My Beauty Best Teacher

• Fakebook: Create a fake profile!

  For study purposes you can create a fake Facebook profile. Usse this for historical figures, teaching digital citizenship, authors, people in literature. Who you'd like to be in 10 years! Cool assignment.

  tags: education learning facebook all_teachers edu_news

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Image by Curtis and Eric via FlickrMany of us have spring break or fall break (depending on the hemisphere.)

It is VITAL to relax and rest and few of us get enough of it.

I'm profoundly reminded of this in the excellent book The Way We're Working Isn't Working that demonstrates that those who take ALL their vacation get 7% higher performance reviews than those who don't!

If you could put three things on your spring break list:

• Rest
  
  Sleep and do not apologize. We need eight hours. Some pretend to need less but again, read the book I listed above for the research on our perpetual sleep deficit. Reading that book has freed me to REST and take naps and I'm performing better for it. (I've been doing this for two weeks and look at how many blog posts I've written, for goodness sakes.)
  
• Relax
  
  Just hang out. Do some things you enjoy. Take care of yourself. Read a book that has nothing to do with anything. (I read the Jack Reacher novels for my relaxation.)
  
• Reach Out
  
  There are probably many people in your family or neighborhood who aren't connected to social media. If they are, take time to Skype someone you love from far away. If they are not connected on a computer - take time to go see Aunt Josephine or Uncle Tom. Set aside an hour or two and take them something they like to eat. Bring a photo album. Take time.
  
  If your relative has great stories and you want to preserve them, take a video camera and record those conversations and stories for your children and grandchildren. Feel the generations ahead of you sitting behind that camera lens looking over your shoulder. Savor the moment and the stories. (These DVD's make great Christmas presents!)
  
  When we spend time with older people we can gain perspective on where we're heading ourselves. If you think you'll never get old then one day you'll wake up and realize you ARE old! ;-)
  
  I read about a study asking older people what they had done more of in their life and one was "leave a legacy." (The others are "reflected more" and "taken more risks".)
  
  When we reach out, we leave a legacy to our children of the example we should be but we also make ourselves better.
  
  If you don't have immediate family that is older, then find a convalescent home. One of the things that my sisters like to do is to get allergen free lotion and go into convalscent homes - older people love having lotion rubbed on their hands. Just gently rub lotion (if they like it) and talk to them. Sing if they want to. If they think you're someone from long a go. That is OK. Or make something ahead of time like a picture drawn by a child or a photo frame with a picture of a beach or some place in it.
  
  Whatever you are in your faith walk  - this is a great thing to do. If you're a Christian, we're supposed to do this out of love for Christ. Take time to reach out to those who aren't connected digitally! REMEMBER!!  Whatever you hand out is often handed back to you! If people visit you as much when you are old as you visit the elderly - will you be lonely or have lots of company?

I hope you have a great spring break. I plan on going completely off the grid for a few days. If I get my posts written and scheduled, you may see them post but some comments may have to be moderated when I return.

We NEED this time - let's use it well and let's never forget those among us who are not connected digitally. If we want to be a great generation of teachers and parents it will be reflected upon how we treat the generations before us.

• Generations and Gadgets - Pew Research Center

  Important study for those who want to know what people own. Cell phone tops this list! 95% of people aged 18-34 have a cell phone with 85% of people 18+ owning one.

  tags: education cellphone ebooks mobiles

• Add-ons for Google Products :: Collections :: Add-ons for Firefox

  Google Add ons for Firefox - some other excellent add ons if you use the google suite of products.

  tags: education google firefox

• ID's collection : expert web browsing made simple :: Collections :: Add-ons for Firefox

  An amazing list of firefox add ons for firefox 4. For those who want turbo-charged web browsing.

  tags: education firefox

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Image via CrunchBaseSchools, companies, and individuals all need to share information. Gone are the days that you could print a flyer and plaster it all over your small town to "get the word out." With a million words sending a million messages it can feel daunting to get noticed but in reality, it is simpler (and less expensive) than ever.

With the Generations 2010 study from PEW showing that 61% of all adults 18 and older are using social media websites, one cannot ignore the power of social media to communicate.

Social media is a legitimate, useful, important way to communicate with the world at large and cannot be ignored because one is offended by the term "social." (Most of you will eat a pu pu platter, for goodness sakes! The name doesn't keep you from digging in!)

Social Media Syndication Tip #1 - Go where your audience is.

This article will discuss where the audience is. Next week, I'll be sharing about how to get to that audience easily, inexpensively, and powerfully.

Where is your audience?
Your audience is many places and using multiple devices. They aren't all everywhere but they are somewhere. Let's look at the somewhere.

Email
With 94% of adults 18+ using email, it is the TOP use of the internet across all generations. Note, however that this is less for younger kids with only 73% of kids aged 12-17 using email but enough to still be the top use. Get in their inbox and you've got a person's attention unless you are spammy.

Searching
The second use of the Internet is searching. You want to be found! If you want to be found, you need to be on the web in various places and have an established, legitimate website that people link to. You want to be optimized. (SEO optimization some call it.) You also want fresh content.

Facebook
As of today, Facebook claims more than 500 million active users with more than half of them logging in daily. Interestingly, the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups, and events. The most active users of Facebook are the mobile users  who are twice as active as those who don't use Facebook.

eMarketer says that Americans with Internet access use Facebook at least once a month with 42.3% of the entire population of the US used Facebook in February 2011.

