try and test on her own, be reflective along the way, tweak when her teacher instinct told her something wasn’t working and ask for help from her students too. She was willing to jump in without "knowing it all", a quality that seems to become more and more important for a teacher. We are all exploring new frontiers, creating new forms and learning by "failing forward". Here is our 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Teitelbaum’s reflection. This was our final week of "quad blogging" and it was a wonderful learning experience for my class.  Four weeks ago, when we started, my students would comment on somebody’s blog with a sentence or a line saying "Great Post".  Now they are writing one to two paragraphs and adding information that they either knew already, or that they researched to add to someone else’s post.  They are reflecting, expressing feelings, finding connections and asking great questions. They can instantly recognize a comment that is of poor quality based on the grammar, punctuation or lack of a true reflection. Their blog posts have been pretty incredible from the start, however, I have only seen an improvement from the quad blogging experience.  They all want to hit the "EXPERT" level on the blog writing RUBRIC so they try to challenge each other to get there.  I saw students researching related links, photos, and other information to add to their posts.  They have all been peer editing and asking each other for advice and/or their opinions. My only negative reflection would be the timing.  This week was our week to blog, and with it being the week of testing, I was not able to follow the process the way I would have liked to.  I didn’t assign homework all week, due to testing, so all of our blogging was done during the day and most of my students weren’t as inspired, due to being exhausted from testing.  Ultimately, they all wrote some really wonderful posts and I think they will continue to strive to reach expert level based on the rubric we used. Without a doubt, I see such a difference in their writing abilities since they started blogging in January.  They seemed to really like the quad blogging and are looking forward to continuing the communication with the three other schools.  They were all so delighted to receive the numerous comments during our "blogging" week.  They each wrote back and many exchanged emails so they can continue to correspond. What did we, as a literacy coach/tech coordinator, learn? How did we support the teacher? What kind of "help" did they need or want? There is a need for a healthy mixture of teacher led mini lessons and modeling, co-teaching and coaching from the technology/literacy specialist. Teachers cannot rely on the specialist to be in their classroom at all times and "the blogging" cannot be just a an add-on or special project, when the specialist/coach is in the classroom. It was valuable to create and leave a step-by-step guides for the teacher to be able to review and for support as they reinforced skills and concepts and continued blogging  on their own with the students. The goal in the end is the one of sustainability. What good is it for a teacher to blog with students for a month or only when a "technology teacher" is in the room? Teachers learning to blog FOR their students will be able to continue the learning journey with their students. The blogging platform is a perfect framework for all curriculum connections, 21st century skills and literacies. There were plenty of opportunities for us to teach students via mini-lessons, but these lessons were also designed with classroom teacher in mind: Hyperlinked writing Embedding of multimedia (images, audio, widgets) -Getting to know your Blog (pdf) & Resizing Images for your Blog (pdf) "Fancy" words vs. plain words Digital Citizenship In addition to mini-lessons for the teacher in the classroom, the following were important one on one opportunities to make the logistical part of the work load of reading, evaluating and giving feedback to students easier on the teacher: Setting up and managing an RSS feed of all participating blogs (Google Reader) Planning of student auditing of blog posts and individual student/teacher conferences (coach/teacher share workload) How do you document (in different media) the learning process? I felt that the success of the quad blogging was largely due to the classroom teacher’s commitment to embed reading, commenting, writing and connecting them to the curriculum content. Her ability to seamlessly pick up, continue and build upon lessons learned was crucial to the success in the classroom with the students. It was apparent that Stephanie had taken "ownership" of blogging with her students and their success in improving the quality of writing. What adjustments would have to be made when supporting a less motivated, less self-starting, less tech-savvy or "uncomfortable with technology" teacher? The Quad Blogging experience with Chrissy Hellyer, Maggie Hos-McGrane, Nancy von Wahlde and Andrea Hernandez (and the respective classroom teachers), was a successful one. Four years ago, I wrote about my frustration with collaboration projects in a post titled Collaboration Projects- Doomed to Fail. Why was this collaboration any different? Although each team was located in a different country, all of us had previous connections and we had cultivated virtual  relationships. We knew that all of us were committed to test our theory of improved quality writing, document and share our reflections. We  learned, that this kind of COMMITMENT was crucial when working together, especially across large distances. We learned, that learning the TECHNOLOGY SKILLS necessary