How to Promote a Classroom Website or Blog

Throughout history, teachers have seldom felt the necessity to be good advertisers. We have, however, always had the need to be good communicators. With the advent of blogs, wikis, and other web based activities for the classroom, promoting and advertising is the most important step in communicating with parents and students today.

Here are a few things that you can do to advertise and promote your website, wiki, or blog:

1. URL address: When you first create a website, most services will let you choose your url...somewhat. Do the best you can to choose a logical yet MEMORABLE address. If you can't get the address you want, don't worry too much. There are other services that will allow you to create a shortened or alias URL that will also take your audience to your site.
   
   
2. URL shortening: If the website you use has a really long URL, don't fret! Trying to get 30 students to type a long URL just they way they see it on the board is painful enough to make any teacher pull out their hair, so URL shortening is the way to go. Using a URL shortener will give you another URL that also takes your audience to the desired site. For this I prefer www.bit.ly. You can shorten any link for free, but you really want to create a free account first, and here's why. With a Bit.ly account you can shorten a URL and then you can customize it. An uncustomized URL will look like this "www.bit.ly/a1b2c3". A customized address could be www.bit.ly/techtoolsforschools. Now, not only is your URL shortened, but it's also memorable.


Paste your URL into the blue box and bit.ly will automatically shorten with a random code.



By clicking "Customize" you can change your URL to something more memorable.





3. QR Codes: URL shortening is great, but let's face it no one likes to type any URL on a small device like a phone. QR codes are fantastic, because they use the device's camera to scan the code, which immediately opens the device's browser and takes the user right to your site. It's great! Open houses are the perfect time to use these, but I would suggest that you remind your audience to save the site's address on their device. Also, don't forget that not everyone will have a QR app or perhaps not even a device. So be sure to post the site's address alongside the QR code. Rarely should you use a QR code by itself without the address.
   
   
   Clicking on the info page for your shortened URL (within bit.ly) will reveal a QR code for your site. Right click and save this image for later use in documents & flyers.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Hyperlinking from other sites: Having other sites place a hyperlink to your site, gives your audience multiple avenues to get to your site. A couple examples: your campus webpage or a team/department page. For example, if I were a HS Social Studies teacher, I would try to think of where my parents and students might go to find info about my class. Then, I would find the managers of those sites and request that they place a link on their site that will send their audience to my site.
   
   
5. Hyperlinking to other sites: It's good practice to place hyperlinks on your site that refer your audience back to any other site that you are affiliated with. I recommend that you start with the sites in #4 above.
   Need more info about hyperlinks? click here: This is an example.
   Want to know how to create a hyperlink? click here. (Instructions courtesy my alma mater).
   
   
6. Valuable content: If you want your kids on your site, and want them there often, your site will need to have content and resources that your students can't live without. Here are some of the most ingenious and useful things I have seen on teacher sites: classwork journal, assignment calendar, pictures and videos of projects, tutorial videos, homework handouts, links to websites with study aids or drills, links to current events related to course content, links to online grade viewers, etc.
   
   
7. Email: Whenever you communicate with students and parents via email, be sure that you have a link to your site somewhere in that email. The email signature makes the most sense, but anywhere in the email is better than no where.
   
   
8. Class Lessons: One great way to condition your students to referring to your site is to use your site in lessons. I highly suggest making this a priority during the first week or two of school. Show the kids how to navigate your site. Show them the role it can play in their success in your class.
   
   
9. Homework Assignments: Having homework assignments that require the use of your site, are another great way to get your kids conditioned to using your site.
   
   
10. Extra Credit: After a couple of months my students started to figure out that I posted extra credit assignments on my site. Although I never advertised them in class, the word got out that if you wanted or needed extra credit in my class, the only way to get it was to pay attention to the class website. This was fantastic because the students that needed EC the were those that could gain the most from the information on my site. Sometimes the extra credit I posted was a simple as answering a question in the comment section of the blog post.

Most importantly...remember that getting your students and parents to your blog is the first major battle of the school year. Giving them a reason to return is the second.

Do you have other ideas for training students and parents to visit your blog? Please share by leaving a comment below.

BYOD: Best Student Apps 4 Back 2 School

This time of year is easy to find lists recommending the best apps for students. So I figured I ought to throw my hat into the ring as well. Please share your suggestions as well by leaving a comment.

