Tweeting your way to a stronger PLN

Your Personal learning Network (PLN) is a fancy way of saying how you connect with other people to continue learning. How you do this is different for everyone, but this week I dove into finding new, digital ways of exploring and expanding my own PLN. One of my favorite PLN tools is Twitter! Not sure what Twitter is or how to create an account? Click HERE for a quick and dirty rundown! I use my classroom Twitter account almost daily in a couple different ways. First, and foremost, I use Twitter to share information, announcements, and student work! Twitter is a fantastic platform for students and PARENTS to see information and pictures of what is going on in your classroom! The students absolutely love seeing themselves and their work being tweeted out and parents love the idea of getting that glimpse of what their student is working on in class delivered right to their smartphone or computer. 

If you're already using Twitter, the video below gives some great tips on how you could take your classroom Twitter to the next level! 

Additionally, I use Twitter to connect with other teachers and educational companies! Because you can search hashtags on Twitter, you can find tweets about nearly any topic. I love searching #edtech to see what people are talking about and what resources and tools are being shared around! It is a quick and easy way to pulse what's new in the Ed Tech world! As you've heard me say before, I don't have TIME to do anything but take a quick pulse on just about anything! 160 characters is just what I need to easily browse through, find what I want and pass by what I don't! 

Interested in Ed Tech? Check out the Twitter users below who tweet out some fantastic Ed Tech based resources, tools, and articles! 

- @ShakeUpLearning

- @spearheadedtech

- @coolcatteacher

- @WilCodilla

- @KerryHawk02

Interested in searching some Ed based hashtags? Try searching up the hashtags below to find some amazing users, articles, resources, tools, and more!

- #edchat

- #edtech

- #edtechchat

- #GoogleEdu

- #CSEdu 

Don't forget to follow ME on Twitter @MissKingSMS for more #edtech and #EnglishEd tweets!

Blogs, Blogs, all types of Blogs!

This week's focus in the EdTech world was focused in on Blogs! I'll be the first to admit that I am not one to seek out blogs to read through.  A large reason for this is because I just haven't had the time to sit down and read through some not-so great blogs to find the really good ones. I use Twitter far more than I read blogs because the information is chunked into smaller, more simplified titles that I can quickly browse through to see if I actually want to read the article. What I took away from this week's exploration into blogs is that many of the people I follow on Twitter and really enjoy also have some pretty amazing blogs! 

Additionally, because I like the platform and setup of Twitter, there is also an amazing tool called Feedly that allows you to input the blogs that you follow and it will populate all the new posts from each of the blogs in a very visually pleasing way. For a quick rundown and a much better explanation on what Feedly is and does, watch the video below. 

This tool now allows me to QUICKLY browse through blog posts from my favorite Ed Tech bloggers and I can choose which to actually read and which to pass by. I've also added the Feedly app to my iPhone and my iPad because, as mentioned before, time is the biggest issue when it comes to reading this great information that these insanely smart individuals are putting out into the world. That's every teacher's problem, right? There just isn't enough time in a day. Well the Feedly app lets me quickly have access to all of these blogs in ONE place and even if I only have 5 minutes to browse through them during my lunch break or as I am waiting on a student, I know that I am using my time efficiently! 

Give it a try! I'll admit, I was skeptical at first but have been very pleased so far with the web based tool and the app. Not sure where to start? Sign up for a free Feedly account by clicking HERE! Not sure which blogs to follow after you have an account? Below is a list of some of my favorite blogs to help get you started!

• Shake Up Learning!
• Cool Cat Teacher
• EdSurge
• Blended Learning and Tech in the Classroom

HAPPY FEEDLY-ing!

Google Sites

This week in my Google Adventures I tackled Google Sites. I'll be honest here... I have not had positive experiences with this tool in the past and have felt that it is very clunky and not easily navigated. When I first got into this adventure this week I remember making several remarks about how the design and layout of the website itself looked like it was something directly out of 1998. 

Take a look below to see what I mean...

That being said, I did find myself really enjoying that process the more I got into it. Google Sites is a tool that allows you to basically build your own website for free. You can change the template, the look, and the layout of your website and individual pages. As mentioned before, the navigation is a little frustrating at first, but once you get the hang of it, the process is pretty painless. If you are starting from scratch on how to build your own site, the video below really helped me familiarize myself with some of the common tools and features that are available to you while you are building. 

