9 Quick Tips for Taking Ownership of Your PD

There are some sound suggestions here for leveraging technology and the talent of your colleagues to manage professional learning.  9 Quick Tips for Taking Ownership of Your PD

Tapping into the knowledge that exists in your own school building, and expanding your professional network with Twitter or other social media can provide learning opportunities to match most off-site conferences.  The recent Professional Learning Day at ABRSD on January 16, and my own colleagues' effective use of Google Plus and Twitter, are more than enough to convince me that I have excellent local access to PD!

Two of my favorite suggestions offered by this Edutopia post are to use the DocScan app for capturing evidence of professional development, and using Twitter hashtags to focus on specific topics. #gafe is a great source for updates, support, forums, and lesson plans on Google Apps for Education.

Shadow Puppet EdU: The latest, greatest free digital storytelling iOS App

Shadow Puppet is a fantastic storytelling app that combines what I consider the best features of digital storytelling tools, and at least for now, it's free!  I can't say enough about this app, except that it's too good to be true, so I suggest downloading it now, as the developers are certain to want to make money soon from this beautifully designed app.  Shadow Puppet is similar to my other favorite storytelling app, 30Hands, but includes a few more bells and whistles. It's easy to use, integrates images with audio recording, and can be easily exported and shared. Shadow Puppet also:

• Includes a sampling of educational projects
• Allows audio narration with recordings that can be paused, resumed, and re-done
• Can include images and video clips
• Provides mutiple text styles and sizes for annotating images
• Provides in-app access to educational and safe images sources, including Library of Congress, NASA, and more
• Provides in-app search of maps and famous landmarks
• Provides in-app searches that return safe (I tested with a few questionable keywords) copyright-friendly images, including through Wikimedia Commons and Open Clipart
• Includes a library of background colors and designs
• Provides access to albums of other apps on your iPad, including Tellagami, PicCollage, Yakit, Skitch, and more.
• Saves to Camera Roll, generates link for emailing, or shares directly to Twitter, YouTube, and other social media sites.

See what I mean?  This is an excellent app!  Here's my sample created with Shadow Puppet and uploaded to YouTube.  You will notice that I included a YAKit video along with images from my camera roll, Famous Landmark maps, and Library of Congress.

I

Ted Ed Lesson: What is the World Wide Web?

Since Ted Ed was launched almost three years ago, the library of carefully curated lessons, each with its own professionally produced video, has grown impressively.  There are now over 800 lessons with embedded videos, questions, and discussion prompts covering a wide variety of topics, all easily searchable by topic, grade levels, and video length. New lessons are added every day, some created by the Ted Ed team, and some created by educators from around the world.

Lessons can be created on the Ted Ed platform with any educational YouTube video, or by customizing an existing lesson. To learn more about the infinite possibilities of using Ted Ed in your classroom,  click here for a brief and entertaining video-based tour.

What is the World Wide Web? is a great example of Ted Ed video-based lessons, and an ideal way to explain the WWW to students.