Tech Tuesday Archive 8

First, a welcome to all of the elementary folks.  I'm Dan at the high school, and I hope you find these emails useful.  If you are having an issue with utilizing applications of technology in your room, please give me a shout.  If I don't have the answer I will try to find it for you.  I'd also be interested in what types of applications you are using at the K-5 level vs. what we are using over here at the 6-12 level.  

I'll be sending out a survey next week regarding technology use and how to best help all of you out.  Please consider taking a few minutes to fill out the form.  I'm just trying to gauge how to best improve Tech Tuesdays and in turn give you the best feedback I can.

I will be available after school for general questions and I would still love to show people doctopus/goobric and kaizena for online grading.  HOWEVER -  I will be in the third floor hallway supervising my juniors as they decorate their hall.  Don't worry - Multitasking is "in" and we can still get plenty accomplished.   

Tech Tips:

-Padlet - Install "padlet mini" from the chrome web store.  This is a cool app for brainstorming/collaborating.  You can drag and drop little post-it like notes and jot ideas down.  You can add pictures and weblinks as well.  I had my kids each create a wall describing an analogy between an animal cell and something of their choosing (a school, citizens bank park, a shopping mall etc).  

-ClassDojo - many of you may use this app already.  I think it's great.  I used it last year but stopped this year only because it fell under the category of "There's only so much time...".  I think it would  be a great app to use if you are dedicated to using it every day.  Its a behavioral tracking application - many students last year were excited to receive "Dojo points" and though I only scratched the surface, the parent interface seemed extremely useful.  For those that have been using it or are interested I would encourage you to read both of the following articles.  The New York Times wrote a not so favorable article a couple days ago.  I know, you're all shocked - negative press for the teaching profession.  Can you imagine?? If you read the article, please also read the response from Classdojo, especially point #3 - Everybody I have talked to about using Classdojo has emphasized the positive reinforcement aspect of it.  But, I suppose it is an important reminder that with increased use of technology, there will be another thing to criticize, so take precautions and use common sense.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/technology/privacy-concerns-for-classdojo-and-other-tracking-apps-for-schoolchildren.html?_r=0

https://www.classdojo.com/nyt

-Twitter - For those on Twitter - please check out the lists below.  The first is a list of Educational Twitter Chats that occur every week.  If you've never participated in one, I highly recommend it.  Within 15 minutes you have the chance to share a few thoughts, meet contacts from around the country and get some positive feedback.  One I would highly recommend is #BFC530 - known as the breakfast club, they chat every morning at 5:30am (yes, am) for 15 minutes - it's short and quick and there are a ton of great people to meet there.  The second link includes a pretty exhaustive list of educational hashtags.  Once you start joining some of these talks and you build up your contacts, you have a group of people to bounce ideas off of - referred to in the Twittersphere as your PLN (Personal Learning Network).  December will bring my Twitter contest - if you haven't joined yet, get on it!

http://goo.gl/SCGTRb  

http://cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html

-#Hourofcode - http://csedweek.org/ - Check this out and let me know if interested.  Just learned of this and I'm curious.

That's it for today - Have a fantastic rest of the week everybody