I’d love to hear your take on how Gary views teachers and social media.

Great Things All Around

In the 90s, my cd player played lots of punk rock music. Full of intensity and diy attitude, bands like NOFX, Lagwagon, MXPX, and Blink 182 were playing lots of shows and making lots of music. They were putting out cds cheaply, which meant that they were recording them cheaply. Since I listened to this non-stop, when it came time for me to engineer my own music, it ended up sounding a lot like the cheaply made (earlier) recordings of these bands. For my senior project in my undergrad, I recorded ten bands; I thought it sounded amazing, but in reality, it sounded like cheaply-recorded music. It wasn’t that I was bad at recording–it was that I was great at imitating recordings. Since I listened to albums that were poorly recorded (and loved them), I recorded albums that sounded the same… bad.

Let’s apply this to teaching. If you spend time with teachers that deliver lessons the same way year after year, you will less inclined to work hard and create an innovative learning environment. Remember what your mother taught you about hanging out with the wrong crowd? She was right. And so am I. Conversely, if you hang out with teachers that are working hard, you will work hard. A strong work ethic becomes the norm. And this isn’t just in the classroom–I’m also talking about spending time with quality teachers on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TeacherTube, uStream, SlideShare. Read their blogs, watch their videos, listen to their podcasts, read their tweets. And, most importantly, interact. Write back. Ask questions. Give suggestions.

So, take a moment and subscribe to all ed tech teachers on twitter I love:
http://twitter.com/billselak/edtech/members
Or, here’s a list of ed tech teachers on twitter; hand pick the ones you want to follow.

• Stephen Farmer
• Phil Shapiro
• Jody Oliver
• Kevin Cummin
• Nancy Rubin
• Rebecca Petersen
• Tim Norton
• Mike Wesch
• Jason Rhode
• Tom Krieglstein
• Mark E. Weston Ph.D.
• Glenn Hilton
• Rodney Turner
• Mark Gammon

Diverse Crowd

Follow lots of different types of people. When you interact with tech people, you learn about technology without the focus on education. When you interact with education people, you learn about education without the focus on technology. Find bloggers, podcasters, teachers, celebrities, old friends… anyone that’s good at what they’re doing. The wider the variety, the better. You will become a better ed tech teacher (and person) as a result.

How do you create quality? Are there any other places I need to visit to develop a stronger PLN?

Oh yeah… don’t forget to share this with your quality friends.

My Connections

Here are some low-tech connections that have been floating in my head. They have nothing to do with teaching, or ed tech, but it’s interesting to me how I’ve made these connections:

I’m pretty good at skiing. I’m not so good a riding my bike really fast. When you ski, you’re supposed to use your hips to guide your body. It occurred to me that the same technique could be applied to riding a bike. Yep. Now, I’m better at riding a road bike.

I’m pretty good at playing the guitar. I’m not so good at playing the flute. I need to teach students how to play the flute. When you play the guitar, you’re supposed to have your hands relaxed, in a natural way. Same with piano. It occurred to me that the same technique could be applied to playing the flute. Yep. Now, I’m better at playing the flute.

The human brain loves making connections. It looks for them everywhere. Brain research shows that when you can connect new knowledge to prior knowledge, learning happens. The goal of a teacher is to change the brain of their students. This is how to do it!

Technology is really about making connections. Web 1.0 was about connecting computers; web 2.0 is about connecting people. It’s all about what you are doing with the technology. That’s why I love educational technology so much. And why I think it’s a perfect fit for social media.

What’s this look like in the classroom?

There are simple high-tech ways to immediately engage students in the classroom, and to show them the connections.

Show them YouTube videos. Right off the bat, they are excited to watch anything from YouTube in the classroom. It’s not enough to just throw fluff (YouTube) at them, though. Engage them, and make a connection. Last week, a fifth grade teacher asked me (the music teacher) to teach her kids “that 50 states song.” I found the Animaniacs states and capitols video on YouTube» . So, where’s the connection? My students love cartoons, and sort of know the Animaniacs. They’ve been exposed to the 50 states, especially in fifth grade. So, I took all this prior knowledge and put it together to teach them the song.

Ask students to make the connections. Have them start a blog or wiki, and get them writing. Have them write about a book you just read. Have them make the connections. It might sound like this, “Hey, that part of that book reminds me of…”.  Yes, this could be done in a journal. Think of the analyzing that happens, though, when students are writing together. Soon, I think every classroom will be part of Google Wave. You are able to write collaboratively, and in real time. As one student types, others see the letters getting typed. If you remember Bloom’s Taxonomy, you’ll see right how to get students into higher-ordered thinking.

