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9 rules of etiquette for academic Twitter use

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9 rules of etiquette for academic Twitter use

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9 rules of etiquette for academic Twitter use - eCampus News

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Adjunct Professor Anne G. Barretta describes how she's learned as much about Twitter use from her students as they've learned from her.

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Educators facilitate others' learning experiences, but their own learning experiences are far from over. Through podcasts, educators can learn even more about their field and the forces impacting it - especially education technology.

Apple's iTunes store has an entire page devoted to ed tech podcasts. Sorting out the best listens can be a daunting task, so to make things easier, we've compiled a list of the XX you should check out today.

1. TEDTalks Education

Host: Varying speakers

This one seems like a no-brainer. TEDTalks, delivered at a set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, have become wildly popular among a variety of audiences not just for the big-name presenters that have been featured, but for their premise - the speaker is required to convey their best ideas in innovative and engating ways in a maximum of 18 minutes. The TEDTalks Education podcast gathers those talks focused on education, and includes such gifted presenters as Sir Ken Robinson, futurist Ray Kurzweil, Khan Academy's Salman Khan, Bill Gates, Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller, and Colin Powell.

2. Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Host: Wesley A. Fryer

Since 2005, Wesley A. Fryer has produced " Moving at the Speed of Creativity," a podcast that focuses on ed tech and digital literacy. Other topics sometimes include history and science. The iTunes page for the podcast has the 113 most recent installments. Fryer also publishes the " Fuel for Educational Change Agents" podcast - a collection of unedited and lightly edited ed tech conference presentations, keynotes, and workshops - and his website contains a variety of other helpful resources.

3. The Ed Tech Crew Podcast

Hosts: Darrel Branson and Tony Richards

Australian duo Darrel Branson and Tony Richards host " The Ed Tech Crew Podcast," which focuses on the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in education. Issues are discussed, useful websites and tech are shared, and U.S. listeners get a unique perspective from across the Pacific. There's even an app available on both iTunes and Android! You can find the 20 most recent episodes on iTunes here.

4. House of #EdTech

​Host: Christopher J. Nesi

" House of #EdTech" is a newly launched podcast, with only two episodes so far. That means there's still time for you to easily catch up! Hosted by Christopher J. Nesi, a New Jersey social studies teacher who has taught at the middle and high school levels, the podcast explores how technology is impacting the way teachers teach, as well as its effects on education overall.

5. Instructional Tech Talk

Host: Jeff Herb

Though a new episode hasn't been released in several months, " Instructional Tech Talk" with Illinois-based educator and administrator Jeff Herb is among the highest-rated ed tech podcasts on iTunes. Herb's goal is simple: To make implementing technology in your class, building, or district easier, regardless of your position - be it classroom teacher or superintendent. The Instructional Tech Talk website also features a variety of resources, ranging from articles to weekly challenges.

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Educators facilitate others' learning experiences, but their own learning experiences are far from over. Through podcasts, educators can learn even more about their field and the forces impacting it - especially education technology. Apple's iTunes store has an entire page devoted to ed tech podcasts.

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http://www.educationaltechvideos.com

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Educators may feel sometimes like they're on an island with little help in sight. But as technology teaching resources go, it may encourage you to learn that there are a number of online solutions available to help promote education from teaching reading basics to organizing classroom activities and encouraging civic involvement. Here are 20 of the most promising new apps, websites and online education technology tools or services every teacher should be using to help improve classroom learning:

Collaborize Classroom -- A free online collaborative platform designed to complement classroom instruction with additional activities, assignments and discussions that can be accessed online.

Cool Math -- A collection of games that are designed to be safe to use in the classroom, covering a variety of math subjects as well as reading, science and geography.

DoSomething.org -- With a new call-to-action every week, DoSomething.org encourages teens to band together and work for positive social change.

Edmodo -- An online collaboration hub that leverages the power of social media to provide customized classrooms for every teacher/student situation.

Exploratorium -- As the website of San Francisco's Museum of Science, Art and Human Participation, Exploratorium links to a variety of online activities that make science fun.

First In Math -- A schoolwide resource that teaches kids as young as kindergarten basic math skills via online games. Kids are encouraged to keep playing by earning stickers and other rewards from their teachers.

Fun Brain -- Online games portal that focuses on games that have educational value for kids. Teachers can easily find games, curriculum and even flash cards that are perfect for whatever subject matter they're teaching.

Hippocampus -- A project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, the goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge.

HowStuffWorks -- Explains thousands of topics with video and illustrations so students can learn more about how everything works.

iCivics -- Founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, iCivics is a web-based education project designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in US democracy.

Melody Street -- A musical world where instruments come to life, offering games, music and online videos to help teach kids about instruments, melody and more.

MyBackPack -- Offers a way for teachers to communicate directly with parents and students by connecting administrative software and giving real-time updates on grades, schedules, attendance and more.

PowerSchool -- Web-based information system that provides instantaneous updates on everything from attendance to seating charts, and it's even accessible via iPhone and Android apps.

Raz Kids -- A full curriculum of reading lessons presented as mini online books for a wide range of ages, allowing students to easily log in and for teachers to monitor their progress.

Scholastic Kids Press Corps -- Offers news for kids by kids, encouraging teachers to incorporate current events and reporting into their own daily teaching.

Schoology -- Learning management system and social network that makes it easy to create and share academic content.

Scratch -- A programming language from MIT that teaches basic concepts and invites kids to turn them into interactive stories, games, music and art.

Spelling City -- Offers vocabulary, spelling, writing, parts of speech, handwriting and alphabetical order games to elementary, middle and high-school classes.

Starfall -- Teaches young children to read with phonics via online games and interactive storybooks.

Weebly -- Provides an easy way for teachers to create a classroom site and blog that can be used to communicate with students and parents, and includes a way for kids to easily create sites of their own.

And there you have it -- 20 top education technology tools that made our rundown. Teachers: Which apps, online services and technology tools currently top your own list of favorites?

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Educators may feel sometimes like they're on an island with little help in sight. But as technology teaching resources go, it may encourage you to learn that there are a number of online solutions available to help promote education from teaching reading basics to organizing classroom activities and encouraging civic involvement.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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TED Talks to inspire

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TED Talks are influential videos from expert speakers on education, business, science, tech and creativity, with subtitles in 100+ languages. Ideas free to stream and download.

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A screenshot of my board!

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Edutopia is a great resource to learn/enrich pedagogical practice. Videos where your can observe different strategies/ paradigms

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George Lucas Educational Foundation

The benefits of movement in the classroom aren't limited to younger students. Pairing new words and concepts with gestures or dance moves locks in understanding-and active brain breaks prime students to learn even more.

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A free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education.

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sharing pictures from my class. Following other teachers.

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YouTube.com/Teachers was created to help teachers leverage video to educate, engage and inspire their students. Here you will find tips and tricks for bringing YouTube into the classroom, as well as over 400 video playlists curated by CUE and aligned with the Common Core. YouTube.com/Teachers is part of YouTube’s larger educational initiative, YouTube EDU, featuring more than 700K educational videos created by leading experts and organizations such as PBS, TEDEd, and Khan Academy. About CUE: Ed Tech Professional Development is at the core of CUE’s work. We are passionate believers in advancing student achievement through technology. By providing Ed Tech professional development to schools, districts, and educators on the infusion of emerging technologies, we can help better prepare students for college and careers ahead. | www.cue.org

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Since launching on March 6, 2007, our goal at TeacherTube has been to provide an online community for sharing instructional and education videos for college students, high school students, middle school students and elementary school students. We seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, students, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. It is also a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.

On September 1, 2017, TeacherTube.com was acquired by Salem Web Network. Salem's goal is to continue the growth of TeacherTube and support innovative ideas for education.

Most importantly, TeacherTube community members are a major part of the evolution of the site. Members are encouraged to not only upload educationally relevant videos but also to make constructive comments and use the rating system to show appreciation for videos of value to one as an educator or learner. Users also have the ability to preserve the integrity of the site by flagging inappropriate videos. TeacherTube staff review flagged sites and will remove any inappropriate posts. With more collegial commentary and discussion through messaging and responses, the quality of this resource will only increase.

The service is free for everyone. We always encourage our users to Contact Us with thoughts, suggestions, or other feedback. We do have a vision for TeacherTube to truly be a better alternative to other video storage sites. With the community's help, it can become more interactive and engaging for all teachers and learners.

Science videos are one of the key subjects that students are taught in school. Science is present from the early years of grade school up to the highest levels of academic achievement. As students move up the ranks, their study of science tends to get more specialized into one specific field only, like chemistry, biology, or physics. We have educational videos for all of these courses.

TeacherTube.com's section on science educational videos has content of interest to all learning levels. We have topics as varied as educational songs for elementary school students, up to chemical engineering for college students.

Mathematics is one of the fundamental 3Rs of early education. Known as "arithmetic" in those levels, it involves counting and the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. As kids advance through the grade levels, they progressively deal with more complex mathematical problems. Also, more new concepts get introduced as they progress.

Math is crucial for almost any business career. Accounting, budgeting, and projecting sales all require some level of competence in math. Many resources for these topics can be found here on TeacherTube.

