Monday, December 2, 2013

Evernote and Skitch in the 21st Century Classroom

There are a couple of great free 21st century internet tools that every classroom teacher should use, even if just for preparing for their class. Evernote and Skitch.




The Evernote family of products help you remember and act upon ideas, projects
and experiences across all the computers, phones and tablets you use. You could also incorporate these tools into your lessons by having students use Evernote to work  collaboratively
on a notebook or to save their works in process.

Evernote is an easy-to-use, free app that helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. Stay organized, save your ideas and improve productivity.


Evernote lets you take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders--and makes these notes completely searchable, whether you are at home, work, or somewhere in between. It is like saving your work to the cloud, but with folder structures you control.





According to the article 10 Evernote Tips for Schools the author key headline is "10 Great ways students can use Evernote to study Smarter and not Harder".  Another article i found on the Evernote blog was by Buffy Hamilton. Ms Hamilton's said "Evernote would be a perfect solution for the students’ need to archive and organize traditional and non-traditional sources of information."  With Evernote's ability to search pictures for text, studnet scan even take a picture of a document they need and save that image to Evernote and be able to search the text of the picture later.



Skitch:

Skitch is There are a couple of great free 21st century internet tools that every classroom teacher should use, even if just for preparing for their class. Evernote and Skitch.




The Evernote family of products can be used to help people organize and complete projects
across all the computers, phones and tablets they use. Teachers could also incorporate these tools into their lessons by having students use Evernote to work  collaboratively
on a notebook or to save their works in process.


Evernote lets users take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists, record voice reminders--and makes these notes completely searchable, whether they are at home, work, or somewhere in between. It is like saving work to the cloud, but with folder structures you control.






According to the article 10 Evernote Tips for Schools
the author key headline is "10 Great ways students can use Evernote to study Smarter and not Harder".  Another article i found on the Evernote blog was by Buffy Hamilton. Ms Hamilton's said "Evernote would be a perfect solution for the students’ need to archive and organize traditional and non-traditional sources of information."  With Evernote's ability to search pictures for text, studnet scan even take a picture of a document they need and save that image to Evernote and be able to search the text of the picture later.


Skitch:

Skitch is a popular free screen snapping and annotation tools available from Evernote. Because Skitch is part of the Evernote family you can save all of your Skitch files directly to a designated notebook in Evernote and also easily add your Skitch files to an Evernote document). In Skitch, you can take a photograph or screenshot and write directly on it to make your point quickly. You can also use Skitch like a whiteboard or a drawing tool.  In this video a young girl demonstrates how easy it is to use Skitch.


 
As the girl demonstrated Skitch is very easy to use. Basically the editing and annotation tools can be found on the left side of the window including Arrow, Text, Shape, Pen, Colors Crop and resize. Some of the options open up additional selections. There are also hot-keys users can select to pick the tool for the effect they are looking to make.
Once the changes or annotations have been completed the user can rename the finished image. There are also options to  share the image or delete it to start a new one.

Key Benefits of Skitch include the ability to: 

  • Uploading and synching Skitch notes or screenshots to Evernote, with available sync options.
  • Being able to search through Skitch notes for text annotations, including handwriting.
  • Importing previous screenshots from Skitch 1.x.
  • Pixelate and Highlight tools
  • Ability to modify the width and height of the screenshot before capture.
  • Ability to easily click and resize shapes
  • Ability to multi-select images for easier deletion.
  • New keyboard shortcuts

Monday, October 28, 2013

Using Twitter with your Professional Learning Network

Twitter is a great social media tool that a teacher can use to communicate with the classroom and parents. Twitter can also be used for professional development. A teacher can use Twitterhttp://www.onlinecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pln/twitter.jpg to assist in creating their Professional Learning Network.  According to the article "Building a Professional Learning Network" if a person follows the right 10 people, those 10 people could be enough. Their professional network could be only 10 people.

In the 21st century, networking has moved from face to face meet and greet and trying to get meetings with other  professionals to social media and instant contact. This has both positive and negative repercussions. A teacher can interact with their favorite teacher, author, or inspirational speaker without leaving their hometown. But it also can be overwhelming at times wiht access to so many people and tweets.
It is important for teachers to have a strong professional learning network to bounce ideas off of and get best practice advice from. Twitter allows teachers to connect with other teachers across the country, or the globe.

Another informative online article on the benefits of using twitter to build a professional learning network is "10 Great Guides for Better Professional Learning Network". The article discusses the importance of a Professional Learning Network and professional growth. 
  
The following is a quote from the article "50 Great Ways to Grow Your Personal Learning Network"
"Twitter has quickly become one of the best tools in any online learner's arsenal. Use these tips to make the most of your Twitter interactions"

Below is a video from  "Teachers Guide on Creating Personal Learning Networks"  about the importance of PLNs and the use of social media to create, engage, and maintain them.

 

Twitter is easy to use, you only need to type 140 characters at a time, and you can see what other people with like interests and questions are saying. Once you sign up you can just follow for a while and then as you get the hang of it start tweeting .





source:
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/01/10-great-guides-for-better-professional.html
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/11/teacher-tutorial-on-creating-personal.html
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/twitter-expanding-pln
http://www.onlinecollege.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pln/twitter.jpg




Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Consequences for Teachers Using Social Media

Should teachers and school staff be held accountable for how they use social media in their personal life?
Teachers are at many times held to higher standards as they are role models by the choice of their profession. A local teacher was faced with this harsh reality in Guilford county.  According to a WFMY News 2 story,  Page High School teacher, resigned in November after inappropriate images of him surfaced on one of his social media accounts.


Guilford County Schools have established social media guidelines. The guidelines advise their staff to keep their personal lives personal. They have specific guidelines for Facebook since it has become such a well known/ used social media site. also prohibit teachers from becoming facebook friends with their students or their students parents.

I think that Guilford County is very clear on their policies but not necessarily the consequences. Employees of the school district are reminded that their personal online presence should reflect the same respect and professionalism exhibited in their professional online accounts. Even though this may not seem fair to some, I believe it is very appropriate. In this case the person in question was a role model for many young people. This is not how we want our young men to behave or take pictures. This is on the border of "sexting" which is a huge issue for teens and younger.  I believe the teacher made the right choice of resigning, because he would have lost the respect of his peers, students and parents.

Entering the field of education, I think that their should be more emphasis on this. As an adult returning to school, I see the pit falls of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I am not so sure young teachers that have grown up posting all of their life events and having everything out there, the good, bad and ugly understand the workplace repercussions. I know in my place of employment we will search potential candidates social media sites to get an idea of their lifestyle and dependability.


Teachers are up against even more challenges with folks looking at their social media sites, potential employers (school districts) as well as students current and future, and parents of those students will all be "screening" the teacher by seeing what information they can find on social media sites. This is why I believe school districts do need strict guidelines and consequences for misuse of social media even in their personal life. 












http://www.gcsnc.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=288157

http://schoolcenter.gcsnc.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=291859&pagecat=3704

WFMY News2 (2012, November 30) Page HS  teacher resigns for inappropriate photos. Retrieved January 21, 2013 from http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=256722

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