I’ve applied to attend the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators,
and as part of the submission process I was required to complete a video
entitled “Innovative Leadership in the Age of Google”. I decided to list
what words inspire me as an educational leader and arrange them with
pictures and music.
Author: ryan
-
Google Teacher Academy for Administrators Video
-
Following lots of people on Twitter? You need ReadTwit
[![10th November 314/365][]][]
[![Creative Commons License][]][] [photo][] credit:
[fifikins][]A couple of months ago I decided to expand my use of Twitter, and began
following more and more people in the education community. This was
awesome, until I realized I could not keep up with the barrage of data
that I was being given. In November I started brainstorming ideas on how
to keep up. I noticed in any of my twitter clients that they were not
grabbing all the tweets that had been posted from the last time I
checked. The reason being is the API only gives you the last 200 tweets,
and for me that was about 40 minutes worth.My first course of action was to write some software that would grab the
tweets from my [@mr_rcollins][] timeline, parse the info and store it
in a MySQL database. Besides pulling out the data I was interested in of
each tweet, I also stored the complete tweet. This became impractical,
since in a month the complete tweets themselves occupied 4.2GB! I
stopped storing the complete tweets which left me with a 20MB database
after a 5 weeks of collecting, which was a lot more manageable.The next step was to start parsing the tweet’s text for urls, resolve
any shortened urls, and dump them into another table for me to peruse.
While I got that software working, I came across ReadTwit.com. This
is a great service that will take your timeline, parse out the urls,
resolve shortened links, and give you a RSS feed that you can subscribe
to in your favorite RSS reader (I use Google Reader. Now I just go
through Reader like normal, and am able to tag/star important sites that
are posted to my Twitter timeline.[
]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25925793@N00/4091878747/
“10th November 314/365”
[]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
“Attribution License” -
Top ten skills needed to succeed as a teacher (and technology)
[![when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies
they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say][]][]
[![Creative Commons License][]][] [photo][] credit:
[davidsilver][]This article started out as the top ten skills needed to use technology
effectively, but as I wrote the list, I realized that technology
shouldn’t be separated out. As we proclaim that technology is a tool, we
also shouldn’t single it out when talking about what skills it takes to
educate. The following list has a few items that are somewhat related to
technology, the others are what I view as important skills any teacher
needs to have if they want to succeed. Successful teachers will not find
any surprises in this list.β1. mastery of your subject – If you don’t know your subject, your
students will learn that rather quickly. You must know what you’re
teaching, backwards and forwards. There are no shortcuts here. If you
cannot answer a student’s question, use your searching skills to find
the answer as quickly as possible.β2. classroom management – Whether it’s your morning math meeting or
working in small groups, you will not have a successful class if you
cannot manage it.β3. Your students don’t know as much as you think they do, and you know
more then they think you do – There are a few phrases that have gained
some popularity in the past couple of years that I disagree with. The
impression that teachers are digital immigrants and students are digital
natives is an incorrect assumption. Most students do not know as much as
their teachers when it comes to using technology. And teachers do know
more about technology then they realize. The personal computer is over
30 years old, for a majority of teachers this is longer then their
teaching career. They’ve seen how technology has changed some
classrooms, and can leverage that experience in their own classroom.β4. Ability to punt – Your day to day classroom will probably never work
exactly as you pictured it in your mind, and your ability to punt and do
something different is imperative. Supplies for a science experiment
hasn’t arrived? Prepare to punt. Internet access down? Punt!β5. Keeping an open mind – “Those who say it can’t be done, are usually
interrupted by someone doing it”β6. Understand cheap, fast or easy, pick any two – This is a phrase I
use when talking to administrators when they wonder why something isn’t
working the way they thought it should. The phrase basically means, you
can only two out of the three items. For example, if you want it cheap
and easy, it’s not going to be fast. Or if you want it fast and easy, it
isn’t going to be cheap.β7. Know how to search – Learn the shortcuts for how to include and
exclude search terms. Find out how to search for a particular filetype.
If you need a presentation on the water cycle, learn how to search for
one (with google use “filetype:ppt” as a search term).β8. Embracing life-long learning – Anything you learn today will be out
of date before you retire. We don’t have to sharpen our quills anymore,
or learn how to make dittos. Be prepared to learn every day.β9. Creating a personal learning network – Seek out like minded teachers
as yourself. Email them, follow their blog, follow them on Twitter.
Create your own blog and Twitter account. Learn to share.β10. Owning a home computer – I am totally surprised at the number of
teachers that do not own a home computer. The new netbooks are priced at
under \$400 and desktops around the same price, so price isn’t much of
an obstacle. If you can’t afford to buy, check out your local Freecycle
or Craigslist for people looking at getting rid of older computers.Anything I missed?
[when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies
they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say]: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2531/4150956463_31586f2a02_t.jpg
[![when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies
they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say][]]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66267550@N00/4150956463/
“when asked whether or not they would continue with the technologies they learned this semester, DMP students had this to say”
[]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
“Attribution-ShareAlike License” -
Need a cheap screen for your classroom?