Even everyday situations benefit a lot from math skills. Managing one's finances, for instance, obviously requires math, as with anything involving money. Cooking also involves math: proportions of ingredients, for example, as well as measurements.

TeacherTube.com's section on math education videos covers everything from fractions and measurements to money management. We also cover more complicated subjects such as trigonometry, and well as probability and statistics.

History is a very valuable subject, but not just because it is useful for preventing future wars. The lessons from history can also teach people to build a better future. What people have done right in the past should be continued and improved upon in the present.

The subject of history covers a wide range of timelines and locations. There's ancient history and modern history. There is also Asian history, US history, Latin American history, and European history. Each one is unique, reflecting the cultures of the people involved.

If there's one thing common to all history classes, it's usually names, dates, and places. This is also the part that many kids hate the most. They do not see the point of memorizing so many random facts that appear purposeless. Well, that is the wrong way to teach history.

TeacherTube's history education videos section makes the past come alive with a sterling array of videos and tutorials that cover subjects as varied as our prehistory, ancient history, the civil war, and the study of world civilizations.

The purpose of social studies, based on the US National Council for the Social Studies, is to promote "civic competence" among students. In other words, the subject equips students to become better citizens of a country. This is done by exploring history, geography, current events, and governments, among others. Middle school social studies usually deal with one of each of these fields per grade level.

With this knowledge, students gain the ability to become more socially aware and to be actively involved citizens of their country. Through analyzing current events, students will also learn how to predict the consequences of the things happening around them. With that, they can be good influences on their communities.

It is with this goal in mind that TeacherTube offers a wide variety of learning video materials for both students and enthusiasts.

We have videos on everything from strengthening your knowledge of economics terminology to the nuances of various world cultures.

Language arts, as the name suggests, equips students with a wide range of ways to use language. It comprises both speaking and writing skills. In addition to the basics, the subject also deals with the artistic side of language, infusing creativity in the ways students communicate.

There are four basic aspects to understanding a language: speaking, reading, listening, and writing. Language arts classes aim to enhance those skills at each year level. At first, it covers basic topics like grammar, sentence construction, and paragraphs. Exercises in language arts become progressively more complex as students move up the ranks, and usually, in higher grades, more emphasis is put on creativity and persuasiveness.

With the noble goal of harnessing the power of words to effect change in the world in mind, TeacherTube is proud to offer videos on everything from general communications to speaking and even videos on strengthening your studying skills.

Not all kids want to go through lectures. Some of them may not have the attention span or the patience to endure long hours just sitting down and listening to someone talk in front. No, that doesn't mean these kids are lazy. It just means they learn differently.

Some kids are auditory learners. In other words, they learn best when they listen to sounds and music. For this type of student, educational songs will certainly be a big helping hand. Even the most complex of concepts, when taught through songs, will be very easy for them to understand and remember. Even kids who are not so much inclined to auditory learning may like this method.

Educational song vidoes are available in a wide variety of subjects. English, math, social studies, science, and everything in between, there's bound to be a song for every subject. For example, on the website Teachertube.com, there are science topic songs, reading songs, skip counting songs, reading phonics songs, and even quadratic formula songs.

The advantage of using educational song videos is that it accomplishes two things at once. First, these songs are entertaining, and second, they also teach a concept. They facilitate learning a lot better than plain lectures simply because of the entertainment part. When a lesson is made fun of, kids will want to learn them. In fact, it could even be the kids themselves, on their own, who will play the songs repeatedly.

TeacherTube offers education songs on topics as varied as the circulatory system to math songs about polynomials and even videos on St. Patrick's Day.

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TeacherTube Educational Videos for the School Classroom and Home - Including Educational Songs, History Videos, Student Videos and Math Videos

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A free community for sharing instructional videos, Educational Songs, History Videos, Student Videos, Math Videos, and other content for teachers and students. We are an education focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home schoolers to access educational for the classroom and home learning.

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Trends and Issues in Educational Technology

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What the Site is About

Around 2008, we were approached with the opportunity of taking over writing a chapter on trends and issues in instructional technology and educational technology for the Educational Media and Technology Yearbook ( http://tinyurl.com/l3za6ht). We were honored to take over for Dr. Michael Molenda ( http://tinyurl.com/monlenda) and Dr. Barbara Bichelmeyer (http://tinyurl.com/bichelmeyer) who had written this chapter for the EMT Yearbook for a number of years. Writing these chapters have provided us with the opportunity to stay current with the trends and issues in educational technology and educational technology in a variety of venues-the corporate world, the military, higher education, and K-12. This blog was created to share the resources that we come across as we prepare to write the annual chapter on trends and issues. In addition to sharing resources, we will also share our own perspectives from time-to-time along with sharing the projects we are involved with in these areas. We hope you find this resource useful.

Who We Are

Abbie Brown, Ph.D. I am a Professor at East Carolina University teaching in the Instructional Technology Program. I specialize in instructional media production, and online learning environment design, and provide consultation and workshops for school districts, colleges and universities, the U.S. government, and businesses worldwide. I'm the author of a number of books and articles on instructional design and the use of new technologies for instruction, and was Editor-in-Chief of the journal, TechTrends from 2009 to 2012. For more information about me, see http://www.ahbrown.com/

My Flipboard magazines
Abbie Brown

Tim Green, Ph.D. I am a former K12 teacher. I have been a professor of educational technology and teacher educator at California State University, Fullerton since 1999. Five of these years I served as the Director of Distance Education at CSUF. I am the author of numerous articles and books, as well as a presenter, on the integration of educational technology, instructional design, and online distance education. Some of more recent books include Security vs. Access: Balancing Safety and Productivity in the Digital School (Robinson, Brown & Green, ISTE) and, The Essentials of Instructional Design: Connecting Fundamental Principles with Process and Practice (Brown & Green, Pearson). I am passionate about working with schools and districts on visioning and implementing technology initiatives. I regularly consult with and provide professional develop to schools and districts. I received my PhD in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University.

You can follow me on Twitter @theedtechdoctor and at my blog http://theedtechdoctor.com/

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Around 2008, we were approached with the opportunity of taking over writing a chapter on trends and issues in instructional technology and educational technology for the Educational Media and Technology Yearbook ( http://tinyurl.com/l3za6ht). We were honored to take over for Dr. Michael Molenda ( http://tinyurl.com/monlenda) and Dr. Barbara Bichelmeyer ( http://tinyurl.com/bichelmeyer ) who had written this chapter for the EMT Yearbook for a number of years.

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StartEdUp is a global network of the most renowned innovators, educators and entrepreneurs. We define and employ the tactics of real innovation and leave the buzzwords in the dust.

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GaryVaynerchuk.com - Family 1st! but after that, Businessman- a dude that Loves the hustle, people & the @nyjets - @vaynermedia. Tasted wine for years online!

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Family 1st! but after that, Businessman- a dude that Loves the hustle, people & the @nyjets - @vaynermedia. Tasted wine for years online!

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Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Workweek and Lifestyle Design Blog. Tim is an author of 5 #1 NYT/WSJ bestsellers, investor (FB, Uber, Twitter, 50+ more), and host of The Tim Ferriss Show podcast (400M+ downloads)

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Blogger.com - Create a unique and beautiful blog. It's easy and free.

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Publish your passions your way. Whether you'd like to share your knowledge, experiences or the latest news, create a unique and beautiful blog for free.

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Blog allowing educators to communicate with students and parents

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Share, collaborate, build, and learn.

Teacher Friendly

Use our easy invite codes and class management tools to get started. And most importantly, it's free!

Student
Safe

Our content filters, moderation options, and multiple privacy tools keep everyone safe.

Learning Centered

Leave private teacher feedback, easily embed videos and other work, and build community.

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Edublogs - free blogs for education - Blogs and websites for teachers, students, and schools

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Share, collaborate, build, and learn. Use our easy invite codes and class management tools to get started. And most importantly, it's free! Our content filters, moderation options, and multiple privacy tools keep everyone safe. Leave private teacher feedback, easily embed videos and other work, and build community.

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Set up your page today!

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Diigo - Better reading and research with annotation, highlighter, sticky notes, archiving, bookmarking & more.

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Diigo is a powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community

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28 Free Social Bookmarking Tools for educators

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28 Free Social Bookmarking Tools for educators

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Social bookmarking is very popular in education. From creating a set of resources to conduct research and share it with your students, social bookmarking can help you achieve better learning outcomes. Would you be interested in a list of Free Social Bookmarking Tools?

31 Free Social Bookmarking Tools For Educators

Update: Based on Alex's and Diana's comments two more tools were added at the top of the list!
How to - Social Bookmarking in Plain English

1. eLearning Tags
eLearning Tags is the 1st Free social bookmarking site where you can discover, share, vote and discuss interesting and remarkable eLearning and Educational Technology content! eLearning Tags offers helpful information on a number of topics concerning distance education including eLearning, Instructional Design, Gamification, Social Learning, MOOCs, mLearning and more.

2. Symbalooedu
Organize and Share the best of the web with your students. Organize teaching resources all in one place. Encourage student to student communications. Promote innovation while maintaining simplicity in teaching.

3. Pearltrees
A place to collect, organize and share everything you like on the web. Add everything you like and organize it naturally. Enrich your collections and collaborate on your favorite topics. Discover millions of pearls to your interests.

