I find it absolutely amazing that my phone has a GPS feature. My wife and I have been out of town and needed to know where to eat dinner; immediately it will map us to the restaraunt. Oh the ease of it all. I check my facebook and then notice one of my friends is at a ballgame in the same town, that is pretty cool.
However, with this cool tools comes some concern. Now anyone who has tracking software (and many do) can no track me and know that I and my friend are not home... Those guys might be criminals and now they know my house is vacant and my new plasma tv is history.
I realize it is difficult to keep up with all the privacy settings necessary on your personal devices, but I encourage you to check it out. As teachers, it is increasingly more important for us to share this information with our students. Here is a link you could download and share with your students. It should only take a few minutes to read over these tips with them.
Trustworthy Computing: Location Services
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Nine Reasons to Twitter
It seems the concept of immediate information has resonated throughout the world. For the past three years, I have been promoting and talking about twitter and other avenues for collaboration. I remember vividly setting up my first Twitter account. I was at Parker Bennett Curry Elementary School's library and all I could think about was...would the BGISD Public Relations Director "Leslie Peek" frown on me for setting this account up. She wasn't, she actually embraced the idea and began using it in our district to get immediate information to parents, teachers and students on a variety of events, including: snow cancellations, lock down situations, calendar changes, upcoming meetings and so on. I had no idea three years later, EGYPT and other Middle Eastern countries would be using such a tool to facilitate Revolutions. Crazy times and Crazy tools. I talked to a junior high social studies teacher yesterday and he explained that he has been engaging students in discussions about the effects of social media on the political unrest in the Middle East. My hunch is the students were very engaged in the conversation.
Laura Walker, director of e-learning , from the "fantastic" book : "Web 2.0 for Educators" by Solomon and Schrum shared 9 Reasons to Twitter that I thought were pretty good.
1. Together we're better. Within seconds, parents can be notified about school cancellations or other events. Links, ideas, opininions are at your finger tip.
2. Global or Local: you choose. I like using Hoot Suite and Tweet Deck. Both allow me to organize and categorize who I follow. Sometimes I am interested in what my school twitters are talking about, sometimes educators throughout the country and sometimes just friends who say nothing. I get to choose.
3. Self awareness and reflective practice. I often like reading what good teachers reflect on after they teach a lesson or use some kind of tool. It makes me think...how should I do that.
4. Ideas workshop and sounding board. You know what they say about opinions...everybody has one. Sometimes I disagree, but sometimes I agree. It makes me think more deeply into what I need to share.
5. Newsroom and innovation showcase. Instant news... Enough said.
6. Professional development and critical friends. When I go to professional developments, I can't wait for the break to tweet what I learned or didn't learn.
7. Quality-assured searching. Since you pick who you follow, you will also learn who you can trust to provide good resources.
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate You only get 140 characters, so you h ave to say what you mean and be concise. I wish I could talk that way...
9. Getting with the times has never been so easy. It is easy to set up and easy to read. The cool thing I have found is any teacher can read about a resource or tool and then tell me about it. It makes them so happy to share something they learned.
The 9 main reasons were Laura Walker's thoughts, I summarized with my opinion about what they meant. I suggest going over this with students and or teachers, and always talk about digital citizenship when discussing social media.
Twitter
Tweetdeck
Hootsuite
Laura Walker, director of e-learning , from the "fantastic" book : "Web 2.0 for Educators" by Solomon and Schrum shared 9 Reasons to Twitter that I thought were pretty good.
1. Together we're better. Within seconds, parents can be notified about school cancellations or other events. Links, ideas, opininions are at your finger tip.
2. Global or Local: you choose. I like using Hoot Suite and Tweet Deck. Both allow me to organize and categorize who I follow. Sometimes I am interested in what my school twitters are talking about, sometimes educators throughout the country and sometimes just friends who say nothing. I get to choose.
3. Self awareness and reflective practice. I often like reading what good teachers reflect on after they teach a lesson or use some kind of tool. It makes me think...how should I do that.
4. Ideas workshop and sounding board. You know what they say about opinions...everybody has one. Sometimes I disagree, but sometimes I agree. It makes me think more deeply into what I need to share.
5. Newsroom and innovation showcase. Instant news... Enough said.
6. Professional development and critical friends. When I go to professional developments, I can't wait for the break to tweet what I learned or didn't learn.
7. Quality-assured searching. Since you pick who you follow, you will also learn who you can trust to provide good resources.
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate You only get 140 characters, so you h ave to say what you mean and be concise. I wish I could talk that way...
9. Getting with the times has never been so easy. It is easy to set up and easy to read. The cool thing I have found is any teacher can read about a resource or tool and then tell me about it. It makes them so happy to share something they learned.
The 9 main reasons were Laura Walker's thoughts, I summarized with my opinion about what they meant. I suggest going over this with students and or teachers, and always talk about digital citizenship when discussing social media.
Tweetdeck
Hootsuite
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