K-12 Blueprint - tools, research, devices, best practices and more to support effective EdTech projects

K12Blueprint is a great, free resource for technology in education. There are toolkits with information and resources for developing and deploying technology initiatives, information on choosing the right device for your schools, software and apps, curriculum, news, research, and blogs from educators and edtech leaders. The information and resources are timely, relevant and easy to use.

There are even free downloads of 3 different books on edtech and education:

Here are the list of toolkits:

There are a ton of resources and information on this site - take a look around and see what it has to offer.

It is sponsored by Intel Education, Tech&Learning, and Clarity Innovations.


Related:

Ed Tech Pilot Framework - excellent resources for all schools 

Tech&Learning - free Edtech magazine, website and resources for educators




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Ed Tech Pilot Framework - excellent resources for all schools

Digital Promise has released an EdTech Pilot Framework which provides a step-by-step process to help education leaders and technology developers run successful educational technology (ed-tech) pilots.

It is very simple to use and read and has links for more information on each step.

Here is the link to the original article: http://edtech.digitalpromise.org/

One thing to remember - you don't have to do these projects alone. There are plenty of resources available to help you. In addition, check with your technology vendors to see what they have for planning and support resources to help you.

Here is the Framework:

1. Identify Need
2. Discover and Select
3. Planning
4. Train and Implement
5. Collect Data
6. Analyze and Decide
7. Negotiate and Purchase
8. Summarize and Share

Related:

K-12 Blueprint site updated - resources for planning and implementing EdTech 
Tech&Learning - free Edtech magazine, website and resources for educators












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5 Great Digital Tools for Teachers

Planning for the first month of school can take on average 16 hours of prep, research, practice and refinement for every one hour of actual teaching time.

In the hopes of giving teachers some hours back this month, here are 5 digital tools that teachers can use to lifehack their course planning.



#1 BRAINSTORM IN THE CLOUD:
Always forgetting great coursework planning ideas you have outside of class? Jot your brainstorms on your phone’s Evernote app. Your ideas will be synced to a central location automatically, so you can have all your great ideas in one place.

#2 HAVE A DIGITAL PROJECT HUB
Are you a visual brainstormer? Trello mimics your wall of Post-Its so you can drag and drop course ideas and to-do’s, big questions or due dates for projects. Teachers can also create projects for students, and ask them to add writing tasks, encouraging classroom collaboration.

#3 TEACH VISUALLY
Course Hero has just launched an Infographic Study Series (coursehero.com/lit/): a collection of over 90 classic literature titles in visual form to help students learn efficiently. These easy to read infographics are the perfect bite-sized summaries to incorporate into your English 101 planning. See more information below.



#4 AMP UP YOUR PRESENTATION
Sick of conventional classroom presentations? Prezi’s zooming canvas opens up the classroom to active learning and interactivity, making lessons understandable, memorable and fun. Prezi also offers a free Edu Pro account.

#5 BE A DIGITAL TASK-MASTER
Wunderlist is a to-do list app that allows you to add tasks, set due dates and reminders, and link out to relevant resources.


Related:

Evernote for Education - great ideas and resources for using Evernote

Wunderlist - free and easy to use task manager

More Resources for Getting Organized and some more!

More Presentation Resources

Resources on Prezi

Top 5 Apps for Educational Administrators to Use

My most used/favorite Apps and how I use them

My Favorite Resources for Teachers and Students



Course Hero is an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed.

Course Hero Introduces Literature Infographics

The company announces first-of-its-kind visual learning collection to help students master literature

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Course Hero, an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed, has developed “Literature Infographics” to help students better understand great works of literature. This visually stunning learning tool includes the key critical literary works that students will need to prepare for the upcoming fall semester. Course Hero developed these unique learning materials to provide students with a visual tool to help understand the key elements of classic literary work.

The series currently includes the following titles:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney
And many more

The Literature Infographics (coursehero.com/lit/), which currently contain more than 90 titles, are a unique way for students to learn about the characters, themes, authors, and literary devices contained in the works many students will be reading this year.

“As an educator, I see these infographics as a fun, visual way to immediately immerse students in the essential ideas, concepts and literary devices that can facilitate their understanding and appreciation of literature,” said Kathi Duffel who has been a teacher for over 30 years and is an AP English and Journalism Advisor at Bear Creek High School (California). Kathi is also the recipient of the 2015 James Madison Freedom of Information Award by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.

“We believe our Literature Infographics will help students better understand the complex ideas behind some of these great works of literature by providing a visual, story-driven perspective to the content they are related to ,” said Course Hero Co-founder and CEO Andrew Grauer. “It’s also our hope that educators will find these materials rich, engaging and helpful in addition to the lectures, class notes and other materials that they painstakingly prepare for students in the classroom.”

