Rockin' with our Ninth Grade iPad "Wizards"

Lucy gets the girls organized

Last week, 26 MHS ninth graders spent a full school day with our Mercy 2.0 professional development consultant, Lucy Gray.   Lucy has facilitated staff PD with the staff through the year.  On Friday, she spent a day challenging and organizing this enthusiastic group of freshwomen who had applied or been invited to join this group.  Lucy put them through the paces with a number of activities:

Ice Breaker
Lucy has a great idea for helping our ninth graders become acquainted-- She asked each one to name her iPad "superpower" and favorite app. There was an unanticipated benefit to this conversation.  The girls served as a window into the classroom usage of the iPad and to what degree it had been integrated into their teachers' instructional methods. Their nominated apps were interesting, and I will share them in an upcoming post.

Doing the Research
In anticipation of the day, Lucy, Tom James, and I developed an agenda that we shared with the girls in the form of a Google Doc.  Included in the agenda were links to sites which featured student technology groups which were active elsewhere.  Consequently, after the ice-breaker, the girls did some online research and brainstormed about the mission and activities of our particular group.

Kern Kelley streamed live to us.

Video Conferencing

Before and during lunch our ninth graders visited Utah, Maine, and Chicago by teleconferencing with Steve Hargadon, Kern Kelley, Jason Markey.  These three esteemed educators shared their ideas about the formation of student tech groups such as ours.  Kern's description of the Tech Sherpas was particularly helpful.

Taylor shares her group's ideas.

Plotting a Game Plan
The girls came up with the following consensus on the types of activities they would explore and develop:

• Tech Support
• Live streaming events
• After school drop in sessions
• Screencasted tutorials
• Blog posts with tech tips and advice
• Advocacy
• Help with tech orientation for new students
• Co-teach with orientation leaders
• Weekly tech tips in a blog, on twitter and other social media
• Skits, commercials, and movie trailers around tech use  and being a good  digital citizen
• Promote informal use of tech  outside of school
• Communication
• internal
• external
• Geek spirit
• Advisory
• Communicate with faculty and ststaff  about issues of coincern
• social media
• apps
• procedures

Ms. Smith shares a comment while Wizards work on the Ning

Building the Ning
The group spent considerable time discussing the platform for future online collaboration. Drawing on Lucy's rich experience in social media we decided on a Ning.  

For the last hour of our day together, the group went to Mercy's new iMac lab to work on building the Ning. The Ning is ideal for the group, because it is private, serves as a marvelous place to store media and conduct discussions. The girls also joined task forces on the Ning

Throughout the day I took advantage of my relatively passive role to take pictures and record video about the wizards and other Mercy 2.0 matters.  

Without a doubt, November 30, 2012, was one of my favorite all-time days at Mercy. 

A Baker's Half Dozen

I enjoy trying out the toys in Gmail Labs ("a testing ground for experimental features that aren't quite ready for prime time"). Just go to settings in Gmail and click the labs tab and a long list of options appears. One very useful gadget is the "undo feature", a setting which allows for up to 20 seconds of pause time after you hit the send button. I've clicked the "undo" more than a few times, and the way I see it, no email is likely to suffer from the delay of an extra few seconds.

Recently I was participated in a conference call involving dozens of educators. This was scheduled using Doodle. Check it out-- It is a splendidly simple piece of software that can be used for whipping up a poll. If you are setting up a meeting poll your members with Doodle and it will produce a matrix showing you the optimal meetings times. Pretty cool.

Have you been bewildered by Ning's announcement to eliminate its free social media sites, followed by a the mysterious statement that "A major educational company has offered to sponsor Ning Mini Networks for educators"? If your confidence has been shaken in Ning, perhaps you would like to try Spruz, which seems to offer similar functionality.

I've only been playing around with Voila for a few days, but I am already hooked. It is an inexpensive screen capture software made for Macs by Global Delight. Voila allows you to "capture and record anything on your screen." It also comes with an easy to use annotation tool kit. which I find very helpful for creating presentations and classroom resources.

Speaking of free accounts, some of the bloggers that I read have referred to Instapaper. If like me, you hopscotch all over the place when you read online, this might be a handy tool. It's simple to register for an account. Then drag a bookmarklet to your toolbar. This will create a "read me" button. When you are scanning an article and want to save it, click the "read me" button and Instapaper will save it for you.

My last recommendation is for pop music lovers. Downplayer offers ten free downloads a day, Monday through Friday. It's easy and fun to preview the songs. If you feel as though your playlist is stale, spend a few weeks sampling from this site and you will discover some new music. The free feature has hooked me into spending some cash on albums, just the way it's designed to do.