to "do the blogging" was ALWAYS secondary. Teachers and students did not learn how to: insert a hyperlink for the sake of learning HTML, but to make connections and point their readers to further information. upload a video or image for the sake of embedding it into the post, but to support their writing. create annotated screenshots for the sake of doodling digitally, but to explain something visually. We learned, that INFORMAL ASSESSMENT of students in the blogging process, is sometimes the most important one: seeing students passionately use their blogs take pride in its appearance the joy of receiving a comment the anticipation of sharing with their global audience their work/experiences/writing feeling a connection with someone from another country We learned, that blogs can be used as a FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TOOL. As Heidi Hayes Jacobs, in Curriulum21, asks: What can be replaced? What can be upgraded? What can be thrown out? For the sake of time when quad blogging, it is important to know when a blog post or comment can replace a traditional method of assessment and become the evidence of learning. We learned, that participating in a quad blogging experience (and doing it with commitment) TAKES TIME. There is no doubt that the intensity of four weeks of reading, commenting, writing, editing, mini-lessons, evaluating and, and, and… takes time. There is a learning curve, but it is worth it. I am eager to see how subsequent quad blogging sessions will go with teacher and students having the previous experience under their belt. We learned, that although the quad blogging session did take a large amount of time for the classroom teacher, it did NOT "take away" from "covering" other CURRICULUM CONTENT. The challenge lies in learning how to recognize the connections between  traditionally taught methods and TEACHING THROUGH BLOGS. We learned, that students IMPROVED their writing skills tremendously. You might say that focusing 4 weeks on writing (without any blogging involved) would have also improved students’ writing skills. Would the engagement and student motivation have been as high? What about the possibility of connecting to all or any curriculum content? What about the global connections and writing specifically for a world wide audience? We learned, that the blogging platform can be the tool for teaching writing and that quad blogging month can be a CATALYST for an amplified, global and connected writing for your students. 21st Century skills: collaborating communicating connecting creating critical thinking 21st Century Literacies: Global Network Information Media Basic Digital Citizenship Technology skills: inserting and resizing of images embedding of code widgets hyperlinking formatting Writing skills: editing peer editing auto-evaluation writing for a specific audience reflective writing transmedia writing writing with a voice informative writing creative writing Timing: find better timing for all 4 participating classes not close to standardized testing week be mindful of country/school specific vacation/holiday times Rubric: too difficult for ELL students language was too high for primary students Needed to deconstruct the rubric for and with students Idea of possibly recording the rubric with audio explanations by teacher we might need three versions of the rubric: teacher, students (native speaker), students (ELL) ELL- English Language Learners we need to do a better job in keeping ELL students in mind Native speakers need to be prepared and continuously reminded of barriers, limits and necessary accommodations they need to make when reading and writing to/for their blog  buddies. Privacy Settings Testing privacy settings of all classroom or student blogs to make sure it allows incoming comments to be posted or placed into moderation. After we debriefed, all participants were eager to express their desire to "do it again". We are planning to have two quad blogging cycles next school year, one at the beginning of the year and one at the end. I would really like to bring in more blogging "experts" for the students (as well as classroom teachers) to hear first hand how reading and writing has enhanced, improved and changed their academic lives. I want students to be able to articulate why they blog, what it means to them and how it can and has helped them. In return, I would like the students to take on the role of being the "experts" to others by offering to skype into teacher workshops and presenting at an upcoming conference at our school in April 2013. We would also like to "recruit" and "groom" parents, grandparents or pre-service teachers to become blogging buddies to students in addition to the four classes involved. These buddies would receive training regarding quality commenting skills in an "International Commenting Mentor Program". Team Switzerland’s reflection by Dace Secomb (4th grade classroom teacher) Team Switzerland’s reflection by Maggie Hos-McGrane (Technology Facilitator) Why am I so Excited about Quad Blogging by Nancy von Wahlde (3rd grade classroom teacher) Team Czech Republic’s Classroom Reflection Check back for more reflections to be posted soon… So…. if you have made it this far in reading this mega long post of my thoughts about quad blogging and quality writing, I am safe to assume that you are at least interested in exploring the options of teaching writing THROUGH blogging . What are your concerns? Have you tested the waters? Have you found ways to recognize and replace traditional methods of teaching and assessing writing with blogging? Join our reflection by leaving a link in the comment section or sharing your experience directly.