4. 19 pencils
Discover resources for your PreK-12 students from teachers around the world. Save thumbnails of web resources to a class page for easy student access.

5. A1-Webmarks
A1-Webmarks is a free service that combines the convenience of a personal webmark server with the power of social webmarking.

6. All my favorites
Share your internet bookmarks. AllMyFavorites is free for personal use.

7. BibSonomy is a system for sharing bookmarks and lists of literature. Why dont you try it yourself? Collect, organise, and share bookmarks and publications.

8. BookmarkG
Save and share interesting sites and articles

9. Buddymarks
BuddyMarks.com has been called "The online personal, group and social bookmarks manager."

10. Delicious
Discover, remember, and showcase your passions from around the web.

11. Diigo Education Edition
Diigo is a powerful online research tool and collaborative research platform that integrates several key technologies, including social bookmarking, web annotation, tagging, and group-based collaboration, to enable a whole new process of online knowledge management and participatory learning in the 21st century.

12. Reviews & recommendations of tools for education. edshelf is a directory of websites, mobile apps, and desktop programs that are rated & reviewed by parents & educators, for parents & educators. We help you find the right educational tools for your specific needs.

13. Remember everything. Save your ideas, things you like, things you hear, and things you see. Evernote works with nearly every computer, phone and mobile device out there. Search by keyword, tag or even printed and handwritten text inside images.

14. Share your bookmarks with the community and help others navigate the Web. Use the GiveALink visualization tool to visualize and organize your bookmarks.Play the GiveALink games to create social links across the Web.

15. Historious
historious saves you time by helping you find webpages you saw before. Bookmark sites with a single click, then find them again by searching for any word in the content of the page!

16. ikeepbookmarks.comi
KeepBookmarks.com allows you to upload, and keep, your bookmarks on the web. You can access them at any time, from any computer... anywhere!

17. JOG THE WEB is a web-based tool that allows anyone to create a synchronous guide to a series of web sites. Its step by step approach of taking viewers through web sites allowing the author to annotate and ask guiding questions for each page is unique.

18. Find, organize and share the best free learning on the web.

19. The free Online Favorites manager and Social Bookmarking application. Storing your Bookmarks (also known as Favorites, Anchors, Links or Hotlists) online. Your bookmarks are available on any computer with access to the Internet, protected by a password. So you can access them from everywhere, not only from home, but also from work, when you are visiting friends, when you are traveling etc.

20. Livebinder
Collect your resources. Organize them neatly and easily. Make an impression

21. Everything that matters to you, all in one dashboard. Netvibes is a personalized dashboard publishing platform for the Web and digital life aggregation.

22. Netvouz is a social bookmarking service that allows you to save your favorite links online and access them from any computer, wherever you are.

23. Social Bookmarking for Introverts. Pinboard is a fast, no-nonsense bookmarking site. No ads, no fluff.

24. A content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their pinboard.

25. User-generated news links. Votes promote stories to the front page.

26. Save links to your favorite web pages from any site. Access your links from any computer or Web enabled wireless device. Organize your saved links into folders that you create. Share your saved links or folders with friends.

27. Sharetivity
Share, Save and Search. Your social network enhances your search experience

28. Smub is the bookmarking, link-sharing & bookmark management tool for smartphones and any PC or Mac.

29. Stumbleupon
StumbleUpon is the easiest way to find cool new websites, videos, photos and images from across the Web. We make the best recommendations just for you.

30. TwoBrains
Two Brains is an application that approaches the learning process in a different way. The application is built around goals, because in the end that's what you truly care about

31. Vi.sualize.us
Bookmark the pictures you like around the web. Enjoy people's favorite images.

You may also find the following lists of tools useful:

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28 Free Social Bookmarking Tools for educators - eLearning Industry

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Social bookmarking is very popular in education. From creating a set of resources to conduct research and share it with your students, social bookmarking can help you achieve better learning outcomes. Would you be interested in a list of Free Social Bookmarking Tools?

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So you want to start a teacher blog? I know this feeling because I had it about 4-5 years ago when I started Simply Kinder. I wanted a place to share my ideas and a place of my own to connect with teachers. It's a very powerful thing and you can have one too. And so here are my tips for starting teacher blog.
Come up with a name.

Your name should be something that energizes and represents you and your philosophy.

Do check all social media outlets and reserve those names and variations of those names so that you way you have a consistent name across platforms. Blogger, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TpT, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, etc. Grab them all because you never know what platforms you will do well at down the road. I would also grab the URL from GoDaddy so that you have it when you need it.

Don't piggy back off someone else's name. We are all unique and individuals and just doing a play on words from someone else's name will not guarantee you success. In fact, I will annoy that person and it may damage the relationships you have with others.

Get set up on Blogger.

Blogger is an extremely simple platform to use when you are first starting out. Use your blog name to set up the account. You may need to set up a gmail email for your blog as well to open it (yourblogname@gmail.com).

Search for "FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES" to get started and install one. You can YouTube tutorial on how to install it just like this easy to follow video from Blogaholic Designs.

If you are looking someone to design a website for you that is unique and fun, I highly recommend Jumping Jax Design. I have worked with several blog designers over the years and I have to say that Becca has been the easiest, most professional, and provided me with the best design services in regards to value and quality.

One note about WordPress. If you are tech savvy I would 100% recommend going with WordPress right out the gates. WordPress gives you so much more control over your website than Blogger and if you do decide to be a 'professional' in the blogging world, WP is the platform most people prefer.

Jump right in and start writing.

That's right. The hardest part is starting and the second hardest is sticking with it while you build your community.

Write with a purpose. Teach people, connect with people, solve problems for people.

The goal is to get people to see your posts and that is done through website traffic. Say to yourself on every post you write, would someone want to pin this or share this on social media. If the answer is no, don't write it unless there is another reason you are extremely passionate about.

Hit publish. You can always edit it later and trust me, you will.

Let's chat about images.

Have clear and clean images.

Your first image for your post should contain you title and/or what ever point is of your article. This will be the image people pin or share and so you want the image to speak to people and get a reaction out of them. They will see the image and make a quick decision if it is worth looking at.

Watermark your images so people don't steal them. Important.

Make different size images. It is ideal to have a Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook sized image in your posts. I use Canva for this because the images sizes are already preset and it's just super easy to use. Remember, it's ideal, but not necessary.

Do not use photos of students. Even if they have photo clearance with your school, that photo clearance is for classroom and school use NOT the use of the teacher to share on her own personal business. (Yes, I said your blog is a business because it is.) I am not saying don't do it, but just really think long and hard before you share those images. This is just a personal soapbox thing of mine. Please think about it because once it is on the internet, even if you pull it down it is still there in Google images, other people's Pinterest, etc.

Consider using stock photos. I personally use Stock Unlimited for my blog articles. Do not use images from Google and I even caution you from using images from other people's websites. The authors of these site technically own them and if they choose to hold you accountable for taking their photo even with a link, you can be opening yourself up to trouble.

Share on social media.

This is a tricky one to give advice for because social media is constantly changing.

Just share to start off with.

Share with a purpose. Give people a reason to want to interact with your posts.

Don't spam. No one cares that you made a free product unless it provides value. Tell people the value and they will come naturally.

Build relationships with your readers. This goes hand-in-hand with the above bullet.

Share on a schedule. Most social media platforms run on algorithms and so it is important that you participate by sharing. And you don't always have to share your own thing, share article from people who you are friends with or ideas that teacher like you would LOVE.

Comment on other people social media accounts as your teacher blog. This will share your blog with the world that is already out there. This is important.

The above being said, please be respectful of other people's social media. It is not OK to leave links to your things on other people's social media accounts.

Find yourself a support network.

Find some teacher blogger FB groups that are productive and true. I highly recommend the #TeacherprenuerTribe Facebook Group. This group is filled with teacher bloggers who are truly passionate helping one another. (I do recommend not joining though until you have a blog set up and ready to go.)

Find a mentor. I remember about 3 years ago I declared Crystal Radke of Kreative in Life my mentor. I literally emailed her and said "Can you be my mentor? I just have some questions and I really look up to you." I was nice to her, I did things for her, and she returned the favor. Now, word of caution here since you are new. Crystal and I were at about the same knowledge level but Crystal was just a little ahead of me. I 100% recommend you finding a mentor who has just a little bit more experienced than you. The reason why is because you will learn together, push each other, and experience the same stages of blogging together. Using me for example, it has been so long since I have been through some of these stages and things have changed since then so I may not be the best person to lean on. (But we can so be friends, I am not saying that I won't help.)

Be friendly with others in your niche. DON'T get caught up in the drama. There, I said it and it's so true. I personally only surround myself with and support those who uplift others and who reciprocate with me. I can tell you from personal experience, that you will not gain much from going at it with the mind frame of "trying to fit in with the cool kids." Be you. Do you. And focus on your readers not other bloggers.

Start distributing teacher resources.

Teachers want this and it is a great way to grow your blog.

This topic is getting its own article because this is a whole other beast and one that I highly recommend for every reasons. CLICK HERE to read all about making and selling teacher resources online.

