Seek Mentors Out On Twitter

Twitter is more than tidbits of daily news and tweets about trending television. It is a great source to find like-minded people in your field and even a mentor.

Twitter influencers, experts, thought leaders and kindred spirits can help improve your teaching by supplying information and ideas that you can put into practical applications. Once you find someone to follow, you can build on that virtual relationship and use them as a mentor, either virtually or face-to-face.

Figure out who you’d like to follow.

The first step is to actually figure out who’d you like to follow. Sounds easy. But, the Internet is a BIG place and Twitter is no exception.

Use Twitter’s search to seek out influencers and people you want to follow. Type your keywords in the top search. You can also use Twitter’s filters and Advanced Search to search locally, which gives you a better opportunity for an in-person meeting.

You can try these five hashtags to get you started.

1. #GoogleET, #GoogleCE, #GoogleEI

2. #MIEExpert

3. #SkypeMT or #MinecraftMentor

4. #GoogleTeacherTribe

5. #STEAM

A search for these hashtags brings up the top results, but also people tied to them. This is a really easy way to start following an influencer and possible mentor. 

If you’re still having an issue finding who to follow, search through your other social media platforms. How many people do you know that use just ONE form of social media? You can increase your chances of connecting with a mentor if you can overlap social networks. 

Prepare to take the next step.

Once you find someone to follow that is mentor-material, do some research and learn as much as you can about them. Start a virtual conversation or check out any podcasts or blogs they have to find common areas of interest. Do they seem comfortable sharing their knowledge? If so, continue on.

The approach.

Build a rapport with your potential mentor. Promote their tweets, ask for their advice, comment on their blogs and so on. Treat the virtual world as you would the real one and get to know them slowly. The key is to build a dialog and show you have something of value to contribute. 

When you’re ready, email the influencer and simply ask if they would be willing to act as a mentor to you. Email works great because it is - literally - the electronic equivalent of a letter. It is more formal than a DM but not so formal as a mailed piece of paper.

Once you create and facilitate that online relationship, you can decide both decide if, when and how you want to meet in person. Even if you never get to that stage, there’s so much powerful information out there that just following posted advice provides a great opportunity for personal and professional growth. Reach out to Arey Jones for more advice on your professional development.

Top Chrome Extensions For The Google Classroom

Google Classroom has been instrumental in changing the way education looks today. It streamlines assignments, boosts collaboration and fosters seamless communication to help make teaching more productive. There’s also the advantage of being able to integrate hundreds of Chromebook apps and extensions that save teachers and students time and make it seamless to share information. Extensions enhance the browsing experience by tailoring Chrome’s functionality towards individual needs and preferences. 

Here are some of our favorites.

Grammarly

Grammarly is an online editor that gives all of your text the once-over before you send it to colleagues, parents or students. It’s a free extension that revises the text you type in Chrome, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Linkedin and anywhere else on the web. It suggests corrections based on both spelling and grammar, and it explains alternative options because we call all still learn.

Screencastify

Screencastify is a great tool to use when you need to create a quick demonstration or instructional video. It is a screen recorder that allows you to capture, edit and share videos in seconds. It can tell a story in just a couple of clicks.

CheckMark by EdTechTeam

This extension is designed to give teachers the ability to provide students with feedback quickly and easily. When a teacher highlights text in Google Docs, an overlay pops up with quick shortcuts to frequently-added comments such as “Spelling” or “Check Punctuation,” or “Evidence needed.” CheckMark has both comments related to grammar as well as concepts, citations and more.

Shareaholic

Shareaholic gives you the ability to share and bookmark great content, without stopping what you’re doing on Chrome. It works with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more than 200 other services. It makes all your shared links searchable in one place and won’t slow down your Google Chrome.

Alice Keeler – Teacher Tech

This extension gives you quick access to Alice Keeler’s Teacher Tech blog – which covers all things classroom and Google Classroom. A quick click on the extension pulls up a list of her most recent posts. Topics include: 50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom, A Tour Of Google Classroom and Google Slides, Create a Drop Shadow on Text.

LastPass: Free Password Manager

This handy extension saves all your usernames and passwords in one spot. It gives you secure access and will autologin to your websites and sync passwords. Plus, anything you save on one device is instantly available on all your other devices. Slick.