If you have liked the previous post about Google Story Builder, you will like this one too: Masters Edition Although this tool is for higher levels of students, I loved writing with some famous story tellers. Masters Edition is inviting you to collaborate with some of the greatest writers of all the tines such as Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Emily Dickinson etc. When you go to the tool, one of the famous writer will start typing and then it will be your turn to continue. Once you have typed your words, sentences, then another writer takes over. When you are done, you can share your masterpiece with others.It’s pretty fun.  Just try to see! Enjoy.

Nowadays, public speakers, consultant or conference workshop leaders are not the only ones "presenting" to an audience. Kindergarten students are becoming presenters, as they are showing their work to a global audience on platforms such as their classroom blog or even their own blogfolios. In the age of youTube, Flickr and Slideshare, anyone can be a presenter with a click of an upload button. Since "PowerPoint" made its debut in 1990, many assignments in schools have shifted to include a "presentation". From the dreaded group project that needed to be presented in a college class…to first graders who are presenting an insect project to an audience of proud parents…to professors and teachers who will lecture endlessly by reading text from the slides that are being projected on the big screen. Needless to say templates, text bullets, clipart and clashing colors are abundant in these "presentations". My visual soul is in pure agony. I am here to DEMAND a Presentation Makeover for the 21st Century! (It looks like that I am NOT the only one either. Just search for Presentation Makeover on Slideshare...) Transparency projectors are a thing of the past. Students are accustomed to visuals beyond text. All educators should be familiar with the basics of good presentation design. In turn, as teachers, we are responsible to teach basic design concept to our students as they are creating and sharing more and more of their work. Let’s teach students (and model for them in our own presentations) the following three basic points: Less Text… More Visuals… More Storytelling Presentation Makeover View more presentations from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. I was fortunate to have Joy Kirr in the audience at my recent workshop of Presentation21 Makeover at BLC12 in Boston. She reflected on her "take-aways" in a post titled "Pictures ARE Worth a Thousand Words". (Thank you Joy!  Your feedback is incredibly valuable.) The biggest lesson I learned - Forget bullet points. The photograph is the most important part. The photograph is what the audience will remember. You have to figure out - what is your message? Silvia had some stunning photographs - some she’d taken from other sites (and given credit, of course!), and others she had taken herself.  One question everyone was thinking was raised - where do you get your photographs? Sylvia had a slide with sites to search, but what my brain heard, from all she was describing… "I’ve been taking my own." The more visuals I create for presentations, workshops or my blog, the more I gain satisfaction in taking my own photographs to create these images and slides. It is not only the money I save in paying for stock images, but it is also the different way I think about my message and what I want to convey to my audience. I believe that is a valuable process to go through as a presenter and communicator of ideas and worthwhile to explore with students. (Note to self: Think of offering and teaching a "Photography for Presentation Slides & Design" class) Take a look a the few example of slides with images that I have taken. Consider the following: the "feeling" of the image" bleeding image off the page (Ex. Students as Presenters slide) using a metaphor- A footprint as your activities on the Internet (the "Digital Footprint" image was photoshopped) the depth of field (take a look at the "Big Lens" app for the iPad to add depth of field to your images, ex. the "iPads in Education" slide) the intentional white space or lighter color on the photograph to accommodate text  (Ex. "Will Cursive Writing Look Like Hieroglyphics…") the text boxes added for contrast (Ex. "Building a Positive Digital Footprint") the typography (font/color/angle of text) cropping of images to bring focus to a particular area (Ex. "How do we Read?")   I also created a checklist below with the following points in mind to "upgrade" presentation slides: quality images storytelling, quotes and metaphor typography design You can also download the  Presentation21-Makeover Checklist as a pdf file.

