I just finished my hands-on self-operated iPod/Zune Prompting session here at the TRLD Conference and now I can take a deep breath and blog some of my favorite information and tools so far for all of you! A little side note about today’s blog posting is that I’m composing it on a Mac! I haven’t traditionally been a Mac person, but I’ve been trying to make an effort to make what I do more about the methods, the content, the results and LESS about the tools I use to get there. So, I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone a little today. …and the Mac has treated me fairly.
The general focus so far here at The Technology, Reading & Learning Diversity Conference in San Francisco seems largely to be that:
- The US is falling way behind other places in the world with regard to online literacy, efficiency and productivity. An example: Japan’s broadband is 16X faster than what we typically have and it costs families about $22/month.
- US State Assessments do not take into account, online reading comprehension, writing and analysis skills, which the workplace is increasingly considering to be ESSENTIAL!
- In most US schools, the skills needed to accurately and efficiently use search engines, compose emails, critically evaluate search results and online information, etc. In fact, in many places, access to many internet tools is blocked, prevented and disregarded.
- However, nearly 3/4 of adolescents surveyed, report using ONLY the internet to complete the last report or project they turned in.
- Our weakest offline readers are sometimes our most proficient online readers and writers!
- Digital Natives; perhaps not as great of a term as we maybe thought it was in that it implies that we don’t have to teach these tech and web 2.0/3.0 skills because they already know it.
OK, so here’s some of my quick & (mostly) free favorites so far that I think you should all be aware of:
- iDictate http://idictate.com/ Actually, this one is NOT free. It does cost, but I think it is worth mentioning here quickly. iDictate is a service that could allow your students to call in (on a real/traditional phone) and dictate. This service then sends back a text version of the students’ dictation! Check it out.
- Kartoo: http://kartoo.com/ A non-traditional search engine! Kartoo is similar to something like Google or DogPile, except that it is much more visual. The search results are displayed in more of a concept map than simply a listing of websites in text format. This is so cool, and probably my new favorite way to search for online content. I would bet that many of your students will feel the same way, especially those used to software like Kidspiration/Inspiration.
- Bibme http://www.bibme.org/ “A FREE Automatic Bibliography Maker.” MLA, APA, Book, Web, Journal, Film, Other. WHERE was this during grad school??? What a powerful free resource, probably both for you and your students!
- UStream: http://www.ustream.tv/ “Free, Live, Interactive Broadcasting!” Ok, I just have 2 words for this one: AUTHENTIC AUDIENCE!!! Very cool. If your classroom doesn’t find this motivating I’d be VERY surprised.
And some really cool examples/samples and other professional (outstanding) Blogs to check out:
- Radio Willow Web: Great Classroom Podcasting Example.
- TechPsych Blog: Lynn Marentette’s blog. I have been reading Lynn’s blog for quite some time and really getting some good info from it. She has some posts that are great resources for teachers and also some direct links to interactive web 2.0 types of tools. Lynn actually linked back to this blog recently and I’ve gotten to know her a tiny bit through posting comments. Spend some time visiting this one.
- Blogical Minds: 5th Graders Conversing via blog!
OK, that’s probably enough to completely overwhelm you for at least an hour 
More next Friday, of course! I’ll be going right from this conference to present again at the ATIA Conference in Orlando next week. I’ve got no doubt that I’ll have at least another handful of great tools to pass along next week!
