This post is part of a fall semester course I am leading; Transliteracy in a New Participatory Culture of Learning (#UAtnpcl ). While it may not be relevant to all the readers of this blog (I’m sure there are about 3 of you) there may be something for you here.

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I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. I love the start of football season and our family has been busy taking in high school, college & NFL games the last few days. Hopefully all of you are taking some time to get in the last activities of the summer. Fall will be here before we know it!

Here’s your weekly update for our course.

Week 2 REWIND

Last week you should have navigated through the self-paced online content in both the “Watch These Videos” and “Read These Items” modules in Springboard. If you have not yet done this, please complete it soon. The materials there continue to help set the stage for our discussion of Transliteracy and what it means to be transliterate in our world. Outside of the videos and readings, there were several tasks for you to complete. These are listed below.

Create your blog

1. Can be personal, professional or classroom
2. Share an ABOUT ME post – In first post include: information about yourself, experience with teaching, technology, literacy, expectations for course, anything else you’d like to include. (videos encouraged, yet not necessary)

Create a Twitter account

1. Follow @uakron_literacy, @brueckj23 and @djakes accounts
2. Tweet using course hashtag #Uatnpcl – Tweet should share something you have learned about in the course so far. Could be an interesting observation, fact, or insight that will help us socially construct a mutual understanding of  the changing dynamic of literacy and learning.

Complete Digital Communication Tools Form

Week 3 PREVIEW

This week you will continue to familiarize yourself with two essential transliteracy tools that you can use to begin to build your own professional learning network; Twitter and blogs. Some people have set up their accounts, while as of press time, other have not. It is essential to our learning experience to have these two items up and running. Because of this, I am going to step away from the syllabus schedule a bit and take the time needed to get everyone up and running at a reasonable comfort level. This means if you are an individual who has already completed the Week 2 items, you get a quick break this week. If you are an individual who still needs to complete this, take this week to knock it out. If you need assistance, please contact me and I will make sure you get the support you need.

Due to these schedule changes, we WILL NOT be holding a web conference session this week. We will meet on Blackboard Collaborate on September 17, 2013 from 6:50 PM- 8:20 PM. Use http://bit.ly/BrewWebConf to join the conference room. During that time we will talk in detail about Twitter chats and discuss the protocol for holding our course related Twitter chat.

Mobile Device Tips for Parents

Written by Sarah Lane with Jeremy Brueck

Most children use the summer break from school to relax and play. Most parents hope their children will learn something over break, and with all the offerings of mobile technology, the options are vast—and confusing.  So which technological amusement is more teacher than babysitter? How can children benefit intellectually and academically from the many apps available on iPads, smartphones and other mobile devices?

The challenge for parents is to make sure that their children are using technology appropriately—that they are exercising their minds and not merely their thumbs. Jeremy Brueck, director of the Digital Text Initiative at The University of Akron’s Center for Literacy, offers the following tips. Read the rest of this entry…

 Session Resources

1. Download When Ebooks Go to School (Epub format)
2. When Ebooks Go to School Bibliography
3. Read the rest of this entry…

This isn’t my typical educational technology related post. I mean, it kind of is, but it really isn’t. I believe that we all learn and grow from experiences that happen both inside and outside of the classroom, so in essence, this post is about education and technology, but it’s also about more than that. It’s about a new opportunity, a new way to look at the things around me, a new way to approach literacy and how people interact with text, media and each other via social media.

This past week, I had my own opportunity to learn outside the classroom. A few months back, it was my good fortune to merge paths in the Twittersphere with @JGuyMAC, Director of Communications for the Mid-American Conference. Back in February, I was a guest of The University of Akron’s Men’s Basketball program at a pretty big game against Ohio University. The Zips had asked me to serve as a Social Media Correspondent on Social Media Day at the arena.

As a social media correspondent, two Zips fans will cover both the men’s and women’s games as members of the media, including insider access to pre and post game activities, media seating during the game and more.