Making connections is crucial to professional development. As an ed tech teacher, you need to always be on the cutting edge of technology in the classroom. Build your own learning network by using social media. Connect to other teachers. Connect to other social media folks. Connect to other technology people. Here’s the tip of the iceberg of my social media connections:

• http://twitter.com/billselak/edtech
• http://groups.diigo.com/group/Web2
• http://groups.diigo.com/group/educ515
• http://www.billselak.com/wiki
• http://www.google.com/reader/shared/billselak
• http://snipurl.com/edtechrss (my rss feeds for ed tech)

How do you connect with other teachers? How can I better connect with other ed tech teachers?

I don’t really know what Google Wave is, or what it does. So, here’s what I do know. Google Wave is:

• “what email would look like if it were invented now”
• updated live. As your friend types, you see the letters appear. Coool.
• full of “gadgets”. So far, it sounds like a Google Form (which is also cool).
• able to drag-and-drop stuff from your desktop.
• embeddable. Folks can see your wave/conversation on any web site. If they comment, it updates your wave.

So, all this seems great. The big downside is that I have nobody to collaborate with. Google Wave sounds great for collaborative writing, for translating chats in real time, for updating conversations in real time, but there aren’t enough invites to go around. The people I care about aren’t on it. So, until then, I think most of my “waving” will be at the three contacts saying, “Hey. I just ‘waved’ at you.”

Here’s a nice introduction to Google Wave:

What are you using Google Wave for? Comment below, or wave at me at billselak@googlewave.com

Here is an advanced trick for Wordpress users. This is how I removed the sidebar from one specific page (titled forum) on my wordpress site. After much searching, I found that I needed to implement conditional formatting using php.

Here’s my problem:
I wanted one single wordpress page to not have a sidebar. I wanted it to take up the entire width of the page. Makes sense for a forum, right? Not so easy…

Solution:
In the wordpress dashboard, navigate to Appearance > Editor > page.php.
On page.php, I changed:

<?php get_sidebar();; ?>

to:

<?php if(!is_page('Forum')) get_sidebar();; ?>

Here’s what that means:
Typically, wp displays the sidebar. That’s what we usually want. In this case, the exclamation point means “if it is not”. So, the php translation is, “If it’s not the Forum page, then show the sidebar.”

Perfect, so far. However, there was a blank space where the sidebar used to be. Another problem. The forum should be wider. This won’t happen, though, because my stylesheet says the page can only be 510 pixels wide.

So, I went to my stylesheet and created a div titled #widecolumn with a width of 100%.

Back on page.php, I changed the original div titled #contentleft to:

<?php if(!is_page('Forum')) { ?>
<div id="contentleft">
<?php } else { ?>
<div id="widecolumn">
<?php } ?>

Again, with the php translation: “If it’s not the Forum page, use the div #contentleft (with a width of 510 px). If it is the Forum page, use the #widecolumn div that you just made (with a width of 100%).

Yay!

Typing Practice

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/levels/level1.shtml

Typing isn’t the most exciting skill to teach, but it’s one of the few things upper grade teachers want kids to be good at (on the computer). This site makes typing fun, and has many different levels.

Kid Pix

Every K-2 students loves Kid Pix. Lessons could be free choice (make something cool), guided practice (here’s what the stamp tool does), or give them an assignment (make an AAB pattern using frogs and flies). Kid Pix is also a great reward if a student finishes an assignment early.

Tumblebooks

Tumblebooks is like an interactive narrated book online. It’s perfect for beginning (or non-)readers. It is a paid subscription to access it, but there are plenty of small libraries (like the Oakland Library) that offer access to Tumblebooks through their own public library site.

Basic Computer Skills

K-2 students need to learn basic skills like copy and paste. I like to teach them the shortcuts (command+c to copy). A fun lesson could be to draw something/anything in Kid Pix, copy the picture, paste it into Word, type your name, and print. Those are many, many skills, especially for a kindergartner, but it makes for several great computer lab lessons.

Podcasting

example at http://www.billselak.com/pt/archives/category/group-1
I’ve podcasted with students as young as second graders. The above link is for 20 podcasts from second graders. During summer school, they researched an aspect of life in Italy, wrote a script, and recorded it. They chose photos for a slideshow, and I put it all together. There are much simpler versions of this–students can read a story they write, or sing a song they’re practicing for a winter performance. For kinder kids, they could count, say their ABCs, or describe a photo. As long as you publish it, it’s a podcast!

I hope that helps. Please add your thoughts and ideas in the comments.