[Replicable Practices] Hello, it's me. I can't believe it's been 512 days since I last saw you. I miss you too. Ancient but always useful - RSS & Newsreaders

Wow, has it been that long? I cannot believe so much time has passed since my last post. Curious? I was. I took a moment to try and calculate how long it has been since my last post (in other words I tried to find a date-to-date calculator). Thanks to timeanddate.com I figured out that it has been 512 days from my last blog entry to this day or 1 year, 4 months, 26 days.

Alternatively, for those that like this sort of math stuff it has been:

• 44,322,383 seconds
• 738,706 minutes (rounded down)
• 12,311 hours (rounded down)
• 512 days (rounded down)
• 73 weeks (rounded down)
• 140.55% of a common year (365 days)

So why not follow up with an equally ancient web tool, RSS & Newsreaders.

This little unfamiliar icon refers to a news feed, or a Rich Site Summary. Web users can use a compatible browser or a news reader to stay informed. Users are able to stay informed by getting the newest information posted from the websites you most frequently visit. As an example this blog (shameless I know). Still confused? Check out the YouTube Video.

CommonCraft. (2007). Rss in plain english [Web]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/0klgLsSxGsU

My Thoughts on RSS as a Replicable Practice:

Imagine if you were gathering up to date / minute news on a current event or scientific discovery. Perhaps you are a history teacher covering a particular day in history or a technology teacher tracking the Internet of Things. Using an RSS enabled internet browser or news reader not only saves you time but also allows you to be right up to date to provide timely information to your students.

This makes teaching easy.

Well that may be a bit of an exaggeration, however managing, consuming, broadcasting and reproducing information found online has become more manageable, more efficient and more personable, more exact and more relevant. Can I get a little help on how to choose the sweetest oranges?

Copied Directly From Wikipedia.org - RSS

Several major sites such as Facebook and Twitter previously offered RSS feeds but have reduced or removed support. Additionally, widely used readers such as Shiira, FeedDemon, and Google Reader have been discontinued having cited declining popularity in RSS. However, RSS still remains a widely used standard. RSS support was removed in OS X Mountain Lion's versions of Mail and Safari, although the features were partially restored in Safari 8. As of August 2015, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer include RSS support by default, while Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge do not. Additionally, reader services such as Feedly provide synchronization between desktop RSS readers and mobile devices.

[Replicable Practices] Stop your students from yawning because of another Power Point presentation. Teachers Create Boss Presentations with PowToon!

PowToon For Education

Part of every teaching dilemma or more specifically part of the planning process when creating a lesson is finding ways to attract (buzzword: hook / engage) students into what knowledge or skills you are trying to share with them. Being an avid user of Microsoft Power Point for many lessons I had noticed that students were becoming bored or uninterested in Power Point presentations. Too much is too much. Not only were my students becoming unusually rowdy but they had a look on their faces that suggested "Again? Give us a break from Power Point." Searching for alternatives I remembered attending a meeting about technology in the classroom and jointing down a brief note on a new presentation tool called PowToon.

PowToon yells out to Teachers and enthusiastically says - "Flip your classroom, inspire, engage and delight your students."

Copied directly from About PowToon:

"allows users to create colorful, visually engaging animated Powtoons (presentation - cartoon mashups) with drag-and-drop simplicity...PowToon wants to also make a difference in the education sector and our tool is designed to allow education professionals (and students) to create content that is visually engaging, captivating and fun to make.

[Replicable Practices] Flickr . . . Flickr . . . Flickr Fun

Signing up for a free Flickr account was simple. The wonderful thing about the signup process was that any user has three options (the more options the better). Each user can sign up for a new account (associated with Yahoo), use an existing Yahoo ID or they can use an existing Facebook ID or Google ID. I already had a Yahoo Account (Renaissance Professor) therefore I did not have to memorize another signup name and password for a site that I may or may not use.

I am finding myself daydreaming about other nostalgic places and therefore decided to revisit a couple of childhood communities. I took a couple of snapshots with my iPhone 4s (enabled Geo-tagging), signed up for a Flickr Account, uploaded the photos, changed their privacy settings to public, reviewed the license agreement and tagged. I then decided to map the photos on the Flickr map. The process was easy and I can see how this tool can be addicting.