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"Six" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by duncan

In-Service: Six Months Later

Six months ago I conducted our staff in-service on Personal Learning Networks. It was a great experience, and I felt supported and affirmed.

So, what was the impact? Such days are notorious for fading quickly into the past. And its not like the staff was hungering for the information.

I can appreciatively reflect that the in-service has been sustained and supported by the school administration. They have called for all teachers to make building PLNs their "goal" for the school year, though I'm a bit unsure as to how this is being documented. But most importantly, the concept has remained part of the school's conversation at the top.

How this works "on the ground" is much more dubious. For example, when the "goals" for personal learning networks came up within my own department, not a single person could recollect what it personal learning network's were. I sat there stunned. It's probably a matter of jargon, but one can also surmise that I didn't exactly close the deal on social media with these folks.

Even more strange was the "shunning" I received from some staff members and in the days immediately after the in-service. This was particularly odd among some hallway neighbors. They simply did not talk to me about my day's presentation or even acknowledge it had happened. I'm pretty sure this had much more to do with their discomfort with the general topic of technology, rather than any particular insult I had delievered.

This is not to say that I have been discouraged by the lack of momentum created by my presentations. At the departmental level many new Nings that were created directly as the result of my presentation. Several teachers have also engaged their classes in Nings or wikis. Recently, many (including three administrators!) answered my call for M-Hub, which is based on the concept of PLNs. Furthermore, administration has asked me to continue promoting digital education in a formal way as part of my prep. I'm eager to do so.

I think it will take something big like M-Hub or to nudge the school culture. So I am hopeful that we can build upon the PLN foundation laid at the in-service. Only time will tell if it's been built on sand. Teachers are so incredibly conservative in their expectation and habits-- But that is a subject for a coming blog post.

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Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Luc_Legay

Celebrating Failure

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."
- Winston Churchill

After thirty-five years in education, I have learned to walk away briskly from failure.

Anyone who tries new things will make mistakes, and if you are my age, you realize that you are wasting precious time if you A) invest more of it in a losing cause B) brood over "ingenious" ideas that do not catch fire with others.

So, I am going to now officially categorize The Blog Squad as an official dud. Last May, I envisioned the Squad this way:

What I would like to establish is something like a "Blog Squad" which would offer message board help to students who are having specific challenges with wikis, web sites, podcasts, blogs in our classes. Believe me, tons of little issues arise with projects using Web 2.0 apps, and they occur when class is not in session. Usually the problems are easy to solve and do not warrant tying up valuable tech department or class time. I envision that the "club" would initially recruit kids who are adept at Audacity, WikiSpaces, Google Sites, and/or Blogger and give them "genius" (apologies to Apple) status as problem solvers.

But I also promised . . . .

I am also not afraid to declare that I have failed. The plan will die a quick death if a critical mass of users is not achieved by mid-semester. . . .

Well, here is the declaration: I failed.

I tried to run the Squad through a Ning . Faculty and students signed up in droves. . . .But they did not return. I was pretty much the only active participant on the Ning. (No surprise on that score!). But I also realize two other factors. 1) Face-to- face meetings are probably necessary to fire up enthusiasm for a virtual project like this. 2) Students need or expect immediate help for their tech frustrations, and on-the-spot assistance is simply not feasible within a conventional school schedule.

Before bidding adieu to the Squad, let this be noted: when I sent out the call, fellow staff members actually came to my classroom to offer hands on technical help (Ann, Will, Cheryl -- you were awesome). And I have since learned that the best way for students to get on-the-spot help is to place them into groups during project launches and let them teach each other.

Thus, by no means was the Blog Squad a total loss. But instead of trying to pump life into this inert Ning, I'm going to walk away from it and try to apply the lessons learned to my new passion: The Knowledge Hub Project: Unlike Blog Squad, I am evangelizing M-Hub through face-to-face gatherings and identifying student leaders who will hopefully keep our momentum going through next year and beyond.

I'm giving this my best shot. But . . . . If next spring, we are dead in the water, I will abandon ship and venture off in a new direction in a different virtual vessel.

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"lydney cannon festival" Flickr Creative Commons photo by the longhairedgit.

Ning Nut or Nuts to Nings?

I have become a kind of Johnny Appleseed of Nings this year. And after my staff in-service presentation, a thousand flower-nings bloomed.