There are many things to consider when creating a website, whether you’re a fully fledged business or simply setting up a blog. You want your visitors to have the best experience possible, so most of your criteria should be for their benefit, not yours. As a result it isn’t always clear to some owners what they need. To help those looking for some advice, here are 4 things to consider when creating or setting up a website. Layout A clear, simply layout is much better than a website packed with options. The quicker someone can navigate your website, the better time they will have on it. Confusing your readers only alienates your audience and ensures people will look elsewhere in the future. A common principle used in design is KISS or "Keep it Simple, Stupid". By keeping tabs and pages to a minimum, readers know exactly where to go. Too much choice and they may become confused. For instance, what is the difference between an "about me" and "information" page on a blog? Security  People want to feel safe and, if your website is taking any sort of personal data, most users often look for certain signs of security. For instance, certificate authority is beneficial as it represents a certain standard of safety. These help show users how safe you are or, to put it another way, ensures you don’t lose traffic to other websites which took the effort to acquire these awards. Performance A great website is nothing if it’s on a poor server. If you can’t cope with the amount of traffic, everyone who visits will receive a slow, negative experience and eventually they will start looking for faster alternatives. As a result, always try to be a head of the curve. If you see figures going up, start looking for a more capable server, rather than waiting for when you absolutely need to. This keeps things running smoothly and gives you more time to ensure a smooth transition. Features While websites need a unique angle, too many features can get in the way. If you’ve ever been to a website complete with flash applications, videos and moving widgets on the front page, you may notice this slows your computer down. Too many features have negative effects and, again, having too much to look at risks confusing anyone who visits.

I am still amazed at the amount of educators, who believe that Twitter holds NO VALUE for their professional learning. Many hold on to the belief that Twitter is a waste of time, used to follow celebrities, listen to gossip and bad hair day complaints. If YOU were able to get past that initial Twitter reputation, diving into the Twittersphere can be scary, OVERWHELMING and participating in this global conversation platform does not necessarily come naturally to everybody. Keeping in mind that tweeting and becoming part of a learning network is a PROCESS , there are a few steps  you can take to conquer your fears, dive in and swim with the best of them As with anything, there are a few disclaimers, before you dive in. Twitter is NOT easy. It does take time and effort to build a network that you can trust, learn from and count on. You will not wake up the next morning and have 5000 followers. Give and demand QUALITY If you are not willing to invest the time to learn about quality contributions, Twitter will become what you feared most: a waste of time. There is an etiquette specific to Twitter When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Twitter is a GLOBAL country!  People from all over the world come together to discuss, learn with and from each other, share and also disagree. Pay attention to best practices, the grammar of a Tweet, politeness,  acknowledgements, being a citizen, red flags or specific "no-no"s in your network. There are also bad guys Yes, Twitterlandia has them too. There are the ones, who will spam you, hack into your account, steal you passwords, send out nasty notes to all your followers, use foul language, are offensive, rude or  aggressive. With all this being said, learning how to stay safe, navigating the "stormy waters" and steering clear of potential problems… becoming part of Twitter is MORE THAN WORTH IT! I created the following RU Ready4Twitter Checklist to get you started in becoming a citizen of  Twitterlandia: You can also download the Checklist as a pdf file. The slide deck below is from a Twitter workshop, I recently facilitated for the LEAD21 Academy at the CMI2012 conference in Saratoga Springs, NY. Are Your Ready for Twitter? from Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

