25 Things You Can Do to Improve Electronic Communication

On September 26, a professional development session was offered on ways to improve electronic communication using many of the tools available here at AISB.  If you did not get to attend, or simply want a refresher, the help document used in the session can be found here.

Tech Thursday Google Spreadsheets

Week 7 - March 20 - Using Google Spreadsheets and Charts

Topics:
Using simple formulas
Freezing rows/columns (View...Freeze...)
Sorting
Using filters
Inserting comments
Inserting charts
Customizing charts
Placing charts into Docs

Evaluating Information found Online

Week 6 - March 6 - Week 7 - March 13 - Evaluating information found Online (Wikipedia: What’s its role?)

Big Idea: In an age where practically anyone can publish material to wide audiences, being able to judge the quality of information is more important than ever. We can no longer rely on the vetting of information by professional journalists / photographers / writers… Today, we are the editors and gatekeepers.

5 Myths about Wikipedia Video
Look at virtual Bulletin Board. (Requires login to AISB Google System to View)
Evaluating information checklist

Tech Thursday: Copyright in the 21st Century

Week 5 - Feb 27 - Moved to Mar. 6 - Sharing / Borrowing / Remixing: Copyright in the 21st Century

Big Idea: In a networked world where copying of digital media is very easy, we need new forms of copyright to serve both owners and borrowers of intellectual property. Good IP law helps society in many ways.

What kind of content can students and staff use legally?

Introduction to Creative Commons 

CC Licence Types

Videos:

CC Video A Shared Culture
CC Video Get Creative
CC Video: Wanna Work Together?

Finding CC content (images, music, video)

Resources:

Creative Commons Media Search (Meta Search Engine)

Jamendo (Music) (Advanced Search, Usage Rights Filter)

Google Advanced Search (Usage Rights Filter)

Google Advanced Image Search (Usage Rights Filter)

Tech Thursdays - Using Blogger as your Portal

Week 4 - Feb 13  -  Using Blogger (a content management system) to Create your Own Portal Start Page

Big Idea: Blogs make a great content management system. They are easy to set up and allow easy publishing and interaction with readers. They easily accommodate a wide variety of multimedia.

They can also be set up for private viewing for such uses as a start page.

Create your own startup portal using Blogger

Topics

• Accessing Blogger; your blogs
• Choosing a URL
• Choosing a Theme
• Settings (private); add readers
• Adjusting Layout, adding widgets and links
• Creating pages; embedding items into posts/pages
• Making your portal your start page on your browser

Tech Chats - Mindful Use of Technology

Next Friday, Feb. 14, at 12:30, anyone who is interested, is invited to a "tech chat" in the middle school lab (B111).

The topic will have to do with the mindful use of technology. It appears many people--students and adults alike--are struggling with a variety of issues related to living in an ever-connected world filled with social media, devices, apps, games...  As a teacher, you may have noticed your students struggling with this.

Some questions we may use for the discussion: (Feel free to provide your own.)

What is mindful use of technology? (My first attempt to define it: (Feel free to differ, either in comments below or in person.) The conscious use of technology in a way that helps one accomplish goals, improves well-being, and leads to long-term self-improvement.

What can we do to become more mindful about our use of tech?

What can we do to help students become more mindful in their use of tech?

How important do you consider this issue to be?

What does science say about the issue? (see video below for ideas)

How can mindfulness change behavior?

I have started a topic in our AISB IT Diigo Group. Please check out the resources.

Tech Thursday: Capturing, Organizing and Sharing Online Media

Week 3 - Feb 6 - Using Diigo: Tool for capturing, annotating and sharing information found online.

Big Idea: In order to produce good ideas and to be innovative, it’s important to capture information and organize it in a way that allows the ideas to collide and create new knowledge. Efficiently capturing, storing and sharing information provides more time for other tasks.

This idea is explained in the following video:

“Chance favors the connected mind.” by Steven Johnson

Diigo: Bookmarking, Annotation, Highlighting, Sharing and More

(Diigo Tools)

Diigolet, Various Diigo Plugins

Diigo on iOS , Web highlighter for iPad Safari

Diigo on Android is called PowerNote

Sharing linkrolls

bookmarks.google.com

Tech Thursdays - Using an Electronic Portfolio

Week 2: Jan 30 - Using an Electronic Portfolio

In this session we'll be looking at our middle school portfolio system. We'll see what it can do and then start using it by creating a page and adding media to it.

Videos for session: (Video 1)  (Video 2)

Big Idea: Portfolios help you by:

• showing growth over time, leading to reflection and improved learning
• providing a place to organize and store learning artifacts
• providing tools where you can seek and get high quality feedback
• providing tools where you can network with like-minded learners to increase learning
• providing you a publication medium where you can exhibit learning and market yourself

Topics:

• Intro to middle school’s system
• Learning Interface: Files, Directory, Pages
• Create a page
• Insert Youtube Video
• Insert Image / image gallery
• Insert Google Doc
• Share a page various ways

Help videos for using Mahara efolio system

Tech Thursday 1 - Networks and Learning

Week 1 - Jan 23 -  Social or Networked Learning

How learning can (and should) be different today. Serendipity, connecting, finding, being findable, filtering, access to expertise/ideas (mentoring chart)

Big Idea: Networks are changing society, rewriting the rules, causing disruption and creating great opportunities. Connecting ideas and information changes everything.

Please watch the four videos below before coming. This session is meant to be conversational.

Video 1 - Networked Learning -

Video 2 - Where Good Ideas Come From -

Video 3 - The Network is the Learning -

Video 4 - Developing a Learning Network -

Informal Learning Poster

Learning with 'e's: Mobile content curation

Learning with 'e's: Mobile content curation