We'd love to know your favorites on Chromebooks, too.

Tech Cleaning Tips From Your Grandmother

My grandmother fit every grandmother mold possible. Impeccable hair. Crisp aprons. Mouthwatering homemade bread on the counter. She ran a tight ship with even tighter hair. For Grandma, spring cleaning was as much a celebration as it was a chore (but then she always smiled most when she was working).

I have more than a little of her blood coursing though my veins, and now that the weather is shaking off winter’s chill, I have the urge to clean as she used to do. And I can apply her methods to my phones, laptop, and tablet just effectively as I do everything else in my home.

Get sorted. While my grandmother had an eye and a hand for organization, my grandfather had a different method. Every weekend, she would group the mail, his receipts, and his tools and put everything back where they should have gone in the first place. Take the time to organize your documents and files in a system that makes the most sense to you, and delete files that are no longer relevant. For every minute spent here, you’ll save twice. 

Put the right things into the right storage. It’s okay to hold onto things (I myself am pretty sentimental). The trick is figuring out where to put them so that they can be reached where you need them and out of the way when you don’t. Consider organizing your files in bulk by year, and clearly label each file and folder with its exact contents. This saves you stress and energy, whether you are looking for Aunt Lucy’s china or last year’s lesson on volcanoes. And no, “Science stuff” doesn’t count.

Clear your desktop. If Grandma could see my laptop screen, she would sigh, “Clutter, clutter, clutter, dear. How can you see what you mean?” It was an odd expression, but I understood it. If you save everything to the desktop, you’ll never find what you really need. This works just as well for your desk as well as your desktop. Save it only for items you need to find quickly or things you use every single day. Rely on your filing system for the others. Delete the rest.

Clean your Windows. Grandma loved a clean window (even if the birds didn’t). If you are running the digital version on your laptop, Windows 10 has a handy Disk Cleanup tool to clean up temporary and unnecessary system files that could be obstructing your computer performance. Use this handy guide for additional information.

Empty the trash. Now that you’ve gotten everything where you want it, it’s time to remove what you don’t need once and for all. My grandma always emptied the trash as the last part of her cleaning routine, grabbing a bag and hitting every bathroom and bin on her way out the door.

Grandma made the most of everything (I can still taste her creative leftovers), and I hope these above tips help you make the most of your time and managing your technology this spring. If you found any of these valuable, we’d love your feedback--follow us on Facebook for more!

How Improving Typing Skills Can Improve Overall Communication

As someone who writes blogs as part of her job, I feel my words-per-minute more than most. I can pinpoint my early typing skills to particular summer I spent at a cousin’s house, stumbling inside out of the heat and falling into playing Stickybear Typing on their Apple II. This was during the era between electric typewriters and computer labs; computers were word processors and toys, not the educational, creative, data-collecting and professional powerhouses they are today.

Learning to type became just as crucial as learning to swim that summer, and it was a turning point in my confidence level and the way I put my ideas to work. I didn’t know it at the time because it was a game and I enjoyed it, but that summer spent typing was a game changer in my school and professional life.

Nowadays, kids learn their letters by the shape, sound, and where they are located on the QWERTY keyboard. How well they learn them, and how fast they can type them, could very well determine how well they do in school, how well they interact with others, and how well they communicate with the world at large.

Keyboarding gets their motor running.

And by this we mean motor skills. Keyboarding requires an artful application of fine and gross motor skills—locate keys by touch, applying just the right pressure when striking, and moving on to the next. It’s a common action those of us can do it take for granted; we simply think and the words seem to appear effortlessly on the page. The truth is, typing is a much more physical exertion, and one that requires constant practice, like playing an instrument or a sport, to maximize efficiency, accuracy, and confidence.

Keyboarding gets juices flowing.

This is where making keyboarding a part of early and ongoing curriculum just makes sense. Just like providing technology in the classroom on a one-to-one or shared basis is important to closing the digital divide for all kids, teaching keyboarding removes yet another barrier between inspiration and innovation. The faster kids can translate thoughts into sentences, sentences to words, words to letters, and letters into keys, the easier it becomes for them to use technology to express themselves, find what they are looking for, create what they mean to, and present what they intended. 

