WhyEdReach?

Today is the official launch of EdReach.us, a collaboration by educators from all over the United States. I am proud to be a contributer to this endeavor through a bi-weekly post and the Google in Education podcast. This week my post on EdReach.us was about Schoology, a cool company I visited at the Illinois ICE conference.

Why EdReach? Do we really need another Educational blog? There are so many others out there- aren’t there enough?

Well, that is true, there are a lot of voices out there. So many voices. So many, it seems that it’s getting harder and harder to hear them, harder to cut through the volume and rate of information, harder to even keep up with well-known colleagues, and harder to be heard.

EdReach.us aims to cut through this.

The EdReach Educational Media Network (EdReach.us) aims to gather these voices together, and create one stream of educational news, blogs, commentary, and interactive media that highlights the innovation, highlights the ideas, highlights the cutting-edge best practices that are happening in the world's schools every day.

There is fabulous and innovative teaching happening in American education, happening all over the world- yet we forget. Lately, these moments seem to get lost under the sea of politics, budgets, and policy. Education news is also in a state of disarray. Go to most news sites and look for the education section- it’s likely you won’t find it. Still. Education isn’t getting the place it deserves in the mainstream media outlets.

There are amazing new tools being used in the classroom every day- gadgets, Web tools, innovative pedagogy. There are companies that are leading the charge with innovative Web tools for teachers. There are devices that are transforming the way teachers teach, and learners learn. There are teachers that do amazing things with students every day. Every day.

EdReach is made up of-  not one person- but a network of educators from all over the United States- field reporters- some hosting podcasts in Connecticut, some contributing from San Diego, Missouri, Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan- from all over the country. And it’s expanding.

So, if you want to know what’s happening in innovative Education, if you want to know what innovative education looks like, if you want to see what education can be like for America’s students and students all over the world- keep following and listening to EdReach.us.

EdReach is here to tell those stories.

[Trying] To Start a New Trend

I'm single handedly trying to start a new trend: conference session trailers/commercials.

The next time you present at a conference, put together a >1 minute video highlighting your session. Epic music is a must!

I've done this twice so far:

Trailer for my 2011 ICE conference session



Trailer for my 2010 MACUL conference session

It's been a busy winter!

It's been a busy couple of months:

• Two 1-hour hands on session for the Wayne County Librarians Association on Google Forms and Google Moderator. 
• Presentation on the Collaborative STEM Classroom at the Illinois Computing Educators (ICE) conference. 
• Guest lecturer at the University of Detroit, Mercy on "Classroom Technology that Works." 
• Podcasting and blogging for the EdReach Network
• "5 Things" Blog Series
• Article on Google Body Browser for the Michigan Science Teachers monthly newsletter.
• Two articles for the Southfield Christian School monthly newsletter. 
• 10 podcasts posted to iTunes for my "Google, More than Search" [iTunes link] series on MI Learning.

Coming up in the next couple of months: 

• Presentation on the Flipped Classroom for the Troy University (Alabama) eColloquium. 
• Hands on session with Livonia (Michigan) middle school teachers on the collaborative STEM Classroom.
• MACUL Conference presentation on iTunesU K-12
• Google Sponsored Webinar on Google Spreadsheets for Beginners.
• Google Training Workshop at Southfield Christian School

It's been busy, but that's the way I like it!

Classroom Technology that Works!

The use of technology in the classroom provides a great way to increase student understanding, encourage collaboration, and provide an authentic way for students to share their knowledge with others. Effective use of technology takes carefully planning and execution. This week I was asked to be a guest lecturer in a teaching methods course at the University of Detroit, Mercy where I shared "the Good, the Bad, and the ugly" of classroom tech integration and my suggestions on "classroom technology that works."

5 Technologies to Watch In 2011

Note: This is the fifth and final installment of my "5 things to watch in 2011" series.

