Two For Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

The students in my digital journalism class created screencasts for a number of different Web 2.0 tools.

Here are two of my favorites:
1. Shelfari - A social network for people who love books
You can use Shelfari to find good books to read, review the books you have read, discuss your books with others and more. Check out this screencast by Agazi Desta to learn how to get started.



2. Webs - Create your own Website for free
This is a great tool for not only creating Websites but also creating communities. This would be a great alternative to Ning as it includes the option to create a discussion forum on your site. Arien Woodrow made a screencast that shows you how to get started using Webs.

Seeing the World through Blog Colored Glasses

I continue to be amazed by the affect that blogging has on my thinking. Everything I do and see and experience is filed away as a potential blog post. I make meaning of my world in ways I never did before. I am constantly composing posts in my head. It makes for some incredible learning experiences, but can also make it hard to sleep.

I haven't posted in a while. I've been finishing up the school year and just ended 4 days of teaching a professional development class for teachers. There are lots of things bouncing around in my head that I plan to blog about. I thought I would give you just a taste of things to come and, in doing so, force myself to follow up on my ideas.

I have a new job! I just accepted the position of Director of Academic Technology at The Belmont Hill School in Belmont, MA. I am thrilled to be given the opportunity to help define and lead this extraordinary school in a quest to prepare students to succeed and excel in the 21st century. I am honored by the confidence in me that the leadership team of this school has expressed. It is truly an exciting new adventure that I can't wait to start.

Top Down or Bottom Up? Should every teacher in a school have a basic technology proficiency? Is it more important to focus on complex and creative technology projects with a few teachers and let the excitement and rewards spill down through the faculty, or should the focus be on making sure every teacher is at least proficient in using a mouse, a browser and setting up a Web page? I think there is a choice to be made, because I don't think there is enough time to focus on both.

Professional Development that works. I just finished teaching a 4 days professional development course titled Using 21st Century Technology Tools to Improve and Inspire Student Writing. I co-taught this course with an English teacher with whom I have worked a lot this year. I think our model overall really worked. We focused first on the learning goals and then on how different technology tools could help teachers achieve these goals and objectives. It was wonderful to have a teacher working with me who could really speak to the realities of using these tools in the classroom.

Professional Development Meme. I haven't forgotten that I was tagged for this meme a while back. I have a lot of things on my list - one of them being working on this blog. I do plan to dedicate an entire post to laying out my professional goals for the summer.

Trying out a new tool. In just the last two days I have been playing with a new Twitter like tool called Plurk. I'm not sure yet what I think of the tool, but I have been loving learning to use it. For me it has been a true constructivist experience. Together with my network, we've been working out how things work. Plurk may or may not be the hot new tool, but just learning to use it has been a great experience for me.

Here is a screencast of what I have learned so far.


So stay tuned for more on at least a few of these topics (let me know if you have a preference for where you would like me to start).

OK - now I just have to figure out when I'm going to take a vacation...

Photo Credit: Life Through Rose Colored Glasses from pangalactic gargleblaster's photostream on Flickr.

My Greatest Hits

Taking Requests!
So far my most popular posts have been my screencasts which show how to use various Web 2.0 tools. I've decided to put them all together on one page, to make them easier to find. I am also taking requests. Is there a tool that you would like me make a screencast for? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.


Getting Started With Delicious



Networking with Delicious



Figuring out Flock




Getting to Know Diigo
I used Jing to record this screencast and the embed code makes the video way too big for my blog. Please click on the link above to watch this one.


Getting Started with Flickr



Getting Started with Twitter




Setting Up Your Google Reader Account




Adding Feeds in Google Reader



Managing your subscriptions in Google Reader