All sorts of folks have let me know about their Nings. They have started them up in their classes, for their departments, or even for their families! This is ironic at two levels: 1) I really haven't really pushed this particular social platform. 2) Most of the Nings that I have joined through school have one active participant-- me!

I have written before about my frustration with starting the Blog Squad club with a Ning. I had dozens of students join but very little participation after joining. More recently, I have joined Nings that were started by the chairs in my two academic departments. I have posted a number of discussion threads and items to each one. But no one else is really using these virtual meeting places, let alone responding to my posts.

Between you and me, the Nings could almost completely replace our physical meetings. So this is a bit of a head-scratcher for me since I find many such meetings to be time-wasters and would rather participate on my own terms with the Nings. So I'm going to be a bit stubborn about this. Both departments have asked me to help out with some techie issues. And I will......But the help will be channled through their poor neglected Nings, not through some watch-the-paint-dry meeting. We'll see if this helps to reactivate the Nings (You can count on me to keep your posted). As usual, I welcome your reactions and insights!
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"May 8 - Multi-Color Ning" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Paul Robert Lloyd (old)

AP Government CBL -- Student Solutions: Nings & Things

This is the 4th post in a series on my Apple Challenge Based Learning Project with AP American Government.

In my last post I described the cbl group in-class presentations. But I have held off on the best part-- their solutions to the challenge of "developing an authentic medium for improving our democracy."

One group chose a Ning as their primary platform. This was an interesting choice, because I am certain that none of the group members had any notion of what a Ning was at the beginning of the semester. The subject came up in September and no one in the class had heard of this versatile social media tool.

The group's Ning is called Gov Love, and as you will see when you visit, it serves as a hub for their central activity to improve our democracy-- gathering petition signatures to lower Michigan's voting age to sixteen. A link to their online petition is posted to the Ning. The Ning was serviceable in another way as well: They could easily hold forum discussions here and post notes/news updates about their subjects. In addition all group members could easily contribute to the Ning.

Group members drove traffic to the Ning through Facebook and word of mouth. By the time of their presentation they had managed 200 signatures on their petition. Granted, they really hustled for signatures simply for the purpose of show and tell in November. And their efforts have been at a stand still since they presented. ( As I indicated to them, the biggest weakness of their project was that it did not have "legs)". Nevertheless, there is no question that their medium was authentic. And from a majoritarian's point of view, extending suffrage is unquestionably a means for "improving our democracy." They managed to research some strong arguments for including some sixteen and seventeen year olds among the electorate. They also encouraged lively debate on this issue on Facebook and at their forum.

I was delighted and impressed with this particular solution.


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Screen capture of the "Gov Love" Ning home page.

Best of 2009: An Assembly, A Career Day, A Suggestion

I am re-posting my greatest hits of 2009. This November post definitely drew the most feedback-- both in my building and on Twitter.

In September, we had the grand opening of our new science wing. There was reason to celebrate: the building project was completed on time, the upgrades were impressive as well as necessary, and even if most of the funds were raised before the Recession hit, it was nice to be spending instead of cutting on a project.

The ceremonies were quite conventional, right down to the giant scissors doing the ribbon cutting. Honored guests were invited and an alumna fromm the Detroit Medical Center was invited to make a keynote address at a school assembly. I confess that I expected boilerplate, but it was actually an outstanding challenge to the young women of our all girls school to find careers in science. Accompanied by some good slides and short videos, the speaker made science sound exciting, challenging and vital. As I was leaving the auditorium, I thought of everyone returning to the school day, and then their respective weekend activities, and wondered how long the great message we had heard would last. Now that it's November, of course the message has dissipated.

Now for a technoligy theme to which I continually return. Why, after our students have experienced a great face-to-face session like this one, aren't we plugging them into online resource centers which can connect them with information and professionals who could continue to feed the flames of their curiosity? Every two years we have a career "day". I think it's a fine concept. Alumnae come to the school, the students sign up for particular careers, and they attend three presentations. Usually included is an assembly (not unlike the one described above) featuring a career woman who urges our young women to set their sights high.

Wouldn't it be great if the academic departments, the counselors, the administrators, the parents clubs, and alumnae participated in a career wiki or Ning? With a decent effort on everyone's part we could have a fabulous resource in no time. I certainly would not want to replace Career Day, but such an endeavor would go far to bridge the 729 days between each one.
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"Career Fair" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by heraldpost

Howling at the Moon

Wailing and moaning on a bleak Friday Morning:

Too Many Questions, Not Enough....
I used to really enjoy reading blogs like a recent one from Will Richardson which poses tons of questions. This one revolved around the issue of school's prohibiting students from using mobile even though they now provide connectivity to the Internet. Very interesting. But, these days when it comes to ed tech, I suffer from "Devil's Advocate" fatigue. I prefer to hear about actual attempts at implementing new policies and programs. Questioning alone lacks street cred with me.