• Five companies to watch in 2011
• Five trends to watch in 2011
• Five people to follow in 2011
• Five Blogs to read in 2011

Josef Dunne, Via Flickr

1. HTML5

The development of HTML5 has been underway since 2004. The big revision within HTML5 is the ability to add tags for multimedia which eliminates the need for third party plugins like Flash. This is a huge development for Mac users as they will finally be able to access multimedia content on the iphone, ipod touch and ipad! HTML5 will also enable richer websites. Some notable sites such as YouTube and Facebook are already experimenting with the new coding language. 

Ivan Walsh, Via Flickr

2. Cloud Computing

I realize that I'm being a bit redundant as I also identified cloud computing as one of my 5 trends to watch in 2011. Cloud computing is an up and coming trend, but it is also a technology that is in need of improvement. Google Docs and Prezi are great, but are still not on equal footing with perennial favorites like MS Office. Innovations like the now-defunct Google Wave and newly released Chrome OS are helping improve cloud computing and have begun to make it a viable choice. Schools and businesses are migrating to Google Apps, the most viable cloud computing platform on the market while Microsoft is doing its best to stay relevant in this rapidly changing environment. 

Mike Saechang, Via Flickr

3. 3G, 4G, 5G?

Cellular data connections are getting faster. That's great. 3G technology has become old news and the telecom giants are rolling out their 4G networks. The speed of existing 3G networks somewhere between 3-14mb/second while 4G promises speeds anywhere from 42mb-1Gb/second. Keep in mind that most of these speed tests do not take into account network congestion, not to mention the fact that the 4G networks are not very large. As mobile data speeds increase, the developing world will become increasingly connected. Cell phones are a lot cheaper than laptops and cellular connections are a lot easier to come by than WiFi networks. The recent events in Egypt have clearly demonstrated the power of the social networks to energize and mobilize large groups of people. As more and more countries are connected to faster data networks, social networking will become even more popular and potentially explosive.  

HighTechDad, Via Flickr

4. The Connected Car

We are connected to the network at home, at the office, at school, on planes, trains, and boats, but not in the car. I've always been surprised that auto makers haven't beefed up the connectivity in their cars. Ford did, and they won big time. The Ford Sync system which connects mobile phones to the cars infotainment system has been the hottest selling item of all auto makers. Ford continues to work on the integration of their infotainment system with Apple, Blackberry, and Android smartphones. They are currently working on voice control over smartphone apps, allowing users to Tweet from the car or listen to music via Pandora. It makes sense that cars join everything else on the grid. Maybe oneday my car will be a rolling WiFi hotspot!

The Daring Librarian, via Flickr

5. eReaders/eBooks

I am not going to buy an eReader until the battle over eBook standards is settled. Currently, all of the major eReader companies, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders are waging war to determine who's digital format will become the standard. This situation always happens with new technologies. It happened in the 70's with the Betamax vs. VHS and just recently with BlueRay vs. HD DVD. If you bought a Betamax or HD DVD player, I'm sorry. 

I have no doubt that eBooks are here to stay and that the sales of printed books will drop steadily. What is unclear is the standard eBook file format. Amazon developed its own proprietary format called AZW. There is also the traditional PDF format, and  ePub and eReader. Google has thrown the weight of its eBook store behind ePub and an all-out battle is now raging against the Amazon Kindle, which does not support ePub.
The battle for format standards will continue throughout 2011. The winner will either be Amazon's AZW or the open source ePub format endorsed by Google. I'm waiting to purchase an eReader until after they figure it all out.

5 Blogs to Read in 2011

Note: This is the fourth part in my series "5 things to watch in 2011" Future installments will include: 

• Five companies to watch in 2011
• Five trends to watch in 2011
• Five people to follow in 2011
• Next Monday: Five technologies to watch in 2011

Here are five blogs that I'm reading in 2011: 


The EdReach Network (Collaborative)

I'm excited to announce the launch of a new collaborative blog dedicated to giving education a BIG voice. Spearheaded by Daniel Rezac, the purpose of EdReach is to "To take education forward, by bringing voices together." The contributors to EdReach are a innovative and influential bunch. I am humbled and privileged to be one of them! The regular blog posts that appear on EdReach range from the philosophical and reflective to the practical and specific. In addition to daily posts, EdReach produces several podcasts which are worth the space on your iPod. 


