IT Summit 2012 Cool Tools Duel by Dean Shareski and Alec Couros

Here is a link to last year's duel: IT Summit 2011 Cool Tools Duel 2011

Cool Tools Duel by Dean Shareski and Alec Couros

View the results of the Duel voting here: Results

Tool #1:Both tools for screencasting
Dean: Screencast-o-matic- www.screencast-o-matic.com
Alec: Present.me- http://present.me/


Tool #2: 
Dean: Language Immersion for Google Chrome (translate on the screen)- In Chrome (browser) Web Store (Search Language Immersion and install in your browser)
Alec: Remind101.com (text message without sharing numbers) - www.remind101.com 


Tool #3:
Dean: Trigger - Put the internet to work for you - http://ifttt.com/
Alec: Download YouTube videos- To get the script go to- http://bierber.ly/62e7


Tool #4:
Dean: Hire people for $5 to do things for you on fiverr - fiverr.com
Alec: Way to share media quickly - Dropmark- http://dropmark.com/


Tool #5:
Dean: Infographics: easel.ly - http://www.easel.ly/
Alec: Storify (Create social media stories) - storify.com


Tool #6:
Dean: Classdojo - Class management tool - http://teach.classdojo.com
Alec: Otixo - Bring tools all into one place - https://app.otixo.com


Tool #7:
Dean: iPad - Actionmovie FX - iTunes Store link
Alec: Google+ - Hangout feature and can make your hangout public by enabling a hangout on air using your YouTube channel (a way to broadcast your conversation)

Tool#8:
Dean: iPiccy - online photo editing tool including online photos - ipiccy.com
Alec: Egg Timer - e.ggtimer.com

School as Real Life - Session by Diane Laufenberg at Sask IT Summit 2012

Diane Laufenberg, Teacher
Science Leadership Academy
Philadelphia, PA
http://www.scienceleadership.org/ 
http://laufenberg.wordpress.com/


Great Web 2.0 Tool for student planning and creating diagrams and flowcharts: http://www.lucidchart.com/


Laufenberg spoke about authentic learning and taking advantage of real-life opportunities to engage her learners such as election day or public meetings. The students gather authentic documents (primary source documents) and footage that they then publish to their blogs and these artifacts are discussed in class.
Her students reflect on the learning process on their blogs. Their reflections really reflect the thought process and the difficulties or obstacles the students may have had to overcome to complete their project. Giving students the opportunity to have an authentic audience and challenge students to rise to the occasion can provide real student engagement. Tapping into student creativity and allow them to demonstrate their work in manner that allows them to articulate their learning can be very powerful.

Chris Lehmann and Diana Laufenberg - Building School 2.0 - TuesdayMorning at Sask. IT Summit 2012

Science Leadership Academy
Philadelphia, PA
http://www.scienceleadership.org/






This high school is a student centered, community supported, with a focus on collaboration. Students are encouraged to pursue their passions. They spend every Wednesday working on a project of their choice.


Teacher collaboration at its best where three subject teachers stream their classes live and work on an integrated delivery of the curriculum.


They are understanding-driven and centered on project-based classrooms. They end up doing 80 projects during their secondary career at the Academy and they are all presented.


Technology isn't the focus of the students' learning, it is a tool they use to support their learning.


All of the teachers' units are published online so their classrooms are very transparent. Everything is inquiry-driven centered around an essential question that is woven through all subjects for that grade level. This is all done through common lesson planning.


Assessment is done through three types of tools. Common rubric, narrative and standards-based. Students self-assess and then sit in groups and assess each other. By the time the teacher assesses the learning, they have already had a number of focused conversations to reflect on their learning.

Integrating QR Codes and Video Across the Curriculum, 2012 IT Summit Presentation

Here is my presentation that I gave at the 2012 Saskatchewan IT Summit.

Update: to be able to read QR codes on a PC desktop or PC laptop using your webcam, try QuickMark QR Code Reader.

Integrating qr codes and video

View more presentations from Joanna Sanders.

