Don't Let Them Drown

When occassionally I drop into the Tuesday night Twitter #edchat, I sometimes get the feeling of sitting in on a support group where like-minded people are hoping to get their ideas and opinions validated. For the most part, the #edchat participants have pretty similar viewpoints.

Consequently, and naturally, with little or no dissenting perspective a "group-think" develops and the members of the group start believing that their perspectives are universal and ubiquitous. Seemingly forgotten is the reality that there are others who don't share that mindset.

Being as deeply immersed in and enthusiastic about technology use as I'm guessing most readers of this piece are, we tend to lose sight of the fact that many of our colleagues barely are dangling their toes in thel pool.



I've worked with teachers who didn't have some of the most rudimentary computer skills. I was stunned when a teacher told me she didn't know how to copy-paste text. Another didn't realize that there might be more to a web page than the visible screen showed.

Some colleagues were unaware of the difference between "reply" and "reply all". There are still a few teachers I know don't have cell phones at all nevermind smartphones, and many who do don't text and don't understand texting.

So when we ask them to use a piece of technology, we may be asking them to virtually put their hand in the fire. What we take for granted as simple and intuitive may look to some of our coworkers like nuclear physics or brain surgery.

It can be frightening to these people to be expected to integrate technology into their classrooms when they have not yet integrated even the most basic tech into their own lives.

Teachers need to encouraged to embrace technology on a personal level. They have to see how things like social networking and Web 2.0 can be leveraged to achieve positive personal and professional benefits. If they don't get that, why would we think they could perceive how such things can be beneficial to their students.

Furthermore, teachers are being asked to incorporate teaching practices such as differentiated instruction and project based learning which may be new and unfamiliar concurrently with the integration of technology which might be an even more daunting proposition. Is it surprising some of them feel as if they're drowning?

Supporting and encouraging our colleagues to be explorers and users of new technology might possibly be our greatest challenge.


- Posted from my iPhone using BlogPress

Catch of the Day - SEN Teacher - 16 Apr 10

The fresh catch today is SEN Teacher, a site for special needs teachers

SEN Teacher provides cost-free teaching and learning resources for teachers of students with special needs and learning disabilities. All the resources available on or linked to at SEN Teacher are free for use in schools, colleges, and at home.

SEN Teacher is organized into four primary sections: Printables, Web Links, Downloads, and Search Tools.

The Printables Page

On the Printables page, you'll find a selection of printable worksheets, handouts, and other teaching aids many of which can be customized to suit a range of learners.

The Web Links Page

Web Links lead to websites which have been selected for the quality of their information or because they provide further sources of cost-free learning resources and software.

Downloads offers free educational software from many sources which has proven useful to teachers and parents of special needs students.

The Search Tools Page

Search Tools are custom Google searches which make it easier to locate free resources and information from several different SEN related areas.

There is also a Store which allows you to save money on special needs-related teaching products while supporting SEN Teacher.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - SMART Measurement Websites - 15 Apr 10

SMART Measurement Websites is the featured catch today

SMART Measurement Websites is a wiki-based collection of web sites featuring interactive whiteboard content related to measurement.

Money Web Sites

SMART Measurement Websites are categorized as providing content related to measuring …

• Angles
• Length
• Money
• Perimeter and Area
• Temperature
• Time
• Volume
• Weight

Within each of these categories, sites are further sorted according to grade level (K-8) appropriateness.

Angle Measurement Sites

The SMART Measurement Websites wiki is maintained by the Instructional Resource & Technology Center of Monroe County (MI) Intermediate School District.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Catch of the Day - Tagxedo - 14 Apr 10

Today's very fresh catch is new word cloud generator, Tagxedo

Tagxedo is the latest entry in the already crowded field of online word cloud generators. (See my earlier post - OMG, NO Wordle!!! Don't Panic.)

Like most other word cloud generators, Tagxedo turns text into a visual tag cloud with words individually sized based on the frequencies of each word appearing within the body of text.

Tagxedo Home Page

Some of the more unique things you can do with Tagxedo…

• look at all variants of the clouds in a gallery and pick the one you want for further tweaking or saving
• choose from a large number of different fonts
• use local fonts from your own computer
• quickly switch between different colors and themes
• constrain the cloud to selected shapes such as heart, star, cloud, oval, etc.

Below is a sample I created using the text of FDR's 1941 "Day of Infamy" speech as I did in my earlier post comparing word cloud generators.

Tagxedo premium features include the ability to use images and words as custom shapes.

See a Tagxedo Demo


Tagxedo requires that you have the latest version of Microsoft Silverlight installed.

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Catch of the Day - Instapaper - 13 Apr 10

Instapaper is the fresh haul today

Instapaper is a free web tool that lets you save web pages for later viewing or reading. But, it's more than that. The content you pass on to Instapaper is available via your browser, with an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad app, and using a Kindle or other device capable of reading the ePub format.

Using Instapaper's Read Later bookmarklet, you can save a web page for review at a more convenient time. Then, when you're ready, you can see your saved content in its original format or in a text-only format (The text-only format will sometimes include key images).

After reading, the pages can be archived automatically or manually or deleted completely. Instapaper lets you create folders for organizing your saved pages, both read and unread. Note, though, that saved pages are available via Instapaper only as long as the original content exists.

You can send items directly from Google Reader to Instapaper using Reader's Send to menu.

Many desktop and mobile RSS readers support sending items directly to Instapaper, as well.

Instapaper provides Kindle-compatible files which are easily transferred at no charge via USB, containing the text-only versions of your saved pages. Files are also available for other electronic reading devices that support the ePub format, including most Sony Readers and the Barnes & Noble Nook.

If you read my post yesterday about Readability, Instapaper offers a similar, but less robust text-on-the-fly service using the Instapaper Text bookmarklet.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0