1. Google Search -IOS-free; Android standard
   
   
   
   One feature they didn't talk about in the video is search by voice. It's so much faster than typing in on a small iPhone screen.
   
   
2. Evernote - Free - (web, Mac, PC, IOS, Android, etc.) This is best note taking app bar none. It's features include handwriting & text recognition, even within a picture. A student could snap a photo of the whiteboard or a PPT. Then all your notes are searchable by any keyword in the note or photo. (see my post on Evernote for cooks & home ec.)
   
   
   
   
3. gFlash+ - Free (IOS, Android & Blackberry) - Flashcard app allows you to convert Google docs into flashcards. Also compatible with Quizlet.
   
   
   
   
4. Dictionary.com - Free (web, IOS, Android, Blackberry) - Every teacher wishes their students always had a dictionary with them. (Winner of the 2009 Best Apps Ever Award)
   
   
   
   
5. Dropbox - Free (web, IOS, Android, Blackberry) - Store your files in the cloud and then retrieve them on any internet connected device. (Note: the files are not stored on the device itself, so if you lose an internet connection, you will not be able to get your files)
   
   
   
   
6. eReader - Kindle - iBooks - Google Books
   Kindle - Free (every platform) - With the cross platform ability of Kindle you can't go wrong.
   iBooks - Free (IOS) - Allows storage of ebooks & .PDF docs; ebooks can also contain video.
   Google Books - Free (IOS, Android, Web)
   
   
7. Grammar Guide - $.99 - Having a grammar reference tool is an essential for many classes.
   
8. The Chemical Touch - $.99 (IOS) - Interactive periodic table of elements
   
9. Homework: Myhomework & ihomework:
   
   Myhomework - Free (IOS & Android) - Great homework app "tracks your classes, homework, and projects so you never forget an assignment."
   
   ihomework - $1.99 (IOS & Mac) - Manage your courses, homework, grades, deadlines and more.
   
   
10. iFormulas - Free (IOS) - Formulas for Algebra, Calculus, Chemistry, Geometry, & Trigonometry.
    
    
11. History: Maps of the World - Free (IOS) - Collection of high resolution historical maps.

Thanks to all my colleagues on Facebook for lending a hand with the apps above.

With the hundreds of thousands of apps out there, this list is opinion. However, you can make it better...

• If you are a teacher, please leave a comment below with the subject that you teach and the apps that you recommend for your students.
• If you are student please add your favorites as well by leaving a comment.

BYOD - A Student Encounter

Today I made it to one of my campuses just in time to grab a sandwich from the PTA. After being bombarded by questions (school starts in 72 hours & it's crunch time), from various faculty that were awaiting my return to that campus, I was left alone to eat in the cafeteria.

About that time, a student who had come to help her mom with the PTA lunch for teachers, asked if she could eat her lunch at the table with me. This is a very polite young lady that I can remember helping throughout last school year, but can't for the life of me remember her name. After a few superficial conversation exchanges I decided to ask her about her plans for the new BYOD policy.

I asked her if she was excited to be able to bring her own tech devices. She responded in the affirmative although it seemed that she was holding her excitement from me in an effort to be polite and mature for her age.

I inquired about which devices she was planning on bringing. She said she was planning on bringing her phone (iPhone) and probably a laptop. I asked what kind of laptop she had but she didn't know the brand, just that it was a Windows machine.

Her next statement, however, was a little unexpected. She asked me if I thought the wifi would have enough speed to handle everyone's devices. Man! isn't that the question that this whole idea relies upon. Honestly, I don't know, but I have trust that our network guys have planned and worked as hard as they have in order that it will work.

At the end of our conversation I was getting ready to leave when she asked if she could introduce me to her mom. Her mother asked what we had been talking about. I told her that we had been discussing the BYOD policy for this next year. Interestingly, she wasn't as aware of the policy as I had expected most parents would be. She asked me what it was all about and I gave her the quick 30 second general scheme of things. I also explained how our Google Apps would help the new policy by giving the students even more tools to help them stay organized and communicate with their peers and teachers. She was ecstatic and told me what a wonderful idea that was for the district to pursue. She was so excited that she asked me what device would be best for her daughter to bring with her to class.

