Alright here we go… since I used examples as opposed to a concrete presentation the six topics below begin to flesh out the information that we went through in the session.  Additionally, I will continue building out each topic as I have been lax in that area.  Links to the expanded information are below this post.

Now this by NO means is planned to be a complete list, an expansive list, or even dare I say it the “best of the best” but they are good solid resources that should help to guide folks in a direction. Remember there ARE and will always be alternatives.

However, I do recommend settling on a set of tools and growing with them until you really outgrow them. So, to avoid feeling overwhelmed, look to see where you feel you need a tool to help simplify what you do, enhance what you do, and or expand what you offer.

On to my choices.

[side note: while writing this post I came to the conclusion that I need to break out each of these resources into separate posts to provide more information as well as links to possible educational uses to add value to the WHY should you add these types of resources to your arsenal of learning and teaching tools.]

Additionally, I wanted to provide a category for each set of resources so if the one I mention doesn’t meet your needs you can do a quick search to find another. As an overview, I would recommend getting an online resource for: office applications, bookmarking, photo sharing, RSS newsreader, notebook / annotation, tagging, and social networking. If you look hard at this list, it becomes apparent that most (if not all) of these resources can be handled by offline Microsoft products (IE, Outlook, OneNote, Live Photo Gallery).

The main reason I recommend moving these resources online is for the flexibility it provides YOU the user. I’ll come right out and say it… I AM A HUGE FAN OF MICROSOFT, however, that said, I HATE being tethered to one machine (although you will rarely find me without my tablet). With resources floating in the ether you can access them from anywhere there is an internet connection. If you don’t think that this is important ask yourself a couple of questions: Have you ever really needed a link that you know you saved on your home or school computer and now you are somewhere else? Have you had your personal computer crash the day before a huge presentation / project was due? Have you wanted to connect with others about a topic but did not know where to begin? Well… yes you need to begin moving into the “cloud.”

Social Networking:

twitter – By far twitter has become the one tool above all else that all educators should become involved with. A brief description is that twitter is a microblog… your life in 140 characters or less in the moment that it is happening… but it is so much more. It has revolutionized and become a huge piece of my personal learning network. The amount of targeted and useful instructional information I get from my twitter network is staggering. So much so, I have created a folder in my favorites called “Twitter Links to Review” as I cannot get to everything in real-time… feel free to add me to your network my twitter handle is vanishingpoint

Online Office Suites:

Zoho.com is my choice for office productivity in “the cloud.” The folks at Zoho have created a HUGE suite of applications that well… all work! Writing, Spreadsheet, Presentations, wikis, project management, databases, an online NOTEBOOK and much more. The biggest reason that I really am taken with Zoho is both the integration of their tool set as well as their focus on collaboration. Additionally, they are continuously expanding their offerings. Did I mention that all of their apps are FREE!

RSS Aggregator (reader):

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a tremendous way to simplify your processes in searching and gathering information. In short, once a “feed” is setup, information comes to you as opposed to you hunting for it. My choice of RSS Reader is NewsGator. With NewsGator is pull in news stories from around the world as well as educational and instructional blogs. Additionally, most magazine type services (and all search engines) have RSS feeds embeded into their sites that you can tap into. This type is resource allows you to become a “grazer” of information as opposed to a hunter of information. One of my main criteria for an RSS aggregator was that it would function both online and via a mobile device. The majority of time I access NewsGator through my Motorola Q Global via NewsGator Go!. Additionally, NewsGator allows me to “Clip” a post or piece of information that I find valuable and save it permanently. This is huge as it keeps me from having to use an additional service like Furl for that purpose.

Bookmarking:

I have used Del.icio.us for about a year, and have been very happy ALWAYS having access to my bookmarks and important links. Additionally, with del.icio.us’ use of tagging, I don’t really have to remember the exact name for resources … just a “category” or idea that I have “tagged” the site link with, and poof it is there… even better, I can pull ALL the resources I have tagged with a certain word at one time… and I can share them, and receive links from others in my personal network. The idea of social bookmarking is not new (we have all shared bookmarks and links with friends in the paper world… del.icio.us brings speed and efficiency to this process. Lee Lefever has a great video that explains social bookmarking well.

