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

edWeb - social network for educators - great resource

edWeb is a social network for educators. It's free to join, and allows educators to connect with other educators and create a professional learning community. There are resources, tips, forums, lesson ideas, research and much more available. It's another great resource to add to your network.

The Many forms of Socializing Online - social networks organized graphically

The Many Forms of Socializing Online is a nice graphic that has different social networks organized by type/functions, such as photo-sharing, blogging, music, documents, videos, etc.

It was originally posted on Visual.ly (a site for creating and finding great infographics) over a year ago at http://visual.ly/many-forms-socializing-online.

It is missing Google+, but is still a great resource for educators and students looking to find new ways to socialize, learn, share, and connect online.

Lots more resources on Social Networking in Education:

Which Social Network should you use? Infographic on which to use when.

Visualy - create, share, and browse infographics

Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Email, Google+ - why/when use each one

Twiducate - free social networking for schools

Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook - a nice comparison

Twitter - A great resource for Education

Google+ - more reasons it's great for educators

Google+ and Google+ Pages - great for educators and schools

Social Media in Education - connect, share, learn, communicate and more

EDU 2.0 Free Course Management System for Schools

5 Great course management resources for educators

it's learning Course Management System

OpenClass - Pearson and Google combine to make free LMS

Learnboost online planner/gradebook announces new admin features

Which Social Network should you use? Infographic on which to use when.

Social Networks are a great resource for businesses, keeping in touch with friends, and education. Social Networks help educators and students learn, stay in contact, connect, share and more. But which Social Network is best for what?

Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, the many systems made for education (Twiducate, Edmodo, etc). Which do you use? Many schools and teachers like to use systems like Edmodo and Twiducate because they can keep things private and see who is accessing the information. Many schools use Google+ and set up Circles to keep things private and organized. Others just use Twitter and Facebook. It all depends on your needs, policies, and what you are trying to do with the system.

Here are some articles on different social networks and what they are useful for, as well as some course management systems that include social networking features. Below them, there is a great infographic from business consultant network Zintro on social networks and when they are best used for what purpose.

Related:

Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Email, Google+ - why/when use each one

Twiducate - free social networking for schools

Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook - a nice comparison

Social Media in Education - connect, share, learn, communicate and more

EDU 2.0 Free Course Management System for Schools

5 Great course management resources for educators

it's learning Course Management System

OpenClass - Pearson and Google combine to make free LMS

Learnboost online planner/gradebook announces new admin features

Twiducate - free social networking for schools

Twiducate is a social network platform for education. It is free and easy to use. It allows you to do the same things you could do with other social networks, like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, but in a safe and secure setting.

Teachers can use Twiducate to connect with other teachers and students, share ideas, resources, and ideas, hold discussions, and much more. You can even embed images, videos, documents and links to share. It is also available for mobile. Teachers can create an online classroom using it as a course management system. You can also use it to communicate with parents.

It's a great way to be able to connect with your students and other teachers in a secure, private setting.

Here's an infographic about Twiducate:




Related:

Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook - a nice comparison

Social Media in Education - connect, share, learn, communicate and more
EDU 2.0 Free Course Management System for Schools

5 Great course management resources for educators

it's learning Course Management System

OpenClass - Pearson and Google combine to make free LMS

Learnboost online planner/gradebook announces new admin features

Curriki - social network and resources for educators

Curriki is a social network and resource site for educators. It is a free platform where educators can share resources and teaching ideas. There are over 250,000 members (free to sign up) and over 40,000 learning resources available. 

You can connect with other educators to collaborate and share feedback on teaching practices, curricula, lesson ideas, and more. 

Resources are searchable by subject, search term, and standards. Resources include links, lesson plans, animations, activities, and much more. 

It's another great free resource for educators. 

Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook - a nice comparison

There are a variety of social networks out there that we can use as teachers to expand our learning through a PLN, connect with students and parents, and communicate with colleagues. The three major ones are Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook. They all have different features, functions, and uses.