Alec Couros - IT Summit 2012 Monday Keynote

Alec Couros - The Power of Networks: Why it Matters in Education

@courosa
http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/

Power of Networks

View more presentations from Alec Couros

It is importance of being a critical thinker in the digital age. Ideas can spread through society like viruses. Meme is a virus or an idea that spreads through a culture or society. Example - the video hoax about how to charge an ipod with an onion.
Meme can be used politically. Once you create one, you can get people to come back to the original story by sharing versions of it or by spreading the word through social media through sharing, liking on Facebook and retweeting something. Are you endorsing something by liking it? What is the impact of recommending a link to your friends on Facebook by liking something on Facebook or YouTube.

Digital Identity - Google Chrome commercial - A Dad writing emails to his daughter.
The average digital birth of children happens at about 6 months because people share information about their children, sometimes before they are even born through photos, video and social media postings. The best idea is to overload Google with good stuff so that anyone that searches your name will have only good things to read about you.

Network Literacy - understanding how networks function is the most important literacy of the 21st Century. How did Obama get elected? There are a lot of great places to participate, such as using hashtags in Twitter to be part of different conversations. Social and crowdsourced information can influence where you stay or where you eat.

The rise of the networked individual. We have evolved from little boxes in our classrooms, to connecting to others in our school or city and now we are connected to people around the world. We are connected now to a person than to a house. (Phoning a cell phone rather than a land-line).

You are the hub for all of your learning. It used to be the role of the classroom but now it is the responsibility of the individual to be in charge of your own learning. Classrooms are there to help guide us and ensure we know how to navigate the individualized learning path.

Virtual Science Fair

Inspired by the Google Science Fair, I decided to challenge my Grade 6-8 students to explore their own scientific question by holding our own virtual science fair. The main outcome of this activity was to have students use the scientific method to solve their question and be able to present their research and experiment using scientific language.

We spent a lot of time exploring potential scientific questions and ideas as I wanted to ensure my students chose challenging bigger questions that required deeper thinking. In the end, those students who chose their questions carefully were much more successful in their projects than those who pursued a question based entirely on a simple experiment. In order to think big, I wanted my students to challenge themselves to find a larger question that they would only be able to solve in part. Like real scientists who spend their lives trying to answer one huge question, such as how to cure cancer, how to reverse global warming or how to find evidence of life on another planet.

Students presented their findings in the form of a Google website. I gave them the required basic template to follow and they made it their own after that. They were encouraged to take photos and to include video on their websites. They were also allowed to chose if they wanted to work by themselves or with a partner to build the website. Because they had a required off-line component involving research, were marked individually on their presentations and on their ability to answer questions after the presentation and on their blogs, it was relatively easy for me to give final individual grades that reflected individual efforts and understanding of the scientific method. Figuring out how to give individual marks that reflect individual efforts is often a challenge in a group project.

Although I was satisfied with the final demonstration of learning and I am confident that my students have a better understanding of the scientific method, I think that if I were to do this project again, I would provide more support to ensure all students had good visuals on their websites. Perhaps we would devote a bit more time to producing videos that demonstrate the different steps of the process or to allow for the students to record their explanations and thinking during the length of the project. I would also set minimums for length of text required for each page as some students put more effort into the writing component of the website than others.

Here are some examples of the websites produced during our virtual science fair:

Grade 8:

 

Howard and Lane: L'énergie des fruits

Zara and Erin: Pourquoi le ciel est bleu? 

Grade 7:

Ella and Brianna: L'électricité apartir de la nourriture

Hannah, Elizabeth and Victoria: Pousser les plantes avec des aimants

 Grade 6:

Daisi, Jenna et Maija: L'énergie éolienne

Matthew and Hudson: Est-ce que les robots peuvent prendre charge de la Terre?

Do students care about the provincial budget? They do if you let them "tweet" about it!

Grade 6/7 students participated in a live "tweet-up" event
while watching the Saskatchewan Minister of Finance
deliver the 2012-13 budget speech.

