Tim’s First Blast From the Past

I created this blog on July 8, 2008 with the intention of simply seeing how easy it was to create a blog so that I could share that experience with the teachers in our district that are interested in blogging.

Since then, I haven’t posted much…meaning NONE until March 9, 2009 when I posted Creating a Mobile Version of Your Blog.

Now I’ve decided to make regular entries about what I’ve learned and occasionally, on my views about technology and how it could (should?) be integrated across the curriculum .  At a minimum, I would like to post a weekly “blast from the past” of the best resources that I have collected to share with our faculty.

First, a little history lesson.  I decided about two years ago that our district needed someone to fill the role of a technology integration leader.  After much deliberation, I appointed myself.

My technology skills at that point were rudimentary.  I could use basic office applications to fulfill my job obligations.  I had zero knowledge of Web 2.0 products or how to use them.  So, I went to work.

Using the power of the internet and RSS technology (7 Things You Should Know About RSS), I have tried to acquire the skills necessary to help move our district forward in the area of technology.

In the early stages, I created a web page to share links and other resources that I found.  I then migrated all of that material over to a wiki which had some features that made it a little more easy for me to do what I wanted to do.

As soon as I learned about social bookmarking, I started compiling my list of links on my own delicious page.

I’ve tried to encourage as many teachers as possible to begin using an RSS reader and subscribe to that site so that they can easily stay current on the ever-growing (and changing!) technology resources that are available.

Now, I thought that it might be interesting to go back to the first week of the Resources for Teachers social bookmarking site and begin a weekly “blast from the past” to highlight some of the best resources that may have been lost in the shuffle.

Blast from the Past (August 2-8, 2008)

First, my original wiki Technology Resources for Teachers where you can find A to Z resources compiled before I knew about social bookmarking.

The following sites can all be found at my delicious page.

Jing– screen capture program that lets you share a snap shot of a document or web page, narrate a video of the actions that you take on your screen, comment verbally on a students’ work…

Voki– An avatar creator.  How could teachers use an avatar?  What if the avatar was reading a list of spelling words? What if it was speaking another language? What if I had a Web site that had an Avatar embedded to tell my kids what was going on so that the one’s that couldn’t read could hear it? What if kids used avatars to say something important?

Drop.io– create a “drop” to privately share files and collaborate in real time by web, email, phone, mobile and more.  Creating a drop requires two clicks.  Dropio offers a number of services useful for educators: (Example A) Free voice recording for easy podcast creation.  Every drop can be accessed via phone.  Simply call the number and record your message.  It’s automatically posted to your drop. (Example B) Simple method for posting resources that your students might need- recorded lectures, notes, assignments, rubrics…

There you have it.  The first blast from the past (August 2-8, 2008).