To start a teacher blog is scary and exciting all rolled into one. But if you have the smallest inclination to start one, I highly encourage you to do so because there is not a day that goes by that I am not super thankful I did 4 years ago.

Please feel free to ask any questions, I can try to help. And good luck on your blog journey. I know if you stick with it, provide value, and build community you will be extremely successful.

SIMPLY KINDER IS A PARTICIPANT IN THE AMAZON SERVICES LLC ASSOCIATES PROGRAM, AN AFFILIATE ADVERTISING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO PROVIDE A MEANS FOR SITES TO EARN ADVERTISING FEES BY ADVERTISING AND LINKING TO AMAZON.COM. ALL OPINIONS ARE MY OWN AND SHARED HONESTLY FROM FREE WILL AND NOT AS A PART OF ANY PROMOTION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE, PLEASE VISIT MY DISCLOSURE POLICY PAGE.

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So You Want to Start a Teacher Blog - Simply Kinder

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So you want to start a teacher blog? I know this feeling because I had it about 4-5 years ago when I started Simply Kinder. I wanted a place to share my ideas and a place of my own to connect with teachers. It's a very powerful thing and you can have one too.

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Top 50 Teacher Websites for Seriously Dedicated Educators

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Top 50 Teacher Websites for Seriously Dedicated Educators

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Teachers of Tomorrow is giving recognition to the most respectable and consistently updated blogs of this generation. These teacher websites contain views and reflections on education's current events, technology, creative strategies, valuable resources, and personal experiences.

We've reviewed hundreds of educational blogs, but these 50 better captured our amusement for having indispensable content, out-of-the-box classroom ideas, thought-provoking insights, and entertaining media as a whole. If you want to grab awesome concepts for use in the classroom or even at home, we strongly suggest that you check out our exclusive rundown of the best teacher websites of 2017.

The sites are in no particular order, but we did organize them by site type:

Education and Learning Blogs

A comprehensive resource for project-based learning,
social and emotional learning, comprehensive
assessment, teacher development, integrated studies, and technology integration. Browse through hundreds of helpful content and videos, or simply join the growing community of Edutopia to be able to connect, collaborate, and share resources with fellow education enthusiasts.

Contact: Nora Fleming, Editor

Twitter: @norafleming1

Technology, teaching strategies, and classroom management - this blog got these all covered. Publishing content few times each week, it teaches about using technology and practical teaching strategies. It also lets you learn how to utilize classroom resources to build stronger relationships with students.

Contact: Annie Condron, Author

Twitter: @anniecondron

A law librarian's weblog that shares
daily bits of education news, current state, conferences, periodicals, and tons of other information that can be exhausted for professional development. Be in the loop with the latest updates on education by subscribing to this personal teacher website.

Contact: Steven Cohen, Author

Twitter: @librarystuff

Education News Blogs

An all-in-one ed blog that compiles teaching resources and tools, strategies and ideas, fun student activities, good books and authors, and hot ed news in a single setting. The website also lets you in some amazing devices for new and experienced teachers alike.

Contact: Alexander Russo, Author

Twitter: @alexanderrusso

For passionate educators, EdWeek offers bunches of daily news and fantastic advice on addressing everyday classroom scenarios. Browsing this blog will let you have easy access to heaps of e-books, professional development kits, and links to follow-worthy blogs related to education.

Contact: Ryan Lanier, Marketing Manager

LinkedIn: @ryan-lanier-92111710

Need daily updates of technology and innovation? Look no further than eSchool News. Aside from brilliant featured articles, they also feature tons of teacher resources, classroom improvement ideas, and professional development tools for avid educators, whether in written or video format.

Contact: Meris Stansbury, Editorial Director

AEIdeas is more than just an ordinary public policy blog. It's a multifunctional website, featuring works of valued authors in education. Follow AEIdeas to stay in-tune with the latest education news, innovation, reforms, events, and opportunities for career development.

Contact: Megan Cahill, Media Relations and Marketing

Showcasing in-depth journalism at a whole new level, The Hechinger Report deals with the freshest innovation and everyday issues on education and academics. The website tackles a plethora of timely topics including blended learning, early education, higher education, high school reform, teacher preparation, and so much more.

Contact: Liz Willen, Editor

Twitter: @L_willen

A delegated learning website that
supports creative expression, civic engagement, and problem solving by means of multimedia, digital devices, experiential activities, and professional tools in education. It also features noteworthy articles about Arts, Post-Secondary ESL, Science, and News & Civics.

Contact: Christina Reagan

Twitter: @KQEDedspace

An education policy and politics blog composed by Andrew J. Rotherham, the Co-founder and Partner at Bellwether Education Partners. It is open for collaboration with guest authors who are passionate about policies and politics in the broad field of education.

Contact: Andrew J. Rotherham

Education and Tech Blogs

Started as a technology and learning magazine in prints. Right now, it has taken publication into new heights, providing an all-in-resource for school administrators, teachers, as well as students. It allows them to manage, educate, and learn using the website's cutting-edge information.

Contact: Kevin Hogan, Author

Twitter: @techlearning

To inspire today's educators - this is what Lucy Gray designed her blog for. Here, she shares not only ideas and resources, but also downloadable PDFs and multiple useful links for the savvy teacher. Plus, you'll get easy access to her YouTube workshop by joining in!

Contact: Lucy Gray

Twitter: @elemenous

Blog lets you in to a wide selection of useful education-related information, ranging from Math tools, Social Studies and Sciences, reading and writing, educational technology, to fresh teaching strategies. You'd also get instant updates on the latest events and workshops for professional advancement.

Contact: Monica Burns

Twitter: @ClassTechTips

To create education opportunities based on how it can and should be - this is Kelly Tenkely's purpose in creating this edutech weblog. Apart from updates on her everyday journey as a teacher, she also lets readers to take part in tips on integrating technology in the classroom for more effective education.

Contact: Kelly Tenkely, Author

Twitter: @ktenkely

Blog of a high school math teacher, who is also a techie and a learning addict. Author is passionate about making lessons feel like play. Grab practical hints on using technology, making creative project ideas, and how to transform monotonous lessons into dynamic and fun-filled discussions.

Contact: Stacey Roshan

Twitter: @buddyxo

A blog owned by a commerce and information technology teacher, aiming to make immersion of technology happen in classrooms all over the world. Her blog highlights her recent collaborations in the ed industry, newest projects, guest blog posts, along with the latest presentations she participated with.

Contact: Anne Mirtschin, Author

Twitter: @murcha

Blog targets to help schools and teachers alike, especially those who are new to educational technology. It covers educational website and app tutorials, lesson ideas using effective EdTech, setting up and using class management technology, setting up a 'bring your own device' scheme, and tons of other useful stuff.

Contact: Neil Jarrett, Author

Twitter: @edtechneil

An incredible resource for updates on educational technology news and reviews. This teacher website also contains a full load of ingenious lesson plans and strategies for incorporating technology in everyday classrooms, helping teachers to easily incorporate technology to the curriculum.

Contact: Michael Karlin, Author

Twitter: @etroundup

A jam-packed reference guide
specializing in AT hardware and software solutions to address a number of areas including communication, writing, organization, reading and multimedia for special needs students. Nevertheless, the ed blog is written for both general and SPED teachers looking for ways to increase students' awareness on using technology devices for learning.

Contact: Brian Friedlander, Author

Twitter: @assistivetek

A blog created and maintained by an instructional technology specialist based in Central Philadelphia. The site is dedicated for sharing innovative teaching strategies using digital media and the latest technology devices to further engage students and provide millennial educational experience.

Contact: Jamie Forshey, Author

Twitter: @edutech20

A tech integrator's avenue for disclosing classroom management tips, classroom and technology integration ideas, non-conformal teaching techniques, imaginative student project ideas, and loads of other tech stuff that both parents and teachers can use, whether at home or in school.

Contact: Matt Bergman, Author

Twitter: @mattbergman14

News and technology blog designed by a teacher based in Oslo, Norway. The website combines a myriad of fantastic resources for getting more creative at drafting lesson plans, incorporating technology in the classroom, as well as improving teaching in general.

Contact: Ann Michaelsen, Author

Twitter: @annmic

Teacher Blogs

A weblog written and edited by a speaker, author, and learning evangelist who aims to help educators and school administrators to better understand social media and technology through humorous learning approach. Engage in his articles, interviews, and philosophies in the future of education.

Contact: Steven W. Anderson, Author

Twitter: @web20classroom

An influential teacher's blog provided by deputy headteacher working in an inner-city school in London, UK. Sink your teeth into real-world tips on teaching, training, resources, books, articles, and creating lesson plans. Stay updated with the latest ed news and policies through this site.

Contact: Ross McGill, Author

Twitter: @teachertoolkit

A teacher's journal presenting his daily experiences in learning and leading in education. Focused on innovative teaching and learning, author has also published inspiring books and shared viable resources covering effective teacher-student relationships, visionary leadership, leading a learning community, revamping professional learning, and loads more.

Contact: George Couros

Twitter: @gcouros

An encouraging teacher blog sharing inspiration, ideas, and support for fellows in the field of education. Featured in prominent names in media such as Forbes and The Washington Post, Cool Cat Teacher shares cool teaching secrets, technology utilization ideas, education trends, and multitude of cool stuff for keen teachers.