Figuring out how to engage middle year students in politics and making them understand that government decisions apply to them is a challenge. One of my goals in my classroom is to make students feel connected to what they have to learn and to encourage them to make a difference in the world around them. The provincial budget is an abstract idea to most students and I decided to challenge myself to make them better understand the event.

Some of the budget themed
snacks enjoyed by students
during the event.

I organized two classes of students in Grades 6 and 7 into student response groups, each responsible for a certain part of the budget, i.e. health, education, agriculture, etc. I then created a generic twitter account for each group and their job was to listen to the Finance Minister's speech and the Finance Critics' response and tweet about their assigned area of the budget and anything else they found interesting. Reporters had also offered themselves up to answer questions via Twitter so they were allowed to tweet them to ask questions of clarification on their topic. Students worked as teams to compose relevant tweets and also participated in the online budget discussion about the provincial budget that took place under #skbudget. The assignment follow-up is listed on my website here: SK Budget 2012-13 A Live Tweet Event

It was fascinating to observe students, who are not normally engaged in class discussions, participate actively in this activity. Most groups started by tweeting the facts that they were hearing, but later, they started tweeting their opinions about what they were hearing in the budget. The received questions about what they were saying and had to justify their "tweets" to people and support their opinions when challenged by others.

We received some attention online from others who were excited to see students get engaged on the topic. Some of the tweets included:

Saskatchewan School Board Association

Sheila Coles, CBC Radio

Murray Mandryk, Regina Leader Post

Using social media made an otherwise boring event engaging and relevant to the students. If I had simply made them watch the budget speech and then discuss it in groups or as a class, we would have been able to have a conversation about it, but it would have been limited to the knowledge and understanding in the classroom. The opportunity to ask others questions and engage in conversations with other people was a huge incentive for students to participate. There were definitely risks involved. We discussed the importance of being responsible digital citizens who were representing our school online. They had to ensure their tweets were appropriate, correct and would not embarrass our school or myself for allowing them the opportunity to participate in a live event. In the end, I had no inappropriate tweets show up. The students understood their responsibility and rose to the challenge.

Given the success of the activity, I would not hesitate to participate again in a live social media type event. The students' understanding of the budget and the conversations that took place were rich and impressive for their age. At the end of the day, I was rewarded by receiving tweets from students about their experience. Here are a couple of examples:

Presentation to Key Women Educators

Here is the online version of my slidedeck for my presentation to Key Women Educators in Regina, SK, on February 8, 2012 about the use of technology to engage in lifelong learning for both students and educators.

The use of technology to engage in lifelong learning

View more presentations from Joanna Sanders

Sanders Bobiash keeps passion for technology in perspective, Saskatchewan Bulletin, December 2011

A recent article was published about me in the December issue of the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation's newsletter, The Saskatchewan Bulletin after I received the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence, Certificate of Excellence this fall. You can read the article on page 2.

Saskatchewan Bulletin, December 2011

View more documents from Joanna Sanders Bobiash.

Globe readers nominate innovators - teachers leading classrooms of the future - Globe and Mail, December 2, 2011

To read the full story, please follow this link to the Globe and Mail's website: Globe and Mail, 02/12/2011

Excerpt from the Globe and Mail, December 2, 2011

Three Regina teachers nationally recognized

Photograph by: Bryan Schlosser, Regina Leader-Post

Regina Leader-Post, November 22, 2011:
Three Regina teachers nationally recognized

Page: A5
Section: News
Byline: Kerry Benjoe

Regina is home to not one but three nationally award winning teachers.

