iGoogle love stories

At my workshop for principals I introduced igoogle and each participant created an igoogle page. For the most part I think everyone enjoyed doing this activity and saw how an igoogle page could help keep them on top of all the happenings of their favorite blogs and news sites. Google recently created a forum for people to share their "igoogle love stories".

Here's a sampling of some of those love stories...

Education blogs

looking for education blogs? I put together a list in a previous blog posting but here is a larger one...

clipped from education.alltop.com All the top Education news.

Twitter and Lance

I think the people in my workshop thought I was lying when I said that Lance Armstrong was on twitter. I didn't have enough time to find any of his posts. Here is my proof!

clipped from sports.yahoo.com Lance Armstrong urges Twitter ranks to find stolen bicycle

Creating Lifelong Learners » Blog Archive » Teaching Writing Part #1: Don’t Fence Me In

http://www.needleworkspictures.com/ocr/blog/?p=434

Sent from my iPhone

David Pogue and Twitter

At my admin workshop at ITSC I had to quickly describe twitter to a group of admins and how it can help expand ones network. I don't think I did a very good job of describing it so hopefully my participants will pick up on this blog post and read what David Pogue wrote about Twitter - it is what you make it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue.html

clipped from www.nytimes.com Twitter? It’s What You Make It

Marco Torres workshop

I am currently listening to Marco Torres at ITSC.  What an inspiring presentation.  He has a great collection of photos and videos and his ideas for involving kids in digital storytelling were inspiring.  His idea to have contests in the school for different categories (ie this month's theme is "cold" submit pictures of cold)  This is something I'd like to take back to my school and have a website set up to have kids submit their creations.

Here is his wiki site with notes and ideas...

http://torres21.wikispaces.com/Torres21

Workshop Follow-up

Links...
I promised my partcipants of my Admin workshop that I would list some of the blogs that I follow.

Here are a few of them to get you started:

• http://timlauer.org/
• http://drtimtyson.com/blog/
  
• http://weblogg-ed.com/
• http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/
• http://ideasandthoughts.org/
• http://cogdogblog.com/
• http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/
• http://www.edutopia.org
• http://www.speedofcreativity.org/
• http://teachers20.com/
• http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/
• http://practicalprincipals.net/
• http://blog.scottjelias.net/
• http://weprincipal.blogspot.com/
• http://leading180days.wordpress.com/
• http://principalspage.com/theblog/

...remember to follow the "breadcrumbs" to discover more.
...don't forget to create tabs to organize all your feeds into different categories.

Adding Feeds 101:
I know some still had questions about feeds. Here is a link to a google help page that might be of assistance

Converting a Google doc into a webpage
Remember when I said that a google doc can be made into a webpage? I took my library/lab schedule which is MS Word and imported it into Google Docs. I then opened it in Google Docs and clicked the blue "Share" button on the upper right side of the screen. This allowed me to publish my document and gave me a web address.

Click here for an example

You will notice that I embedded the link directly into the words "click here for an example". If I didn't this is what it would have looked like...

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d8jfqgm_143g6hrp8ck (ugly, huh?)

Finally...
If you are wondering about the last two items I discussed, Evernote and Twitter, here are links to their sites:
www.evernote.com
www.twitter.com - my username is soffenhauser

Thanks for attending my workshop. You were a great audience. Sorry if I went too fast but there was just so much to show and so little time. Best of luck in all your endeavors!

Skip

Working hard at ITSC

Learning about iPhones and touches at itsc

Google Docs and Administrators

Google Docs and Administrators
I am linking to Melinda Miller's blog http://weprincipal.blogspot.com/2008/04/googe-docs-for-administrators.html because she had such a good post on how Administrators can use Google Docs. Thanks for the ideas!

ITSC

ITSC Administrator Workshop

One of the things that we are learning to use today is RSS. To collect the RSS feeds I use my iGoogle start page. There are other ways to aggregate feeds but I find this the most useful. Using iGoogle as your start page is very easy and helps you customize the information you want to see from your favorite sites.

Here are some links to some websites that will get you started:

• Jeff Utecht - http://www.utechtips.com/
• Melinda Miller - http://weprincipal.blogspot.com/
• NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/
• Wesley Fryer - http://www.speedofcreativity.org/
• Steve Dembo - http://www.teach42.com/
• All Things PLC Blog - http://www.allthingsplc.info/wordpress/

Admin Tech Training

In about a week I will be giving a 3hr workshop to school administrators at the ITSC conference in Portland. The focus of my workshop is how to use technology to work smarter rather than harder. At this time I am focusing my efforts on just a few tools and concepts because I want them to actually do things rather than listen to me talk and demonstrate. Here is some of what I've thought about highlighting:

• creating an online PLN
• using Google forms and documents
  
• RSS - setting up your own start page
• a tour of some tools to improve productivity - ie - wikis, Jott, Evernote
• demonstration of the usefulness of my iPhone

My dilemma is that I only have three hours so I can't get too in depth with one specific tool. But I also don't want to go too fast. I have a good outline of how I envision the workshop progressing but any thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.