Thing #16 Professional Learning Networks

Learnport is a resource that you can use to enroll in and take professional development classes.  I looked for classes I could take related to behavior and found these offerings.  I think training parapros might be a good one for me and there is one I think I will recommend to a staff member.

MACUL offers technology conference as well as the website that has many ways for educators to connect related to technology and education.


Classroom 2.0 is a website for technology and education.  Online webinars with live events such as Parents as Partners and many are recorded so you can play them any time.


You can go to You tube and type in "How to Twitter" and learn how to post or subscribe to other people's twitters on whatever educational topic you are interested in. Listorius has a list of educational twitter accounts that are sub-divided by categories such as special education. I have a Facebook group for applied behavior analysis but find I am not really using it since all the members I also communicate with through regular school channels.


kisd.pbworks.com/w/page/7609263/Professional-Education-Organizations is a link to many professional organizations that Ron Houtman from Kent ISD has assembled.


Two Way Interactive Connections in Education is a neat website that I could see using for virtual field trips.  I am not thinking about joining any tecnology professional organization other than maybe MACUL. There is no cost for menmbership and it would be a good way to see how others like me are using technology to enhance their jobs.  Maybe I could share what I have learned so far and how I have applied this to improving the ASD and MOCI program.

Thing #14 Online Video/Audio Resources: Learn360, Teacher Tube, iTunesU

GRPS staff have access to Learn360.   It has  PBS, NOVA National Geographic, and many other resources.  . Additionally, Learn360  allows you to upload podcasts, documents, and other supporting materials (similar to Teacher Tube.)

Check out iTunesU !  It contains educational content available for play using the iTunes media player. Content includes lessons, course materials and more. .

Podcasts are audio or video that you can subscribe to that can be used with students to teach or for differentiation.

Staff need to be careful when using You Tube.  There are lots of neat things available but they need to be screened first and downloaded and students should not be allowed to go to this site themselves during the school day.

Teacher Tube:  Free Online video resources that include videos, the opportunity to subscribe to RSS feeds on specific channels, and the opportunity to create groups for viewing and launching videos. Designed as a safe place for teachers and students to view and share videos.

School Tube is another free educational site designed for video sharing. It has an image bank and educational games (in beta). This site also is a popular site for school news programs. Additionally there are contests and links to educational partners.

Audio and video resources have lots of benefits for our students.  Visual may help them see what it is you want them to learn but audio also helps them learn in a lecture type format. ASD and MOCI students often lack the backgound content needed to learn new concepts and audio and video resources can help to provide it.

Other resources:

Online Educational videos from www.edutube.org
10 phenomenal educational video websites.
Educational videos and K-12 lesson plans neoK12.
Annenburg Professional Development and teacher resources. (http://learner.org)
Math Video Lessons from Teacherzone (http://teacher.tenmarks.com), Khan Academy (http://khanacademy.org),
National LIbrary of Virtual Manipulatives is cool, especially for math.
HippoCampus has lots of manipulatives, many have a video short clip.
PhET has interactive science simulations

Thing #20 Visual Learning: Bubble.us, and wordle

Non-linguistic representation is an important variable in education and particularly needed when working with students with ASD or MOCI. On-line graphic organizers can be used to show students the connection between different concepts.  Students can also use them to demonstrate their learning.

Gliffy is a resource you can use to make flow charts, venn diagrams and lots of other nifty charts.

Thing #18 Staying Informed: RSS, iGoogle

RSS is a way to surbscribe to updated information from your favorite websites. I used iGoogle to pick which websites I wanted to receive information from and it also allows you to arrange your page however you want. Netvibes and Bloglines are two other options.

These RSS systems are a good way to stay informed about current events and your field of interest.

Thing #17 Reference Tools: BibMe

Check out how I used bibme to make a citation of a journal article as well as a website.  You can also do this in MEL while you are looking up other things.  Landmark Citation Machine is another citation maker. Citation Machine and EasyBib are other free options.

"Evaluations that help teachers learn." Educational Leadership Dec. 2010: 35-38. Print. 


"National Down Syndrome Society - Tips for Teaching Students with Down syndrome - Page 3." National Down Syndrome Society - Welcome to NDSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. <http://www.ndss.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=83&limitstart=2>.

thing #17 Research & Reference Tools: MEL (student research) & Advanced Research

Thing #15 Productivity Tools: pdf file converters & google calendars

Being able to convert a document from pdf format can be useful.  I needed to do that to an   application    coincidentally the day that I worked on this project.  As you can see by my          screenshot, it wasn't printing    properly so I had to go back and work on that.  I can see staff  needing to do this with available resources that they want to be able to edit or have students type right into as a document.  ZamZar and MediaConverter are two resources for doing      this.                                                                                                                                                    

Google calendars is a good way to improve communication with students, co-workers or       parents.  With co-workers, we are supposed to use Groupwise so it would not be good to be  on a different calendar since the advantage is that we can schedule with each other without 

the endless cycle of figuring out  when people are                                                                         available.