Keyboarding makes coding possible.

While coding will likely be a part of daily existence for our future workforce, it is simply another language our kids must learn to type. Basic computer skills start with typing, even in a touch screen environment. While Chromebooks and Windows10 laptops are becoming more and more hands-on with stylus pens and on-screen interactive elements, those advancements just give us more ways to use our hands to navigate the technological landscape.

Keyboarding apps and software abound, thank goodness, and the best ones, like Typing Instructor and UltraKey, teach children the correct finger-to-key movement as well as variety, drills, and tips on posture and how to improve accuracy speed. There are also typing programs geared for the younger set—Mickey’s Typing Adventure and Garfield’s Typing Pal, to name two good ones—that offer simple, fun, personalized games for the best results.

In the end, keyboarding makes students more proficient in educational technologies and the opportunities that come with them. The more exposure children get to a keyboard and what they can do with it, the faster and better they can learn.

Bridge The Gap: How To Keep Parents In The Loop When Everything Is Online

As schools move toward paperless communication and less homework for elementary school students, parents feel less overwhelmed by the minutia of the school year. They also feel a lot more out of the loop when it comes to knowing what’s going on in the classroom and how they can help.

The movement toward less homework is supported by a study done by CNN, when researchers found that first graders received almost three times the amount of homework recommended by the NEA and the National PTA. While it’s clear children could use the downtime, what isn’t clear is how to engage parents in the learning process so that lesson plans can be supported at home—without the need to sacrifice sanity or trees in the process.

Knowing the material, however, is only part of the equation. Today’s technology not only allows parents to view their children’s progress in real time, but they also can see where and how they excel and struggle with subjects, tests, and organization skills.

“Parental and family involvement in a child’s education is essential,” said Erica Eichmann, at Arey Jones Educational Solutions. “We’re fortunate to live in a time when there are several ways to engage parents both off and online. The key is to keep educating and reminding parents where the resources are, encourage consistent and clear dialogue throughout the school year, and help families create learning-friendly environments at home.”

Here are 5 ways parents can engage more fully in their children’s education.

Define study time.

Parents who designate a time and space for studying and learning show kids that education is a priority. This could be as simple as designating a place in the home for homework that is close enough for questions and support, but far enough away so they won’t be distracted from finding answers on their own. In addition to the space, setting a schedule and routine around studying makes it just as important as games and dance events.

Learn the tools.

Parents should feel knowledgeable about every tool the school uses in their curriculum. If kids are using platforms like Blackboard, ClassTag, Wixie, Google for Education, and Dreambox during the day, parents should feel reasonably equipped to help and promote the use of these tools at home. Resources like bealearninghero.org are a great place to get started. Set reminders in your calendar every week to check classroom resources; this may seem silly, but we all know how fast time can fly. This holds you accountable as well; if your children have set study parameters, it’s good that you have set support parameters, too.

Reach out.

If you don’t receive consistent communication from the teacher, take on the charge. Find out how best to reach the teacher for non-emergency concerns, and make a warm introduction. Create a monthly reminder in your calendar to reach out, even if it’s just to say how much your child enjoys the classroom (teachers never tire of hearing positive feedback). If you have questions, ask. If you have concerns, state them clearly, and be just as clear that you expect to hear back if the teacher also notices something you don’t. If you have issues at home that may effect your child’s ability to learn (new baby, divorce, moving, etc.), make sure the teacher is given just enough information to be aware of any changes.

You and the teacher are two of the most important parts of your child’s educational team; you should be familiar with each other and help the other fill in the gaps.

Encourage accountability.

It’s always important to talk about goals, dreams and setting expectations for effort. Break goals into manageable steps so that students have the freedom to course correct. Not meeting a goal is disappointing, but not the end of the journey; the purpose is to teach resilience and resourcefulness in the hunt for the next best thing. If something goes awry, help students determine how they could have it differently for a better result, and help give them the confidence to manage the consequences and try again.

Engaged parents make a huge difference in the success of their students, so the sooner and more specifically you can get involved in your child’s education, the better off your kids will be.

Do you have any experience in a reduced-homework school? What are your thoughts?