Social Media for Educators

Back before school started I did a presentation at our district wide professional development on social media use for educators. I've been an avid Twitter user for years and it's been an excellent source of ideas, resources, and professional networking. To a lesser extent I've also used Facebook and Google+ and from what I've seen there is a huge community of educators on Instagram as well.

My fellow ITRT Sara Butcher and I had put together a presentation on Twitter for Educators last year after attending a presentation on it at the VSTE conference a few months prior. (And to be fair, borrowed a few things from that presentation as well.) I took that and expanded it to include the other three networks mentioned above. My plan is to expand it further to include other networks such as YouTube and Pinterest and use it again in the future.

Becoming a Google Certified Educator

Last month I achieved a goal I set earlier in the year of becoming a Google Certified Educator. My school district has used Google Apps for Education for years now and as much as I know about and use them on a daily I felt like it was time become officially certified. In working through the training modules on the Google Training Center site I learned a lot of new things. To that end, even if you don't plan to take the certification exams it's still worth going through them to learn about the tools and how to effectively use them.

If you do plan to take the exams, it's $10 for Level 1 and $25 for Level 2 with a three hour time limit for each. It took me roughly two hours for the first and two and a half hours for the second. In preparing for them the review questions at the end of each training unit are great practice but I personally I found the exams easier. Because of the aforementioned time limit be sure to find a quiet, distraction free spot where you can devote the full amount of time to taking them. Once you start there's no pausing the clock.

A few weeks ago on Twitter I came across an excellent blog post by Eric Curts with skill checklists for the Level 1 and Level 2 tests. In them he breaks down what you should know for each tool in order to pass the exam. They're a great resource if you want to be thorough in ensuring you're familiar with each skill.

Having completed Levels 1 and 2 I recently passed the Trainer Skills Assessment as well. I'm now working on the application to be a Google Certified Trainer and hope to complete and submit that in the coming months. 

Social Media Safety, Privacy, and Parental Controls

Last year I wrote a post on here about social media privacy settings. Last week, per my principal's request I took what I had from that and added some things in regards to general social media safety along with guides to cell phone parental controls, and posted it to the school blog. We've talked about next year doing a program at one of the PTA meetings on this because a lot of parents don't seem to know what their kids are doing online and need to be aware and monitor it.

General Social Media Safety

Cyberwise: No Grown Up Left Behind
NetSmartz Workshop: Parents
NetSmartz Workshop: Teens
Facebook Safety Center
Common Sense Education: Digital Citizenship
Common Sense Media: Social Media

Social Media Privacy Settings

General
Protecting your privacy on 9 popular social networks

Twitter
Protecting and unprotecting your Tweets
How to Lock Down Your Twitter Privacy Settings

Instagram
Controlling Your Visibility on Instagram
7 must-know privacy tips for Instagram newbies

Facebook
Basic Privacy Settings and Tools
The Complete Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings
Here’s How to Use Facebook’s Mystifying Privacy Settings

YouTube

Change the Privacy Settings for Your Video - YouTube

Privacy Settings and Safety Tips for Socializing on YouTube

What You Need to Know about YouTube Videos and Your Child's Reputation

Flickr

Privacy Settings and Safety Tips for Socializing on Flickr

How to Make Photos Private on Flicker: 4 Steps

Blogger
Control access to your blog

Wordpress
Privacy Settings
Post Visibility

Pinterest
Edit your account privacy
How to be Private on Pinterest in 3 Steps

Google+
Choose how you share information on your Google+ profile
How to Change Your Google+ Privacy Settings
How To: Managing Your Google+ Security Settings

LinkedIn
Managing Account Settings
How To: Managing Your LinkedIn Privacy Settings
9 LinkedIn Default Settings You Need to Change Immediately

Tumblr

Tumblr Privacy and Safe Search Settings

Go Off the Grid

Cell Phone/Tablet Parental Controls

iPhone
Use parental controls on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch
iPhone Parental Controls: The Ultimate Guide
How do I set parental controls on the iPhone?

Android
Google introduces Family Link, its own parental control software for Android
How to set up parental controls on Android smartphones and tablets
How to use Android parental controls
Set up parental controls on Google Play

Windows Phone
Windows phone parental controls – Setup Step-By-Step

Computer Parental Controls

Apple
macOS Sierra Parental Controls (10.12, latest version)
macOS El Capitan Parental Controls (10.11)
macOS Yosemite Parental Controls (10.10)
How to use Parental Controls on your Mac: The ultimate guide

Windows
Keep your kids safer on the PC
How to Use Parental Controls in Windows 7
How to Use Parental Controls in Windows 8
How to Use the Parental Controls in Windows 10

Hill History Hunters

The social studies department at Albert Hill Middle recently put together a neat optional project for students to work on between spring break and the beginning of June. Entitled, "Hill History Hunters," each grade level gets a set of 7-9 sites around Richmond geared towards their specific subject matter. Students that visit at least 4-5 sites (depending on grade level) by the deadline will receive a prize provided by our PTA.

6th Grade sites (U.S. History to 1865) - Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, Historic St. John's Church, Meadow Farm Museum at Crump Park, Great Shiplock Park, The 1812 John Wickham House, Chimborazo Medical Museum, Hollywood Cemetery, Edgar Allan Poe Museum, and the Virginia Historical Society

7th Grade sites (U.S. History 1865 to Present) - Virginia War Memorial, Civilian Conservation Corps Museum at Pocahontas State Park, Library of Virginia, Maymont Mansion, Virginia Historical Society, The Valentine Museum, Maggie L. Walker Home, Virginia Holocaust Museum, and the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia

8th Grade sites (Civics and Economics) - The Valentine First Freedom Center, Attend a Richmond City Council Meeting, Library of Virginia, Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia, John Marshall House, Attend a Richmond School Board Meeting, and the Virginia State Capitol

Yellow for 6th grade, blue for 7th, and green for 8th.

The intro page of the book. 

Each page includes the title and description of the site, a QR code that links to their website, and a spot to place an artifact from the visit. (Ticket stub, photograph, stamp, paragraph, etc.)

Clarify Walkthrough

I've been using Clarify for the last few years whenever I've needed to create a walkthrough. I'm not a big fan of screencasts and personally find it easier to follow along a guide that has screenshots and written instructions when I'm learning something new. Creating these using Microsoft Word or Apple's Pages with a separate screenshot app can be time consuming. Clarify however makes it incredibly easy with it's ability to take the needed shots and automatically embed them. From there you can add arrows, highlights, and the like along with instructions and then export into a professional looking PDF or upload it to the web to share. It's an amazing app that I absolutely love.

A few months ago my supervisor saw something I had created with Clarify and liked it so much that she bought licenses for every ITRT in our group along with a few others in the district. She then asked me to train the group on how to use it.

It's been said that the best way to learn something is to teach it. Even though I've used it to create numerous guides I had only used a fraction of the features available. For example, I've generally only used arrows and the sequence dots to annotate images. But there are numerous other tools available such as highlights, text, and shapes. There's also the ability to use HTML to embed video along with setting up an account on the Clarify website to upload your guide to and share it.

When I was in college I took an English Composition course where one of the assignments was to write a process essay. I ended up writing it on how to write a process essay. As I worked on putting together a training for Clarify I figured what better way to do it than to create a walkthrough using it. The result of which is below. It can also be accessed on my Clarify account here.