Contact: Vicki Davis

Twitter: @coolcatteacher

A Texas principal's medium for sharing views about on educational leadership, effective technology integration, best practices, and creating a student-centered learning culture. It also boasts his innovative approach to teaching, and how to adapt relevant methods to capture lasting student engagement.

Contact:Eric Sheninger

Twitter: @E_Sheninger

A teacher's blog revolving around modern learning and schooling. Its main mission is to orient educators and schools in terms of technology, learning and everything in between. Run by Will Richardson, the blog lets you join in his wonderful journey in teaching and inspiring future educators.

Contact: Will Richardson

Twitter: @willrich45

A nerdy teacher's guide to everything education and techie. Learn to become an improved leader, learner, and teacher by browsing through his nerdy articles, which give out tips and ideas to maintain student interest and engagement.

Contact: Nicholas Provenzano

Twitter: @thenerdyteacher

A blog maintained by Kathy Schrock, an instructional technology specialist and retired public library librarian. She also authored over a hundred education and technology articles and multiple books about educational technology. Kaffeeklatsch offers a perfect place for learning and chatting about anything related to education.

Contact: Kathy Schrock

Twitter: @kathyschrock

Site is developed by Dr. Wesley Fryer, a speaker, author, and teacher in Oklahoma City. Blog is created to digitally document his journey and collaboration with educators and learning enthusiasts across the globe. His main interest is using media creatively to help students in learning.

Contact: Dr. Wesley Fryer

Twitter: @wfryer

A teacher's multi-functional website, containing a plethora of useful stuff regarding educational books, writing, reading, math and science, technology and so much more. The blog is an awesome resource for new teachers, especially those employed in preschool and elementary levels.

Contact: Melissa Taylor

Twitter: @imaginationsoup

Edited by Dr. Inger Mewburn, the blog focuses on all things related to the creation of school thesis. It contains editorial guidelines, useful resources, and also workshops and training opportunities for graduating students. Dr. Mewburn is the Director of research training at the Australian National University.

Contact: Inger Mewburn

Twitter: @thesiswhisperer

A preschool teacher's journal for sharing her daily route towards learning and growing as an educator. Feast your eyes on some DIYs, fun classroom activities, and tons of other helpful stuff about literacy, STEM, art, sensory play, and motor skills.

Contact: Deborah J. Stewart

Twitter: @teach_preschool

The Jose Vilson is a site drafted by an activist, author,
speaker, and a teacher rolled into one. He teaches math in middle school in New York, NY. His website covers a plethora of great topics, including education, resources, writing, and the list goes on.

Contact: Jose Vilson

Twitter: @thejlv

A blog inspired by a community of teachers who want the best for themselves and their students. The website lets you enjoy valuable inputs about teaching tips, lesson plans, and classroom activity ideas such as dramatic play and learning workshops.

Contact: Vanessa Levin

Twitter: @prekpages

An author/TK-6
makespacer/podcaster's journal on modern education, including tips, techniques, and classroom ideas for today's techie educators. Sam usually posts about programming, technology, STEM education, language arts, creative classroom projects, curriculum, student programs, student behavior, and other teaching-related stuff overall.

Contact: Sam Patterson

Twitter: @sampatue

Ira is passionate about linking conceptual and historical research with real, on-the-ground, investigation and using best practices to create a unique perspective at educational systems, whether formal or informal. In this blog, he shares enlightening insights about education, technology, and school reforms.

Contact: Ira David Socol

Twitter: @irasocol

Blog emphasizes on learning, leadership, education, schooling, teaching, digital technologies, edutech, books, literature, travel, genealogy, music, photography, citizen science and the impact of social media to students of this generation. Darcy is a father, a traveler, and a deputy principal at NSW Department of Education and Communities.

Contact: Darcy Moore

Twitter: @darcy1968

An online learning specialist's avenue to sharing new innovation in online educational media. Highlighting passion in spreading knowledge, learning, and interaction, the website shares good leads to books, publications, presentations, newsletters, and articles that educators might find useful in their profession.

Contact: Stephen Downes

Twitter: @downes

A teacher resources website
containing ideas and time-saving resources for busy teachers. Laura's posts consist mainly of teacher hacks, fun activities for kids, professional development insights, student engagement, making connections, and other noteworthy stuff. Laura is an author and teacher based in Fayetteville, NC.

Contact: Laura Candler

Twitter: @lauracandler

An edublog involving a teacher's fun experiences with six-year-olds in a school in Saskatchewan, Canada. Ms. Cassidy lets you join the joy and excitement of learning, as she shares her Twitter feed and daily activities with her jolly and super curious students.

Contact: Kathy R. Cassidy

Twitter: @mscassidysclass

Sheryl's blog revolves around playful learning, mainly for little kids in preschool and nursery. Get exclusive tips, activity concepts, themes, and helpful content aimed at teachers, preschoolers and toddlers for better and more effective education at the early stage of development.

Contact: Sheryl Cooper

Twitter: @tch2and3yearold

A psychology-themed blog written by a Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Most of his articles discuss about teaching theories, learning concepts, education-related research, emotional issues of youth, learning determination, resilience, and general mental health

Contact: Marc Smith

Twitter: @PsychologyMarc

Parent-Friendly Blogs

It's more than just a teachers' website. It's a blog created to promote learning, critical thinking, and effective teaching strategies, associated with valuable content for parents. Take an in-depth look at timely education topics and significant advice on professional growth.

Contact: Terry Heick

A writer's website encompassing piles of helpful links for today's educators. Browse through collection of respected blogs of organizations and teachers or scroll through a comprehensive rundown of the best online resources that are not only for teachers, but also for dedicated parents.

Contact: Joanne Jacobs

Twitter: @joanneleejacobs

An educator's blog containing fun children themes and activities that teachers and parents can use in classroom or at home. Obtain interesting concepts for dealing with preschool and kindergarten students using Darla's tips. With blissful and colorful themes, you'd surely get more attention and participation from your students.

Contact: Darla Hutson

Twitter: @pschooltoolbox

EdReform Blogs

An information-packed website that delivers the latest news on educational opportunities, economic outcomes, and innovation. The team is actively working to expand educational opportunities so everyone may achieve the American dream. Its mantra is to combine innovation and opportunity to achieve positive results.

Contact: Jeanne Allen

Twitter: @edreform

An excellence-focused website concentrating on school reforms and its changes over the years. ExcelinEd is created to encourage student preparedness for university and career up ahead so individuals will be able to succeed in this modern and fast changing world.

Contact: Kristin Lock

An ESL teacher's blog having great compilation of the latest stories in education news and politics. Updated daily by Arthur Goldstein, it's hardly possible to miss anything big, notable, or life-changing happening in NYC if you're subscribed to this blog's RSS feeds.

Contact: Arthur Goldstein

Twitter: @teacherarthurg

Created in 2014, Edvocate aspires to make education policy shifts and reorganization happen to enhance the quality of education and the learning opportunities that American students deserve. The team strongly calls for relatively radical and comprehensive reform of America's education system.

Contact: Matthew Lynch

Twitter: @Lynch39083

Want To Become A Teacher?

Check out our guide, and get started with our state approved programs.

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Top 50 Teacher Websites for Seriously Dedicated Educators [2017]

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Teachers of Tomorrow is giving recognition to the most respectable and consistently updated blogs of this generation. These teacher websites contain views and reflections on education's current events, technology, creative strategies, valuable resources, and personal experiences. We've reviewed hundreds of educational blogs, but these 50 better captured our amusement for having indispensable content, out-of-the-box classroom ideas, thought-provoking insights, and entertaining media as a whole.

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Classroom Collaboration Using Social Bookmarking Service Diigo

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Key Takeaways

Social bookmarking websites enhance and improve the learning experience by encouraging group collaboration and making organizing and saving web resources faster and easier for students.

Social bookmarking services offer greater scope for research, integration, and collaboration compared to the more traditional bookmarking applications such as browsers, which offer limited functionality.

Among social bookmarking services, Diigo has features and functions that make it useful for the classroom, giving instructors tools for setting up groups of students, highlighting key information, and commenting.

Classroom collaboration is an area that benefits directly from today's Internet experience in that students can develop their potential for learning by becoming more actively involved. Indeed, they can learn to approach and solve problems by collaborating with other students and their teachers. Social bookmarking websites give them opportunities to discover and organize information.

While many social bookmarking sites offer some collaboration opportunities, I have found that Diigo (Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff) combines a user-friendly social platform with bookmarking features, making it an effective research, integration, and collaboration tool for use in the classroom. In this article, I compare the benefits of traditional and social bookmarking websites. Then, using Diigo as a focus, I explore the possible uses and benefits of social bookmarking for research and collaboration in the classroom.

Traditional Bookmarking

Teachers and students routinely use the Internet for archiving, organizing, and sharing information associated with their research and in collaboration with others on projects. Keeping track of and organizing the incalculable website options available is a daunting task. Most commonly, users save a web page's URL with their personal browser's bookmarking feature, like Favorites (in Explorer) or Bookmarks (in Firefox), to revisit it in the future.

