TimeSpace: World by the Washington Post is an interactive map that allows you to navigate articles, photos, video and commentary from around the globe. Discover news hot-spots where coverage is clustered. Use the timeline to illustrate peaks in coverage, and customize your news searches to a particular day or specific hour. (Many Washington Post stories appear at midnight; others are published throughout the day as news happens). Click the ? in the upper right for help.

One of the sessions I knew I couldn’t miss was Steve Dembo’s presentation “Extreme Makeover: Education Edition.” Steve will be doing a version of this at the MACUL conference in a couple of weeks. This session is really geared for Web 2.0 beginners although there were a couple of tools that were new to me

Many times when showing new tools to teachers, the response is, “I don’t have time to learn that” or “my district can’t afford any new technology” or “that’s too hard for me.” Steve showed several free tools that educators can use immediately, without the steep learning curve that accompanies a lot of software.

• Blabberize
• Edublogs
• crappygraphs (you might not be able to use this at school)
• Twitter
• Let Me Google That For You
• embedding video
• Plodt
• Poll Everywhere
• Prezi (You can apply for a free account but it’s in beta and might not get approved for a while.)

If you have a few minutes try these out. Hopefully, you’ll be able to see Steve share this at MACUL, I hear he’s looking for audience participation

Janni Black, an educator with 18 years experience in curriculum and classroom teaching, has spent the last decade incorporating technology into all content areas of the classroom. A strong advocate for the importance of digital literacy, she shares her enthusiasm for technology with other educators by leading hands-on presentations, serving on leadership technology committees and penning her blog,Transitioning to Web 2.0. Janni’s writing has even won her the distinction “Geek of the Week” by Women of the Web.

See the previous post on this blog for more info, including how to register.

Except where noted, all ISTE webinars take place at 4:00 PM at MAISD. Except where noted, all ISTE webinars take place at 4:00 PM at MAISD. Registration is FREE. You may sign up for any or all of the webinars in the series. For information on how to register, click on the Professional Development link on the ISD web site
(http://www.muskegonisd.org).

Click on this link iste-webinars.pdf to see the listing of all of the webinars in the series.

The workshop consists of over 70 short video tutorials to help you understand what a flat classroom is and how you can connect yourself and your students, create “prolearners”, and communicate. There are also videos addressing online ethics and character, citizenship, safety, and choice.

Because it is a social networking site that depends on input from people all over the world, there are sections that are not yet completed. However, there is still plenty of information to get started and the categories are relevant to classroom situations. Note on the left column that there are 32 categories, including links for blogging, collaborative resources (documents, idea maps, spreadsheets), Google Earth, photo sharing and social resources such as bookmarking, networking and note-taking. Each category includes information to the same basic questions:

• Uses For (category) In Education
• What (category) Does For Students
• Lesson Plans and Ideas
• Active Discussion Page
• Specific Program Links (found some new web sites here)
• (Category) Resources
• Wiki Resources (related to category)
• Podcast Resources (related to category)
• Other Website Links
• Article Links
• Books
• Videos, and
• Additional Resources

While reviewing these resources, I was introduced to the concept of Collaborative Web Trails. There may be a lot of potential with this idea in the classroom. 

• ability to keep track of upcoming assignments (and for teachers, perhaps keep track of what needs to be done in preparation for a class project),

• create classes to keep notes separated,

• create “groups” in which peers can be invited for sharing the notes, and

• upload Word and OpenOffice documents, images and audio notes.

If you have the time, consider exploring the Classroom 2.0 social networking site that contains this resource. You will find numerous topics relating technology integration.