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Technology

edshelf

Mar 7th, 2013
by Polly-Alida Farrington.
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Edshelf

This directory of education oriented apps and tools includes ratings and reviews from the members of the Edshelf community. Many reviews include great tips on how to use the tools in educational settings.  Easy to search/browse for specific types of tools and filter by cost, age, subject area and more.

Create collections of your favorite tools to share with others. Collections can be shared as an embedded widget or printed out with QR codes to give easy access to the apps. Handy for a classroom setting. This looks like a great resource to add to your list of go-to sites for keeping up with useful tools and organizing your own favorites. Free to join.

Here’s my first collection. I think I’ll use this for organizing tools for some of my workshops. Looks much more appealing than a boring bulleted list!

Learning New Tech & Working with IT

Mar 4th, 2013
by Polly-Alida Farrington.
2 comments

A couple of really interesting blog posts from the last week.

Just Do it! and Trust Yourself.

Jennifer Carey offers encoruagement to anyone who’s a bit leary of diving into new tech tools in her post Hesitant Teachers Can Learn New Tech

Many educators feel overwhelmed by new technology and may feel apprehensive when it comes to adopting it in the classroom. But I’m here to make the case that learning to use technology and employing it as part of your curriculum is actually easier than ever. Way easier. Read more to find out how to “Just Do It”!

Kids, Learning, Risks & Rewards

George Couros shares some wonderful advice for evaluating the use of tech tools and services in schools in 4 Guiding Questions For Your IT Department

  1. What is best for kids?
  2. How does this improve learning?
  3. If we were to do _________, what is the balance of risk vs. reward?
  4. Is this serving the few or the majority?

Tech Smackdown!

Aug 4th, 2011
by Polly-Alida Farrington.
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The 2011 Carol A. Kearney Leadership Retreat was held earlier this week at Cornell. What an amazing event. I had no idea this retreat had been going on for 20 years.

The event, put on by the NYLA Section on School Libraries, was organized by Sara Kelly Johns & Christine Hatami – with the help of many other school librarians from around the state.  This year’s theme was “Think, Create, Share and Grow: Transforming Your School Library Leadership” and included 2 days of terrific presentations and discussions. Check out the wiki for details on the topics covered and links to many valuable resources.

Chris Harris & I had fun running the Tech Smackdown. We had about 20 brave folks who volunteered to shared their favorite apps and tools with the group. The evening of fun continued with an auction to raise scholarship funds – much fun was had by all and over $2300 was raised!

Making the Most of Teachable Moments

May 9th, 2011
by Polly-Alida Farrington.
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Some great tools and ideas highlighted in this presentation by Heidi Steiner of Norwich University. Adding a number of them to my list of things to check out.

Making the Most of Teachable Moments
View more presentations from Heidi Steiner

Transliteracy

Oct 1st, 2009
by Polly-Alida Farrington.
1 comment

Transliteracy - a name for something we’ve all been working with for some time now. Perhaps not a new name, but new to me. I first heard it from Bobbi Newman’s blog post: Libraries need to focus on transliteracy, where she provides this definition:

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. (Transliteracy.com)

The term resonates so much for me, I started using it in conversations and training sessions immediately. Bobbi has put together a terrific slide show that builds on her blog post and put together a page of resources. Check it out and think about how you’re helping your customers and students become transliterate.

Libraries and Transliteracy
View more presentations from Bobbi Newman.

Live session: RSS widgets and Personalised Home Pages – Sept 16, 2009

Sep 15th, 2009
by Polly-Alida Farrington.
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Classroom 2.0 Live has been sponsoring a great series of free on-line technology sessions for educators with Sue Waters. Called the Beginner Series, there’s lots of information for you even if you aren’t a beginner. I hope to have time to tune in on Wednesday night. Hope you do too!

Wed September 16, 2009 8pm–9pm (Eastern)
Where: Elluminate link- http://tinyurl.com/cr20live
What:  RSS widgets and Personalised Home Pages
In this third session on RSS we continue the discussion by looking at all the different ways you can use RSS widgets on websites and check out Personalised Homepages like NetVibes, PageFlakes and iGoogle for managing class information.

And make sure you check out all the other great programming, conversations and training on the Classroom 2.0 calendar – truly a terrific resource!

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