Nix's Picks (25 Favorite Learning Tools)

On an almost daily basis, I read posts from education professionals as I am looking for resources that will help teachers to make learning not only challenging but "real." I want students to learn at high levels and to find what they are doing meaningful and even "fun." I scan Twitter posts and subscribe to feeds using Google Reader. I also like to just explore and use my intuition for evaluating what I like to use and what I think might be good tools for other educators.

Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies and Vince Hill of Cleassroom 2.0 have both compiled favorite lists of learning professionals. I think it would be fun to create a list of resources that are Kentucky favorites and to compare these with other state, national and international lists. I have found that this list changes for me so we might try to do this annually. The tools I have like the most in the past may move to the top of my list or may drop entirely off my "favorite list." A year ago, I thought that I could not manage without Google Notebook. However, now I have completely replaced this tool with Delicious.

I'll be discussing my "favorite tools" with a little more detail in future blogs. I hope you will help identify more useful resources and share your comments about my list.

Nix Picks: Top 25
GOOGLE, All Things (Reader, Docs, Groups, Calendar, Searches, Maps, Sites, Earth, etc.)
Delicious, Shared Bookmarking
Flickr, Shared Images
YouTube, Shared Video
Twitter, Micro Blogging
Skype, Communication -Collaboration
Blogger, Blogging
Slideshare, Shared Presentations
Twiddla, Live Collaboration
Poll Everywhere, Web Polling
Zamzar, File Conversion
Tinyurl, Shortening URLs
Wordle, Word Mapping
Animoto, Video Creation
Wikipedia, Wiki
Facebook, Social Network
Dropio, File Drops and Create Audio
Voicethread, Shared Photo Stories with Narration/Comments
Ning, Social Network Creation
Youmail, Voicemail Online
iTunes, Digital Media Manager/Player
Bubbl.us, Concept Mapping
Thinking Tools for Teachers and Students
Gcast, Podcasting
ALTEC Tools, Instructional Tools for Teachers and Students

KATE on the Web

I recently realized that the Kentucky Academy of Technology Education (KATE) has had a web presence for over ten years. The original website was actually designed by a contractor to assist districts as they scheduled sessions on Kentucky’s Tele-Linking Network.

Several modifications incorporated additional resources collected or created to make integration of technology into teaching and learning easier for educators.

1. With the assistance of talented web designers and educators who laboriously sorted through thousands of resources, KATE Links was added. This collection of web sites is categorized by subject and grade level.
2. Teachers needed practical strategies that they could quickly adapt in their content areas so the In Your Classroom category was added to not only give quick connections to core content, but to also provide “techknow” ideas.
3. Three categories of links were added at the top of the page with materials on standards, curriculum, tutorials, professional development topics,etc.
4. Technology in Classrooms of Kentucky (TICK) was added in 2006 as a repository of learning objects including instructional units, lesson plans, activities and assessments that are tied to the Technology Program of Studies (adopted in 2006) as well as Kentucky Core Content, state and national technology standards. The repository has over 3,000 learning objects. TICK provides a single point of access for resources specifically applicable to educators. For example, a web search on a topic such as fractions returns over 11 million hits, while a TICK search will only return a list with applicable instructional materials.

Early in 2008, KATE introduced a new and improved version adding “Web 2.0” features to allow educators to not only acquire resources, but to also electronically share high-quality learning resources among all learning professionals. TICK has already been modified to provide alignments to revised technology standards and will be undergoing a major revision during the next year as changes to Kentucky’s Program of Studies are made. With Kentucky’s commitment to the national standards movement, the resources found in TICK will be aligned with the curriculum of many states.

We hope that you will share your comments about the KATE web resources (http://www.murraystate.edu/kate), including ways you are using them and suggestions that can be incorporated into the next version.

Blogging With Blogger

I thought that it was probably appropriate to make the first post in this blog about blogging. In 2006 "The Best of Education Blog" awards were presented at the Florida Education Technology Conference. In a March 2006 article entitled, "Blogs Are Changing Education," the award winners described some of the reasons they blog. They used adjectives such as easy and accessible as well as nouns such as ideas to describe the power of blogging in education. Blogging is now being used extensively by organizations, celebrities, families, technology leaders, teachers, and students. In fact, it has become quite commonplace.

There are many tools for blogging including edublogs, wordpress, tumblr, and blogger. I am quite fond of the hosted version of WordPress. However, I have chosen to talk about Blogger, http://www.blogger.com/, because it is a user-friendly, easily-accessible, free tool. The blogs it hosts are all subdomains of blogspot.com located on Google servers. Blog permissions allow restriction of viewers as well as author rights assignments. It is not "frilly" and doesn't have an abundance of features. The fact that it is so EASY makes up for its simplicity. It has plain, simple layouts that navigate sensibly and keep people like me (with little eye for design) from getting in over my head. In addition, posts can be added using the mobile blogger with a cellphone or published using Word.

I have no doubt that teachers and students have important things to say and that this tool can be used to say them. Please share your comments and ideas.