Education Technology

EdTech Magazine is a great, free website that has tons of articles, resources, product and service reviews, information and more about edtech topics and products. It is a great resource for any educator, educational technology specialist or director, or technology personnel.

They just published an article "50 Must Read K-12 IT Blogs" that is a list, with short description and link, of 50 different edtech blogs. I was surprised, and honored, to find myself on the list. There are some great blogs on there, like Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne, David Warlick's Blog, Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog, David Pogue's tech blog on the NY Times, Tech&Learning Magazine's blog section, and many more.

I would have also included the following blogs in the list:



1.  Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites - Jerry has created a one-stop-find-everything resource for educational topics and edtech resources. If you can't find it here, it doesn't exist. Period.



2.  Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber-Hero - David Kapuler's blog is a great place to find tons of great educational resources and apps.



3. Connected Principals - a great blog for ideas and resources on edtech, and education, from an administrator's viewpoint.




4. Discovery Educator Network Blogs - great resource with links, ideas, resources and much more - not just on Discovery Education materials either.


Remember, if you weren't on this list and are an edtech blogger, don't worry. These lists, like all lists, are fun, great to be mentioned on, but don't mean your blog isn't an awesome resource too!

The other day, Richard Byrne over at Free Technology for Teachers, emailed me to let me know that a site was stealing content from my blog. The site, http://educationsideasandtips.blogspot.com/, seems to be automatically reposting entire articles from my blog. I have been using Richard's great post "What To Do When Your Work Is Plagiarized" to work to get the site shut down. There is no real way to contact the blog owner, but I have filed a complaint with Google/Blogger.



I have had a few other blogs do the same thing, but when I contacted the blog owner, they apologized and changed how they shared my content. I spend a lot of time on this blog and I don't think it's too much to ask that people don't blatantly copy entire posts, no matter whether they put a link back or not.

I have no problem with people sharing what I write about, but it should be a summary and then link to my article. Copying entire blog posts, even with a link back to my site, is plagiarism and violates the CC license and is just bad practice.

I want to thank Richard for finding this site and bringing it to my attention.

"Evernote – an attempt at the definitive summary of teacher uses!" is a great blog post by Richard Lambert that does a really good job of describing some great ways of using Evernote in education. As a huge Evernote fan, and user, I'm always looking for new ways of using Evernote as an educator.

Shelly Blake-Plock is the creator of the blog "TeachPaperless." It was one of the first education blogs I found and started reading years ago and was one of the ones that convinced me that I should start my own blog. His blog was not limited to articles on going paperless, but rather had articles about thinking outside the box as an educator and doing different things with your students. I took many of his ideas and integrated them into my classes.
Some more tips for going paperlessPaper, we don't need no paper! Tools and tips for going paperlessUnfettered by Stuff - or "Why I don't lug stuff home every night"

  +  =   ???


Twitter announced yesterday that it has acquired Posterous, the popular, lightweight blogging service. There is no information about the fate of Posterous though. Twitter's announcement made note that it was acquiring Posterous to "obtain talent and technology". There is no mention of whether Twitter will incorporate Posterous into Twitter, keep it running as is, modify it, or shut it down.

Any teachers using Posterous should probably start looking at alternatives, just in case.

Some alternatives could include:
Twitter
Google Plus (Google+)
Blogger
Wordpress
Tumblr

Posterous may still be around, but there is no information on it's fate yet. Be prepared and have alternative plans if you use it.

BlogBooker is a free site that turns your blog into a PDF book from all the blog's entries and comments. It works with WordPress, LiveJournal and Blogger blogs.

It is very simple. You export your blog (slightly different process for each blog service - BlogBooker has instructions for you) and then upload it to BlogBooker. It then assembles everything into a high-quality PDF file. This can take a few minutes or longer depending on the size of your blog.

This is a great way to print your BlogBook or make an archive/backup of the blog. It could also be useful for students and educators as a way to save a blog as a portfolio item.