Read the rest of this entry…

I participated in #ohedchat last night where the topic was “PARCC ASSESSMENTS.” Based on Wes Fryer‘s post from earlier in the day, I decided to try Tweetchat.com. I found the service to be helpful for filtering the conversation into a single stream. This was great for following and focusing on only the #ohedchat discussion, however I quickly became frustrated with the inability to see @replies that I receiving during the chat. I ended up following the chat using Tweetchat, but also using Hotot for Chrome on my Samsung Chromebook to interact with others.

I took away a lot of great information from the chat. I’ve collected and curated the pieces I found most helpful using Storify. You can view them below. Read the rest of this entry…

I was down in Columbus, Ohio this week to attend eTech Ohio‘s annual educational technology conference, OETC13. I was involved in a number of interesting sessions, but my one “official” conference presentation was a BYOT titled “Student-Created Multimedia eBooks on the iPad in Grades K-3.”

The Google Site I created as a resource can be found here. I included quite a bit of background information that covers the current research on ebooks for young children, types of ebooks, selecting ebooks and also evaluating ebooks. This content is Flash-based, so if you’re trying to review it on an iPad, you’re out of luck. Sorry! But trust me, it is good stuff, so find a desktop or laptop and go through it!

The BYOD activity for the session is here. Please feel free to borrow, steal, use or remix with your students or teachers. If you’re just looking for my app recommendations from the session, here are the FREE ones and the PAY ones. If you want to learn more about how the session went, read on…

Read the rest of this entry…

I’ve spent the past few days getting everything in order for my trip to the Ohio Educational Technology Conference in Columbus. The conference runs from February 11-13, 2013. This year, I have a pretty full schedule. Part of that is due to the fact that I’ve been heavily involved in the planning for a new aspect of OETC. For the 2013 conference, a small team of edtech professionals from around the state have been working in conjunction with eTech Ohio to put together OECTx, the “official UNconference of OETC.”

OETCx is an event that’s happening in conjunction with the eTech Ohio Educational Technology Conference on Tuesday, February 12, 2013. This event will take place on the second floor of C-Pod (rooms C-224 through C-226) all day.

The idea is to combine social network tools and a participant-driven schedule to make the eTech conference more interactive and engaging.

In 224 and 225, we’ll have a number of areas set up for “unconference” style sessions. We’ll use a format similar to the popular EdCamps, where topics are decided on the fly and participants engage in conversations about those topics. This format allows anyone with an idea to collaborate with others around that shared interest. It also gives regular session presenters the opportunity to have followup sessions to continue the conversation and get feedback from attendees on their sessions.

Meanwhile, in 226, we have a number of sessions scheduled. These will include a simulcast and real-time discussion of the keynote, roundtable discussion of BYOD and 1:1, an Ignite-style session where teachers will share ideas in 5-minute presentations with 20 auto-advancing slides, an App Smack Down, and several scheduled sessions that will be in the conference planner. Read the rest of this entry…

I recently had an opportunity to visit with Katherine Boyd from the local CBS Radio affiliate 104.1 FM and talk a little about educational technology.

Boy, times have changed when it comes to teaching our kids in the classroom.

Used to be a teacher relied on books, rulers and a chalk board to instruct the class.  Today, books are being replaced with tablets and e-readers, rulers are replaced with smart phones, and chalk boards are replaced by monitors and laptops.

In this edition of Cleveland Connection, we talk to three local educators who are on the cutting edge when it comes to technology in the classroom.

Listen to a a podcast of this show: 01 CC Technology In The Classroom

Thanks to Ryan MacRaild, Instructional Technology Educator at St Joseph Academy in Cleveland, for working with Kat to make this segment possible!

This morning on Twitter, Leah LaCrosse posed a question related to dealing with a challenging students on days when she is out of the classroom. I thought it was a good question and Leah, Ryan MacRaild and I threw around a couple of approaches she could take. Here’s what we cam up with. What do you think?

Read the rest of this entry…