Life long learning

With increasing delight and frequency, I learn more from other people than they learn from me. I had a number of meetings where I left refreshed and looking forward to trying some new tool or practicing a new skill set. Here are the highlights of the last few days.

If you've ever tried to schedule an event between more than two people, you know finding a common time can be a hassle whose email, text, and phone load grows exponentially with the number of participants. End the scheduling mess with Doodle. Establish some dates, invite participants, and let the best available slots rise to the top. Hat tip, Gina K.

Common Sense Media has a free, rich, interactive resource called Digital Passport. The Digital Passport program starts the conversation about appropriate digital citizenship, including explorations of copyright etiquette, bullying, and searching, among others. It's not the be all and end all of digital citizenship, but it looks like a great place to start. We've already uploaded rosters to the Digital Passport portal, and will be piloting it with sixth graders over the coming weeks.

Hat tip: Jeff B.

Bookshare makes eTexts available to students with visual or other impairments. Over 321,000 titles are available. Free! And there are a lot of solid front ends for Bookshare, like read2go ($20 for iPad), and a bunch of free readers like firefly k3000, and others that work on anything with a browser. I'll be working with Metcalf teachers to learn how students choose books (or how teachers assign books - we're not sure how that part works) over the next week. Hat tip: Bette Jean B.

And finally, PBS Learning Media, I discovered, offers a wealth of standards aligned curriculum resources. Wawaloam teachers in particular, are looking for ways to make solid use of their interactive whiteboards. When I got asked to install one particular DVD (with its single user license) containing an interactive game about rhyming words on a bunch of laptops, I immediately looked for alternatives that were free, legal, and absent a requisite software install. I also used the teachable moment to talk about end user license agreements. PBS Learning Media is a searchable treasure trove of resources that elementary teachers are going to appreciate, and kids are likely to enjoy. I'm looking forward to working with teachers to show them how to search for and vet activities. Hat tip:  Me!

Have a restful weekend!