Administrators' Meeting



Personal Learning Network Ideas for Principals

1. Blogs: Connected Principals: Blog for principals, the collected thoughts of school administrators that want to share best practices in education. All of the authors have different experiences in education but all have the same goal; ensuring they do what is best for students.

2. Link to Blog: The importance of a PLN

3. Micro Blog: Twitter: Connect with people with the same interests, Twitter has a hash tag for Connected Principals: #cpchat. Quick and easy, only 140 characters allowed. My Twitter

4. Ning: Administrator 2.0: Professional Learning Community for Administrators,learning community that supports digital leadership for administrators.



5. Ning: Classroom 2.0 is a free, community-supported Ning. It is especially welcoming and supportive to "beginners". It is a great place to start participating in a Ning network. Classroom 2.0 also has many live and archived webinars.

Example of Classroom 2.0 Webinar about Web 2.0 Tools



6. Webinars: Classroom 2.0 recently hosted an Online Global Education Conference with some high quality speakers. Click here for the global conference recordings. Classroom 2.0 also hosts a webinar series: The Future of Education. Click on the link for archived recordings from this series.
Example of a webinar for school leaders:How to Lead in the Digital World
How has the 21st century changed the scope of leadership? This session provides evidence and research regarding how students have changed more than ever before and how you, as a leader, need to develop your digital skills quickly to keep your school and district on top. This session leads you in developing a vision based upon research. To listen click on this link: How to Lead in the Digital World and scroll down to the 'recordings link' at the bottom of the page.
Webinars: Learn Central Live and recorded webinars in Elluminate
Webinar: Sir Ken Robinson An interview with Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. To listen click on this link: Sir Ken Robinson and scroll down to the 'recordings link' at the bottom of the page.
For more information about webinars click here.The last video explain how to log into a webinar using Elluminate from Classroom 2.0.

7. Webcasting Collaborative Community: Edtech Talk a community of learners that meet to talk about education, technology, our practice and the contexts we work in:
Bill Stites, Director of Technology for The Montclair Kimberley Academy and Blogger in Chief at edSocialMedia.com discusses MKA's first year laptop program and their use of Evernote
Edtech's Parents as Partners Series

8. Podcasts from iTunes U: Scientific Learning free podcasts on topics related to education and learning.

9. Skype: for connecting with experts

10. You Tube: for searching out videos with answers about how to do something or asking for help to solve a problem.

11. Socialbookmarking: Delicious- imagine your favorites on the Internet (private or public your choice) and being able to search everyone else's favorites too: Edtech Live's audio recordings

12. RSS Reader: iGoogle is an RSS reader (a place to collect all your RSS feeds) . Set up iGoogle then link to all your favorite sites by clicking the RSS feed on the relevant sites. Whenever the sites are updated the updated links will appear on iGoogle. Login to Google or create an account.

More Resources for Backround Reading
Link to PLN Videos: How does a PLN impact teaching and learning today compared to traditional
professional networking?



October 2010
iGoogle

Digital Storytelling
Digital stories are very different to PowerPoint. They are compelling and emotionally engaging. They integrate images, music and narrative

Podcasts
Podcasts are audio files. Thousands of free educational podcasts are available online or students and teachers can easily create their own. Student created podcasts can impact learning in surprising ways.
Examples of Elementary Podcasts

Examples of Middle School Podcasts

Google Docs


Google Docs
Google Docs is an easy-to-use online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that enables you and your students to create, store and share instantly and securely, and collaborate online in real time. You can create new documents from scratch or upload existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. There's no software to download, and all your work is stored safely online and can be accessed from any computer.

Google Docs
is particularly handy for teachers when revising students' work. It allows you and your class to track what changes have been made, save each revision, and collaborate in real time. And it's a great organizing tool: You can easily upload old documents in other applications to Google Docs so all your files are accessible in one place. Not only can your students create electronic documents and spreadsheets, they can also instantly access and edit each other's essays, post their work to a blog, publish it as a Web page, and create eye-catching presentations -- all within the same program. (Eduptopia)

Google Earth
Video: Navigating the Globe in Google Earth
Video: What's new in Google Earth
Video: Exploring the Ocean in Google Earth

Socialbookmarking
Bookmark any site on the Internet, and get to it from anywhere..
Instead of having different bookmarks on every computer, delicious makes it easy to have a single set of bookmarks kept in sync between all of your computers. Even if you're not on a computer you own, you can still get to your bookmarks on the delicious website.

Custom Search Engine

VoiceThread
With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate pages and leave comments in 5 ways.
What is VoiceThread?

More information about VoiceThread

Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features which include instant messaging, file transfer, and video conferencing.
European Modern History

Blended Learning
This is a blend of face-to-face and online learning, we use Moodle. It extends the classroom into an interactive, engaging online learning space. Each teacher creates their own online learning environment to support their needs. If well designed, blended learning can be a great tool for differentiated instruction, community building and developing relationships between students and between students and the teacher. It can also support a 21st century learning environment.

For more information contact: Julie Elkan, Technology Integration Specialist, elkanj@holliston.k12.ma.us