Mobile Phone
Using the handy Wolfram Alpha statistics engine, let's look at US cellular phone usage. (If you're in another country, you can use this same search - just put your country name in.)




With over 250 million cell phones and just over 300 million people in the US, the United States ranks third in cell phone penetration. In their Generations 2010 study, PEW says that 85% of US adults own cell phones with text messaging and taking pictures being the two non-voice functions that are most popular.

Furthermore, email shows up here too. In the US:

32% of U.S. mobile email users age 18 or older with an Internet-enabled  phone check personal email via a mobile device between one and three times daily.

Morgan Stanley analysts have predicted that the mobile internet will surpass the computer-based Internet by 2015.

Mobile phone syndication is very important for anyone who wants to be noticed. Every website you have should have a clean mobile phone view. For educational websites directed at age 10 and up, this is supremely important! Whether you use a program like Device Anywhere to look at how your site looks on a mobile phone or something from your web hosting company, put this on your list. Or just, open your site on your mobile device. You'll see if it is easy to read.

Twitter
A much lower percentage of people (7% of the total population of the US or 9% of Internet using population) use Twitter. Don't be fooled.

It is always about WHO is using something. In Malcom Gladwell's book Tipping Point, he talks about "mavens" who have an incredible amount of influence on others. These people who are connectors of others and valid sources of information, drive adoption of products and services. They are important because of their INFLUENCE. Twitter is known to be such a hub of influence full of "mavens" which Mashable calls power users. (See this under eBooks also.)

Kindle / eBooks / iPad
People who read ebooks are shown to be mavens in the "book" sector. I follow Stephen Windwalker's Kindle Nation Daily blog and download free ebooks all the time. Why do publishers give ebooks away at all? Free ebooks are correlated with increased print-book sales according to researchers at BYU and major authors have said the same.

So, you're not selling books? Well you are sharing information and your content should be readily available on these devices. You can read Cool Cat Teacher on your Ipad or in the Kindle store. (I'll tell you how to do this with your blog in my next post! ;-)

Calendar
Most successful, busy people keep calendars. If this calendar is on a mobile device and you produce calendars and want people to attend, it should be easy for people to add you to their calendar.

Push your events onto their screen and you'll get higher attendance and higher satisfaction with your communication as well. This is very important for schools.

Youtube
Seventy percent of adult internet users watch videos online with the dominant site continuing to be youtube.

Buying/ Selling/ Giving to Charity Online
If you are a nonprofit, realize that Twenty two percent of adults donated to charities online in 2010! We've recently added PayPal widgets for my school's 40 year campaign.

mp3 Player
Half of adults own an mp3 player with 75% of adults age 18-34 owning one and 21% of adults download podcasts.

It is not just a website any more!
You'd better not have a webmaster - you need a syndication master. You need people producing content that your audience cares about! If you are a school, this can be tricky but simple.

Now that I've proved the case that individuals, companies, and schools that want to communicate need to acknowledge the importance of a different platform than JUST a website, I'm going to spend some time over the next few weeks teaching you how to easily syndicate your content on the web, like I've done with my blog and at my school.

Hint: It is about leverage and making it SIMPLE for you.

This post is part of my Social Media for Schools series:

• Facebook Friending 101 for Schools
• The Case for Digital Citizenship in Schools
• Web 2.0 Leadership for Students

In Sci-Cultura:
African Alchemy - the intersect between art and science in indigenous knowledge

• Not Your Grandma’s Conference | always learning

  Great post by Kim Cofino about the Flat Classroom conference. It is worth looking at this post just to see the quality of the photos she takes! Scroll down and look how they Pop! She taught us how she did this - but oh, wow!
  
  She just did an amazing job!

  tags: education flatclassroom

• National STEM Video Game Challenge Winners announced

  "Aneesh Chopra, United States Chief Technology Officer, announced today the winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge, a competition to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning by tapping into the natural passion of youth for playing and making video games, at the Newseum in Washington, DC. The first year of the Challenge featured competitions for students and developers. Twelve students from across the U.S. in grades 5-8 were selected as winners of the Youth Prize for their original game designs. In the Developer Prize category, for emerging and experienced game developers, the science themed game You Make Me Sick! was awarded the Grand Prize and a collection of math games titled NumberPower: Numbaland! received both the Collegiate and Impact Prizes."

  tags: education gaming gamebasedlearning

• Decoding Writing with The 39 Clues featuring Ruth Culham and the Traits of Writing | Scholastic.com

  Upcoming free webinar from Scholastic
  
  Tuesday, April 5, 1pm ET 10 am PT - my friend Tyler Reed says:
  
  "Scholastic has an exciting video webcast for students and classrooms coming up with Ruth Culham (of “Traits of Writing” fame) and the authors of The 39 Clues series to help inspire good writing in kids.
  
  
  
  It features four of the authors from the book series, and is anchored by writing instruction from Ruth. The idea is that these authors and The 39 Clues series are perfect “writing mentors” and “mentor texts” for kids."

  tags: education writing

• Late Nite Labs

  Virtual Biology and Chemistry labs. These have a lot of potential in science education!

  tags: education science_teacher science curriculum

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.