One of the sessions I am presenting at TIES this year is on building your own personal learning network using web2.0 tools for teacher professional development. This week's tech tip is a 15 minute video I created for the conference that describes how and why this is done and will point you to ways you can build your own personal learning network.

Some of the modules in the online teacher technology training are geared directly for building a personal learning network. They are as follows:

9.1 - Blogs (7pts)

9.2 - Social Bookmarking (del.icio.us) (4pts)

9.3 - RSS (4pts)

9.4 - Power of the comment (3pts)



Building Your Own Personal Learning Network from Carl Anderson on Vimeo.

Too Many Topics This Week for Just One Tutorial

Instead of creating a new screencast I thought this week I would share a buffet (or rather boquet) of things I found this week floating around in the cloud:

1. Technology Integrationist in Chief - How the Obama administration plans to use technology to communicate with citizens
2. YouTube in Speech Class - How Elise Gregory is using YouTube in her speech class
3. Open Source & Education - Interesting panel discussion about open source concepts in education that go beyond software (i.e. Open Office) to encompas a growing culture of teacher created and shared materials, curriculum, and other resources.
   
   
   
   @ Yahoo! Video
   
   
   
4. Leading the Change: Current leadership models are inadequate for disruptive innovations - In this session from the K12Online conference Dr. Scott McLeod explains the concepts Clayton Christensen puts forth in his books, The Innovator's Dilema and Disrupting Class. Whether you read Christensen's books or watch McLeod's presentation the concept of disruptive innovation and how it impacts education is a must read/see/hear for everyone involved in our profession.

Xtranormal

I have been playing around a bit this week with a new tool in the digital backpack called xtranormal. Xtranormal is an incredibly simple site to use for creating animated movies. Their motto is, "If you can type, you can make movies." Watch the following clip that took me just 15 minutes to make:

Flowgram - How Technology Effected The Election

Why I Use Firefox and Why I Think You Should Too

Search Engine Tricks and Alternatives

Google Docs - Collaboration in Action

Virtual Publishing and Self-Publishing Websites

5 Tools To Use With Your Webcam

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

Never Lecture In Class Again

Here is a unique idea: Never Lecture In Class Again



If anyone is interested in trying this out, even for a couple of classes, we have the resources to do this.

Lectures and demonstrations can be recorded and posted online using YouTube, TeacherTube, Ustream.TV, SMARTnotebook, Screencast-o-matic, or just with your digital camera in video mode.

OnlineTV Channels

Saving OpenOffice files as Microsoft Word files

Firefox

OpenOffice.org

Rubistar - Online Teacher Tool For Making and Sharing Rubrics

How and Why Students Should Use Wikipedia

Digital Backpack

Webcam: Ideas and Tools

Links:

IVbot 2.0 download
Screencast-o-matic
Ustreamtv
Skype

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