Have you ever considered using the internet to extend your learning, not just by researching but by contact with other professionals? There are currently two very popular sites being used by technology educators, librarians, and numerous classroom teachers to create Personal Learning Networks. Each site restricts a post to 140 characters. Each site allows you to choose who you follow so you can build a network of people with similar interests to yours. Each site allows you to search for specific people or for general terms such as “teacher” so you can read posts of interest to you.

The most well known of the two sites is Twitter. You may have heard of it asking “What are you doing?” and people type in frivolous items such as “I’m eating a bologna sandwich.” However, the educational community has transformed it into something completely different. They ask for and share ideas, suggestions, and comments. I’ve been amazed at how many new web tools I have been introduced to by people that I follow on Twitter. It’s rare that I’ve asked a question that has not been answered within just a few minutes.

The second site is Plurk. This is quite similar to Twitter, but the topics become more conversational. Where Twitter tends to offer somewhat random comments, Plurk allows users to respond to questions and comments within a conversation and see other responses as well. It takes a bit more time to get used to the format, but I find that I prefer the threaded conversations in Plurk.

Feel free to follow me in either program. I’m elemtech on both. (Tina Coffey is elemitrt. Check her out while you’re there!) You can also see who we follow (mostly ed tech folks) and choose to follow them out also.

Let me know if you need help learning to navigate these cool new tools! It’s amazing to establish a network of educators from all over the world

Here’s a example of a voicethread we did with Melanie Smith’s first grades at West Salem after they created their own robots and wrote stories about them:

To set up your own account, go to voicethread.com and register for a new account. Then click on the Go Pro button, then click the K-12 Educators click here link. Complete the form and be sure to use your school email address so you can get a *free* Pro account.

After you have activated your account, let me know and I’ll help you get started with your first voicethread. I like to set the “Share” settings as public with comments, comment moderation ON, and Listed on Browse NO. This way, I can embed the voicethread on a blog or website, I can send the link to someone, but it will not be visible to someone just browsing through the site.

How can you use this great tool? How about book reviews, field trip pictures, digital stories, or even SOL reviews? Here are a few links to help give your more ideas:

VoiceThreads in the Classroom

VoiceThreads Examples

Second Grade Book Reviews (great project for any grade!)

Create Your Own Ending Story

Would you like to have a classroom web site without having to learn to use a web editor such as FrontPage or DreamWeaver? Have you considered starting a blog but it just doesn’t seem to exactly fit your needs? Would you like to create pages that your colleagues could also edit if you chose to give them permission? Then you may want to take a look at Google Sites.

Google is providing web space for schools and businesses to use either as web pages or for simple collaboration with others within the organization. Go to Google Sites, enter your school email address, and click the Get Started button. You will need to wait for a confirmation email before you can actually log into the site. (Note: my confirmation came into my junk mail folder, so be sure to check there. Gotta love mail filters!) Click on the link in the email to get started.

A few of us have already been experimenting with sites. Once you’re logged in, click on the Sites link, and you’ll see “Pam’s Pages” which I created just for playing with the features. The direct link URL looks like this: http://sites.google.com/a/salem.k12.va.us/pam-s-stuff/Home Notice that “salem.k12.va.us” appears in the address, but the site is actually stored on Google’s servers.

You may notice that even though you can see all of my pages, you cannot edit anything. However, I set it up so that Tina could edit my pages since we were working together to plan the March 7th inservice. Presently, my site is set up so that anyone in the world can view it. However, if I wanted to, I could make the site completely private by changing the settings, or I could set it up so that only people signing in with a Salem school email address could see it. I can also set up additional sites that I could make public or private as appropriate.

Google makes it easy to add a calendar, countdown timer, videos, and of course, text and pictures. Set your site as public and share the URL with your parents and you have a quick and easy class web page that you can edit from any computer that is connected to the internet.