The Blended Classroom (Jonathan Bergman)
One of the "founding fathers" of reverse instruction, Jon Bergman has some innovative ideas that are spreading like wildfire around the country. He is currently working on a book along with his partner, Aaron Sams, fleshing out the benefits of flipping the classroom. One thing that I really appreciate about Jon's blog is that not only does he discuss the philosophical and pedagogical reasons for his teaching methods, he also shares practical advice. A lot of his posts are directly related to what's happening in his chemistry classroom. Jon is very responsive to questions via twitter or on his blog. He is definitely someone you should ad to your PLN. 


Pursuing Context (Justin Stortz)
I can't say that I have ever read blog posts filled with more care and concern for students than those written by Justin Stortz. A 4th grade teacher, Justin shares moving encounters that he has with his students. When you have a day which causes you to wonder "why did I become a teacher?" make sure you read a few of Justin's posts to reinvigorate yourself.
**Update: Justin moved his blog over to Blogger. I've updated the link.*** 

I Teach Ag Blog (Danny Silva) 
The name of this blog is a little misleading. I haven't read any posts from Danny about the best way to grow corn or to keep your livestock healthy. I have read about a lot of really cool tech applications though! I would classify Danny as a "life-hacker", that is, someone who specializes in finding little tricks and secrets to streamline life and become more efficient. A lot of the posts that Danny puts up are related to ways to use Google's products to make your life easier, like how to automate birthday announcements using Google Calendar and Google Groups. If you like saving time and being more efficient, read Danny's blog!


Learning in Hand (Tony Vincent)

Tony's blog is dedicated to harnessing the power of mobile devices in educational setting. Tony has great resources for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and netbooks. The last post that I read was on the cool gadgets that he picked up in 2010. It's quite a list! Tony has a lot of great resources for educators wishing to integrate mobile devices into their classroom including several podcast series. He is also very responsive to anyone who has questions regarding mobile devices in the classroom. I strongly believe that mobile devices are going to become more prevalent in education therefore this is a blog worth following!







That's my  list! Add all five of these blogs to Google Reader by clicking here. 


Check back next Monday for the final installment in my series "5 things to watch in 2011".

Collaborative Story Writing with Google Docs

This past week I started to train my 9th grade students to use Google Docs, part of the Google Apps for Education suite. One of the assignments that we did together was a collaborative class story. Here are the rules:

1. I wrote the first sentence to get things going.
2. Every student adds one sentence to the story.
3. Students were not allowed to change anything that someone else had written (with the exception of spelling)

My class of 18 was in our media center working on individual desktops. I used Camtasia Studio to record the editing as it took place and did the final editing in iMovie.

Be sure to check out the other introductory assignment that I did with my 9th graders-- collaborative data collection with Google Docs Spreadsheets.

Collaborative Data Collection Using Google Apps

To help familiarize my 9th grade students with Google Docs, I set up a simple collaborative data collection exercise involving M&M's. I gave one small bag to each group of three students. They opened the bag and separated them by color, adding the totals to the spreadsheet that I had prepared in advance for them. Once their data was collected they were allowed to consume their data!

This was the first time most of my students had seen the collaborative capabilities of Google Docs. They were fascinated by the colored squares (representing all of the users currently editing the document) on the spreadsheet. The real-time aspect of Google Docs was a huge hit with them.

Interested in trying this out with your students? Here is a link to the spreadsheet that I created to collect our M&M data. You will need to save a copy in order to edit the document.

On Friday I'll be posting the second project I did with my 9th graders-- collaborative story writing.