After a long summer break, I am here back to blogging with a cool tool. Comment Bubble is new web tool that lets you leave comments on videos collaboratively. After you sign up, you can upload your own videos or paste the link of a Youtube or a Vimeo link.  Then you can change your video setting such as the title, description, visibility and most importantly, you can customize the 5 different comment buttons that you want your students to click on as they watch the video.  When you are done, you can send the link to your students and wait for their responses. As the students watch the video, they can vote on the comment buttons, or they can leave comments by writing, recording their voices or filming themselves. The comments are automatically added to the thread.The students can also reply comments on each other’s comments. The all comments will be visible to everyone. How to use this tool: If you are flipping your lessons,with this tool you can get feedback from your students and see if they have understood the lesson or not. Asking the students to click on the comment bubbles when they do not understand, can give us feedback on where students are not clear. Students can give peer feedback on each other’s video. As students watch the video, they can be asked to leave comments when they find and adjective, simile, metaphor. This tool can also be used for summative assessment all throughout the year. Students can ask questions on the things that they haven’t understood watching the video. This tool has the potential to boost and engage student involvement and this is a great tool for homework on teacher-led lessons.

I am completely impressed with the "Little Story Maker" App by Grasshopper Apps. (Thank you to Karen Lirenman, a first Grade teacher from Surrey, BC, Canada) I happen to visit my little niece in Canada this past week. Sophia is 8 years old and just moved to Canada 6 months ago from Brazil. She is learning English as her third language (Her parents speak Spanish with her).  We took a ride to the Niagara Falls while we visited. Upon returning, I wanted to take the opportunity to test the app out. Sophia and I decided to create a book about our little adventure during the Niagara Falls visit. In the app, we added a story. Then added the title of the story, added a cover image from the photo album and chose the template with the biggest image layout (I hope that a future update will bring more template layouts with multiple images as choices.) We kept adding pages with images and text for each page. The app allows you to have the book read to you, read it by yourself of set it to AutoPlay, which is really nothing new and most children’s book apps have the same feature. Where the customization comes in, is the fact, that you not only can enter you own text, then record your own voice  (in any language of course) AND have individual words highlighted as it is being read! (Imagine the possibilities in the foreign language classroom…using subtitle text in one language to trick your brain into understanding the spoken word- a trick that helped me tremendously as I was learning Spanish as a teenager in Argentina.) You an also tap individual words to hear them individually pronounced in your recorded voice. Another bonus feature is the ability to add "highlights" to the picture. You add text to areas of the image, which you want to pop up as you tap on that area of the image in addition to an audio recording of that pop-up text. (Oh, the possibilities…) I really like the app and see so much potential for the early elementary school classroom (or children at home). The features give endless opportunities to: differentiate learning levels personalize topics and media content to engage children allow students to create their own books or design for peers, younger students or siblings What would I ask the developer to fix/tweak/change/add?: app freezes when we got to the last page and tapped on the "next page" button add more templates to be able to add multiple images to one page a way to export and share the finished book (as an ePub file? or possibly to another iPad that has the app installed?) allow collaborative way for a classroom or family to create a book together (ex. each student creates a page on their favorite reptile, pet, an artist or holiday, etc.) I used the iPad app checklist below. Please be advised that I ticked off  the items, that satisfied the ideas I had in mind for the use of the app. I am sure, your own imagination and ideas would allow you to have additional items checked off

Ever thought that you’ve found the best video and only to remember that Youtube is blocked at your school or you do not have internet connection or the connection is too slow? Here is a great tool that will help you to download Yotube videos on your computer in a very simple way. It is ClipConverter! The best thing about this tool is that you do not need to download anything to your computer. Simply, get the link of the Youtube video, paste it on the empty bar then choose the format that you would like to download your video. I would suggest you to choose mp4 as it will give you the best view on all computers. Now, you are ready to download the video on your computer. Take the video with you wherever you go with your memory stick or go more techie and use Dropbox. A very user-friendly tool and a must in a teacher’s digital toolkit.