However, these browser bookmarking systems have not kept up with the changes and growth of the Internet, saving clusters of websites arranged loosely around informational themes. While this method of saving web pages and websites can help a computer user remember and quickly access important sites, there are numerous disadvantages:

Building a list of important bookmarks not only is time-consuming, but the list is only available on the individual user's computer.

Large collections of bookmarks can quickly become unmanageable and disorganized.

Users may not remember why they created a bookmark or what part of the page they were trying to save.¹

Social Bookmarking

The proliferation of Web 2.0 tools has inspired the development of a number of applications designed to enhance collaborative work. Notable among these are social bookmarking systems. From a social network platform, they serve as an organizational tool to collect and organize a variety of web resources (hyperlinks, documents, podcasts, video files, graphics, etc.). 2 Social bookmarking has advantages over the traditional schemes, principally because it relies on a web-based system of classification known as folksonomy. Tags are collaboratively created and managed to annotate and categorize web content.

Social bookmarking sites first appeared about 10 years ago, but did not gain wide popularity until the launch of Del.icio.us in 2003. Among the many sites available today, Delicious and Diigo are the two most commonly used in education.

One key difference between Delicious and Diigo is annotation. The latter allows users to highlight any part of a web page and attach sticky notes to specific highlights or to a whole page. These annotations can be kept private, shared with a Diigo group, or forwarded as a special link to other individuals or groups for collaborative purposes. Table 1 compares the main features of Diigo, Delicious, and traditional browsers. ³
Table 1. Social Bookmarking Comparison Chart
As Table 1 shows, Diigo has more features than Delicious or browsers, enabling users to tag, organize, manage, and share information they discover online. ⁴ Diigo's Free and Education Basic plans are the most popular.

Research, collect, and organize bookmarks, highlights, notes, screenshots, pictures, etc.

Gain access anywhere and share with the most popular browsers

Get app applications for Android, iPhone, and iPad

Collaborate with students, teachers, and groups

For the classroom, Diigo's features make it easy to:

Research

If you find a key paragraph about the topic your students are researching, you can highlight it and then bookmark the page. As long as you're logged into Diigo, every time you visit that page, the paragraph will be highlighted. Various highlighting options are available.

Individual students can use Diigo to organize bookmarks on research topics, while groups can collaborate, share, and discuss information by annotating key websites. For instance, bookmarks that have been tagged as "science" or "current events" can be shared with other students involved in the same project. In fact, social bookmarking simplifies the distribution of reference lists, bibliographies, papers, and other resources.

Highlight text and pictures in a variety of colors and add sticky notes to a bookmarked page

Bookmark important websites and access them from school or home and share them with other students

Categorize websites with titles, notes, keyword tags, lists, and groups

Save a screenshot of a website or capture and save an image

View any annotations made by other students (of the same group) on another website

Save relevant websites to lists in their Diigo student accounts

Comment on other students' bookmarks

In doing research or other tasks using Diigo, students can:

Access and App Support

Diigo allows students and teachers to access saved web pages remotely from any computer that has access to the Internet, since the information isn't stored on a single computer. It also supports popular browsers, including Google Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, and apps for Android, iPhone, and iPad.

Collaboration

Used across the curriculum, Diigo can help students develop and improve skills in communication, organization, and classification. As a collaborative tool, it allows teachers and students to save websites into a public or private library, highlight information of a web page, and attach sticky notes to highlight as little or as much of a web page as needed.

For instance, it is simple for the teacher of a current issues class to identify and share news articles, video, blogs, podcasts, etc., from the Internet with students using Diigo. Students themselves can also identify themes and share them in a class group. In allowing teachers to create and manage student accounts, Diigo supports a full range of interactions between student, group, and teacher.

Allow teachers to highlight important information within text and images

Make it possible to write comments directly on web pages

Help organize thematically linked web pages and websites

Support collaboration and resource sharing

Facilitate online discussion

Additional educational features:

Diigo's student accounts can be kept either private (with no e-mail addresses) or grouped to make sharing resources simpler. Accounts make it easy to organize research and collaboration through the use of bookmarks and tags. Annotating tools include highlighting, floating sticky notes, and comment options. Moreover, teachers can keep individual student work organized and provide both individual and group feedback.

User groups also facilitate collaboration by allowing individuals and groups with common research interests to come together. By going to My Network, users can join groups or create groups linking them to other people with common interests and follow other groups' news feeds or e-mails.

Tutorials

Diigo has a number of help tutorials both on its website and elsewhere online. However, the following example tutorials highlight some of Diigo's main features.

Diigo Toolbar

The Diigo toolbar is a browser add-on extension that gives the user instant access to the social bookmarking service's features (Figure 1).

Diigo Functions

Bookmarking allows users to bookmark a web page by entering its URL, title, and tag (Figure 2). Some options include the privacy setting, public versus private; unchecked means public. Checking the Unread box marks the page for later reading. (The Read later feature also saves pages for later.)

Highlight enables the user to select and highlight text in different colors (yellow, blue, green, pink) on a web page. Click the "Highlight" button on the toolbar or right-click and hit "Highlight selected text" (Figure 3).

Highlight used with clipping enables aggregating snippets of information for sharing, editing, or easy search and reference later.

A sticky note can be tied to a highlight or freely positioned and resized as a floating note (Figure 4). To add a sticky note, highlight a block of text; mouse over the highlighted area; in the Highlight Menu that appears, select "Add sticky note"; add your comment, and press "OK."

The Quick access filter makes it easy to quickly visit all your favorite websites based on four different filter types (Figure 5).

Send an annotated version of a web page via e-mail or Diigo friends (Figure 6).

Toolbar Features

You can easily customize the toolbar to suit your most frequent uses and available screen space (Figure 7).

Bookmark settings and highlight styles can be customized (Figure 8), as can various keyboard shortcuts (Figure 9).

Premium Features

Premium features can be added to the features available with the free membership.

Capture lets you select a portion of a web page, annotate it graphically and textually, and save it as an image - along with its original URL - in your Diigo Images Library. These images can later be tagged or shared in a list or group (Figure 10).

Collect Images allows you to save images from a web page to the Diigo online library via Internet Explorer or from the Firefox toolbar (Figure 11).

Cached pages are archive pages. All cached pages are indexed and searchable (Figure 12).

Figure 12. Cached Pages

Creating a Group

First, click on "Create a group for my class," then provide a group name, give a description of the group, and make it either private (seen only by the group) or public. Finally, click "Create my group" at the bottom of the page (Figure 13).

1. Create student accounts and add them to groups

Enter the students' names (first name followed by initial of surname to protect student privacy) separated by commas, or import a list by uploading a comma-separated file (CSV)

Click "Create"

Confirm student accounts by selecting the appropriate privacy setting and clicking "OK, create account(s)"

2. Add extra student accounts to a specific group

Select the students you would like to add to the group

Click "Add to group: group name"

3. Invite

Enter email address

Add a welcome message

Click "Invite"

Students can be added to the group in one of three ways:

The invite option can be used to add students with existing Diigo accounts and also colleagues or collaborating teachers.

Once groups have been added, you can access and manage them from the Teacher Console homepage (Figure 14).

From the Teacher Console page, you have access to all of your created groups. You can add, invite, or delete members. In selecting the Manage Members option, you can see group member accounts, select group moderators, and monitor open and pending invitations. The console also provides the opportunity to create a Tag Dictionary that allows the group to predefine tags to ensure consistency (Figure 15).

Integration Strategies

Many applications show how students can integrate Diigo across the curriculum. One popular application is organizing bookmarks for resources and research, collaborative learning, and professional development.

Teachers and students can organize their bookmarks by themes or topics and access this data from any Internet-connected computer. For example, a science teacher can use Diigo to create astronomy links as web resources for discussions or research (Figure 16). An information search associated with a topic of study can also be assigned in advance of the lesson.

Teachers can use the Highlight feature to flag important information on a web page (Figure 17).

Comments and sticky notes also draw attention to and help with organizing important information (Figure 18).

Collaborative Learning

The benefits of collaborative learning include a deeper understanding of content and more motivation to remain on task. Diigo can help students share, organize, and annotate websites for specific content related to a research project through highlighting or by using sticky notes, allowing them to summarize a website's important concepts and main points. For example, the Diigo groups' feature allows students to invite others to join a specific group in order to save, view, and even comment on bookmarked websites.

Teachers can create one or many groups for classes. Students in a specific Diigo group can see the websites and comments that a teacher has bookmarked for that group; they can also add their own websites and comments to the group for other group members to see (Figure 19).

Professional Development

Diigo can also be used as a form of professional development. It has several educator groups that actively share and collaborate on bookmarks relevant to education. The Diigo in Education Group has nearly 11,000 members, and there are more than 200 K-12 education groups (Figure 20).

Summary

1. Vivian Cockrell, Christian Howd, Jeffrey Murry, Rebekah Price, LindseyTinney, and Jenny Valasek, "Student Learning with Diigo," Diigo 101 (n.d.).

2. Enrique Estellés, Ester Del Moral, and Fernando González, "Social Bookmarking Tools as Facilitators of Learning and Research Collaborative Processes: The Diigo Case," Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects, vol. 6 (2010).

