My Digital Toolbox

Partnership for 21st Century Skills Framework

21st century readiness means getting our students ready for the future. This would suggest having them ready to succeed in today’s world. In today’s world most jobs require a college degree, although fifty years ago this was not the case. We have to ensure that our students will have the correct tools to get them into college and to succeed in a college program. The site for the 21st Century Skills Framework is a guide used to explain what the requirements are to prepare students to enter the “real world”. Along with this site, there is an assessment survey to take to see how you as an educator are doing in teaching within the 21st century.


Keyword Searches

It is important to understand how to search for something on the web properly. Using keyword searches helps to refine your search and find what you are looking for promptly. Noteworthy sites to use include:

http://www.google.com/
http://www.ask.com/
For students: http://www.askforkids.com/
For students: http://www.yahooligans.com/

These student friendly sites are good because they are appropriate for students. Students can also find answers to questions and conversions for math.


Online Bookmarks

Online bookmarks are an excellent way to make the websites you use frequently or want to remember. The difference between online bookmarks and bookmarks used within your browser are the ones you use in your browser can only be accessed on that particular browser and on that particular computer. In using an online browser, one can access their bookmarks from any computer anywhere. A teacher can even share bookmarks with his or her students by using online bookmarks. Two sites for online bookmarking are http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com/ and http://www.diigo.com/.


Google Docs

This is an excellent site to collaborate on a document with others. For example, you work for a company in the United States and have to create a document with a co-worker who is currently in Japan. This can easily be done with Google Docs. As long as you are online at the same time, you can collaborate and instantly add and change things on the document together. There is a chat on the side of the document that you can use to chat and discuss ideas with the other person. The other thing that is nice to Google Docs is if I wanted someone far away to help proofread something for me, we can go online at the same time and do it together. Instead of having to send the document in an email and have the person read it and email it back it can be right away online. The site for Google Docs is: http://docs.google.com/.


Online Resource Ideas

A. Hotlists
“The first step in introducing students to the power of the Internet for learning is linking to the sites that relate directly to the curriculum. There are basically three ways of sharing Internet sites with your students.
paper list of URL’s
bookmarks
links from a personal, or school, web page
B. Multimedia Scrapbook
Scrapbooks are great to use if students already have a general understanding of the subject being studied. With a Multimedia Scrapbook, learners can dig through a collection of Internet sites that focus on specific categories such as photographs, maps, stories, facts, quotations, sound clips, videos, virtual tours, etc. Students can learn to copy or download specific items into various projects like reports, slide shows, collages, bulletin boards, or even to their own web page.
C. Treasure Hunt
A good way to help students develop some solid knowledge about a subject is to create a Treasure Hunt on the Web. Created by the teacher, the students, or both, the basic strategy is to find Web pages that hold information (text, graphics, sound, video, etc) that is essential to understanding a particular topic. When developing the Treasure Hunt, plan to gather 10-15 links (the exact URL is needed to avoid unnecessary searching). It’s a good idea to have extra URLs since there is no guarantee a Web site will be there when the students need to use the Treasure Hunt.
After the links have been identified, compose one key question for each link. A sheet of notepaper or a word processing document could be used to record the information the students find.
TIP: Remember to choose questions that define the scope or parameters of the topic. The final question could be the culminating “big question” where students can synthesize what they have learned and use it to create a broader understanding of the topic being studied.
D. Subject Sampler
Part of what makes the Internet so great is the quirky, passionate, and real stuff that many people and organizations post there. Subject Samplers tap into these elements in order to give students an idea of the choices and differing views over specific topics they are learning about in class. Learners are presented with a small number of intriguing Web sites that are organized around the main topic. The sites reflect a variety of impressions and views of the topic, presenting the student with the opportunity to draw conclusions about whether they agree or disagree with the position presented. So, instead of looking for only the “right” answer, the students are invited to join a community of learners examining a topic.”
**Taken from EDUC 675, Module 4 by Gregoryk and Kadrmas.

Lesson Sharing

Teachers often share lessons with one another. This helps to save time and is very useful especially if one teacher has a really great lesson for teaching one idea and another teacher has a great lesson for teaching something else. It is also a great way to network with one another. There are some websites that can help teachers to do this. These sites are also excellent because if a teacher needs a lesson for a certain topic and cannot make one that they feel works, they can go online and look for one on one of these sites. The sites are:

Thinkfinity at http://www.mped.org/home.aspx
http://www.nationalgeographic.org/
http://4teachers.org/
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/


RSS
“People who regularly follow many different blogs or Web sites may spend a lot of time checking each one to see if anything has changed since their last visit. You are already experiencing this by constantly checking your Group Discussion boards. One way to simplify this task is to automate the process of checking for new content. Blogs and Web sites can share content using a process called Syndication. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a family of "web feed" formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which is called a "feed" or "web feed" or "channel") contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.
RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader" or an "aggregator". The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.
Basically there are two types of RSS readers: 1) Web based, such as the Google Reader, and 2) Program based. There are lots of RSS reader programs you can download to run directly on your computer. In either case these RSS readers give you a handy interface to simultaneously monitor your favorite feeds from multiple sites and sources. Just follow the directions for each reader.
More detailed information may be found at:
What is RSS? http://www.whatisrss.com/”
**Taken from EDUC 675, Module 5 by Gregoryk and Kadrmas.

Blog
Due to the fact that you are reading this you probably already know what a blog is. In case you do not, “a blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Follow this link http://teachingtoday.glencoe.com/howtoarticles/blog-basics to learn more about Blogs.”
**Taken from EDUC 675, Module 5 by Gregoryk and Kadrmas.
Blogs can be created simply at http://www.blogger.com/

Social Networking
There are many social networking sites. These are mostly used for entertainment purposes but can also be used to help business. Some of these sites include:
· Wiki
· Facebook
· Wimba Pronto
· Twitter
· My Space
· Skype
· Windows Netmeeting
· Digg
· YouTube
· TeacherTube
· Linkedln

Podcast
“The term podcast is derived from the iPod MP3 player and the word broadcast. The interesting thing is that you do not need an iPod or MP3 player to produce and listen to audio or video broadcasts. All you need is a computer with a microphone or digital camera. If you do not have a microphone, just check around the school and you might find one lying around somewhere. Otherwise, the cost of a microphone is very little, around $10 or so. Another strong point is that the hosting of podcasts can be done at no cost!”
Podcasts are very easy to create as long as you have a microphone. I also suggest downloading the free software Audacity to help you to create an audio podcast. A video podcast can also be created but a webcam would also be necessary. Audacity can be downloaded at: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ .
The site for creating a Podcast is: http://www.podomatic.com/.
**Taken from EDUC 675, Module 6 by Gregoryk and Kadrmas.