9 ABCs of Livestreaming

Livestreaming is hot and more and more innovative educators are hopping on the livestream bandwagon. When they do, here are the ABCs of livestreaming to keep in mind.

What's Your Classroom Inviting Students to Do? 4 Configurations to Consider.

When I was pursuing my Masters degree in education back in the 90s, we spent time figuring out how to best set up a classroom. Traditional rows were out.  Pods of four were in. But there were many other options too: the circle, the horseshoe, desks on the perimeter of the room.

Teachers were thinking about what would suit their teaching style and foster the best learning.

• Would your classroom be set up for group collaboration?
• Would your classroom be traditional, with students in rows, ready to consume information and work on projects individually?  
• Would you have a horseshoe designed for group discussion?

Whatever you decided, the clunky, heavy, built-to-last furniture was inflexible and would likely stay put for the year. Some of the more eager teachers might consider moving around furniture from time to time, but the work involved usually meant the furniture stayed put most of the time. The limited mobility not only hampers interaction among students, instructors and content but the static environment actually became a barrier to learning.  

Traditional classroom furniture setup.

Fast forward a couple decades and we’re no longer so constrained.

The Hottest Posts Everyone's Reading for #BacktoSchool Preparation

Soaring to the top this week is a new post, Moving From Lecture to Learning, that can be essential for innovative educators looking forward to back-to-school strategies that go beyond the lecture. Following that are several additional posts with useful back-to-school strategies such as advice on Facebook Live, focusing on supporting students in asking good questions rather than focusing on simply finding answers, and two posts on Twitter. One is a guide to creating a killer bio. The other outlines how to do a Twitter scavenger hunt and shares the benefits. If any of these posts are of interest, check em out and share with others using the buttons below on Twitter, Facebook, email or whichever platform you like best.

Entry	Pageviews
Moving From Lecture to Learning Aug 3, 2016	9719
How to Use Facebook Live for Learning: 5 Outcomes,... Jul 17, 2016, 5 comments	5753
11 Takeaways fr @Globalearner (Alan November's) ... Jul 15, 2016	4573
Why Ask Why? 17 Different Types of Questions ... Jul 31, 2016, 1 comment	4533
5 Benefits of Having a Twitter Scavenger Hunt ... Jul 20, 2016, 3 comments	3360
4 Key Elements Necessary for a Killer Twitter Bio Jul 24, 2016, 2 comments	2586
Forget Taking Notes. 2 Strategies to Get to Thinking... Aug 1, 2016, 3 comments	2530

Using Your Headshot to Own Your Digital Image

You've heard the stories. Raunchy photos result in people getting fired, kicked off the team or appearing less attractive potential mate.

But what if you could make the images people find online, great?  

Innovative educators know you can with a headshot.  

Amy Brougher Milstein captured "the awesome" of winners of the Excellence in #NYCSchoolsTech  awards by taking their headshots which they can now use in all their online platforms to set the stage for their story. These educators know that their image should reflect how they want to be perceived by students, staff, colleagues, families, and even potential employers or partners. They dressed to impress and are conveying their personal brand.  

Here's what they'll do next:

• Upload image as your profile picture to your social networks (i.e. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter).
• Crop it tight.  Your face is often in a little thumbnail. You want people to see it.
• Upload the image to photo sites like Picassa and Flickr.
• Make sure it is public. It won't be searchable if it is not.
• Tag your photo with your full name. Be consistent with your tags.  
• Cite the source. Photo credit to Amy Brougher Milstein  

The end result will be a Google search that will eventually look something like this:

Because I actively control my digital image, when you search it, it conveys the story I want told. That is because I tag photos I like of myself and make them public. It also means I set tagging permissions so that I have to approve tags from others before they are published. Here is an example of how to do that on Facebook.

Owning your image is important. What story does your headshot convey? 

Moving From Lecture to Learning

Think of something you’re really good at.  Something that is important in your career and something you are proud of. It could be your ability to manage a classroom well. It could be that you have found the key to get children to begin reading. Maybe you are great at making videos. Whatever that thing is, take a minute to think about how you learned to be good at this thing.

Chances are you are like everyone else who went through this exercise and the word “lecture”or “note taking” aren’t top of mind as the answer to that question. That’s because, as renowned Harvard Professor Eric Mazur explains to us, lectures alone are an ineffective way to support learning. So ineffective that he actually gave up lecturing several years ago when he came to this realization.  

Mazur explains that students don’t need to come together to watch someone talk and furiously copy down notes. Today a speaker can provide lecture notes, transcript, presentation materials, and video for review. A great example of that is CS50. Technology has changed our access to information. Ignoring that fact, or worse, trapping students in their teacher’s past by putting structures in place that ban technology is a disservice to students.  

Forget Taking Notes. 2 Strategies to Get to Thinking & Sharing Faster

While some outdated educators are hung up on making students sit, stare, and copy down their every word (by hand!), innovative educators know there is a better way. At this year's #NYCSchoolsTech Summit teachers came together to learn about innovative ways to support teaching and learning but they weren't focused on taking notes.  

That's because of two strategies that were put into place that took care of that.