Here are the set of three photos that also mark earlier milestones in my life:

Avon Ave by Renaissance Professor, on Flickr

Keele Subway Station Outdoor Waiting Platform by Renaissance Professor, on Flickr

Keele Subway Station by Renaissance Professor, on Flickr

These spots are very important to me because this is where I grew up. What and where would I explore today? I cannot count the number of almost falls I had running down these steps at the Keele Subway Station. Never wanting to miss my bus as I heard the rumble of its engine as the bus pulled into the bay.

My photo experience and using Flickr was a positive one. Uploading pictures was easy. It took a while to get all the settings in the Flickr account just right but once they were set they became the default for every other photo I uploaded. I really liked placing the photos on the Flickr map. Enabling the Geo-Tagging feature on the phone is a great feature.

Teachers can use Flickr and associated tools in many ways. Consider an interactive and visual story line for writing assignments, historical associations to modern landmarks or photo journalism to virtually any topic.

[Replicable Practices] Discover Flickr

Before creating a free Flickr account I decided to explore The Tour and read the FAQ. I rummaged, searched, explored and discovered and interesting image that I share with you below. I suggest you do the same.

Angele Menard by H.A.T. Photography, on Flickr

This old barn can be found at the Adamson Estate, which forms the eastern boundary of Port Credit, Ontario. Why is this old barn significant? The barn represents an important milestone in my life, awhile back I also had my photograph taken at that exact spot.

More on Flickr in my next blog post.

[Replicable Practices] Educational Merits: Blogging in Education

Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps

What is a blog?

Comments:

I share with you a Google Scholarly Search using the term: Blogging in education. I particularly enjoy:

Downes, S. (2004, September). Educational blogging. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 14-26. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume39/EducationalBlogging/157920

Taken from the Educase Website:

Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca) is a Senior Researcher with the E-Learning Research Group, National Research Council Canada, Moncton, New Brunswick. Comments on this article can be sent to the author at stephen@downes.ca.

My Blogs
  

WordPress	Blogger
Replicable Practices	Replicable Practices
My Philosophy	My Philosophy

Please look forward to another [Replicable Practices] post in which I explore Tumblr.

[Replicable Practices] As you see it because you are the storyteller! Storify

Storify - All the stories happening on social media

Guided Tour

How to write a newspaper article is a skill that I guide my students through in a series of lessons. The reason why I really enjoy these lessons is because I only initially share with my students some guidelines. The rest is up to them. Through student exploration, research, polling and a culminating whole class example the lesson and curiculum expectations get processed through.

I am excited to try this new tool and incorporate it into my next series of newspaper writing lessons. English teachers and media teachers might also want to explore this site.

Read the Frequently Asked Questions page and view the videos below to become familiar with Storify.


Storify from Storify on Vimeo.


Storify Overview from Storify on Vimeo.


Getting started with Storify from Storify on Vimeo.

[Replicable Practices] Blogging in Education

I share with you a Google Scholarly Search using the term: Blogging in education.


I particularly enjoy (PDF):

Downes, S. (2004, September). Educational blogging. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5), 14-26. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume39/EducationalBlogging/157920

Taken from the Educase Website:

Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca) is a Senior Researcher with the E-Learning Research Group, National Research Council Canada, Moncton, New Brunswick. Comments on this article can be sent to the author at stephen@downes.ca.

[Replicable Practices] Slideshare.net

I stumbled across this website when doing a search for Persuasive Writing. Copied directly from the About Us link on Slideshare.net:

SlideShare is the world's largest community for sharing presentations. With 50 million monthly visitors and 90 million pageviews, it is amongst the most visited 250 websites in the world. Besides presentations, SlideShare also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars. SlideShare features a vibrant professional and educational community that regularly comments, favorites and downloads content....Anyone can view presentations & documents on topics that interest them, download them and reuse or remix for their own work.

You can create a free account, customize your search or go directly to their Education Category. 

[Replicable Practices] Please Teacher Can We Watch A Video? Wingclips.com

Conversation Sparkler

Ask a student what they learned in school and almost all of the time their memory becomes foggy, hazy, blurred and even forgetful. Their replies are short, elusive and dodgy. A word stumbles out of their mouth..."nothing."

Ask the same student if they can describe their favorite movie or to recite their favorite movie quote and magically they are transformed into giving an accurate, detailed and succinct reply.