Put up or ....
Speaking of trying new things-- I'm up for that. Imagine my frustration then, when on two different occasions teachers at schools hundreds of miles away have suggested that our classes hook up on a Ning and then failed to follow through on even a first step. This puzzles me a bit, because in both cases they took the initiative. Brainstorming is cool for workshops and retreats. But for classroom activities, I'd rather collaborate with doers.

Positively 4th Street

As Tiger Woods has learned digital information does not dissipate into the ether. A recent experience caused me to consider this fact more deeply as well.

On Facebook I often exchange sarcastic barbs with "friends". But I'm not used to stumbling upon gratuitous insults like the one a friend had posted to his own wall. It was a tired "joke", based on a half-truth. Much worse, it elicited a pair of hyperbolic anecdotes from a former student of ours. She sardonically portrayed me as a heartless beast. No "friend" had my back.

When I revealed that I was masochistically following this thread, the tone instantly switched to chumminess (oh, that's not too phony). What a creepy and uncomfortable experience-- and, I sure didn't like considering that this version of me would remain out there on a virtual wall for family, friends, students or even strangers to see. It originated with my friend's need to come off as oh-so-clever. I've been quite guilty of the same urge. So besides calling out this casual bit of nastiness, I'm giving myself pause for reflection. When I re-engage with truer "friends" on Facebook, I'll be more circumspect, recognizing that any words that fly out of my computer are built to last.

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"a howling moon tonite" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by max_thinks_sees

Ring a Ding Ning

I finally got off the schneid and activated my Blog Squad Ning. I put out a call for members to come to the aid of my American Government students to help them with the nuances of their web site construction. I was not prepared by the immediate response I received....from adults! Our associate principal came in twice to help students one-to-one. Our library technician came in last week and hopes to come back this week. The chairwoman of our Religious Studies Department is coming in on Thursday. This has been inspiring and fun....It's nice having another adult or two in the room because these tech adventures surface a variety of perplexing and humorous issues. The students have been quite appreciative too. The atmosphere has been charged, purposeful, and fun. It makes me feel really good about my school.

Speaking of Religious Studies, I would guess we may be one of the only schools around where this particular department is leading the way in terms of pushing the social media envelope. They have put together a cool Ning for inter-department communications and two of the teachers are experimenting very daringly with wikis and Diigo. They will be guest blogging in this space very soon.

Following on the heels of the Religious Studies bunch, the English Dept. initiated its own Ning and used the forum feature very effectively to discuss a new course proposal. I thought it was a good way to use the Ning and I suspect the discussion was more balanced and focused by virtue of taking place online.

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P.S. I've become addicted of late to sports gossip-- Not Tiger Woods, but the Detroit Tigers. I check the news aggregator mlbtradrumors.com several times a day as the general managers head into their trade meetings. Great time of year for hot stove trade speculation. The rumors and news tidbits absolutely pour into this site.

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"Door Bell" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Caro's Lines

An Assembly, a Career Day, a Suggestion

In September, we had the grand opening of our new science wing. There was reason to celebrate: the building project was completed on time, the upgrades were impressive as well as necessary, and even if most of the funds were raised before the Recession hit, it was nice to be spending instead of cutting on a project.

The ceremonies were quite conventional, right down to the giant scissors doing the ribbon cutting. Honored guests were invited and an alumna fromm the Detroit Medical Center was invited to make a keynote address at a school assembly. I confess that I expected boilerplate, but it was actually an outstanding challenge to the young women of our all girls school to find careers in science. Accompanied by some good slides and short videos, the speaker made science sound exciting, challenging and vital. As I was leaving the auditorium, I thought of everyone returning to the school day, and then their respective weekend activities, and wondered how long the great message we had heard would last. Now that it's November, of course the message has dissipated.

Now for a technoligy theme to which I continually return. Why, after our students have experienced a great face-to-face session like this one, aren't we plugging them into online resource centers which can connect them with information and professionals who could continue to feed the flames of their curiosity? Every two years we have a career "day". I think it's a fine concept. Alumnae come to the school, the students sign up for particular careers, and they attend three presentations. Usually included is an assembly (not unlike the one described above) featuring a career woman who urges our young women to set their sights high.