I use Twitter and Google Plus for real time updates from websites and news and to connect with educators across the globe in my Personal Learning Network to share resources and communicate. I use Facebook to connect with friends and family and keep in touch with former students. You can read more about how and why I use these different services here.

Info.it has a great infographic comparing some of the major features of each of these, from relationships, to sharing, to content.

Which do you use and how / why?

Related:

Google+ - more reasons it's great for educators

Google+ and Google+ Pages - great for educators and schools

Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Email, Google+ - why/when I use each one

Infographic comparing Facebook and Google+ security

Storify - create engaging social stories

 

Storify is a service that allows you to create a story or collect resources from social media sources. Using the Storify editor you can search social media networks to gather elements, including status updates, photos, or videos, to create a story. You can even add narrative to it. You can then embed and share your story across the web.

This is a great way to gather information from across the web and turn it into a cohesive story. Teachers could use it for lessons and students could use it to create reports and projects on different topics.

Kloosion - soon to launch private sharing & communication service

Kloosion is a soon-to-be-launched beta service that promises "a secure and private way to share and communicate". There isn't much more than that available yet, but you can sign up to be notified when the beta is available at their site.

The site is supposedly going to allow you to work, study, and communicate with others with a simple, secure tool.

It sounds like it might be a mini-social network or the like with more security and privacy than most of the current ones.

As soon as it launches, I'll try it out and share more information.

Diipo - Education 2.0 social network for classes

Diipo is a new free service (in beta) that describes itself as "Education 2.0 Social Network for your Class". Diipo allows the teacher to communicate with their students and vice versa and also allows the teacher to connect to other educators and connect classes to each other. It is easy to use and the user-interface (UI) is similar to Facebook and Twitter.

Some of the features include:

• collaborative workspaces for students to work with each other and get help from the teacher
• direct messaging 
• student blogs and micro-blogging
• upload and share files
• student project notebooks
• class roster
• an educator community

It only takes a minute to sign up and it is easy to use. There are "@mentions", direct messages, full search, getting started tips and videos, and an Educator lounge. 

Here's a shot of the main screen when you create a new account:

This is a great way for teachers and schools to create their own social network system for students that is access controlled.. It allows communication and collaboration and is easy to use. 

Differences between Twitter, Facebook, email, and RSS feeds

There are a variety of tools that I use to stay informed and connected online. They each have their own benefits and shortcomings and I have different reasons for using each one.



Twitter - Twitter is an excellent resource for educators. I connect with other educators from around the world and share resources and discuss educational topics. I also get breaking news, updates from companies I like, and more. I don't use it as a purely social entity though. It is more for my professional use. The one problem with Twitter is that you can easily miss things as your feed moves along. You can search for users and topics, but it is very easy to miss things. It's strength is instant communication and connecting with people around the world. (however, the 140 character limit can make it challenging sometimes).

Facebook - I use Facebook to connect with friends and keep up with social events. I do follow a couple of business and education pages, but my main use is for keeping with with my friends. There are plenty of educational uses for it, but I haven't gone to far with that yet.


Email -  email is a great method of communicating with people. You can write any length, attach files, and the responses don't disappear in a feed of messages like on Twitter. I have an email account for business use (like banks, etc), my school email account, and a gmail account for Google accounts and communicating. I do not believe that email is dead, or even dying, like many people have suggested.


RSS Feeds - I've read different articles about how RSS feeds are dying too. I don't believe that. I use RSS feeds to subscribe to web sites to get notified when there is a new article. The feed doesn't disappear into a long line of messages like on Twitter. It will be there until I read it or delete it. I can also favorite an article to read later, or even share them with others. It is an extremely useful tool.


Each of these tools is useful in different ways and has different reasons I use them. I don't think that any one could replace the other because they are so different.

How do you use each one?

Homework Social Network Site

Dweeber is a social network site for homework. Students can join for free and then have virtual study groups. They can use the white board to work out problems and collaborate on homework.

It has some nice features that can help students learn about their own learning styles and improve their performance in school.

For more information, see the article at Tech&Learning magazine.