Moving to a 1:1 Alternative Classroom- Part 2

In the first article I wrote, I got into a lttle background of the Red Oak School District moving to a 1:1 computing environment for students 6-12.  In this article, I will be getting into some of the resources that I have been finding to use in moving the curriculum from book based to inquiry based using online resources.  One of the best things that I have found is Twitter.  You may be asking how someone could find so many ideas from posts that are less than 140 characters?  Well, you would be surprised!  By using a program called Tweetdeck I am able to follow teachers from around the world as they share ideas and link articles regarding about every aspect of education.  If you are not familiar with this program, I will list the steps at the end of this article along with popular hashtags that I follow.  One that is not included in that list, but should be is #IowaAltEd.  This is the tag that some of us have started using when posting something relevant to alternative education in Iowa.  If you check out the feed, you will see that some of us were posting about the IAAE state conference.  It doesn't take a lot of time to browse the topics that people are talking about and if something catches my interest, I can click the link to open the article.  This allows me to in essence browse many articles with very little time and effort.  What more could you ask for?  The right technologies can allow you to work smarter using less time than what you could do before.  Next time I will list some of the blogs, wikis, and websites that list some of the most popular web tools that are used by teachers everywhere.


Popular Hashtags that are used on Twitter

To use Twitter, first sign up. Twitter

After you have done that, you will need to download the Chrome Browser. Go to the Google home page and in the top right corner it will say download Chrome browser.

Now that you have done that, go to Tweetdeck.

Once there, you will need to sign in with your Twitter account and then you will be able to add feeds. Click on the tab at top that says
Add Column.

It will be in this space that you will be able to search hashtags(#) and add them.

These are some of the most useful tags that I have found

Hashtags

#IAEdfuture
#AltEd
#IowaAltEd
#schoology
#iowa1to1
#edchat
#blendedlearning -discussion on a mix of traditional and computers in classroom
#flippedclass -discussion on learning from electronic sources than applying in classroom
#edtech
#engchat -English teachers
#sschat -Social Studies teachers
#mathchat
#scichat -Science teachers
#spedchat -Special Education
#elearning