Tech Tips for the Week of December 14 - Go Phish, bighugelabs.com, easybib.com

Unlike the narrower focus of the last two instalments of Tech Tips, this week's topics are, admittedly, somewhat random.  We'll begin with some advice on keeping your identity safe on the Internet, move on to show you how your students can create quite professional-looking publications in a matter of minutes, and end with a quick way to create bibliography entries.  But first ...

Tech Tips for the Week of December 7 - iearn.org

In last week's Tech Tip I promised that I would spend a week or two examining how technology can provide students and teachers a means of connecting with people from around the world.  This week's Tech Tip,  examines iearn.org (International Education and Resource Network), a not-for-profit organization with the express goal of "Connecting Youth - Making a Difference in the World."

Using Google Apps in the Classroom

Google has a listing of lesson plans for using Google Apps in K-12 education. If you're a Google App user, this resource may get you thinking of possible ways to support curriculum. Many of these have an American flavour, but I'm sure they can be adapted.

What's the difference between Classblogmeister and Blogger?

1. Blogger is prettier (just like me!).
2. Blogger is simpler (just like... nevermind).
3. Classblogmeister gives you much more control!
4. Classblogmeister organizes posts according to assignments, teachers, and classes.
5. Blogger's Terms of Service say that it can't be used by anyone younger than 13 years of age.
6. Blogger is in the Googleverse so it's very easy to interact with other Google products, such as Google Docs.

I'm sure there are others. Let me know by posting comments.

Registering Your School with Classblogmeister

If you need to register a school in Classblogmeister, go to the address below:

http://classblogmeister.com/?blog=rethink

Once your school has been registered, you can create a teacher account within your school.

Why Blog?

It seems a bit ironic to be blogging about blogging, but here goes...

We spent some time today presenting a workshop on blogging. One of the topics we discussed was "Why Blog?" Here are two articles that address this question:

• 20 Reasons for students to blog
• Why use blogs in education?

Another topic we explored was "How can I use blogs in education?" The following resources might be useful:

• Matrix of possible uses for blogs in education
• Examples of blogs in education

How popular are blogs? According to David Sifry and Technorati, in April 2007 there were over 70 million blogs and 120,000 blogs were being created every day. That's like 1.4 new blogs being made every second.

Tech Tips for the Week of November 30 - kiva.org

All too often when we think of integrating technology into the curriculum we fall into what I might call the Application Trap.  In other words, we discover some piece of software and ask ourselves how that might be applied within a particular subject and/or at a particular grade level.  The fault in this approach is that it tends to place the application first and the human/learning element second.
It also ignores one of the fundamental advantages of living in our current technological world - technology connects people and ideas.  Just think about the technologies that youth adopt most readily: instant messaging, cell phones, texting, ...  all of them are about making and maintaining connections.  It is this human element that we sometimes ignore when we explore how to use technology in the classroom.

Furthermore, in this season, sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it seems fitting to look beyond our own abundance (generally speaking) to the world outside.

Therefore for the next few installments, Tech Tips is going to examine technologies that help students make connections with other people, both near and far.  This week's episode looks at kiva.org.