Professional Development

After spending the day watching educational webinars, I feel the need to gather all my notes and links together in one place.  This will help me refer back easily in order to better utilize the links I learned about.  Keeping it closed up in my scribbled handwriting in the composition book will probably not be terribly effective!

First, I started following the webinar presenters on Twitter.  I know, who has the time for Twitter?  I am slowly starting to see the benefits of connecting to educators on Twitter as a new (to me) place to collaborate and find new ideas.  If you want to connect with me, I am @twimom23.  (" Twi-tter" mom?  No, it's from my Twi-light phase, of course!)

Digital Storytelling:  tinyurl.com/dsthilt  Excellent assortment of digital storytelling tools.

Facilitate a Writing Workshop Using Google Docs:  I loved this session, since I am still learning all that Google Docs has to offer.  Susan Oxnevad's blog is full of great ideas:   http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com.
Notes:  The writing workshop can include lessons on sharing and commenting, peer editing, and the use of the amazing research tools available via Google Docs.  Hello?? Citations inserts?  Where was this class when I was writing those college research papers???

A tip for helping students create projects in Slides is to have them begin their writing in Docs, then copy and paste into the Slides program.

Students within the workshop should have lots and lots of opportunities to write, write, write!  Meanwhile, students are peer editing, and completing specific jobs related to peer editing.  (See Peer Editing Job Descriptions here:   http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-docs-to-facilitate-writing.html#.U6HyFfldWa8)

I am very excited about the Assignment Tracker - a simple form created in Google Docs.  http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/2011/10/create-assignment-tracker-to-manage.html#.U6Hyy_ldWa8

Love this idea for language arts and social studies:  Go to www.Fakebook.com and create "fakebook" pages based on a character in a story or in history.  

Teaching about dialogue?  www.toondoo.com
Need a comic strip format?  www.makebeliefscomix.com
Creative uses of timelines: Timelines

The final link to share is a wonderful visual "favorites" page where we can store our links. Symbaloo!  I am working on creating my own pages, but this is too good not to share!  http://www.symbaloo.com/home/mix/freewebtoolwebmix