[
][]
Over at instructables Saul has posted his directions for using
Tyvek wrapping for aΒ [Tyvek Projector Screen][]. Since this is used
for wrapping houses it is very inexpensive and somewhat durable. He used
a pipe in one end to keep it taunt. From reading the comments there are
ways of purchasing it without the logo or using other materials, such as
black out clothe, that is available in white.[
]: http://www.instructables.com/id/Tyvek-Projector-Screen/
-
Facebook’s new privacy settings
[![Screen shot 2009-12-13 at 9.35.36 PM.png][]][]
[![Creative Commons License][]][] [photo][] credit:
[ekurvine][]Facebook has begun rolling out new settings for who can see your
Facebook profile and what they can see on your profile. I suggest you
double-check what is viewable about you. I try to keep my personal FB
totally separate from my Facebook Page, so my profile is pretty much
locked down. Over at Digital Inspiration they’ve written an article
onΒ How to Cross-Check Your Facebook Privacy Settings.[ad]
[
]: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13257277@N00/4182535184/
“Screen shot 2009-12-13 at 9.35.36 PM.png”
[]: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
“Attribution-NonCommercial License” -
Setup a Facebook Page instead of using your personal FB account
One common question I see asked all the time is whether or not teachers
should friend students on Facebook. Although you can set your privacy
settings on Facebook to hide certain aspects of your life from groups of
friends, this isn’t fool proof. Friending everyone including students
and parents simply begins breaking down yet another wall between your
professional life and personal life.What you can do is create a Facebook Page for yourself. This gives you a
presence on Facebook that can be used professionally which is totally
separated from your person life.“A Facebook Page is a public profile that enables you to share your
business and products with Facebook users. Create one in a few minutes
with our simple interface.”Unfortunately, your created page has a very unwieldy url. Mine is
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ryan-Collins/181385642299. What I’ve done
is setup a redirect from my website to point ryancollins.org/facebook to
my Facebook Page. Be sure to become a friend when you visit! πFacebook Pages are not limited to people either, you could also create a
Page for each class you teacher or other departments within your
organization.More information about creating a Facebook Page:How to: Create a Facebook Fan Page5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan PageHow To Create and Promote Your Facebook Fan PageHow To: Create a Facebook Fan PageOne common question I see asked all the time is
whether or not teachers should friend students on Facebook. Although you
can set your privacy settings on Facebook to hide certain aspects of
your life from groups of friends, this isn’t fool proof. Friending
everyone including students and parents simply begins breaking down yet
another wall between your professional life and personal life.What you can do is create a Facebook Page for yourself. This gives you a
presence on Facebook that can be used professionally which is totally
separated from your person life.“A Facebook Page is a public profile that enables you to share your
business and products with Facebook users. Create one in a few minutes
with our simple interface.”Unfortunately, your created page has a very unwieldy url. Mine is
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ryan-Collins/181385642299. What I’ve
done is setup a redirect from my website to point
https://ryancollins.org/facebook to my Facebook Page. Be sure to
become a friend when you visit! πFacebook Pages are not limited to people either, you could also create a
Page for each class you teacher or other departments within your
organization.More information about creating a Facebook Page:
- How to: Create a Facebook Fan Page
- 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page
- How To Create and Promote Your Facebook Fan Page
[ad]
-
It feels like the 50s with all this Chrome
Although Firefox has been my default browser for several years,
every so often I try out alternative browsers. A couple of weeks ago I
started to use Chromium (developer builds of Google’s Chrome browser)
for OS X and it has now become my default browser.Google has an obsession with speed. In fact, they have found that a .4
second delay in delivering search results causes a 30% drop in click
throughs. They started working on Chrome to deliver a browser that is
fast and secure. It also offers some other advatages such as isolating
each tab or window into separate processes. This means if a tab or
window crashes, it only affects that tab or window. Bookmarks can now be
synched with your Google account, and extensions are starting to become
available.One of my requirements for a browser is the ability to run multiple
profiles. I have one browser set for personal use and one set for
professional use (I do try to separate the two, although it is difficult
at times). Chrome supports multiple profiles, so now I can launch the
default profile which contains my personal settings and I can launch a
Mr_rcollins profile which contains my professional settings.I’ve found that Chromium launches faster than any other browser I’ve
tried. After using it for two weeks, it feels so much quicker than
Firefox 3.5.5.
Although Firefox has been my default browser for several years, every
so often I try out alternative browsers. A couple of weeks ago I started
to use Chromium (developer builds of Google’s Chrome browser) for OS X
and it has now become my default browser.Google has an obsession with speed. In fact, they have found that a .4
second delay in delivering search results causes a 30% drop in click
throughs. They started working on Chrome to deliver a browser that is
fast and secure. It also offers some other advatages such as isolating
each tab or window into separate processes. This means if a tab or
window crashes, it only affects that tab or window. Bookmarks can now be
synched with your Google account, and extensions are starting to become
available.One of my requirements for a browser is the ability to run multiple
profiles. I have one browser set for personal use and one set for
professional use (I do try to separate the two, although it is difficult
at times). Chrome supports multiple profiles, now I can launch the
default profile which contains my personal settings and I can launch a
Mr_rcollins profile which contains my professional settings. I’ve had
Firefox set up for this for over a year and it works pretty well.I’ve found that Chromium launches faster than any other browser I’ve
tried. After using it for two weeks, it feels so much quicker than
Firefox 3.5.5. You can learn more about Google Chrome here;. I use
the Techcrunch Chromium Updater to grab the latest builds for OS X
since Google hasn’t released an official beta yet for OS X. -
OSBA Capital Conference ’09 Presentation Page Now Up
[
][]
I’ve finally gotten some time to put up a rough outline of the
presentation I presented at the OSBA Capital Conference in November.
Most of the material is there except for the actual audio. I’m working
right now at editing in the slides into the audio. It’s slow going but I
hope to have it finished soon!The page is titled OSBA Capital Conference 2009 Presentation.
[
]: http://cc.osba-ohio.org/
-
Next presentation – OSBA Capital Conference, 11/10/09, Columbus, OH
I will be presenting at the Ohio School Board Association’s Capital
Conference at the Greater Columbus Convention Center on November 10 at
3:30pm. My presentation is on using cell phones and other mobile network
devices in the classroom.