Last month, Joanna Sanders Bobiash travelled to Ottawa to receive the prestigious Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence.
Randy McLeod from Campbell Collegiate and Dean Vendramin from Archbishop M.C. O'Neill High School each received a Certificate of Achievement.
"It was a very exciting experience," Sanders Bobiash said. "But also very humbling at the same time because I was nominated by a number of parents, colleagues and students to receive the award."
Sanders Bobiash has been teaching at Ecole Wilfrid Walker for the past seven years, where she is a part-time teacher librarian and teaches Grade 6, 7 and 8 social studies and science. She received the Certificate of Excellence for her innovative teaching methods.
Sanders Bobiash uses the latest technology and finds ways to incorporate blogging, Skyping, webquesting and Googling into her classroom lessons.
Her interest in technology has created unique learning opportunities that benefit her students.
"I actually went to Google this summer and became a Google-certified teacher in Seattle, (Wash.)," said Sanders Bobi-ash. "So I use that with all my students - they all have accounts and websites. I also use YouTube to integrate video."
She was one of 50 teachers from around the world selected to participate in the Google teacher program.
Sanders Bobiash chooses to use technology in the classroom because it gets students excited and keeps them engaged.
"We are learning in a whole different way than we used to," said Sanders Bobi-ash. "It's not just the traditional pen and paper. We are sharing our work with everybody. We leave a lot of our work open for people to comment on and we do different projects with different classrooms around the world."
McLeod teaches math and calculus for Grades 9 to 12 at Campbell and about 25 rural communities. His method of teaching has proven successful - about 95 per cent of his students both online and in class successfully complete his calculus class.
After 12 years as a regular classroom teacher, he helped to pioneer the distance education model. In 1990, he began teaching calculus and trigonometry via satellite television throughout the province. McLeod then worked to improve outcomes.
Vendramin teaches new media and social studies for Grades 9 to 12 at O'Neill. He's also Google-certified and worked as a technology consultant with his school division before returning to the classroom.
He introduces the communications production technology course which teaches web, graphic design, audio, video and multimedia production and is working on the new media campus articulation program. Like Sanders Bobiash, he's always looking at new opportunities for students to learn.

Making Your Library Googlicious

A joint presentation by Joanna Sanders Bobiash and Terry Pon, Regina Public Schools
RPSD, RCSD and PVSD Teacher-Librarian Professional and Learning Day
Regina, SK - October 25, 2011

Here is our presentation. (link) Please explore the links in the presentation and provide feedback using this form.

Regina TLs Day of Learning: Anytime, Anywhere, Anyone: Transitioning Toward 21st Century Learning

Keynote Resources from: bit.ly/SaskTL

Anytime,Anywhere, Anyone (Resources) - #SaskTL

Dr. Alec Couros
couros@gmail.com
@courosa
skype: aleccouros
youtube.com/courosa

Websites in Order of Appearance:

• SaskTL - Twitter search.

• About.Me - Alec’s About.Me page (as an example).

• Photo-A-Day Group - 2011/365 Group (mostly educators).

• EC&I 831 - Open graduate course, “social media and open education”.
• The Open Doctrine - My own personal attack ad (video).

• The Digital Native: Myth & Reality - Selwyn (2009)
• Debunking the Digital Native - Brown (2010)
• Visitors & Residents - David White
• Why Youth Heart Social Networks - danah boyd
• Justin Bieber Chrome Ad - Summary of his career growth.
• Maria Aragon - Sings born this way.
• Amanda Hocking - Young fiction writer.
• Connectivism - George Siemens
• Smartphones Surpass Desktops - From Mary Meeker
• Amazon Selling More Kindle Books Thank Print Books - From Amazon

• Creative Commons - Copyleft licensing mechanism & search.

• Sprint’s Now Network - Clever commercial from Sprint.

• Teenagers Living with Social Media - Keynote (video) from danah boyd

• David After the Dentist Description - Wikipedia article.
• Antoine Dodson Description - Wikipedia article.

• Best Job In the World - Top 16 applicants for the Best Job in the World.

• Saskatchewanderer - Saskatchewan’s version of the same contest.

• Saskatchewander Disqualified - From the Leader Post.

• Stephen Downes - Downes’ wise commentary on the Best Job in the World.

• Naheed Nenshi & Social Media - Social Media Analysis of Naheed Nenshi’s campaign.

