Powerful Learning Practice - Day in the Life of Connected Educator

Powerful Learning Practice is a site that provides professional development and resources for teachers to implement new technologies and pedagogy to create "21st Century Classrooms." There are some good resources on the site.

They have an article entitled "A Day in the Life of a Connected Educator – Using social media in 21st century classrooms" that looks at how teachers use social media and other Web 2.0 tools to improve teaching and learning.

The infographic is interesting and has ideas for using social media in the classroom. It follows a teacher through her day as she uses social media sites and Web 2.0 resources throughout her day as an educator. Teachers can get some great ideas from this for their own use.

It can be found at their site:
http://plpnetwork.com/2012/05/07/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-connected-educator-using-social-media-throughout-your-day/

Related:

Social Media in Education - connect, share, learn, communicate and more
Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook - a nice comparison
Which Social Network should you use? Infographic on which to use when.

Edmodo - free social learning platform expands and improves

10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have

10 Important Skills Students need for the Future

CISPA - What is it? Links and Infographic

CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act) recently passed in congress in the House. It is a bill that allows the US Government and businesses to work together and share information on cyberthreats. It has been said that this bill is too vague and will allow too much information to be shared to the government. Others say it is a needed law.

In either case, it's something that we should learn more about and discuss with our students.

Here are some links:

CISPA Wikipedia article

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act: CISPA explained

US House passes controversial CISPA cybersecurity bill, now on to the Senate

Below is an infographic from Paralegal.net that explains CISPA in more detail.




Created by: Paralegal.net

Infographic - What do High School Students want from mobile tech

    

ASCD (Association for Curriculum and Development) has taken statistics from a variety of sources and coalates it into a nice infographic about students, mobile learning, learning methods and what high school students want in mobile learning.

The research shows that banning mobile devices in school does not work and that schools should be embracing these devices and helping students use them for learning. Some of the stats:

63 percent of students attending schools carry their mobile devices despite the rules (probably conservative)
63 percent of students want online textbooks with communication facilities;
40 percent want online texts with collaboration tools.
43 percent stated social media is one of the main ways they communicate with friends online.
62 percent of student use the Internet as a new source; whereas 17 percent use it to gain knowledge concerning topics generally difficult to talk about — such as drug use.

I am one of those teachers who hastes the rule banning these devices. I've allowed my students to use them in class before and, along with some other faculty, is pushing to change the rules. 

Check out the infographic below for more data on this topic.

Source:  ZDNet - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/what-do-high-school-students-want-from-mobile-tech-infographic/15843


Related:

My students used their cellphones in class - and I encouraged it!
Android Smartphone and Apps I use as an educator

Android for Education resources and apps

Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia Infographic - very interesting

 

Encyclopedia Britannica announced that it was cancelling future publication of it's print edition due to falling sales. I'm not sure too many people were surprised considering the internet has become a free, on-demand resource for most people. The Encyclopedia Britannica was 32 volumes, $1,395, and outdated before you got it in your house.

Wikipedia is one of the reasons print, and even online subscription based, encyclopedias are failing. There are also millions of web sites that have information and resources that are interactive and free.

I remember my parents getting us an encyclopedia and being so happy I didn't have to bike to the library as much any more. Now, I can get more information than that in my smartphone. Online resources are constantly updated, link to other resources, and can be interactive with video, audio, and activities. It seems like textbooks are, or should be, going the way of the Dodo along with the encyclopedia.

The infographic below is a comparison of some data about Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica.

Infographic courtesy of Statista.


Related:

What I use with Physics classes instead of textbook

Resources to Replace Textbooks

Android Smartphone and Apps I use as an educator

Infographic on Mobile devices and Studying - and free apps to help

I found this infographic this past weekend and found it interesting. It shows how students do use their smartphones for studying and other educational tasks. I know many of my students do too. The company that put together the infographic did research on mobile studiers. The company noticed an huge increase in mobile study sessions using their apps, so they did some more research.

The company, STUDYBLUE, makes iPhone and Android apps that let you make flash cards. The apps are free, so check them out. http://www.studyblue.com/mobile-flashcards-app/

Teachers can also create a free account and create study materials for their students.

Via: STUDYBLUE.com



Disclosure: I did not receive any compensation for this post from StudyBlue. I simple found the data in the infographic interesting. 

Infographic on the digital divide - interesting data

All educators know that students have different access to technology, internet access, prior knowledge and experiences etc. The infographic below has some interesting data on the digital divide including lack of computer and broadband access by poor students, by race and around the world.



Created by: Online IT Degree

CoolInfographics - great source for infographics on different topics

Last week I posted about having students create or analyze infographics as a great project in class.

They have to be able to research data, analyze it, organize it and use tech skills to create the infographic. That can be done using the web and a variety of tools to create it.

But, if you are going to have them analyze existing infographics, you need a place to find them. Cool Infographics is that place. It's site that posts infographics on all types of topics, including health, education, technology, and more. The author comments on some of them also, pointing out good and bad points.

This is a great place to go to find infographics to use with your class as a resource, or to have your students analyze the infographic as an assignment.

Visualy - create, share, and browse infographics

Visually is a free service that allows users to create, share, and browse infographics and visualizations. Infographics can be used to share stories, visualize data, and explore and explain things. Visually has a huge collection of some of the best ones available, giving educators and students a great place to find some great resources.

Visually is also creating a tool to easily and quickly create your own infographics. You can sign up for more info  at their site.

A search for "education" returned hundreds of infographics. One I found interesting was "Anatomy of a Doctor", which described the characteristics of doctors, education required, stress, etc.

I think having students analyze and comment on, or even create infographics, is a great project.

Using Adobe Digital Schools Collection to have students create infographics

Infographics, short for information graphics, are collections of information and data presented in a graphical format, are nice resources for educators and students to get information. But students could also create them as a project.

Infographics are a great project for students. They have to research, analyze, synthesize, compare and contrast, and summarize, as well as use graphical skills and software skills. Students can work in groups on the projects, allowing them to develop teamwork, collaboration and communication skills.

Adobe Digital Schools Collection is a collection of software that can be used by students to create infographics. It is available for Windows and Mac and contains Adobe Photoshop Elements 10, Premiere Elements 10 and Acrobat X Pro.

Photoshop can be used to modify pictures and graphics and then Acrobat can be used to publish the project as a PDF file. Students could even create interactive, multimedia infographics with Premiere (video editing) and the fact that Acrobat X can include audio and video in the PDF file.

There are a lot of resources for educators to help them use the ADSC in their classrooms. The Adobe Education Exchange is a great resource for educators and has curriculum and lesson plans for using the ADSC in class along with teacher resources and a community of users. There are 23 lesson plans, tech guides, user guides, teacher guides, and completed examples to view. There are over 36,000 members in the community and that number continues to grow.


Have students create an infographic as a project in your class.


Related:

A Great Collection of Cool Infographics on Pinterest - from Free Technology for Teachers