A "Real Teacher" Uses Twitter

You are using Twitter for professional learning, but teachers also use Twitter to communicate with families.  Would you like see a real, live teacher account?

Visit @FSEtracyteach.  Tracy Haynes is a longtime friend and second grade math/science teacher at Freedom Shores Elementary.  She also taught my son years ago and is amazing!

Here is a recent post on Twitter.

She has granted permission for you to follow her account this semester if you wish, so you can experience the parent-view.

On a side note, several of you mentioned in your ISTE blogs that you felt uncomfortable leading technology.  Sometimes just chatting one-on-one with teacher colleagues about technology stuff you do is leadership.  In her response to my permission request e-mail, Tracy said:

"You know you got me started on Twitter!  I've convinced a lot of teachers to join.  Your ripple effect has been far reaching..."

2015 Students "Speak Up" on Their Digital Desires and Use

Project Tomorrow "Speak Up" surveys students and parents about their technology preferences.  The 2016 survey occurs in October.  

View the infographic of the 2015 survey results below:

Which results surprise you?

What are implications for education?

More interesting results available at          http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_data_findings.html#infographics

http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/10-things-students-speak-up-2015-national.pdf

Cool Blogger Features

You can add all kinds of neat features to your blog.  Although this post will model Blogger, the same steps work in many online publishing sites.  The first two are required; the others are optional.

1.  Hyperlink

If you reference a website, even as a picture citation, hyperlink it!
You can simply hyper link the website:
https://www.wordpress-web-designer-raleigh.com/2015/04/16/4-reasons-to-avoid-using-click-here-in-link-text/

Or use informative text:
Read "4 Reasons to Avoid Using Click Here in Text"

Combine pictures with text hyperlinks because people may not realize that the picture itself is linked.

There are two ways:  Either simply click the "Link" button in the tool bar, or paste-type the text, highlight, then click "Link."  Note you can edit what people see and the link itself in this link tool window.

IMPORTANT:  Make sure you click "open in a new window"
If you forget this step, please edit the post, highlight the link, and choose "change."

2. Add gadgets - List of Links

You can add all kinds of cool gadgets to your webpage.  The one you must add is a link back to the main class page.

From your Blogger homepage, choose your blog, and then choose layout (left menu).

Scroll to where you want the gadget.  For the list of links, may sure it is viewable at the top of the page (may be a side bar, but we need to see it when we see the blog header).

Click "Add a Gadget" and you will get all kinds of cool options.  Scroll until you find "Link List."

Name your list.  I chose "Class Blogs" but you may want "Favorite links" if you intend to add others.

For each link you want to include, name the site (do not put the web address), and paste the link.  Make sure it has http:// if that is part of the address.  Click "add link."  

When you have all the links you want, click "save."  

MAKE SURE THE TOP LINK GOES TO OUR CLASS BLOG:  http://fallintoedtech.blogspot.com/

Then in the layout view, click "save arrangement."  You can always edit this list later by clicking the tool icon on your regular blog page.  Finally, click "View Blog"

3.  Twitter Feed

You can add a feed of all your tweets by making a widget.  Directions for "How to Embed a Timeline."

Copy the html of the widget you created.  Then in Blogger, this time add the gadget "HTML/JavaScript" and paste the text.  Voila! 

4.  Embed an Office File (or other html) Rather than a Screen Shot

Rather than show a small portion of your assignment, you can post the whole assignment.  Directions for "How to Embed PDF and other Documents in Blogger Blog Posts."

Note:  The default size is likely too small.  So you will need to add the width and height to the html code. Simply type in the text you see in yellow. This is mine.  Except 640x480 is too wide so I used an aspect ratio converter to determine a better size and changed the numbers to 580x435.

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ak83vDxNfMAY37gYf1ykThHzlacstnVpFelhtGPbNEM/pub?embedded=true"width="640" height="480"></iframe>

See how much cooler and more readable an embedded document is than a screen shot?  It works particularly well with Power Points.  Many online tools, such as Prezi, provide an embed code that you can paste directly into the HTML editor of Blogger.