Twitter Tips for the Classroom

Twitter icon by keyboard

 

Photo Credit
Tech Tip: Two Ways to Shorten URL’s in Twitter

Twitter for Teachers: Why You Should Start Tweeting
Jason Renshaw lists ten reasons to start using Twitter, tempered by four cautionary pitfalls to avoid.

Twenty-Seven Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom (slideshow)
Tom Barrett has gathered a variety of creative classroom uses for Twitter, including geo-tagging, historical tweets, Twitter polls, and word morphs.

How One Teacher Uses Twitter in the Classroom
Marshall Rankin showcases history professor Monica Rankin’s innovative use of Twitter to stimulate class discussions.

Nine Great Reasons Why Teachers Should Use Twitter
 Laura Walker shares nine ways that Twitter can be used for on-demand, effective professional development.

100 Serious Twitter Tips for Academics
Jill Gordon presents an impressive list of Twitter resources for beginning to advanced Twitter users as well as tips on Twitter etiquette, effective strategies, and sample assignments using Twitter.

A Teacher’s Guide To Twitter
Kate Klingensmith provides many practical tips for teachers just getting started in Twitter.

Twitter For Education
Here is a wiki devoted to sharing educational uses of Twitter. Contains Twitter cartoons, lists of education leaders to follow on Twitter, and helpful Twitter “do’s and don’ts”.

Twitter For Teachers Wiki
 Find a Twitter-using educator in your subject area and sign up for a Twitter mentor.

The Good News About Tweet Streams
Eric Lundquist explains why hashtags are a terrific way to organize the flow of tweets.

 

 Tech Tip: Two Ways to Shorten URL’s in Twitter

Since Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters, it is important to condense text as much as possible. When sharing favorite Web sites on Twitter, these two handy free tools will shorten the URLs. 

TinyURL - Shortens links to 25 characters; simply go to the Tiny URL site and paste in the URL to shorten.
Bit.ly –Shortens a URL and allows direct one-click sharing of shortened links in Facebook, Twitter or email. If you sign up for a free account, you can track how many clicks your shortened URLs get.

Online Program Spotlight

New! Instructional Design Certificate

Sign up now and begin January 19, 2010
 
The Instructional Design Professional Certificate is designed for professionals interested in switching careers, enhancing their career or developing focused competency in instructional design.

You might work as a member of an instructional design team or as a professional development coordinator, instructional designer for textbook or e-learning company, web developer, software consultant or designer, or in curriculum development in education, healthcare, museum, nonprofit organization or military settings.

  • Eight week intensive graduate-level online courses
  • Expert facilitation by veteran online educators
  • Small highly interactive classes
  • Professional quality projects for a job search e-portfolio
  • Career mentoring
  • Highly competitive tuition (same tuition for Wisconsin residents, out-of-state and international students)

Register Online now to reserve your spot!

Participate from your home computer; no travel to campus is required.
List of Online Courses for Spring 2010
Request Information Online
School of Education Online Professional Development
University of Wisconsin - Stout

 

Posted by Karen Franker on 10/13/09

 

 

Smart New Ways to Use Interactive Whiteboards

smartboard
Photo Credit

Tech Tip: Print What You Like

Interactive Whiteboards: Boon Or Bandwagon? A Critical Review of the Literature
Heather Smith and others share their findings about the impact that whiteboards had on the achievement, progress, and interactions in a class of 9- 11 year-olds in one academic year.

Technology Combined With Good Teaching Leads to Success
Heather Wolpert reports on Robert Marzano’s research which finds that student achievement rises when interactive whiteboards are combined with effective teaching strategies.

Online Interactive Whiteboards
Kelly Walsh compares four Web-based interactive whiteboards: Scribblar, Dabbleboard, Skrbl, and ImaginationCubed.

Great Smartboard Sites
Julie Thompson provides numerous links to K-3 math and language arts sites with high quality content to use on SmartBoards..

Interactive Internet Resources
Colleen McClain lists numerous interactive K-12 Web sites which work well with SmartBoards

Interactive Whiteboard Games
This site contains high quality collaborative and engaging educational games for PreK-5 that are well-suited to being used with an interactive whiteboard.

Maximizing Your SmartBoard With Smart Tools
The Kenton County (KY) School District site contains numerous SMARTBoard resources including downloadable templates.

Lee’s Summit SMARTBoard Resources
The Lee’s Summit (MO) School District site is notable for its large collection of interactive Website links as well as downloadable SMART notebook lessons for K-12.

Tech Tip: Print What You Like
Here’s a quick paper-saving solution for “difficult-to-print” Web pages. Format any web page for printing by using the free online tool Print What You Like. It removes ads, widgets and other unwanted items so you get a much “cleaner” copy to print. The three steps to use this tool are:

  1. Go to the Print What You Like site and type in the URL of a page you’d like to print, then click the Start button.
  2. Edit the page properties by using the handy sidebar tool to remove unwanted items and edit font size.
  3. Print the page or save it in PDF or HTML format to print later.

Online Course Spotlight

Instructional Applications of Digital Photography
EDUC 744 928
October 5 – November 27, 2009
3 semester hours graduate credit
Instructor: Alicia Mundt
Explore how digital photography can develop 21st century skills within your existing curriculum!

What Our Students are Saying….

“Applying digital photography as a cross -curriculum strategy can be used to engage students in all content areas. Digital storytelling provides an effective student-centered learning activity. Anyone interested in adding a powerful teaching strategy to his or her repertoire should consider this course.”
~Technology Educator, Kenosha, WI

 

 

Final Call for Classes Starting in October

EDUC 744 914 Methods of Teaching Middle School Math (Grades 4-8) begins October 5
EDUC 744 928 Instructional Applications of Digital Photography begins October 5
EDUC 744 925 Bullying in Schools begins October 6
EDUC 744 957 Differentiation in the Classroom begins October 12
EDUC 761 900 Collaborative Communities in E-learning begins October 12
EDUC 744 967 Understanding Autism Spectrum Disorders begins October 19

No travel to campus required.
List of Online Courses for Fall 2009 and Spring 2010
Register Online
Request Information Online
School of Education
Online Professional Development
University of Wisconsin - Stout
Phone: (715) 232-2253

Posted by Karen Franker on 9/30/09