Abundance

After attending the eQuip conference I have come to the conclusion that with the abundance of digital tools available to us a educators,  being a connected educator can seem overwhelming.  Staying up to date with the newest and latest web 2.0 tools can seem like a full time job in and of itself.  As an administrator I use most of my selected tools to learn from others and to keep up to date in this fast paced educational world that we are now faced with.  As a teacher I am sure that it is even more challenging trying to both create a PLN  and to provide students with tools that will help them be contributors rather than consumers of content.

With these challenges in mind I am going to try to shed some light on the tools I use to continue to learn and what direction I believe teachers can take in the classroom.  It has become very easy to become overloaded with the amount of tools available.  I have tried to limit the amount that I use.  Here are my favorites:

Twitter- Using twitter is fast paced and can be a lot of work at times.  I usually try to look at my twitter account a couple of times per day.  I usually participate in the PBL Chat on Tuesday nights at 9:00.  I currently follow about 175 people and organizations.  Creating twitter lists can help with finding relevant articles and best practices in the areas of education and leadership.  Twitter is probably the best way to learn from others around the globe.  It is a powerful tool.

iGoogle-  I have set my home page to igoole and it has served as my RSS feed.  I follow several blogs  via my page.  iGoogle also allows me to go to one place for my email, google docs, calendar, and various other gadgets that I have loaded on my page.  I  love igoogle but as of November 1st google is shutting it down therefore I will need to find another RSS feed tool, probably feedly.

Evernote-  I love Evernote as well.  I use it to save notes whether they are my passwords, emails, voice notes, written notes, pictures, or tweets.  If I see a tweet on twitter that I want to save I often send it to my Evernote account.  I can also scan documents right into my evernote via the office copier.  A great thing about evernote is  the search capabilities.  I can type a word and it will filter through all mentions of that word and give me any note that I have made reference to the word.  

Diigo-  Along with sharing things via twitter I use Diigo to share with others and to bookmark articles and blog posts that i want to read or use later.  Diigo allows you to tag your bookmarks as a way of organizing  your content.  I am also able to read what others have bookmarked using this tool.  This tool helps me see what others are reading and then learn from them.  I see this being a valuable tool for students to be able to use as they are researching.  

Noteability.  This is a an iPad App that allows for annotating of PDF documents.  You can import documents from anywhere, in my case usually dropbox.  After annotating I can share documents with others via email or twitter.

Blogger-  This is where I blog and host valuable information for our staff.  It also allows me a platform to share articles and videos that I think can help everyone learn.

Those are my main tools although I dabble with others such as Dropbox, Sortify, and Flipboard.  the challenge becomes organizing folders and content within these tools.  With the vast amount of information coming into each of these tools this can be overwhelming.  Although there are many other tools,  I try to keep my use to these tools only.

My advise to teachers trying to balance both building a PLN and providing tools for their students is to become familiar with many but use a few.  Decide which ones work for you and stay with them.  Too many = overload.  With students, I do not think it is necessary to be proficient in the use of all of the tools available.  Give the students choice of which tools they want to use to serve the intended purpose.  Students will be able to figure out how the tools work with little help from us.

In this digital information age all of our jobs have moved from a world of scarcity to that of abundance.  What tools do you use to continue to learn or are your favorites  to help students learn?