3. Based on an update of Diigo's comparison table by Jason Schmidt, "Diigo and Delicious," Interactive Inquiry (July 30, 2010).

4. William M. Ferriter, "Good Teaching Trumps Good Tools," Educational Leadership, vol. 68, no. 5 (2001).

Browsers provide fewer bookmarking features than found on social bookmarking sites. Although many social bookmarking services are good, Diigo can foster research-sharing and collaboration in new ways. Not only can students bookmark, organize, and collaborate on various projects and research, but this service gives them - and teachers - the opportunity to organize and manage web resources and documents. Diigo has useful educational applications, as well, such as organizing bookmarks for resources and research, collaborative learning, and professional development. Based on my experience so far, I encourage educators to explore Diigo for classroom use.

Further Reading

Patrick Garmoe, " 17 Reasons Delicious.com Users Should Head to Diigo," For bloggers by bloggers (December 17, 2010).

Lorrie Jackson, " Sites to See: Social Bookmarking," Education World (June 5, 2009).

"Social Bookmarking," Teaching Today, The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Paul Heymann, Georgia Koutrika, and Hector Molina, " Can Social Bookmarking Improve Web Search?" First ACM International Conference on Web Search and Web Data Mining (WSDM '08), Stanford, CA (February 11-12, 2008).

Cyprien P. Lomas, " 7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking," EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (2005).

Laura Gordon-Murnane, " Social Bookmarking, Folksonomies, and Web 2.0 Tools," Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals, vol. 14, no. 6 (2006).

Steve Yuen, " Using Diigo in the Classroom," Learning Technologies (February 20, 2011).

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classroom collaboration using social bookmarking service diigo

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Classroom Collaboration Using Social Bookmarking Service Diigo

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Social bookmarking websites enhance and improve the learning experience by encouraging group collaboration and making organizing and saving web resources faster and easier for students. Social bookmarking services offer greater scope for research, integration, and collaboration compared to the more traditional bookmarking applications such as browsers, which offer limited functionality.

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Best content in Diigo In Education | Diigo - Groups

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"Diigo In Education" - Phase I just released. More to come.. Share your classroom usecase, ideas, reviews, features, and wishlists for making Diigo a great resource and platform in teaching and learning. Let's explore the full potential of Diigo as an educational tool.

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A selection of Facebook Pages providing resources and dialogue focused on education and instructional technologies.

Like most Facebook users, many educators use Facebook to connect with friends new and old, but the Internet's most popular site can also be a great learning (and teaching) tool. There are many Facebook pages that have been created as a resource to collect, share, and disseminate information about education and education technologies. Here's 10 of our favorites.
Facebook In Education
http://www.facebook.com/education
Facebook in Education examines ways in which Facebook is being used in an educational context. Based on our search for pages focused on education, this is by far the most widely recognized page in the category, with over 350,000 "likes" (unfortunately, that level of popularity also means that many discussions are somewhat polluted with inane input). There are some interesting topics discussed here, and some worthwhile input from educators.

A popular and active page. "The National Education Association represents 3.2 million members committed to ensuring a great public education for all students. Use this page to learn more about NEA and to engage in discussion on how we can work together to improve public education."

The ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education and their goal is to provide "leadership and service to improve teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in education."

Founded in 1926, "NAEYC's mission is to serve and act on behalf of the needs, rights and well-being of all young children with primary focus on the provision of educational and developmental services and resources." This popular Page lets users post on their wall, and there are a wide variety of topics there for consideration and discussion.

"ASCD is a membership organization that develops programs, products, and services essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead." This is an active page, and we were impressed with the content and types of dialogues under way there.

This is a different type of group - #Edchat is Twitter based. In their own words, "#Edchat is a hashtag discussion among educators from all over the world on education related topics. It happens every Tuesday at Noon EDT and 7PM EDT. To join us simply follow the #Edchat hashtag on Twitter!" The Facebook Page keeps users up on discussion topics, and provides additional resources.

Another popular page, supporting a non-profit organization. "Edutopia is where The George Lucas Educational Foundation's vision to highlight what works in education comes to life. Edutopia provides stories integrating creative uses of technology with effective teaching and learning. Edutopia's audience includes educators, parents, school board members, university faculty, community-based organizations, and the business community - all groups working to create better schools for the twenty-first century."

"Education Week is American education's newspaper of record. Our reporters, researchers, and bloggers cover local, state, and national education news and issues from preschool through the high school transition to college and career."

The Facebook Page for Richard Byrne's popular web site and blog, providing a constant stream of new free instructional technology resources for the classroom.

"Connect a Million Minds is Time Warner Cable's $100 million community commitment to connect youth to ideas, people and opportunities that will inspire them to become the problem solvers of tomorrow." These folks are doing great stuff.
This blog post was written in collaboration with Daniel Offer. Daniel is the Managing Director of the Facebook software Chit Chat for Facebook.
(Well you didn't think we'd overlook our own Page did you? :)) The EmergingEdTech Facebo0k Page is certainly a worthwhile resource, where we share blog posts, video blog entries, free upcoming web events, contests, and more. Be sure to stop by and check it out today!

Do you have favorite Facebook Pages that you think other educators would like to know about? Please share them in a comment. Thanks!

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Facebook in the Classroom. Seriously.
4 Great Twitter Applications for Teachers Using Twitter In The Classroom
10 Excellent iPad Applications for Teachers

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10 Beneficial Facebook Pages For Educators To Check Out

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Like most Facebook users, many educators use Facebook to connect with friends new and old, but the Internet's most popular site can also be a great learning (and teaching ) tool. There are many Facebook pages that have been created as a resource to collect, share, and disseminate information about education and education technologies.

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As a teacher, continuing education is so important that most school districts require that teachers enroll in some form of coursework on a regular basis to keep their knowledge and skills fresh. And while those courses are essential, staying on top of the cutting edge of educational development is important as well.

Through Twitter discussions, teachers can follow the latest in education, whether it's educational technology or new ways to teach math. These 20 Hashtags in Education offer teachers a convenient way to become part of chats and discussions that share the absolute latest in education news, resources, and ideas.

Created by educators Tom Whitby, Steven Anderson, and Shelly Terrell, #edchat offers a great platform for discussion among teachers and other professionals related to education. With the #edchat hashtag, you can follow along with weekly chats, hosted each Tuesday at 12PM EST and 7PM EST. During these chats, teachers from around the world come together to discuss weekly topics. Some of the recent discussions have included changing students from content consumers to creators, the purpose of education, and education fads vs. trends that last. But even after the chat is done, the conversation continues, with participants frequently sharing news, insights, and resources of interest to education, making #edchat an essential hashtags in education for any teacher to check out.

Education and technology are intertwined, and there's no getting around it these days. Technology is doing amazing things for teachers, and if you want to keep up with what's happening, it's a good idea to tune into the #edtech hashtag. You'll learn about education technology resources, new web tools for students, and how other educators are putting technology to work in the classroom and beyond.

Everything from classroom management to learning from homeschoolers is covered under the hashtags in education. This resource moves fast, with lots of users participating. You'll find so much helpful information, this is a great place to start if you're just dipping your toes into hashtags.

lrnchat is all about learning and teaching. The community offers an ongoing discussion, but scheduled chats occur each Thursday from 8:30 to 10 PM. Follow along and learn from the chat as they discuss topics surrounding learning in formal, informal, social and mobile formats. It's a great way to find out exactly how students learn.

If you're on the hunt for learning resources to use in your classroom, #edapp is an awesome hashtag to follow. Through #edapp, you'll be able to find apps for learning, including mobile and web apps. You'll find newly discovered apps, updates, and ideas for getting the most out of these powerful educational tools through the #edapp hashtag.

If you're looking for a little help in the classroom, this hashtag just might do the trick. Educators share their resources for improving classroom learning, along with news, debates, and more that can all help you become a better teacher in the classroom.

The #teaching hashtags in education offers a roundup of everything that's relevant to instruction and teachers. Follow the #teaching hashtags in education to see the multitude of ways that teachers are educating students, including graphic novels, comics, and social media. You'll find resources for teaching more effectively, ideas for different kinds of learning, and insights from teachers who have made it all work.

Not everyone associates "teaching" with "playing," but being active is an important part of healthy learning. The #playoutdoors hashtag is full of awesome insight for getting your students moving through outdoor learning activities and more.

Education is at a crossroads today, and many are joining the discussion on how we might improve the state of learning. Tune into #edreform to find out about ideas for reform, what's being done, and what's really wrong in education today.

Education isn't just happening in your classroom, it's going on all around the world. You and your students can benefit from worldwide learning through the resources and knowledge shared on #globaled.

Created for teacher training and leading, this hashtag offers a great opportunity for questions, answers, and more in educational leadership. Find out about effectiveness in school leadership, improving training for teachers, and more from #cpchat.

Twitter is a great place for both new and experienced teachers, but this hashtag is made just for newbies. Find resources, inspiration, and news for becoming a better teacher, even if you're just starting out.

Teachers today know that learning can happen anywhere, thanks to the phenomenon of mobile learning. #mlearning follows the progress of mobile learning, sharing new and exciting ways that teachers are using mobile devices like iPads, mobile phones, and Kindles for learning anywhere, anytime. Check out #mlearning to see how you might apply mobile learning to your classroom, and find out what the future holds for this type of education.

