AnyMeeting

AnyMeeting is a nice service for hosting and recording live webinars without installing any special software. When using Any Meeting as a webinar host you can share your screen, use your webcam, and use text chat all at the same time. As the webinar host you can invite others to talk to the group using their webcams. You can have up to six webcams active in a webinar at any one time. You can record all or part of your webinar for free too. If you have people that just want to participate in the audio aspect of your webinar, they can call in using the phone number and access code assigned to your webinar.

Any Meeting has a free plan and paid plans. The free plan is supported with advertising. Using the free version of Any Meeting you can have up to 200 total webinar participants. The paid plans removes the advertising.

Infographics

There are so many infographics out there, but how can we use them in teaching and learning?  Kathy Schrock did a great presentation and it was very simple.  I love the resources and links she provided.
https://sites.google.com/a/kathyschrock.net/infographics/

https://sites.google.com/a/kathyschrock.net/infographics/infographictopics


Can you think of ways to use infographics in teaching and learning?

Urtak is a free and simple polling service that can be used on any blog or website. The polls you create can have multiple questions, but they must be "yes or no" questions. But Urtak isn't that limited because visitors to your poll also have the option of writing in their own questions.

You can get started using Urtak in seconds by registering with your Twitter or Facebook account. You can also use your email address to create an account with Urtak. As you can see above, Urtak polls can be embedded into your blog or you can direct people to your poll by sharing the unique url Urtak assigns to your poll.

Should we use twitter?

We are using twitter, but many ask why, for what, and how are we using it?  This infographic provides a way for you to decide if twitter should be used or continue to be used for your business or organization.  Click on image to view larger version.

Shelfster

Shelfster is a new research and writing tool that I learned about from Vicki Davis earlier this week before trying it out myself this afternoon. The purpose of Shelfster is to help you bookmark and annotate websites and documents that you find while researching a topic. You can organize your findings into Shelfster projects. Within each of your projects you can create documents by dragging and dropping links and texts into your documents from your list of saved links. Of course, you can also type in your documents and edit things that you dragged from your project library to your documents. Documents can be saved in your online account, downloaded, and printed.

Shelfster offers an iPad and iPhone app for bookmarking and annotating items to save in your projects. Shelfster also has browser bookmarklets and browser extensions for bookmarking and annotating materials in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera (sorry Safari fans, it seems Shelfster doesn't support that yet). You can also use Shelfster as a desktop app on Mac and Windows computers.

Applications for Education
Shelfster has the potential to be a good service to help students organize the useful content they find on the Internet. I'm not sure that I'd have students write an entire research paper within Shelfster yet, but it could definitely be a good place to construct an outline of a research paper. Shelfster says that integration with Google Docs is coming in the future. When that happens then I might have students use Shelfster for writing an entire research paper that could be easily shared for peer editing.

Find that File

Find that file is an interesting source to find or locate different forms of file types for a specific subject or content piece. 

http://www.findthatfile.com/

What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media

Just finished reading this book by Chris Lehmann and Scott McLeod.  As technology reshapes teaching and learning in the twenty-first century, school leaders would do well take into consideration the insights and advice shared in this book. With dozens of concrete examples, it offers something for education leaders no matter their prior experience with technology tools and issues.  Digital technologies and social media continue to evolve and are transforming the way in which we communicate, teach, and learn. This is a must-have toolbox for educational leaders who choose to be agents of change.

If you have a chance, pick up a copy.  It is worth the investment, especially for school leaders.

Blogging, not just the numbers

 

Early in the video Godin notes that blogging is not about the number of readers, but about the other benefits gained by blogging. That is a great point for all bloggers, but especially new bloggers to remember. Focus on consistently (it doesn't have to be every day, some of my favorite bloggers write only twice a week) producing quality content that you find beneficial to yourself and a small group of peers or colleagues and eventually your audience will grow. I started this blog for the purpose of keeping a record of things that I found interesting and for keeping in touch with friends. If you're just starting out in the blogging community, remember that blogging is about learning, reflecting, and sharing.

A year and five months

How is it going? Well, let's just say that the trend of events have not disappointed me. I always tend to work for those female individuals who have "perceptions" rather than taking the time to get to know my intentions. Well, low and behold it has happened.

I reflect and think what I am doing. Yes I have a strong personality. What can I change? The only things I can change are the behaviors. So, I decided to look this up and see what defines "behaviors" that I can change. This is what I found.

This is what Wikipedia stated, "Humans evaluate the acceptability of behavior using social norms and regulate behavior by means of social control. In sociology, behavior is considered as having no meaning, being not directed at other people and thus is the most basic human action."

I decided to search further and see what social norms were. Wikipedia states, "Social norms are the behaviors and cues within a society or group. This sociological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit. Failure to follow the rules can result in severe punishments, including exclusion from the group."

So, where does that leave me? I am working in a group that does not find my human behaviors acceptable to the social norms and would like to regulate that behavior. This does not apply to the organization; however, applies to the immediate constructs of the bureaucratic arena I report to.

Do I think I will be there and make it to year 2? Not sure if I will stay in that arena or move on to another pasture. Life goes on and we live with these "social norms" or a group. It is our choice to adapt or modify these social norms for ourselves.

Linchpin

Many interesting things have happen and this sums it up.

Ishita Grupta wrote,

"Every day is a new chance to choose.
Choose to change your perspective.
Choose to flip the switch in your mind. Turn on the light and stop fretting about with insecurity and doubt.
Choose to do your work and be free of distraction.
Choose to see the best in someone, or choose to bring out the worst in them.
Choose to be a laser beam, with focused intention, or a scattered ray of light that doesn't do any good."

"This is all about the power of choice. Do not let your circumstances or habits rule your choices today. Become a master of yourself and use your willpower to choose." - Seth Godin