3 Student Tech Trends Teachers Should Know About

If you’re just settling into what will hopefully be a nice, long, and relaxing summer break, then congratulations. You deserve it. I’ll just sit here waiting for you to … okay, done relaxing? Let’s talk about some of the biggest student tech trends that students will be talking about when you head back to class in the fall. It’s important to stay up to date on what’s popular with students so you can know ahead of time what they’ll be looking for when the first bell rings. In other words, you’d better be prepared for an onslaught of tech this fall. I’m here to help, though. Fear not!

It’s important to know not just what connected teachers are looking at and tinkering with in terms of technology. You need to know what students are doing online, what technology they’re using, and how. So let’s get on with it so you can go back to sipping your drink by the side of the pool.

Read the full posting at Edudemic.

This is Geography

Screen Shot 2013-05-26 at 9.08.07 AMAs geographers, teachers, and general education enthusiasts we are asking for your help in a national campaign to raise the profile of Geography in Canada. This is Geography is a joint project of CG Education and the Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) aimed and increasing Canadians’ perception of geography as a subject area and integral aspect of our daily lives.

The program consists of two main strands: Google Plus Hangouts and a photographic collection.

We are asking all Canadians to upload photos that answer the phrase “This is Geography” on the website and on Twitter and Instagram using the hash tag #thisisgeography. We want you to also include a brief description of why your photo shows geography. We know that there are endless possibilities of photos that you can upload so get creative! We’ve started the collection but need your help!

Over the next few months we have planned to host our first few Google+ Hangouts. Each hangout will focus on one aspect of geography and have four expert panelists speaking about the issue at hand. The first hangout is scheduled for May 15th at 4:00 p.m. ET and will take a look at some cool “Geo Jobs.” Once completed the hangouts will be uploaded to Canadian Geographic’s YouTube channel, so even if you can’t watch at 4:00, check it out afterwards.

Together we can let Canadians know just how inclusive of a subject area Geography is so get out there and start spreading the word!

Screencasting Tools

What is screencasting? Why would you want to record your computer screen, anyway? Well, I’m glad you asked! Recording what is happening on your screen can be a pretty useful tool for teachers who want to create video tutorials or presentations for their classrooms, and many teachers are using screencasting tools in their flipped classroom models. But before you delve into what you’re going to do with your screencast, take a few moments to learn about the tools that are available to do the actual recording. They range from free to fairly expensive ($299) and offer a variety of functionality from simple recording to quite complex video editing. We’ve selected a few that we know to be some of the most popular screencasting tools in use today by teachers, students, and many others.

Read the full article from Edudemic on 4 Popular Screencasting Tools Being Used in Education.

Create an Effective Classroom Website

No doubt you have already have a classroom website or will be required to create one in the very near future. Virtually every classroom teacher around the globe is being caught up in the development of this essential communication tool. Most of the early birds to this challenge went out and used providers such as Teacher Web. Now, more and more districts are implementing a provider that the entire district will use that provides continuity and uniformity. This obviously will have its benefits for staff development but may stifle creativity.

I started about 8 years ago with a variety of services, but about two years ago my district settled on one software host for us all to use. I dove in and decided to embrace the challenge to develop a comprehensive site that would be useful for students, parents, and teachers. Visit my classroom website to see how I have put many of the following ideas into place: The Borgeson Bunch. I would like to share with you some of what I have learned during that journey…

Read more here…

EduBlogs Teacher Challenge: Blogging Basics from A-Z

This past summer EduBlogs ran a challenge to try to get more teachers online blogging with their students. Each week they sent out an e-mail primer designed to help you hit the ground running in September.

I am attaching the summary links to the summer’s postings – from their website – below.

Happy blogging!

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Here are links to all the posts in our latest series on class blogging: