Why I Love Feedly

Want to learn more but don't have time to hunt?   Find a great blog but lost the site?   Well then my friends, Feedly is for you!
At this year's IETC conference I spent some time in a session all about RSS feeds.   RSS feeds make your life easier.   What they do is keep a website link the RSS feed constantly updates and bring you the newest articles or blogs at that site kind of like a newspaper.   There are many RSS Feed Sites, but I love Feedly.   Feedly links with your Google account which is great.   One less username and password for you to remember.   My Feedly is organized also by categories.   Makes it easier for me to find my Techie blogs, recipes, and everything inbetween.
If you would like to learn more about how to use Feedly read my blog HERE and HERE .
Go out there, set up a feedly and start reading!

Connected Educators

Happy Connected Educator's Month!  If you didn't know before you know now, October is Connected Educator's Month.  Its time to reach out to educators, build your Professional Learning Network (PLN) to learn and share with others.  In honor of Connected Educator's Month I will share some of the ways that I connect with others.  Feel free to try one, all or any sampling of the ways.

 Twitter
Anyone who knows me will tell you I love Twitter!  You can follow me @techiechrissie.  The reason that I love Twitter is that its a source of constant sharing, learning, and support, if you do it right.  A great place to start is by following some awesome people.  If you are looking to add a few to your PLN try @mattbgomez @Shyj @tbbrwn @msellis61 @craigyen @stumpteacher @justintarte .  These are just a few of the hundreds of thousands of amazing educators on Twitter.  Start by reading tweets and links attached.  Favorite the ones your like.  When you are feeling brave, reply and comment!  If you are interested more about how to use Twitter to connect with educators read my blog here.


Google +
Google + is a community online through gmail accounts.   Mine is techiechrissie@gmail.com.  You can search for hashtags similarly to Twitter, join communities, and save contacts into circles.  I have used Google + to seek out resources and support on things I am working on.  I have also shared things that have worked for people who are looking for support as well.  On Google + you can type more than 140 characters which is helpful.  Search for communities and join them to stay connected.  To start out I would recommend searching a topic you are interested in, then add those people to your circles.  Some communities to get started with are teachers helping teachers  and teachers loving technology.

Feedly
I use Feedly to manage my blogs that I read.  Its basically a place that holds blogs with an RSS feed and holds them kind of like a newspaper.  When i find a blogger on Twitter or Google + that I think is interesting i will copy their blog link and paste it into my Feedly.  Now the blog is saved and will keep all of the posts there.  Some grade blogs to start with right off the bat are http://www.freetech4teachers.com/  http://diaryofatechiechick.blogspot.com/   http://www.twoguysandsomeipads.com/  http://mattbgomez.com/blog/


Go forth and get connected!!

Another class of bloggers

We are ready to share our blogs!

We have another class of bloggers at Durfee Technology  Magnet School!  This fifth grade class will be blogging about their classroom.  Instead of the teacher deciding what will be important and creating a weekly newsletter, the students will blog about things going on in the classroom and sharing via their blog.  Goodbye newsletter hello blogging!  Below are hyperlinks to all of the students' blogs.  Stay tuned for their blogs!

Lavon

Shania

Kamilan

Jahmel

Kaylee

Tyler

Dora

Derek

Kamariah

Ikeria

Ashanti

Travonn

Austin

Royce

Hannah

Trelyn

Alexis

Michael

Tianna

Jacobe

Takailion

Marlon

Kaderius
Rashad
zanaria

Twitter Tuesday

Twitter is a social networking tool which can connect learners of all ages.  I use Twitter to connect with educators around the world, and share ideas.  Twitter allows you to quickly sort through ideas and learn more about ideas that interest you.  I tweet about what is happening at a conference I may be at, an amazing thing I see happening in classroom, and of course I always tweet about this blog!  Teachers can use Twitter in a similar way with their students as well!
I work with a fourth grade class at one of my buildings pretty regularly.  This teacher approached me about utilizing Twitter in her classroom.  Twitter Tuesday is what we came up with.  'Twitter Tuesday' is an activity which incorporates Twitter into the classroom.  Students use Twitter to communicate ideas, thoughts, and themes which have been discussed in the classroom.  We definitely wanted to make sure that we follow guidelines in CIPA and as our students were in the 4th grade we didn't want to sign up all of her class with Twitter accounts.  So, we decided to have students write paper tweets instead.  This teacher found a wealth of pins on Pinterest on exactly this idea.  She found a plethora of ideas on different ways to create paper tweets when she search 'class twitter'.  Students all receive these paper tweets and tweet when they have a lightbulb thought, or learn something new, or want to share an idea.  You could also use something like Edmodo, Today's Meet, Padlet, or Schoology to have students tweet.   At the end of the day the teacher selects the best few tweets to tweet on Twitter using their class twitter account.
When I started to work with classrooms on this idea i anticipated the excitement and engagement.  I knew that it would be a great tool for summarizing big ideas, and getting kids to take a more involved role in their education.  What I didn't expect was how this lesson became a teaching tool in itself for summarizing a lesson, and with hashtags identifying the main idea.  It also pushed students to become creative writers and develop their ability to write with an audience in mind.   Yes Twitter Tuesday is a great way to incorporate technology in the classroom, but it is also a way to develop summarizing skills, main idea, and author's purpose.  To see Twitter Tuesday in action, follow @firstgradehawks, or @mrsdanyus.

When you would like to incorporate technology into the classroom it is important to put our desired learning outcomes first, and then find the technology to support the desired skill.  Looking forward to the common core, students need to be able to synthesize information in texts, and clearly write.  

In fourth grade students need to be able to write clearly and express opinions with support from the text.    Let's look at one standard for the common core in 4th grade.   CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.1a Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose.  This standard demands that students be able to communicate a thought which also is supported by evidence.  Twitter Tuesday can help to develop many of these standards, including the above standard.   

A classroom 'Twitter Wall' in a first grade classroom.