Readability - Make Web Pages Easier to Read

Ever go to a web page that is so cluttered you can hardly read the text?  Here is a tool for you.  You can easily install it into you Firefox, Safari, or Chrome browser to help make the webpage cleaner to read or print.  The company, Arc90, put it together so you could simplify what you were reading.  It is a nice tool, one that students might find helpful when doing research.  Watch the tutorial below, it is really simple. This link will take you to their website where you can set your preferences and install Readability.



Readability - Installation Video for Firefox, Safari & Chrome from Arc90 on Vimeo.

Tagxedo - Word Cloud Made Easy

You see word clouds all over the place.  Wordle does an excellent job of creating word clouds, but I was introduced to another site that made it so easy.

Tagxedo took the words from my blog and enclosed them in the shape that I could choose, a speech bubble.  You can easily modify the colors, theme, fonts, orientation, and layout.  There are many choices for shapes, and you have the ability to save into different sizes and formats.  I would recommend this site for easy creation of a cloud that you could use to illustrate your point.

The thing I found quite helpful was that you could bring the words in from a website, a blog, a twitter account, a delicious account, etc.  You can also cut and paste your text from other sources as well.  Give it a try.  I think it is an awesome way to illustrate frequently used and key words from your writing.  Once you submit your words for processing, you will soon see the shape you asked for.  All of the characteristics of the shape are then modifiable, so you can make it look the way you want.

EDUCON - Almost Here

A week from now, I'll be in Philadelphia.  EDUCON 2.3 will be taking place at the Science Leadership Academy.  It will be a wonderful opportunity to learn from and meet some of the very people that I follow on Twitter.  I will have the chance to spend a couple of days in sessions covering a variety of topics.  I think I'll get to see:

Chris Craft and Michael Wacker talk about online professional development.  It will be interesting to see how other districts are using online PD as we are developing some for ourselves.

Troy Hicks and Christina Cantrill talk about digital writing.  I am interested in hearing Troy Hicks speak and getting the opportunity to meet him.  I will also get to hear him in February at the Dublin Literacy Conference.

Chris Lehmann, principal at SLA, is speaking about how we can take the learning that occurs at EDUCON back to our districts and continue to work on the topics we have heard about.  How do we keep contact with those we learn from and support each other moving forward.

Karl Fisch is part of a panel discussion about the questions - Can Schools Support Student Innovation?  His blog, The Fischbowl,  is one that I read frequently.

Dean Shareski and Darren Kuropatwa are talking about teaching visual literacy and using youtube.  They will be very interesting.  I met Dean at BLC10 this past summer, so it will be interesting to see him again.  I enjoy reading his posts and hearing about what he is doing.  Both of these guys are people I follow on Twitter and read their blogs.

As you can see, there is a wealth of knowledge attending ECUCON, and I believe it will be an outstanding weekend to learn and develop more relationships.  I think more people should attend these types of workshops.  I will keep you posted as to how it goes and what I find out.  Follow me on twitter, @ssibberson,  or follow the hashtag #EDUCON.  It will be interesting and thought-provoking, I am sure.

CardStar - Organizing All of Your Club Cards

Does your keychain look like this?

You need to clear the clutter and make things easier for yourself.  You need to start using the application called CardStar.  I use the application on my iPhone so that I always have the numbers of all of my store membership cards.  It stores my Giant Eagle card number, my AAA number, my gym membership number, my Kroger card, etc.  You get the idea.  And the best thing, it also provides a barcode for each number so that it can be scanned at checkout at a store or check-in at the recreation center.  I don't have to remember my cards, or hope I haven't given them to my daughter to use.

So, if your keychain is unbearable, or those cards are just mangled, clear the mess.  Download CardStar and start using your phone or iPod to store those membership numbers.  You will always have them with you and be able to take advantage of member discounts and gas perks.  I know my application has saved me a lot of money and time.  The only place I have found it to be a problem is at the gas pump, because their auto scanners won't read the phone screen.  That is such a small problem for such a nice convenience.

This application also allows for you to store information about the different cards.  You can store phone numbers, addresses, web addresses, as well as other notes.  I think this application will be well worth the few minutes it takes to add the number (it creates the barcode) for the different company cards that you register.

QR Codes for the Library

Tuesday, I showed some of our staff members a QR Code and I posted a couple around the building.  The media specialists, Diane and Michael,  showed me a poster in the library that had a QR Code printed on it.  "Why would they use a code and not print the text?", was the question.  I demonstrated how, with my iPhone, I could go directly to the website associated with the poster.  No typing, no mistakes.  I piqued their interest.  How could we use this?