You might want to set up a site just for your grade level so that everyone could add links and lesson plans to share with each other and/or with students. It’s also a terrific collaboration tool to use when working on budgets, class lists, and other grade level items. Simply share it with the other members of your grade level, your principal, and anyone else who needs the information. Nobody else will even know that the pages exist unless you explicitly share with them or make the site public.

So, add this to your “to do when I have time” list and give Google Sites a test run. I think you’ll like what you see, and as always, don’t hesitate to ask for help!

If you have ever experienced the frustration of having a great website bookmarked under your favorites on one computer but needing to locate that same site from a different computer, then you need to explore Delicious. This has become my one “cannot do without” website! Here’s short video that explains how it works:

Once you have your account set up, you can copy any URL, go back to your delicious account, and click on the Post link at the top of the page to bookmark the site. However, it’s much quicker to install and use the web buttons that will live at the top of your browser on computers that you frequently use. You will be prompted to install the buttons when you set up your account.

Like many web 2.0 sites, Delicious uses tags, which are simple ways to organize your bookmarks so you can search for them later on. When you first add a site, you will see the option to add tags before saving. Go ahead and add as many as you want. That way you can search for 3rdGrade or science or education or games…all for the same site. This is a huge difference between Delicious and PortaPortal, which only allows you to add a site to one category at a time.

The other really cool feature of Delicious is the ability to add people to your network so you can easily see what sites they have bookmarked. You can also save bookmarks for other people in your network by tagging them for:name. You can see who has saved the same sites as you by clicking on the “saved by (number) other people” link, and this may lead you to even more useful sites on the same subject.

If you don’t already have a Delicious account, I highly recommend that you set one up and start using it. If you do already have one, install the buttons for Internet Explorer or Firefox and get in the habit of using them.

You can download a handout for Delicious here. If you would just like to explore the site for a bit before setting up an account, go to my account or Tina’s account to find sites that are relevant to elementary education.

Why not have your students create “Did you know?” podcasts using facts from any of their SOL related units? Mr. Barbour had his third graders record several factual podcasts from their SOL units. For an example of this, click below to listen to Mr. Barbour’s third graders as they share facts they learned about Ancient Rome.

Download Ancient Rome Facts

Mrs. Routt’s third graders enjoy creating their own newscasts at the end of each school year in which they review almost everything they have covered during the year. When students have the opportunity to listen to themselves or to their classmates, they are more eager to listen to the podcasts as they review for their SOL tests.

Download Third Grade SOL Review

Podcasting is also an excellent way for students to share their original stories and poems. Mrs. Buchholz had her third graders write stories about the adventures of their class pet who escaped.

Download Oreo’s Big Day Out

It’s great to use readers theaters for podcasts as it helps students who may have difficulty with oral reading skills and fluency. The more fluent readers can practice speaking with expression and using creative voices. Mrs. Bowles had her fourth graders read several tall tales, and the children appeared to really enjoy using the imaginary voices of their characters.

Download Pecos Bill

Here are a few more ideas for podcasts that you might want to consider for your own students:

1. Interviews – Have students write questions and interview another person in the school, either adults or other students. You could also use interviews to have students answer questions as if they are a famous American or a character from a favorite story.
2. Announcements – Let students practice their broadcast skills as they present announcements for your class, your grade level, or for the entire school. Here is an example. Download
3. Riddles – Have students create “Who am I?” or “What am I?” riddles to review people from social studies units, book characters, famous places, or vocabulary words.
4. Songs – Make up new lyrics to familiar melodies, such as multiplication facts.
5. Book Commercials – Instead of written book reports, why not let students talk about their favorite books? Have them share a little about the book and why they recommend it.
6. For the Little Ones – Let them talk about something special in their classroom or something new that they have learned if they’re too young to read or to write their script.

So, give some thought into creating your own podcast this year, and let me know when you’re ready to record! To listen to more podcasts from your school, click on one of the following links:

South Salem Podcasts

West Salem Podcasts