It is obvious to me that we now have convenient tools for sustaining career education and networking our students with career women.

Wouldn't it be great if the academic departments, the counselors, the administrators, the parents clubs, and alumnae participated in a career wiki or Ning? With a decent effort on everyone's part we could have a fabulous resource in no time. I certainly would not want to replace Career Day, but such an endeavor would go far to bridge the 729 days between each one.

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"Career Fair" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by heraldpost

Frustration, Disappointment and Failure

At the ADE Summer Institute we were urged to embrace failure and a natural part of the quest to innovate. I understand the notion, but it does not make the consequences any less painful if you have invested time and effort into a project. Perhaps by sharing my frustration, disappointment, and failure; someone will have some helpful feedback or at least be spared a similar experience.

Frustration
I urge my cbl project groups to map their progress using Google Docs. They are required to include me as a collaborator so that I can add notes and provide guidance. I get the strong impression that usually one group member tends to dominate the authoring. Worse, the comments I make don't elicit any back and forth. A couple of students waited until class to see me about the comments (What happened to email?), in both cases worrying that they were being "marked down". One erased my comments before the rest of her group even saw them, and then asked me if she had fixed the problems, sort of missing the point of collaboration.

I'm hoping this situation will improve after the students become more acquainted with Google Docs and the benefits of collaboration.

Disappointment
Build it and they will come....That certainly is my experience with the Blog Squad Ning. The purpose of this virtual club is to afford students the chance to help other students with commonly used technical tools. I gathered names last spring and issued invitations. Students immediately signed up this Fall. I began a couple of discussion threads and groups. Then . . . . nothing. I am reluctantly conclude that to ignite the group we a physical meeting or email bombardment may be necessary. The members are not used to being attentive to the Ning. This is ironic, because the reason I jettisoned sponsorship of a more conventional club was that students seemed to assume I would be its major force. Now I find myself in the same position with the Ning.

Failure
A) I was very excited about offering my AP students an ebook option for their text, this year (At our private school the students purchase books). It has nice features and is half the cost its traditional text. Strangely, only about 15% opted for it. This I simply do not get.

B) Last spring I offered film students the research option of writing a digital research "paper" with hyperlinks rather than using the conventional MLA model. The result? I got dreadful citation and reference with both options. And I mean, really bad.

Have you noticed than in all of these I've mistakenly assumed that students will adjust readily to digital media?

P.S. While I haven't yet sewn any silk purses from these sow ears, at least they have given me blog content!
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"Angst" Flickr Creative Commons photo by tizzle

Under Pressure

Today, at 8:20 am I will be addressing our Curriculum Council (primarily department heads) , giving them a snapshot of the staff in-service I will be leading on Personal Learning Networks. This is what I will be telling them:

The way information is being accessed and shared is changing radically. Students must learn to access and critically evaluate information. They need to learn new skills for communicating and collaborating. But how can we teach them unless we too are plugged in?

The in-service will provided a three step program:
1) Guided Exploration of some social media (Twitter, Diigo , Ning , WikiSpaces)
2) The PLN
3) Collaboration through Digital Anthologies

In addition to three taut presentations, the day will included two extended playing/brainstorming sessions. The approach will emphasize fun, exploration, and a purposeful outcome. A wide open feedback channel will be featured (via Twitter)

I am asking the chairs to pitch this to their departments with a positive attitude, emphasizing that there will be something for everyone and that our kids really need help plugging into networks. We are trying to develop a school technology culture and we need everyone to buy in.
I'm going to mention that the usual reasons to be negative about in-service won't work this time. I won't be talking down to anyone. I have no hidden agenda. Every department has something to gain. I have everything to lose, since I will be back in the ranks, slogging away with the rest of them the next day.

I will be interested in their responses....and as always, yours.

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"Under Pressure" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Tattooed JJ

Personal Learning Networks (ADE Institute Reflection)

The Apple Distinguished Educator Summer Institute was a profound professional development experience for me. Over the next few weeks I will share reflections on the experience.

Probably the most valuable take-away is how being an ADE impacts my own "Personal Learning Network." I am now connected to the fabulous resources of Apple Computer. and hard wired into a community of passionate and innovative digital educators.

As Karl Fisch points out, you are already in a PLN:

A PLN isn’t a particularly new idea; learning networks have existed for a long time. What’s new is the reach and extent that’s now possible for a PLN, with technology and global interconnectedness providing the opportunity for a much wider, richer and more diverse PLN than ever before.