Some of my favorite features within Google Sites include the ability to embed documents from your Google Drive directly into a page, HTML coding and embedding capabilities, and the ability to include direct, live links to any page. The image below is a screen grab from the site I created. I was able to include an example essay I had in my Google Drive directly onto one of the pages on the site. 

After playing around with the Google Sites and taking the time to actually sit down and build a site of my own, I definitely do see some of the benefits. As a teacher who previously used Blackboard and has switched to Google Classroom, one of the things that I really miss is the ability to have a place to store information and resources for my students all in one spot. Google Classroom is AMAZING in terms of learning management system that lets you turn in assignments and complete formative and summative assessments. My hangup has been not really having a well thought out way to deliver content and information to my students all in one place that was easy for THEM to navigate. I could add several folders into the "about" section of Google Classroom, but it doesn't look very clean and students often have a hard time locating specific information inside them. Realizing this, I chose to create a Google Site that would act as a storage space for content and resources that my students would need to have for an informative research and writing unit. On the site, students will have all of the information they need to learn how to READ informational texts and take notes on them, RESEARCH specific topics and find credible sources, and WRITE a strong, informative essay about the topic of their choice. The site houses important documents from my Google Drive, links to level-appropriate articles, a custom Google Search engine, videos, slideshows, and a plethora of other resources for my students to utilize. Click HERE to check it out!

Google Sites isn't perfect, but it ended up being exactly what I have been looking for. It was a lot of work up front, but I know that having all of these resources, tools, and information stored in one spot for my students will pay off exponentially in the long run! 

Google Earth and Google Tour Builder

I'll be honest, Google Earth and Google Tour Builder are two areas of Google that I do not feel exceptionally strong in. After fully immersing myself in the two this week, I now see the positive implications that both could have in the classroom. Both have different strengths, in my opinion, but are valuable and teachable in their own ways. Let's take a look at both...

Google Earth
If you're like me and feel like you need a beginners guide to how to even get started with Google Earth, click HERE. This short tutorial video really helped me understand the ins and outs of the program. The biggest takeaway I had from using Google Earth is that you really need to just play around with it for a short amount of time before you try to do any specific tasks. I had to click around and explore for about 7-10 minutes before I felt comfortable completing what I was truly trying to do. Because of this, I believe that the same would be true for my students using it in class. They're going to need some extra time to just play around and explore the program before completing assignments within it. This was an important "ah-ha" moment for me, as a teacher! In terms of teaching with Google Earth, I think one of the most powerful teaching tools it offers is the 3D models it allows students to understand. With a flat map in a textbook, students are only able to visualize so much. Google Earth really breaks that dilemma wide open and lets them have a much more detailed and accurate portrayal of the world in which they live. Personally, I see this as more of a TEACHER tool for teaching my students about specific areas of the world or pointing them to this tool to find specific information, but he possibilities are truly endless with this. Just in case you need a place to start from, click HERE to see how others are using Google Earth in their classrooms already! The video below is on the would be a great anticipatory set for introducing this tool to your students. 

Google Tour Builder

Google Tour Builder is a little more straight forward, if you ask me. I had very little experience with this tool prior to this week's exploration, so if you need a quick rundown on how to get started, I found THIS short video quite helpful. What I love the most about this tour is it's simplicity. Adding the locations for your tour is a breeze and all the other information that can be added is laid out in a format that is easy to follow and easy to accomplish. Google has done a great job of making this tool exceptionally user friendly! This tool, in my opinion, would be much easier for students to use to complete tasks. For example, it would be relatively simple for students to create their own tour over a specific region in Social Studies class, or over the settings and locations they read about in a novel in English class. I see this tool as much more of a STUDENT tool rather than a teacher too, and that is why I think it is even more powerful. The assessments that students could complete by creating an interactive tour of their learning is a pretty powerful tool! Below is a screenshot of a Google Tour over one of the novels in my students' current literature circles, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. 

The complete tour, which can be accessed by clicking HERE, includes maps, street view images, still photos, and videos about each of the locations in the novel. This would be such a cool way for students to tell their own stories or to map the stories that others have created!

Overall, I think both of these tools have a lot of potential and would be excellent additions to any classroom. It was refreshing to see how many teachers outside of social studies and geography are using these tools in a meaningful way. Google is for EVERYONE, people!!!