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Over the last several years, I’ve come to rely on the ARCS framework, created by Communities for Learning, for nearly all of my professional planning. I use it to establish a baseline assessment of the groups I work with, to determine entry points into our work together,  to strategically plan, and to assess the influence of our efforts over time. This framework has also transformed the shape and structure of the professional learning experiences that…

Lots of kids in my world closing their Facebook accounts in recent weeks. I find this interesting, and I’ve  been asking a lot of questions from different populations of former Facebook users. Their responses have been enlightening. Here is what I’ve been told…… In fact, many of them don’t love it. They just know they are supposed to. If they don’t have an account, they are pressured into having one by their peers and sometimes,…

Internet filtering is a reality wherever I work. I’m sure it will remain so for some time to come, and in most cases, for good reason. I’m fortunate to work in places where many of the tools that I prefer to use are open, including Google tools and YouTube and even Facebook. When things are blocked, all of the administrators that I work with are happy to open sites up in order to facilitate great…

I’m not wild about Interactive White Boards. My reasons are fairly simple– we don’t expect young people and teachers to identify their real learning and creative purposes often or early enough, and I question how IWBs facilitate this well. I feel it’s important to begin most learning there, and  I have a hunch that when we overlook this, we increase the chances of integrating technology in ways that don’t serve any one very well. So…

On Saturday, I had the privilege of watching the middle and high school interns from the WNY Young Writers’ Studio guide small groups of writers through the next phase of our collaborative digital storytelling project. The last time we met, writers finished story boarding. On Saturday, they came prepared with props and ideas and spent a portion of the morning capturing digital stills. We plan to “wrap this up” at our Celebration of Writing on…

Over the last month, several educators (including quite a few in my own network) have launched new communities in Ning. I’m looking forward to joining the conversations that will unfold as others join and connections begin to build. Hope you will add to our learning! Jenny Luca and Jackie Gerstein have launched Students 2.0 and are opening dialogue around the potential for this exciting new space for kids. Heidi Hayes Jacobs has invited everyone to…

Found in my travels this week: VocabGrabber enables users to see how words are used in context. Confusing Words highlights the biggies that so many of us misuse. Save the Words is kinda beautiful, although I’m struggling a bit with its utility. IdiomSite.Com may become a quick favorite of some teachers I know….. RhymeZone is a rhyming dictionary and thesaurus Visuwords is an online dictionary that graphs word relationships

Just sharing what I’ve found in my travels….. I know that I may be a bit late to the table here, but I’m loving this tool. Lately, I’ve been teaching with StoryCorps almost as often as I’ve been teaching with TED. So much potential for the classroom…… Been playing with Firefox add-ons—simple ways to download YouTube videos here. Had the chance to create a few new Sir Ken Robinson fans last week. The Future of…

Fans of Wallwisher, Glogster, Virtual Whiteboard, and Stixy might want to take a peek at Spaaze. I’ve been playing around with it a bit this week….kinda fun, and I like the bookmarklet feature. Don’t know that it allows for collaboration though. Anyone know for certain?