• Trip Advisor - Popular hotel rating site.
• CouchSurfing - Find or lend a couch.

• Young Me, Now Me - Collaborative photo project.

• Dear Photograph - Collaborative photo project.

• The Networked Teacher - Diagram of a PLN.
• Visualizing Open & Networked Learning - Blog post.

• PS22 Chorus - Grade 5 Chorus

• Bow Drill Set - Young person’s networked learning.

• Writing Prompts for Teacher Candidates - Post about a collaborative Google Doc.

• Virtual Choir - Collaborative choir by Eric Whitacre.
• Johnny Cash Project - Collaborative artistic music video.
• Star Wars Uncut - Star Wars redone 15 seconds at a time.
• Khan Academy - Featuring over 2000+ educational videos.

• Twitter in 60 Seconds - From Jim Gates.
• High School Teacher Loses Job - Facebook picture.

• Thank You For Being a Friend - A tribute for my 40th birthday.

• 21st Century Literacy Framework - From the NCTE

Standards/Background:

• The Typical Teacher Network - This diagram attempts to visualize the typical network of teachers.
• The Networked Teacher - Increasingly more teachers are developing rich personal learning networks (PLNs) through the use of social media (sometimes called Web 2.0 tools).
• PLE Diagrams - Scott Leslie has compiled comprehensive list of individuals who have visualized their personal learning environme
• nts.
• What Does the Network Mean to You? - I asked the question of my network, "what does the network mean to you?". As a result, dozens of people responded via Voicethread (through text, audio, video) to explain their thoughts on networked learning and professional development.

• ISTE/NETS Student Standards
• ISTE/NETS Teacher Standards
• NCTE Definition of 21st Century Literacies
• 2011 Horizon Report

Examples and Information About Open Courses

• Social Media & Open Education (#eci831)
• Call for Networked Mentors (#eci831)
• Call for Networked Mentors - Follow-Up (#eci831)
• CCK08/09
• Personal Learning Environments Networks & Knowledge (PLENK)
• What is a MOOC (video)
• Success in a MOOC (video)
• Knowledge in a MOOC (video)
• Digital Storytelling (#ds106)
• CCK11 - Week 6 Readings

21st Century Learning in Practice (videos):

• Welcome to my PLE (video)Enable screen reader
• Why are some users anonymous? Learn more
• The Networked Student (video))

Communication/Networking Tools & Tutorials

• Twitter
• Twitter for Teachers (list of tweeps in various categories)
• Twitter for Teachers (another wiki with tools & resources)
• Twitter Handbook for Teachers (online document with tools & tips)
• Tweetdeck (most popular Twitter client, software download)
• HootSuite (another Twitter client, web-based)
• MapMyFollowers (easily map the range of your network)
• List of Educational Hashtags (from Cybraryman)
• Wordpress.com (a simple and free, hosted, blogging platform)
• Wordpress.org (where you can get Wordpress software if you want to host it yourself)
• Kidblog.org (Wordpress-based tool for hosting & managing student blogs easily)
• Weebly (easy to use website creator and blogging tool)
• Wix (free and easy, Flash website creator)
• Edmodo (easy but powerful, classroom social networking)

• Wikispaces (one of the most popular wiki tools, adfree for educators)
• PBWorks (another popular wiki tool)
• LinkedIn (important, career-based social networking tool)
• Schoology (free learning management system, course communication/creation tool)
• Posterous (very easy blogging/communication tool)
• Tumblr (media-friendly blog platform)
• Skype (most popular video/audio conferencing tool)
• join.me (video/audio conferencing tool)

• Tokbox (similar to skype but nothing to install, free for videoconferencing)

• Chatzy (free private chat rooms)
• TinyChat (live video chat rooms - beware of some inappropriate content)
• Today’s Meet (easy to setup chat w/ tags)
• WizIQ (virtual classroom for online teaching and learning)

Productivity & Collaboration Tools

• Google (Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Sites, Reader, iGoogle, Trends, Analytics, Adsense, Others)
• Open Office (Free alternatives to Microsoft Office)
• Dropbox (free storage & cloud syncing)
• AirDropper (works w/ Dropbox to extend functionality) - similar, DropItToMe
• The Ultimate Dropbox & Toolkit Guide (great guide with many useful tips)
• Evernote (a great notetaking tool) - EverNote Webclipper add-on recommended
• Delicious (the standard for social bookmarking)
• Diigo (advanced social bookmarking)
• Instapaper (simple tool to save web pages for reading later)
• Scribd (easy document hosting & management tool)
• Learnboost (online grade management tool)
• MapAList (create and manage address-linked maps)

Screencasting, Video, Photos, Audio

• Jing (free software for screencasting and image capture)
• Screenr (free, web-based software for creating screencasts)
• Animoto (easy way to create engaging videos from your imagery)
• Flickr (popular photo-sharing site, great for finding copyleft images)
• Aviary (popular media-editing suite)
• Jaycut (free video editing)
• Handbrake (rip and pull DVDs (Mac)
• KeepVid (download videos from Youtube & other sources)
• Zamzar (online file conversion)
• Lightworks (free video editing software for Windows)
• PhotoStory 3 (story maker for Windows)
• One True Media (create slideshows and share)
• Soundcloud (audio hosting & embedding)
• uStream (free live video streaming)
• LiveStream (another free livestreaming service)
• Blip.fm (social music service)
• GrooveShark (social music service, allows shared playlists)
• fd’s Flickr Toys (number of ‘toys’ for your images)

Presentation Tools

• Prezi (popular alternative to Powerpoint)
• Slideshare (great way to host slide decks & create screencasts)
• Glogster (alternative presentation format tool)
• 280Slides (similar to Powerpoint, but online)
• SlideRocket (another popular Powerpoint alternative)
• PhotoPeach (easy, sharable slideshows)
• Wordle (easy way to create word clouds)
• Tagul (another way to create word clouds)
• Stupeflix (another slideshow creation tool)
• Dipity (timeline creation tool)
• Voki (creating talking avatars)
• Xtranormal (create movies via text)
• GoAnimate (create cartoons and animations easily)
• Voicethread (create interactive presentations)
• VuVox (create great presentations)

Collaborating Thinking/Writing Tools

• Quora (post questions & answers)
• Dabbleboard (online whiteboard)
• Skrbl (Super-easy whiteboard)
• TypeWithMe (multi-author document creator)
• Mind42 (collaborative mindmapping tool)
• Webspiration (collaborative mind-mapping tool)

Referencing/Attribution Tools

• BibMe (online referencing tool)
• EasyBib (another online referencing tool)
• Plagium (plagiarism detection)
• Zotero (great research tool for organization, citation, bibliographies)
• Mendeley (a free reference manager and academic social network)

Polls & Surveys

• Doodle (easy scheduling tool)
• PollEverywhere (polling tool)
• Polldaddy (survey software)
• Google forms (surveys)

Aggregators

• Netvibes (personal, dashboard-like aggregator)
• Symbaloo (another popular dashboard-like aggregator)
• Weblist.me (easy way to quickly share links with visual interface- great for elementary)
• Feedly (Browser plugin to aggregate RSS magazine-style)

Media Resources

• Creative Commons (find & license copyleft material)
• mgur.com (Quick and iEasy Image Hosting site)
• CompFight (interface for Flickr photo search)
• Behold (returns high quality flickr images,  pictures “like” search)
• FlickrStorm (another interface for search Flickr)
• MorgueFile (public image archive)
• CCMixter (a community music site)
• Internet Archive (ultimate source for public domain and copyleft media)
• The Open Video Project (community around shared video clips)
• Wylio.com - Free embeddable images with citation

More Resource Lists to Explore

• Toolkit A-Z (alphabetized resource list)
• 50 Ways to Tell a Story (great resource from Alan Levine)
• TeachWeb (great resource from Wendy Drexler)
• Web 2.0 Tools (great resource from CybraryMan - also see this)