Anything New for Digital Learning Day?

Digital Learning Day is a nationwide celebration
of innovative teaching and learning through digital media and technology that engages students and provides them with a rich, personalized educational experience.

On Digital Learning Day, a majority of states, hundreds of school districts, thousands of teachers, and more than a million students will encourage the innovative use of technology by trying something new, showcasing success, kicking off project-based learning, or focusing on how digital tools can help improve student outcomes.

If you would like to join the conversation, On February 1, 2012, the Alliance for Excellent Education will host an in-depth webcast featuring moderated discussion of video footage of innovation in action looking at leadership, instruction, innovation, every subject area, and effective teaching.

Then, at 1 p.m., EST, the Alliance is hosting a National Town Hall meeting featuring FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a special joint appearance. The event will profile great teachers that effectively use technology to deliver instruction, and focus on education innovation projects happening across the country.

Lastly, if you just feel like trying something new with your students tomorrow, take a look some of the following links:

Digital Learning Toolkits
101 Web Based Tools for Learning
SMUHSD- Tech Wiki- Resources

Visit Our Blog @ http://smuhsdpd.blogspot.com/ and share a resource you plan to use.

Tech PD This Spring

Interested in local professional development opportunities in technology available this spring? Take a look at:

• Fast Track Classes at Foothill's Krause Center- Google Doc 2/11, Adobe Indesign 2/25, Web Sites with Google Sites 2/8 2/15 and 2/29. Click link for more training date.
  
• SVCUE- T3 Conference at Harker School Sat. March 24th- View Presentations and Register Here
  
• Edge Online Teacher Training- Are you interested in teaching online, but unsure where to start, or are you already teaching online and want to enhance your skills? The Leading Edge Alliance, county offices of education, a group of nonprofits, universities and governmental bodies have developed a certification program for K-12 teachers.
  

Smart Phone Usage

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Text Messaging: The Lost Tool in the Educators Tool Kit

One of the greatest tools that teachers never take advantage of is text messaging services, or Short Message Service, (SMS) There are several tools available now to take even more advantage of this service that almost every student in your class has access to and if they have a cell phone this is the one thing they probably have unlimited access to,

The first is one that was popular a few years ago, but most people don't even know it exists or completely forgot that it is still there. Searching Google using a text message. If you or your students have some basic knowledge of Google Search Strategies, they can get an answer anywhere, even with their "Dumb Phone." Check out Google's SMS Search Page.

Google also has ways to interact with some of their more popular applications using SMS on their SMS Applications Page. I think one of the best is the ability to post to a Blogger Blog from their phone using SMS. That is something almost any kid can do and gets into the idea of authentic assessment that will definitely be part of the Common Core Standards. Check out the demo of Blogger SMS below.

Google Voice is another great ways to leverage SMS technologies in your classroom. You can message your class by putting in their cell phone numbers in your Google Voice account and text them directly by sending a message through Google Voice. The nice thing... All the students see is your Google Voice number, not your personal cell number or your personal e-mail address.

Another cool way to interact with students via their cell phone, via SMS is a new free service called, Remind101. Remind 101 allows teachers to create a class, the system issues a code to the teacher and then the teacher distributes the code to their class. The best part of this is that the students never see the teacher's phone number and the teacher never sees the students cell phone number. This gives us that level of privacy we need in education, while leveraging the tools available to teachers and students. Check out a demo of Remind 101 below.

Remind101 from remind101 on Vimeo.

The last tool is in private beta, but could be one that is a game changer and could put the "responder/clicker" producers out of business. The service is called "Socrative." What this service does is turn any connection a student has to mobile services, a laptop, smart phone, SMS, etc. and allows them to answer questions to a quiz, a true/false question in class, etc. The other benefit is that you can see the student results come into the system in real time. There are also some templates that you can automatically use, like "exit ticket" and more. This is definitely worth checking out, if you are someone who has used responder systems or clickers in the past. Check out the video below.

I have also added an infographic below that shows some of the ways that SMS or texting has changed the lives of people around the world in ways that many of us could never imagine. Is there a way that you can change or improve your instructional practice by adding a text message every so often?

http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/planet-text.jpg?w=640&h=5125

How Are Teens Using Their Cell Phones?

Google+ - The New Social Platform

How Students Use Technology

Here is a nice infographic from onlineeducation.net. If there was any question about the fact that the students we teach do not heavily rely on their own personal technology, this will close the argument.



Via: OnlineEducation.net