Just as mobile learning is important for teachers to follow, elearning is vital as well. Teachers can follow this hashtag to find out how others are putting elearning to work in education. Just about any teacher can find inspiration, news, and help for starting or expanding elearning in their classroom from #elearning.

This hashtag for English teachers follows educators as they teach students to read and write. See how graphic novels can be great, find out which young adult books are popular right now, and discover how teachers are inspiring young readers in this Twitter chat. Stop by each Monday from 7 to 8 PM EST for the weekly chat.

Social studies teachers can benefit from #sschat, where teachers discuss their resources and teaching methods in social studies. You'll find apps for teaching, methods for learning, and find out what other teachers are doing in their social studies classrooms. The #sschat gets together each Monday at 6 PM EST for discussion.

Math geek teachers can get their fill of math talk through #mathchat. This active group discusses fun ways to present math problems, resources for streamlined learning, and sometimes even shared misery. Any math teacher, or fan of mathematics, can find great entertainment and value in this chat.

#scichat is full of interesting tweets, from weird science stories to online resources for learning more about and teaching science. Tune in Tuesdays at 9PM EST or join the conversation around the clock for enlightened science discussion for teachers and geeks alike.

Artistic learning is important to students getting a full education, but so often it gets pushed aside in favor of learning deemed more important. Check out #artsed to find out why arts are vital to education for students, and how you can keep the arts alive in your classroom.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are so important to our future as a society, so as a teacher, it's your job to make sure that your students are receiving an adequate education in these subjects. You can get help by checking out the #stem hashtag, which offers government insight, news, resources, and great ideas for making students stronger in STEM subjects.Which did we miss? Take to the comments to let us know.

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The 20 Top Hashtags In Education - TeachThought

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As a teacher, continuing education is so important that most school districts require that teachers enroll in some form of coursework on a regular basis to keep their knowledge and skills fresh. And while those courses are essential, staying on top of the cutting edge of educational development is important as well.

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Edutopia. 1,254,440 likes · 179,115 talking about this · 245 were here. Inspiration and information about what works in education. Please agree to our commenting policy when participating on our page :)

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The importance of Online Personal Learning Networks

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The importance of Online Personal Learning Networks

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The Importance of Online Personal Learning Networks.

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Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are the groups of people around us that help us develop skills and knowledge. People who you network with. Many teachers are now learning from each other online. But my favourite way of learning is through Twitter chats.

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Traditional professional development for teachers, while important, doesn't usually address every teacher's unique needs when it comes to professional learning. Top-down PD solutions tend to ignore what we want most: More opportunities for choice and topics that are timely and actually relevant to our unique classrooms.

It's no wonder, then, that online PLNs -- professional (or sometimes "personal") learning networks -- have become so popular in recent years. While Twitter is probably the most widely used, teachers are finding personalized professional learning on plenty of other platforms.

So, what's the best way to start your own PLN? And what are the benefits of having one? We interviewed a group of five experts and connected educators on the topic. Check out what they have to say! And feel free to share any other resources or your own ideas on the topic in the comments below.

How do you define the term "PLN" for teachers? And how are PLNs different from more traditional PD?

Sarah Thomas: PLNs are personal, or professional, learning networks. They're a community that you build that's customized to what you want or need to learn. These allow for maximum choice and truly personalize the way that we learn. A PLN might be similar to traditional PD in that some of the topics could overlap; however, just like peer learning is powerful for our students, the same can be said for us as lifelong learners.

Lisa Dabbs: In traditional PD it's often the case that an educator has no choice over the topic or the type of content shared. A PLN is more like a modern, 21st-century teacher's lounge. A place where ideas can be shared, exchanged, talked about, and transformed. Ideally, a safe place where questions can be presented without judgment. A PLN is a place where an educator at any level can direct and guide their own learning. They can be their own seeker of knowledge.

For teachers, what's the biggest benefit of having a PLN?

Sherri Johnston: PLNs give teachers agency over their learning. If you have an interest, you can find someone out there who will help you dig deeper. You have access to thousands of other teachers, at the click of a button, with different perspectives, work experiences, and tools that could spark a new idea, assist with problem-solving, or provide a different way of thinking.

Steven W. Anderson: The biggest benefit is now we aren't bound by the traditional ideas that are housed in our local schools. We're also open to a much wider pool of knowledge. Alone we are smart, but together we are brilliant. When we connect to each other, especially as educators, we're exposed to thoughts, ideas, and plans that we normally wouldn't have access to.

Sarah Thomas: You can learn whatever you want to learn from people you choose to connect with. Additionally, you can find collaborators for projects or global partners for your students. I first became connected in 2013 and learned so many new ideas to try with my students. In addition, they were able to connect with their peers around the world to learn together.

Any advice for teachers who are just getting started with an online PLN?

Ashley Fort: Start small. Try following a few people on Twitter or subscribe to a few weekly newsletters. If you find a discussion on Twitter that interests you, follow it using a hashtag search. If you can, organize the newsletters in your email to be filed automatically so they don't clog your inbox, but you can easily find them to read later.

Steven W. Anderson: Some might say that to start a PLN is to jump right into conversations. That may not work for many, if not most. It can be tough to find the best conversations or even know what to say. There is power in lurking and consuming information because you can be exposed to great knowledge. To get started, the best thing to do is read blogs. Check out the Teach100 or Cybraryman's List of Educational Blogs to start. Find a few that you can commit to reading every week.

Lisa Dabbs: I believe strongly in the power of mentoring. I believe that this relationship is vital to the success of any teacher, especially a new one. When you're first thinking about how to take that step to reach out to build your PLN, finding someone who is already well connected to support you on the journey will be helpful.

Sarah Thomas: I would suggest taking it at your own speed. If you're anything like me, you have huge FOMO (fear of missing out), but eventually you'll probably realize that you can't do it all and be everywhere. I'd suggest you learn to be OK with that. I live and breathe connections, but there are times I may disappear, depending on what else I have on my plate. When I come back, my PLN is there, ready and waiting for me.

How important is Twitter when it comes to teachers' PLNs? What are some other PLN options?

Steven W. Anderson: Outside of reading blogs, Twitter is a must for any educator. But being there doesn't mean you have to send a Tweet. Hashtags like #edchat can be a great way to see what conversations are happening and who is sharing, but you don't have to have an account to use Twitter search to see those tweets.

Ashley Fort: Twitter is my favorite platform for my PLN. [It's] perfect for those days when you need a little inspiration but don't want to do a lot of reading. Other options can include connecting on Facebook or Google+ communities (my second favorite!), following blogs, and subscribing to newsletters. Some of my favorites include Vicki Davis, Tara Martin, and George Couros, as well as Common Sense Education. You can also use Pinterest to expand your PLN.

Lisa Dabbs: By simply spending about 15 minutes a day tweeting, sharing, and participating in chats, you'll have options to connect with friends, make new ones, and grow your list of powerful resources to support your work. If you're a fan of visual content, another great place to grow a PLN is on Instagram. Lately, I've found that the education community there has become very engaged.

Sarah Thomas: I also recommend Voxer, which allows you to connect using your voice. It's a walkie-talkie app that records messages, and you can have groups of up to 500 people with a pro account. This is my favorite, because I listen on my commute to and from work. I've also built amazing friendships with other educators I chat with every day, even if we've never met face-to-face. I'd start with any network that you are already familiar with. There are groups of educators on practically every platform.

Any advice on how teachers can go "from PLN to practice"? In other words, how do you take the ideas and inspiration you find online and put them into practice in your classroom?

Sherri Johnston: Start small. You're a superstar just for getting out there and trying something new! Many of us make the mistake of trying too much at once and not being able to keep up, and then it all starts falling apart (I speak from experience). Once I stepped back ... [that's when] I created a path for success.

Lisa Dabbs: Having a ton of resources curated and collected won't do you any good if you aren't working to apply them. When you start to apply those resources, come back to your PLN and let them know what's up!

Ashley Fort: Go back through your retweets and choose one or two things to try. Be prepared to go off script, though, because nothing usually goes as planned. And even if something goes wrong (and it will!), don't be afraid to try again! After you try an idea out, post some pics or a brief reflection and share your experience on Twitter.

Steven W. Anderson: Take a chance -- go out on a limb and see what happens. Use your PLN to ask for help and advice, and reflect back when things go really well or don't turn out as you intended. You don't have to learn and practice in a bubble. But you have to take that first step and see what happens.

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From PLN to Practice: Tips from 5 Educators on Personalizing Your Professional Learning

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Traditional professional development for teachers, while important, doesn't usually address every teacher's unique needs when it comes to professional learning. Top-down PD solutions tend to ignore what we want most: More opportunities for choice and topics that are timely and actually relevant to our unique classrooms. It's no wonder, then, that online PLNs -- professional (or sometimes "personal") learning networks -- have become so popular in recent years.

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How to get started in building your own Personal Learning Network.

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How to get started in building your own Personal Learning Network.

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Build Your Personal Learning Network #WTI15

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My topic was how to get started in building one's personal learning network . I thought these observations were fair and accurately described what many educators experience for professional learning offered in their school and district. Personal Learning Networks .

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