Today, two days later, I went to school to find out the media specialists had printed a QR Code with a link to the school's library website.  They were so impressed with themselves.  I had shared with them the QR Code post of Jeff Utecht, that contained information on how to print QR Codes as well as how to read them.  They utilized the websites and printed their specific code.  I am thoroughly impressed.  I believe they are going to print bookmarks for the students to take home with the code printed for their use.  I also believe they will add the code to other print material that goes home with students.  This will make accessing the website a little easier.

I also received a lot of feedback from one of our secretaries.  She had seen these symbols in magazine adds.  She brought me the Target ad from that week, that contained a lot of these same symbols.  Those codes were sending shoppers to Target online to purchase the product that was associated with the code.  Once we start to figure out how we can utilize these symbols - it may make access to material more efficient and accurate.  It is amazing how much can be figured out just by "putting something out there".  No explanation needed.

Tech Tuesdays

On many Tuesdays in my building, we have "Tech Tuesday".  Tech Tuesdays are days set aside to provide technology in-service/training to teachers and staff.  Teachers and staff are provided the opportunity to come in during their plan time and see presentations and receive instruction on various topics from basic skills to advanced applications.  Sessions last about 40 minutes and typically are voluntary.  It is important to provide sessions that teachers will find helpful and interesting.

The Basics

Early in the year, the Tech Tuesdays tend to provide instruction on the implementation of necessary technology skills.  These topics include First Class - our email system and communication tool, ProgressBook - our online grading tool, MasteryManager - our assessment analysis tool, as well as other software pieces that teachers need to be able to use.  There are also sessions regarding PowerPoint/Keynote, word processing, and Mac basics - since we are an Apple district.

Extended Thinking

As the year goes along, we spend time with more advanced topics as well as other tools that teachers might find helpful.  We have already spent a day working with teachers on how they can use Twitter - see earlier post.  Our focus was on how they would use Twitter for personal and professional learning, and how they can follow people to grow their PLN, connecting with people with common interests.  Our school has recently started Tweeting and we feel that it can be another way for communication and sharing to occur.  We are also planning future events to include topics like Google Applications, Online tools - like Flickr, SlideShare, AudioBoo, etc.  

One of the other high schools ran a day called "Tech Fair" - like science fair - by demonstrating different ways that teachers use technology in class with the students at their building.  By exposing their teachers to different technology integration methods, their teachers were able to see what is available to them and also see the application into the classroom.  We will try to hold a day like that at my building during the next couple of months.

It is important to provide opportunities for teachers to grow personally and professionally using technology tools.  The more tools that they can be exposed to, the more opportunities that they may be able to share with the students.  Their comfort level will be higher, their interest will be greater, and their chance of looking for implementation will be increased.  Not all teachers will know all things, but if there are tools that they can learn and use, it will benefit instruction and learning.   Tech Tuesdays is about supporting teachers as they grow and learn.

Blogging with Students

Today, I had the opportunity to work with our IB Art Teacher, Kate Menke, as she is implementing blogs with her students.  We are working on creating blogs with the students so that they begin to develop an online digital portfolio.  They are going to display their work and explanations, as well as demonstrate their critical skills with comments on the other students' work.  These students will be able to follow each other and see the growth over the years.  I believe it is the start of something awesome for these students.

Early in our process, we talked about digital footprint, and what that means for these students.  We talked about what the world can see about them and that it is important for them to share all of the incredible work that they do with society.  It is important that they display their work in ways that impress the readers, whether it is classmates, teachers, family, friends, or anyone else that may find their work.  We also talked about the permanence of their work and that what they post is a permanent statement to world.  Also, part of this discussion was the need to be good digital citizens.  They discussed the need to be honest and sincere, thoughtful and kind.

We then talked about the steps necessary to create a Blogspot blog.  We went through the following presentation and talked about the importance of keeping their profiles empty and keeping the amount of personal information shared to a minimum.  We stressed the importance of the students moderating their comments, so that comments that are questionable can be discussed before going out to the world.  It was a nice process and one that the students will actually go through in the next few days.  The students seemed so excited to get going.

Setting up blogspot

View more presentations from Scott Sibberson.

We have involved the parents in this whole process.  It is important to us to have everyone on the same page as we move forward in this project.  The teacher is excited.  The students are excited. And, I am excited to see how this goes.  I believe the students will grow incredibly throughout this process and they will end up with a product that they can be proud of and show off.