Know Your Why!

Infographics & Creative Student-Centered Presentations

In the course of my teaching career, I've tried many tools and strategies to engage students with presentations. Despite this, I am often disappointed when student presentations are text heavy with images too often there as little more than distractions. For this reason, I am always looking for different ways to help students inject a bit more creativity into their presentations.

When designing an activity and choosing resources to support students sharing their learning my top priorities include:

Ease of Use
Free Features
Collaboration Features
Online Access and Sharing
Help Resources

There are are many great strategies and tools to support creative student-led presentations. Here is a list of some of the top web-based presentation tools that best support collaboration and creative design:

Padlet | Haiku Deck | Nearpod | Movenote | GoAnimate

A list of creative presentation styles might include:

Peche Kucha | Infographics | Stop Motion Videos | Animated Videos

There are also many incredible free tools to edit and enhance photos online, including:

Polarr Photo Editor | BeFunky Photo Editor | Pixlr Editor | PicMonkey

Regardless of the tool, one of my greatest struggles has been to convince kids to limit the text and to not just read off the screen. This past year I have been experimenting more with having students use infographics and then share them with the class as a "presentation". Students enjoy the process and the added benefit is that students read less from the screen and are a bit more creative in their attempts to engage the audience.

A list of our favorite infographic creation tools includes:

Google Drawings
Animaker
Piktochart
Glogster
Google Slides (Pro tip: Change the size of the presentation.)
Gliffy
Lucidpress
easelly
Canva

Additional resources to support increased engagement in presentations:

Why Do We Use Tech to Support Learning?

We live in a world where technology is all around us. It is a blessing to many and a curse for some. The incredible growth of educational technology has flipped many teachers upside down and we often struggle to use technology effectively to enhance learning. I believe that is easy to use technology in the classroom, but difficult to use it well. The challenge of using technology in the classroom is too often overlooked.

Too often technology initiatives focus on "If you build it they will come." and not enough on good learning practices enhanced by technology.

Components of using technology well in the classroom:

Students must be engaged in the content.
Content alone is not enough. Content should help students build essential skills.
Technology should support skills connected collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking.
Technology should open doors to more learning.
Technology in the classroom should be learner-centered.
Technology should always be used with a purpose connected to specific learning objectives.
Technology cannot be an event. Good teachers seamlessly shift in and out of technology
Technology will never replace teachers. Teachers must facilitate the learning, not the technology.
Technology is an enhancement to good lessons. It will not transform a bad lesson into something better.
Technology should open the doors to new questions. Questions are often more important than answers.

I recently put together a presentation that I designed to explain why I am motivated to use technology. What more would you add to help inspire teachers to use technology well?

Online Holiday Shopping Tips and Tricks

Happy Holidays! Every year I share a revised guide to shopping online during the holiday season. It is a busy time of year and my wife and I find that doing the majority of our shopping online helps us both reduce our stress level and save a little bit of money. This guide is built for educators, but just about anyone can find some resources to save some money online. Please let us know in the comments below if you have any additional suggestions or resources we can add to this guide!

Here are some tips to help teachers, their families, and just about anyone to save a little green this holiday season.

1. Online Cashback
There are many sites that take advantage of online advertising to provide the consumer with coupons and cash back for major retailers. They also provide links to some great online coupons from most retailers. They are free and easy to use. Combine this with rewards on a credit card and it can really start to add up.

Mr. Rebates - Cash Back rebates of up to 30% on all of your online shopping plus get free money-saving coupons at over 2000 online stores.
Ebates - Find coupons and earn cash back at over 1800 stores when you shop at Ebates! Save with online rebates, deals, promo codes and discounts.
Mainstreet Shares - MainStreetSHARES gives you more than just cash back when you shop. We help you turn your shopping into an investment in you!
Fat Wallet - Find coupons, cash back, hottest deals from hundreds of top retailers. Get deals shared by our huge community of frugal shoppers.

2. Apple / Google / Amazon
What Tech are you looking for this year? Smartphone, iPad, iPod, Tablet, Kindle, Wearables, Chromebooks or Macbook? Most major tech retailers will have online and in-store sales.

3. Educator Union Membership Card
Did you know that the IEA / NEA / AFT posts some excellent deals for teachers? These deals include merchandise, restaurants, and travel.

4. Shopping and Coupon Websites
Many websites that compile information about sales, coupons, and deals year round.

5. Protecting Your Credit Card Online
Most online stores / credit card companies do a great job taking care of credit card purchases, but a great way to pay for many online purchases is to use PayPal. It’s free and provides an extra layer of security between your credit card and online shopping.

Paypal

6. Amazon, half.com, and eBay
Great places to shop for just about everything new and used. All three sites have great customer support.

7. Electronic Reviews and Retailers
I know many of you are searching the best gifts for your favorite educators. Here are some great places to research and by electronics for teachers.
Get the Reviews – What’s good or not so good? A couple of sites that I use to decide what I want.

c|net (Great Reviews of Just About Everything Electronic)
Consumer Reports (Great Reviews and Guides to Lot’s of Stuff)
PCMag (Main Focus is on Computer Tech)

Online Electronic Retailers – Good prices and excellent service.

newegg (New and Refurbished Electronics – Just about everything)
TigerDirect (Tiger Direct and CompUSA all in one – They even have a warehouse on 59 near the mall if you want to save on shipping.
geeks.com (Great deals on new and refurbished electronics)

Fun Stuff for the Geek at Heart

Learning to be an #EdTech Coach

A recent ISTE post in the Ed Tech Coaches Network asked the question:
"If you were given the chance to develop and Ed Tech coach certificate - what college courses would it need to have?"
My first thought was to avoid focusing on the tools. My Masters in Instructional Technology courses seemed to primarily focus on the tools and less on the pedagogy of good teaching. To add insult to injury, most of these tools no longer exist. (Hyperstacks anyone?) It was not all bad, I did think about instruction as I learned about the tools, but instruction was secondary to learning how to use the tools. Instruction should have been first in everything I was learning!

My next thoughts were about a few of the resources we've used to plan professional development. We always try to start with the idea that technology can serve to enhance a good lesson. We try to remember that technology alone does not have the power make a bad lesson great. Technology only enhances what is already there. Great teaching must come first or the power of instructional technology is most likely wasted.

All this being said, here are a few of the resources I shared in my response:

The ISTE Standards for Teachers might be a great starting point for course objectives.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers Who Use Technology could be another resource to organize course structure.
If you are a GAFE district I would consider using the Google Training Courses as part of the course plan. These are well put together and focus on skills before the tools.

Specifically I would probably focus on these 5 big concepts:

What courses do you think would be essential for an #EdTech Coach?

The All Powerful and Almost Magical Chrome Browser

The Chrome Browser is a power tool to enhance your learning experience and save you time while online. Understanding how Chrome can help teachers and students be more efficient with their time online is an essential skill.

Getting Started with Chrome

Open Chrome and make sure you are signed into Chrome on the device you are using. Click here if you need help signing into Chrome. When you sign in to Chrome, you can save and sync things like your history, bookmarks, and passwords, so you can get to them on any device.

Chrome Browser Essentials

Chrome Learning Activity 1: Review the Chrome Essentials Document and learn more about the following aspects of Chrome:

Making Chrome the Default Browser
Setting Homepage
Setting Startup Pages
Incognito Window
Bookmarks
Omnibox
Tabs
Shortcut Keys

Chrome Learning Activity 2: Explore the Chrome Store Web Store and find an Extension or App that could be used to support teaching and learning.

Click here to share an Extension or App.
Click here to view responses.

Learn more about Chrome Browser