Are You Attending the ISTE 2015 Conference? If Not, Visit This Site!

What an interesting week this has been. Our family room was flooded for the first (and I hope the last) time ever. And I taught a week-long workshop about creatively using SMART Boards with a group of talented and hard-working educators. This week definitely had lows and highs. I must also say that even though getting the water out of the family room and cleaning afterwards is not fun, I realize how blessed we are to have had only a few inches of water in the room rather than several feet of water as I have seen on news shows that reported flooding from other storms in other parts of the country.

ISTE Standards for Teachers / Denise Krebs / CC BY 2.0

Since we are still cleaning, today's blog post is just a short note about an excellent site that I visited as I have researched ideas for this Summer's workshops.

T&L Live @ ISTE

http://tltechlive.techlearning.com/

If you are not at ISTE 2015, you probably wish you were. I do! Tech & Learning describes this site:

Tech&Learning Live @ISTE2015 is a curated social media hub that will deliver highlights of the world's largest edtech events as selected by Tech&Learning Media Group's team of journalists.

Read about both the tools and the news of using edtech with our students. My favorite quotation so far is:

Our students' dreams are bigger than the standards we have to cover.

(Sorry that I cannot tell you (yet!) who said that. The post had a photo of the speaker, but I do not recognize her. If anyone can tell me who to credit for that quotation, I would appreciate it.)

You'll find suggestions on attending (and preparing to attend) an ISTE conference in addition to teaching and learning ideas and tools... and lots of links to follow.

Be sure to visit and explore T&L Live @ ISTE
http://tltechlive.techlearning.com/

It's Time to Organize Your Photos!

 

189/365 Memories (+1) / martinak15 / CC BY 2.0

Melanie Pinola tackles some tough issues that arise when we decide that we want to organize our photos:

• clean up duplicates
• automatically share photos
• sync and sort photos
• tackle family photos
• future-proof photos
• put all photos in one location
• use a folder- and file-naming structure that works

She provides suggestions for organizing our photos with links to "how to's" for each suggestion. Pinola makes very good suggestions to handle the challenges of organizing our photos. Well done!



Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Messy Photo Collection
http://lifehacker.com/top-10-ways-to-improve-your-messy-photo-collection-1707830539
May 30, 2015


Melanie Pinola
http://kinja.com/MelaniePinola

Teaching Mathematics (Free Online Assessment Tool and 3 Act Tasks), Content Chunking in eLearning, and a Virtual Tour through a Cave... in Education Today

If you are interested in these topics--virtual tours, teaching mathematics, and/or content chunking--then you may find useful ideas in these posts.

Hang En Cave 6 / Hugh Derr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Take a Virtual Journey through Vietnam's Massive Son Doong Cave
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/30/8691739/son-doong-cave-vietnam-tour
May 30, 2015

Lizzie Plaugic
http://www.theverge.com/users/lizzieplaugic

National Geographic created a virtual tour of the Son Doong cave, one of the world's largest caves. This cave is so large that clouds can form inside it.

The tour uses text, a site map, sound, zoom, and sharing. You can manipulate the 360-degree image to explore inside the cave. Be sure to also click on the link to the video shot inside the cave by a drone.

Math Wordle Bulletin Board / Enokson / CC BY-NC 2.0

Tap into Teen Minds
https://tapintoteenminds.com/knowledgehooks-free-gameshow-assessment-tool/
May 30, 2015

Kyle Pearce
https://tapintoteenminds.com/about-me/

Check Out @Knowledgehook’s FREE Gameshow Assessment Tool!
A Free Gamified Clicker Tool With Ready-Made Content!

Pearce explores this free online assessment tool that can be used as a game show with questions already prepared... or with questions that you have customized. He shares screen shots and pros and cons of this product that is in beta production. Using your own questions is one of the pros; the fact that only Canadian provinces are listed at this point is one of the cons. He believes this product has much potential.

I tried playing the game both as a teacher and as a student. It was easy--as a teacher--to modify the questions. It was fun--as a student--to play on my smartphone. In the classroom you can project the questions and possible answers for all to see. Students can play as long as they have access to a web browser.

This assessment tool is promoted for reviewing mathematics. However, I agree with Kyle Pearce. There is very good potential here for other subjects as well.


Also... while you are visiting Kyle Pearce's blog, be sure to check out the 3 Act Math Tasks at https://tapintoteenminds.com/3act-math/. Scroll to the bottom of the page to access more than 100 3 Act Math Tasks and related resources. (For more information, see a previous post I wrote about 3 Act Math Tasks (http://teachinginadigitalworld.blogspot.com/2014/09/3-act-tasks-in-classroom.html).)
 
These resources are enough to make me wish I were teaching mathematics again!

Chunking / Phil and Jo Schiffbauer / CC BY 2.0

6 Advantages of Content Chunking in E-learning -- An Infographic
http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/advantages-of-elearning-content-chunking-infographic
May 29, 2015

Chinthakunta Krishna
http://blog.commlabindia.com/author/krishnac/

Krishna explains what content chunking is and then presents an infographic to list the importance of using it in elearning (or online learning). Is an infographic necessary to list six items? No. But, it is a good visual tool if you are sharing the idea with others... and I think it's a good reminder to myself to take advantage of chunking when I'm creating online courses.