There are many tools to create online presentation and Slides is one of them.  It’s practical and very user friendly.   After you sign up, you can immediately start creating your presentation. It is just like an online PowerPoint. You can add text, links, shapes, pictures on your slides and fully customize your each slide with different colors and font styles.  You can also add transitions between the slides. When you are done, you can get the link and share it with others.  The best thing is that, you can view your slides on mobile phones and tablets.  You can also remote control your slides  from any touch-enabled mobile device. Slides is another cool tool for online presentations and another way to share our ideas.

Pic Collage (free), is one of my favorite apps to use on my iPad.  It creates great looking Scrapbook pages of multiple images in no time. Today, as I was planning with our first grade Hebrew teacher, how to upgrade a traditionally taught vocabulary project (creating a dictionary of their weekly vocabulary words in Hebrew), we saw the opportunity to use PicCollage with students in the classroom. (My apologies in advance for the example below is in Spanish and not in Hebrew) Reminder: The idea of a visual dictionary should/is not be confined to the World Language classroom. Think math terms, science vocabulary, library term glossary, Language Arts vocabulary lists, etc. The ideas was for the students to take photos, email photos from home or find photos online to represent their weekly Hebrew vocabulary words. Once the images are on the iPad,  tap on the blank canvas and choose "Photos From Library" to import photos into PicCollage. Double tapping on the image, will bring the Photo editing menu, choose "Clip Photo" to clip the object out of the background. Just use your finger to draw around the outer edges of your object. Tapping again on the canvas, students can choose a background or search for a background that will contrast the images, the text and their colors. Tapping again on a blank area of the canvas, students can now enter text and choose text options, such as font, color, outline and alignment of the text. Once the text is placed on the canvas, simply drag and drop the text into its location. Pinching horizontally with two fingers will adjust the size of the text entered. Using two fingers will  rotate the image in any direction you choose. After students have created their page/poster of the given vocabulary words, they will save the new image to the iPad’s Photo Album. We are planning to add a New Album, named for example "Elad’s Dictionary". Each week "Elad" will be saving his vocabulary image and moving it into his dictionary folder. We are also contemplating creating an ebook with all the individual pages created throughout the year. Possibilities are Little Story Maker or TinyTap, both capable to add voice recordings to specific areas of the page, making it possible for students to record the pronunciation of the vocabulary words. We are looking for tips to even dig deeper with this "Visual Dictionary". Do you have any ideas? Tips? Experiences in doing something similar with your students? Please share…

Here is a terrific website for kids to explore  stories. It is StorylineOnline.  You can view the videos of some famous actors and actresses reading out the books for children. The stories are read expressively and clearly. As you watch the videos, you can also view the animated pictures from the books and the text so that you can read as you listen to the stories. If you are already reading the books that are listed on the website, you or your students may want to give a try. The best part of the stories is that you can download activities and exercises for children or do some of them online to support using the stories in the classroom.  You can play the stories as a whole class or you can assign the students to read them at home. This is also a great website to suggest to parents to use at home. This is a website that worth checking out definitely.

Wes Fryer, a blogger I have been following for many years, has created a wonderful resource page called "Mapping Media to the Curriculum" page. He starts with the simple question: What do you want to create today? Take a look… there are MANY examples from the classroom. See what inspires you? See how you can upgrade a traditionally taught lesson or project? It is not just about the fun and tech "wow" such upgrades can bring, but about the valuable and necessary skills we are exposing our students to (at their developmentally appropriate stage). Skills they will need for THEIR future. Remember what Heidi Hayes Jacobs always says: "What year are YOU preparing your students for?" These skills, these kind of media ARE their world. Traditional skills and literacies (reading, writing, etc) are embedded as you are upgrading.  