I 've been drawing my professional strength from a more global PLN for a year or so. One of my first blog posts marveled at the way Web 2.0 was drawing information from outside my school. It is now much more clear to me that we must help our students use their social media skills to construct their own learning networks. This will help us break down the rigid restraints of desks, schedules, bricks, and teacher-at-student design.

One cannot help to guide students in this enterprise unless he or she has experienced the benefits of a broad and vibrant PLN. If this is new to you, here are basic suggestions for extending yours:

* Join professional social networks like Nings ( "free" online platforms for creating social networks). Start with large ones like Classroom 2.0 and EduBlogger World. Then be on the lookout for more specialized groups. I joined three Nings while at the Summer Institute. Similarly, wikis and listservs provide similar advantages.

* Set up an RSS feed of your favorite blogs. Ever since Will Richardson recommended Google Reader to our staff, I've used it. I try to keep a cap of ten ed tech blogs so that I don't become overwhelmed. Liz Davis provides a simple two minute YouTube tutorial on setting up the Google Reader. After this has become a comfortable part of your life, then begin to engage in the conversations on the blogs.

* Start blogging yourself, or set up a Ning around your own special interests and invite others to join!

* David Warlick suggests virtual worlds: Sometimes called MUVEs, [they] are places on the Internet where people can meet and work together, regardless of geography. Many educators consider their Second Life avatar as their primary node point for their PLN.

* Social Bookmarking offers fabulous opportunities for collaboration. I've enthused about the highlighting, note sharing possibilites of Diigo in earlier blog posts.

* None of my faithful readers will be surprised that I've saved the best for last. As I wrote in Why Twitter? , once you learn to filter who you "follow", Twitter can be a rich source of links, blogs, and easily digestible nuggets of professional reflection. It is extremely low maintenance, requiring less personal investment than Facebook. Twitter has been a key to my own professional growth by leaps and bounds.

Please suggest other ways for educators to build their PLNs!

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Screen Capture of ADE PLN Ning

Larry's Queries

Just in case, I seem to have grown to cocky while away from my students, I want to lay out some issues that are simmering away over the summer, unresolved. I’m hoping that my readership may have some ideas about my assorted challenges. Feel free to comment publicly or correspond privately.

Trickle Down Wikinomics

I teach an elective Advanced Placement U.S. Government to seniors and a required America Government class to sophomores. The former is a college political science class and the latter is more comparable to basic civics.

I usually require some kind of project from the AP class during the first semester. This time, I was thinking of assigning some wiki projects around different portions of the Constitution. I would like to give the seniors the aim of building a helpful resource for the sophomores. I’m comfortable assigning the wiki project. I’ve done that before with other classes. But I am not sure how to utilize this kind of resource with the younger students. Any ideas?

Blog Squad

I am very excited about the impending launch of the Blog Squad. The general aim would be to provide a way for students to help students when teachers launched tech projects. This will be a pilot involving a small circle The participating adults (six or seven) have helped me identify thirty prospective student participants. I have decided to try a Ning for facilitating this project. I am relatively inexperienced with Nings. Any suggestions?

Group Work

As I move forward into challenge based learning I still remain puzzled about achieving accountability with the groups. I can reflect on a number of great things that came out of the wiki projects I tried last year, but complaints about group members not following through dogged these enterprises. Any input will be welcomed.

Weekend Take-out from the Drive-thru

Recommended Toys and Tools:

* "The Flat Classroom Project is a global collaborative project that joins together middle and senior high school students. . . . .The Project uses Web 2.0 tools to make communication and interaction between students and teachers from all participating classrooms easier. The topics studied and discussed are real-world scenarios based on 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman."

*"Ning offers an innovative and easy-to-use technology platform for people to join and create new social networks for their interests and passions and meet new people around the things they care about most about in their life."

*"Advanced Image Search allows users to filter search results by Creative Commons (CC) license. For now, this search only includes CC-licensed images from Flickr, Yahoo's own photo sharing service. The Yahoo Image Search interface actually turns out to be a very nice gateway to the CC-licensed image collection on Flickr, especially because the previews update immediately after you change a filter setting." (Written by Frederic Lardinois).

"bit.ly allows users to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Reducing the URL length makes sharing easier. bit.ly can be accessed through our website, bookmarklets and a robust and open API. bit.ly is also integrated into several popular third-party tools such as Tweetdeck."

Scott McLeod offers 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy principals . . . . "These are the TED presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!"

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"Take Out" with generous permission of americanvirus