Looking back at 2014 here are the five digital resources I relied on most for teaching and learning. Check em out and share yours.
1) Google Apps
Never worry about accessing or backing up your work with Google Apps.Whether you’re creating a doc, slides, spreadsheet, Google Apps provide the best collaboration and sharing tool out there for your work. Sync your drive and work whether you’re connected to the internet or not.
Frequency: Daily
2) Social Media
Facebook, Google Communities, Yammer, Edmodo and Twitter are my go to platforms to connect with other innovative educators inside and outside my district. Favorite hastags are #BYOD #BYOTchat #StuVoice #TLChat #EdChat. Favorite groups are The Innovative Educator and Google Educator Groups.
Frequency: Daily
3) Google Voice
Google Voice is not only great because it converts your voicemails to text or lets you listen in to calls. It has another terrific function. During a presentation, give folks your Google Voice number and let them know they can text you questions, comments, feedback any time during the presentation. Even if they don’t know how to use Twitter, or get confused about how to send a text to Poll Everywhere, everyone gets how to send a text. The nice thing is all the texts are collected and can be projected as desired for the instructor and audience to review and discuss.
Frequency: Daily
4) Padlet
If you haven't used Padlet, you are in for a treat! Padlet let's students contribute without an email in the form of text, images, and links. What's amazing is that students don't need email accounts to contribute. It's a great tool for students to share what they know, do introductions, exit slips and more. Here’s how one teacher used it to demonstrate teacher effectiveness.
Frequency: Weekly
5) Graphite
Whether you’ve got a new set of devices or are going BYOD, Graphite is the go-to site to discover the best online resources for learning. Graphite has an army of educators ready to share their reactions and reviews of products which you can filter by grade, subject, device, and standard. Think of it as the Yelp of ed tech.
Frequency: Weekly
What about you? What were your go to resources in 2014? Any listed here that you want to explore. Share in the comments!