Recently there has been a TON of twitter traffic about Diigo. While I have not used it at all, I am beginning to investigate it and its possible uses. Kristin Hokanson wrote an excellent blog post called Dig-ging… Diigo today about the power and value of Diigo which provides compelling reasons to switch and consolidate a number of resources to Diigo… Here is a link to my new Diigo profile.

Photo Sharing:

I absolutely LOVE Flickr! Flickr like others allows anyone to upload photo and share them with family, friends, and or the world. I use the camera in my Motorola Q Global daily, and mms my photos immediately to flickr (and a number of other folks) through my phone. This way my family around the world can see my kids and the things I am getting involved in well… daily! My flickr account is even linked to my blog… look to the left to see what pictures I took today

NoteBook:

If you have used Microsoft OneNote, or have wished that you could move ANY type of information into a digital notebook that you can annotate, enhance, or share, you really need to look at Zoho Notebook. Think of it as a digital three-ring binder that you can put ANY information, resource, tool (live or static) into. You can then collaborate with other on it, or share the entire notebook, a page, or even an object with anyone! You can even publish it for the world to see. Here are a couple of examples from notes that I took during a conference sessions at IL-TCE 2008. Example 1 Example 2 Example 3 (Example 3 shows quite a bit of the capabilities of Zoho Notebook).

This post has grown exceeding long and I an exceedingly tired… If you have thoughts or comments, I am welcome to all views!

Scott

Photos from Flickr: Dazed81, just Mike is fine and Lady Ying

Related Posts:

• In the Cloud Expanded – Part 1 Professional Social Networking
• In the Cloud Expanded – Part II RSS Aggragators
• Digital Notebooks for Research, Clarity, and Organization

I saw Robin Ellis’ blog post and was moved to continue to build this “Passion Quilt” so here is my contribution. The title I have given this picture is “Admire the Night.” I have chosen this photograph of a fireworks show which I find amazing because both man and nature and competing for the beauty of the night while others are observing the contest. This image reflects my belief of the power and passion that lifetime learning can make on anyone’s life. You have the dichotomy of the power of nature (or natural talent) and creation as well as all of the observers (learners) of both processes. My hope is the inspiration that student creativity builds will be leveraged by others to help them continuously expand their natural talents. With hope anything is possible even challenging nature itself.

Scott

Here are Robin’s rules:

1. Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
2. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
3. Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry and Robin’s.
4. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

Now I will tag the following friends:

Henry Thiele

Michael Bachrodt

Jennifer Jones – a 366 photo perhaps?

Katie Choudhary

Lori Abrahams

Image Source Flickr: Credit: blueforce4116

After writing Wednesday’s post, I really felt that I needed to break out each of the topics “categories” into a post of their own to both further clarify my ideas and thoughts as well as provide some insight on educational uses both for educators and students.

Looking at “the list” I threw out there, I am easily drawn to this topic first. While I enjoy the collegiality of my friends and colleagues in my school and district, I have to say that: I learn more from my personal learning network (PLN) than I do from any other resource hands down. Additionally, you should know that very few of my district educators are in my PLN. That right there is a statement of some weight and needs clarification to let you know the context of where I am coming from.

I am a member of the largest high school district in Illinois. We have over 13,000 students and approximately 1,400 certified staff and administrators. We hold building level and district level in-service programs, summer in-district courses, and have a professional library. We have staff development committees at each one of our buildings, a robust tuition reimbursement program, and a district level director overseeing professional development… I go to conferences and seminars throughout the year, and still I hold to my statement above. I grow professionally through interactions with my personal learning network at a rate far… far… greater than any other way.

While I am not a Facebook, or MySpace kind of person, and I do not (that I know of) have a profile on either of those or other true social networking services, I still participate in a network of educators and technologists through a service called Twitter. Twitter has been called a microblog, “your life in 140 characters or less,” confusing, addicting, and hard to describe.