Whenever possible I try to incorporate video clips into my lessons. Very popular in lesson introductions but also useful to reinforce concepts or to be used as conversation sparklers.

WingClips.com

 WingClips.com is a website that I often refer to when I need "movie clips that illustrate and inspire." The website is subscription based (there is a free sign up with limitations). You can search the video clips library through a search box or you can select clips based on movie title, scripture (requires registration), category or theme.

[Replicable Practices] Teacher Tube - Edutainment

TeacherTube

Finding resources that will help me Entertain/Educate (Edutainment) students has been difficult. Aside from trying to infuse interaction with technology in lessons or assignments I often rely on flashy/catchy informative YouTube clips to help me grab and sustain their attention. Based on the familiar YouTube site I discovered TeacherTube.

[Replicable Practices] Chart Tool

Create and design your own graphs and charts online

Earlier I posted an online tool called Create a Graph. Here is another similar online tool that I have the students use when they collect information. The charts always represent the information visually for the visual learners. In addition I find that the students participate more when trying to make some sort of conclusion using the data collected or comparing it with some other statistic. Lastly by using the the online Chart Tool students take less time in the preparation (presentation) and more time on the inquiry and analysis.

[Replicable Practices] Apple Education Apps

For anyone interested in getting more out of their iPad, iPod touch or iPhone via apps be sure to visit Apple in Education. You can search for apps by subject or by function.

[Replicable Practices] The power of an Apple iPhone and iPad to transform classrooms!

Apple iPad

For a long time whenever anyone mentioned an Apple computer I immediately thought of two things, graphic designers and classrooms. I suppose one reason is that Apple themselves marketed and aligned their products for a particular market.  Secondly it may have been the ease of use and availability that guided Apple computers into those segments.This thought had me thinking of the new Apples products such as the iPhone and iPad and how they could potentially transformation classrooms.

Google search "hand held classrooms" and at the time of this post about 2,950,000 results were found.

Here are a couple of PDF articles worth reading

• Mobile Learning and Handheld Devices in the Classroom by Robby Robson, Eduworks Corporation, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
• The Handheld Classroom: Educational Implications of Mobile Computing by Mark Finn and Natalie Vandenham from the Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society.

YouTube search "hand held classrooms" and at the time of this post about 302 videos resulted plus 567 videos under the search "classrooms of the future" and "Ipad in the classroom".

This shift is going to happen.

[Replicable Practices] Civics 101

The goal of Civics 101 is to teach people about how the Government of Ontario works. Through animated explainers, interactive features and interviews with political movers and shakers in the province many answers can be found. The majority of the information is presented in either a video format (perfect for an interactive whiteboard lesson) or a printable PDF format. Make sure to check out the online simulators and their new blog!

Civics 101

• What is an electoral system?
• What are Ontarians voting rights?
• What is democracy and when did it begin?
• How a law is made?
• Who does what?
• Rights and Responsibilities?
• What is a budget all about?
• What does First Past the Post mean?
• What is a minority and a majority government?
• What is a by-election?

[Replicable Practices] PDF Online

Have you ever been frustrated because you found a great PDF file but wished it was as a Word document?

Have you ever been frustrated because you have a Word document but wished it was a PDF file?

PDF Online by BCL Technologies

[Replicable Practices] Webmath

Webmath.com by Discovery Education

Webmath is a website that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer.

[Replicable Practices] Create A Graph

Create A Graph

Throughout the course of the year I like having the students collect information about themselves. It can either be through self assessments or surveys or personal inventory quizzes. My reasoning behind that is that the more information the students have about themselves the more tools they have to advocate for themselves. As an extension I have the students graph their results and through a student-teacher conference I have them speak to me about their results (rather than having them write a reflection paragraph).

For the first few graphing extensions I have them use Create A Graph. We then move on to using Word or Excel to graph. To throw it back to the old school I will at times have the students use the graph paper technique.

[Replicable Practices] Dropbox (Storage Provider)

Dropbox is an online web service that claims that "it is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online. There's no complicated interface to learn." The file hosting service is operated by Dropbox, Inc. It was founded in 2007 by MIT graduates Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi.

In trying to create replicable practices I adhere to my own set of standard lesson plan designs and associated notes. One of the easiest things (other than saving my work on a USB memory key) is to upload the file(s) to Dropbox (sign up required for a free account). There is also a paid service. More information.