If you are already integrating songs into your lessons, here is a cool tool that you may want to use. It is BatLyrics.  With this tool, you can search for song lyrics with its video. But the best part of this tool is that you can search songs for words or sentences. If you click on the ‘Lyrics Words’ at the top, you can search for any words, sentences or specific terms in a video. When the search is over, it gives you many choices and you can choose the best one that is suitable to use in the classroom. If you want, you can embed the song with lyrics and the video of the song in your blog as well. You don’t need to register to use this web tool and this is cool! To use in the classroom, you can print the lyrics and use them with your students as gap filling or  multiple choice activities. You can also ask your students to create their own gap filling activities for each other.

"Tutorial Designer" is one of the six roles, Alan November lists in his Digital Learning Farm that empower student learners and describes in his book ‘Who owns the Learning?. Take a look at the examples below of students: sharing what they have learned in class  sharing beyond their classroom and their parents  sharing with a global audience in mind. As you are watching these samples… Where does your imagination take you? What ideas come to your mind? What comes to mind for YOUR STUDENTS TO SHARE? What lesson or unit, could you "upgrade" to include the creation of a video, audio or screencast? I believe strongly, that teaching and upgrading to include emerging literacies and amplified skills for the 21st century learner rely HEAVILY on imagination, willingness and ability to experiment, fail, tweak and try again. Please share samples of you and your students’ imagination and tutorials, guides or step by step instructions.

It’s not a secret that TED talks are inspirational and thought-provoking. The videos can motivate you and positively change your perspective on life and how you educate your students! And now TED-Ed is bringing TED into your classrooms with TED-Ed Clubs. If you are a teacher and want your students to improve their critical thinking and  collaboration skills; stimulate creative and innovative ideas put forth by them; to connect groups of students and educators of all different backgrounds around the world,  you can start a TED- Ed club in your school! TED-Ed Clubs is a platform for students to stimulate and celebrate ideas. It aims to introduce a school-friendly framework which supports students in meeting regularly to discuss, pursue and present their big ideas in the form of short TED-style Talks. If you are a teacher teaching students aged between 8-18 years old, here you go! You can watch the video below to get more inspiration:

The faculty at my school has a problem! Their heads are spinning because they have several different social media platforms available for them. I have to admit, I am a little proud of this problem For clarification: At our school, all teachers are required to maintain a classroom blog (there are at varying stages of the blogging step ladder) all teachers are members of a private Professional Development Ning for our faculty and are required to blog reflectively at least once a week (in lieu of turning in lesson plans). our teachers are encouraged to start and grow their own professional learning blog (not under our school domain) in order to share and connect globally. They are encouraged to cross-post from the Ning. On a voluntary basis (for now), I am working with several grade levels to tweet as a classroom. Step one was for teachers to get their own professional Twitter account in addition to a classroom account. It is a step for them to experience writing in 140 characters or less, build their own learning network and to become aware of "tweetable moments" during their school day or reflective moments at the end of their day. In order to minimize confusion  for our faculty of  What to Post Where?, I created the following chart (cheat sheet) below to compare the differences, similarities and highlight possibilities (to cross-post for example). Click to see a larger image or you can also download the flyer as a pdf file

Like many of us all over the world, I’ve always enjoyed reading Roald Dahl stories.  He is actually my favorite author! And, if you are already working on his stories in your lesson, here is a great website that you can find more activities and lesson plans to bring his stories to life with your students. On the website, you can read about the stories or Roald Dahl himself, learn writing tips from him, find ready lesson plans and online quizzes to explore the stories. The website also suggests things that can be done at home too.  Also, 13th September is the Roald Dahl Day, and here are a few ideas to celebrate it.  Enjoy!