The Course Hero Literature Infographics are free for students and educators to browse, download, and share with classmates, friends, and colleagues and can be found here.

About Course Hero | Master Your Classes™

Course Hero is an online learning platform that empowers millions of students and educators to succeed. Fueled by a passionate community of students and educators who share their course-specific knowledge and educational resources, Course Hero offers the biggest and best library of study documents, expert tutors, customizable flashcards, and course advice. Course Hero is now used by over 10 million students to supplement their class work with course-specific study materials.

















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Making Sure your Meetings are Productive and Effective

Meetings are something that all managers and leaders need to be able to plan, organize, run and follow up on. When I was a project engineer, I had to run lots of meetings and had training in effective meetings at a couple different companies. I've attended good meetings, and really bad meetings. In education, many meetings seem to be a complete waste of time, or the entire faculty is at a meeting that only affects a small number. Meetings are expensive - you have to take into consideration the time and salaries during the meeting and the fact that people aren't doing other work. Make your meetings effective - have a clear objective and keep them short and to the point.

These key points are great for anyone running a meeting.

Keys to Effective Meetings

1. Define purposes of meeting - why are you meeting? What is the objective of the meeting? Also, does this meeting have to be face-to-face, or can it be virtual, via email, Google Docs, etc. Do we need to meet as a group or could certain people deal with issues?

2. Develop agenda - what are the key points that need to be addressed. Who needs to be at the meeting? What tasks need to be assigned during the meeting? What is the time frame for the meeting?

Use this checklist when preparing for your meetings:


Source: A Checklist for Planning Your Next Big Meeting | HBR 

3. Distribute agenda prior to meeting - this gives attendees a chance to prepare any materials or information prior to the meeting and to be prepared. This also keeps meetings moving faster. The agenda can be emailed, shared as a Google Doc, or posted online.

4. Arrive and start on time - the person running the meeting should be there early and ready to go. Have extra copies of agenda available. Start on time and stick to the schedule.

5. One speaker at a time - follow rules. One person talks at a time, no side conversations.

6. Review agenda and set priorities - what is the top priority to be addressed at the meeting? What needs to be accomplished?

7. Stick to agenda - items not on the agenda should be held to the end or put off to a later meeting.

8. Assign task responsibilities - make sure people know what they are responsible for and where to go for support. Give them resources and help to accomplish their tasks.

9. Establish target dates - when do things need to be done by? When is the next meeting? When will follow ups be done?

10. Summarize agreements - summarize what was accomplished, decided, and agreed upon.

11. Close at or before agreed time - do not run over unless absolutely necessary. Things can be discussed online or at a later meeting.

12. Keep a written record of meeting - assign a secretary and keep notes of the meeting including attendees, agenda, what was discussed, tasks assignments, and follow up information.

13. Edit and distribute minutes promptly - minutes should be distributed within 24-48 hours of a meeting.

14. Encourage completion of tasks - remind persons of task assignments and due dates and offer them help and support.

15. Put unfinished business on agenda for next meeting. - Unfinished business should be addressed at the beginning of next meeting. 

Meetings should not be something people dread attending. They should be where things get discussed, accomplished, and decided. Follow these key points and your meetings will be more effective. 

Related:

Meeting Organization with Evernote





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Slack - free, easy to use, communications/collaboration platform - great for teams and schools

Slack is a free platform for instant team communication and collaboration. It allows you to create “channels” according to specific topics, issues, projects or teams, which gives everyone access to all the conversations and information circling around. You can include messages, files, images and videos in the channels. This can replace email, chat and video conferencing. 

It also integrates with Dropbox, Google Drive and Hangouts, and Trello. It also has a very good search feature. It is web based, with iOS and Android apps. 

It is free to use and there is no limit to the number of users. 

This would be great for classrooms, teacher communication, workgroups, PD, and much more. 

Related:

Asana - free teamwork and productivity app

DropTask - Visual Task Management app

kanban2go - free visual task management and organization

Getting Students and Teachers Organized - tips and resources

Evernote - super organizing, task list, note taking, project management app

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Asana - free teamwork and productivity app

Asana is a teamwork and productivity app with free and premium accounts, that lets you work collaboratively on projects. They have also just announced a native Android app. Originally, it was just an HTML5 web app.

Asana has some nice features including task lists, reminders, task requests, commenting on tasks and updates, tracking due dates, assignments, notes on tasks and more.



The Android app syncs with your web app account so everything stays organized.


Related:

kanban2go - free visual task management and organization

Getting Students and Teachers Organized - tips and resources

Evernote - super organizing, task list, note taking, project management app



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