A PLN using twitter gives you a place not only to begin to learn, but to ask question and seek help, advice, support, ideas, resources, and it is just down right fun! As your professional relationships grow so will your personal ones as well.

The basic gist of twitter is that you “follow” people and you have “followers.” Often those groups consist of the same people, but they do not have to be… When you follow someone, it enables you to receive the 140 character messages that they post to their group of followers. There are times that you feel like you are only getting half the conversation as the people you are following are following folks that you are not. Therefore, you get a reply to a question, but you do not know what the question was that sparked the reply… [This is often where twitter gets labeled as confusing.] However, if you are really interested in learning that other part of the conversation or you see a number of people you are following reply to the same person, you might want to take a couple of clicks and add that person to your network as well.

Dean Shareski is one of the individuals that I learned about and now follow his life, growth, knowledge, and insights through Twitter. I learned about Dean by watching a number of people I did follow continuously reply to @shareski (yes there is twitter etiquette) with outstanding comments and questions. After seeing this pattern for a few days, I began “investigating” Dean to see if I wanted to follow him.

1:30pm CST ~ Perfect example of the power of the Twitter network. I just “received” a tweet from Will Richardson. He is presenting on Blogs and RSS at TIAS and his presentation is being streamed via uStream by Scott Merrick.

Here is a bit from Dean’s bio on Twitter:

• Name Dean Shareski
• Location Moose Jaw, SK
• Web http://ideasandth…
• Bio Seeking relevant, authentic and engaging learning

But, when you follow to his blog, you see this:

Dean Shareski (that would be me) is a Digital Learning Consultant with the Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada. I specialize in the use of technology in the classroom. I hold a Masters of Education in Communications and Technology through the University of Saskatchewan. I also am a sessional lecturer for the University of Regina. I consider myself a digital learning specialist.

Based on this information and reading some of his blog posts, and the “half” of the conversations I was picking up Dean was someone I wanted to follow. This is how your network grows. While I have learned an amazing amount of things from Dean over this year, one recent blog post and podcast rings out. Dean recently participated in a podcast with an educator in Seoul Korea, Clay Burell. Clay is a phenomenal educator who is currently teaching at a 1:1 Apple laptop international school (Who I also follow and found out about on twitter). This podcast was about Natural Global Collaborations and Networked Learning. An incredible “listen” and it was followed up by Clay with this post detailing the first six weeks of his students learning journey through networked learning.

None of the above I would have discovered through my school and district level contacts / professional development initiatives. Twitter has opened amazing learning opportunities for me occasionally the 100+ folks that I follow post so much information I need to archive it to get to later. But THAT IS A GOOD THING! It proves to me and frankly forces me to continuously be grazing information (a skill in itself) and learning continuously.

So, how do you start? go to http://twitter.com and create an account. If you would like you can “follow” me I am vanishingpoint on twitter. Click my name here or Search for People and enter vanishingpoint then click on “following”. to see a listing of all of the folks that I am following. From there you can click the “Follow” button next to their names and begin following those folks you are interested in as well. I’d recommend starting small and getting a feel for twitter, what you are learning and what you are posting then expand as needed. Here are a few people that I would recommend adding to your initial group:

• Will Richardson – willrich45
• David Warlick – dwarlick
• Dean Shareski – shareski
• David Jakes – djakes
• Clay Burell – cburell
• Alec Couros – courosa
• Darren Draper – ddraper
• Kristin Hokanson – khokanson
• Vicki Davis – coolcatteacher
• Jen Wagner – jlwagner
• Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach – snbeach
• there are so many more…

The best possible thing that I can say is it is a must that you begin to develop your own Personal Learning Network. Regardless of the resource, twitter, Diigo, Facebook, etc. Reach beyond your school / district / conference resources and you will grow exponentially!

Scott

del.icio.us Tags: socialnetworking,shareski,cburell,twitter,willrichardson,ustream,scottmerrick

Photo from Flickr user : RoseMarieVictoria Artwork