What a fantastic question! So good, in fact, that I didn't have a decent answer. How pathetic am I? I live and breathe tech blogs, news and reviews. I love knowing what the critics say about each new gadget and gizmo that is released. But I can't answer this mother that is requesting my meager advice about which tool would be best for her daughter to have. I guess coming from my background where every penny is pinched and saved, I have to say that the laptop is still king for a student. Especially now that there are so many good options like a Chromebook, netbooks, and now ultra-portables. But, there aren't many bad choices. This new age of mobile computing is exactly what education has been needing for many years now.

OK, back on track...After knowing about the BYOD policy for 2 minutes, this mother was ready to buy her daughter whatever would be best to help her in school. I think most parents, if they realized how effective and useful these devices can be in the classroom, would buy some type of device for their own children. The classroom is a great place for students to learn how to use and communicate with the tools of our day.

Lesson learned today...Students and parents are just as eager to try a BYOD as teachers and administrators...Actually, more so.

BYOD - Questions & Concerns

Today I had the opportunity to team teach with the campus principal as we addressed BYOD for the first time with our campus.

I guess you could say that I have a hero complex because I desperately want to have all the answers. Truth is...this is going to be a topic with which many answers may only come after years of learning and experience ahead.

Below are some of the biggest questions and concerns that I have heard of or fielded myself in the last few months. I'll include my answers, but if you have better answers or explanations please share by leaving a comment:

1. Q. If all students have to be using the school's filtered wifi and not their 3g/4g network, how do patrol that?

A. When students only used paper and pencil how did you know if they were using it to pass notes or to take notes? It should be no different than before the students used the devices. The main question is this, is the student on task?

A. The physical way to tell if they are using wifi is to look at the top of their screen to see if they are showing the wifi as turned on. You will be looking for a wifi symbol like this: If you only see bar like these and no wifi symbol it is a sure thing that they are not using wifi.

2. Q. What about students taking video of me and posting it to the internet?

A. The district's BYOD policy strictly prohibits students from posting recorded video in class to the internet. We must, however, understand that this is the world in which we live? Cameras are everywhere, always be mindful of your actions.

3. Q. What about less fortunate students who cannot afford a device like their friends have.

A. BYOD is not a 1:1 policy. BYOD is not about everyone doing the same thing in the same way. It allows for individuals to use the tools and techniques that are at their disposal.

A. If you do need everyone to have a device, it is much easier for the campus to provide 5-10 devices for students who do not have their own, rather than the district or campus to have to supply all 25-30.

A. If students are harassing or taunting students due to their device or lack thereof, then those students should be disciplined.

4. Q. How do I manage my classroom with BYOD?

A. One way is to have students always place their devices on top of their desk. This way they are out in the open and not hidden. If they are trying to hide something, that's when you need to investigate.

A. Allow your students to use their devices for class business as much as possible. Use this as a bargaining chip. "If you are off task one more time today, I will be confiscating your device, and think about everything you have on there for this and other classes. You might miss those things when the teacher asks you to turn something in next period."

A. Read the blog post "Branding BYOD: On/Off" by Jason Ohler.

5. Q. What if I hear a student's device chime from a notification or even ring?

A. Has your phone ever gone off in a professional development, a meeting, etc? We as adults are just a guilty.

A. Do what you can to communicate the expectation of silencing all devices. However, be patient and forgiving. You've probably forgotten a time or two also.

BYOD - Getting on the Same Page

BYOD is a paradigm shift of astronomical proportions. Well, maybe not that big, but in education it's big enough to effect more than I ever anticipated. One of the biggest changes that poses perhaps the highest hurdle on the course is that of getting all the teachers on one campus to get on board and fall in line.

Although our district policy is very well written and clearly defines student expectations and rules, each campus must take time to communicate the policy with it's teachers. For 10 years or more schools have been dealing with the intrusion of mobile devices by banning them which, for students, translates into 'hiding them.' Teachers have been, therefore, conditioned to taking them away from the students on every occasion possible. Some schools even hold the phones and wait for parents to come in and pay the ransom just to get the phone back from the school. Policy is fine and dandy, but ultimately how it's interpreted in the classroom as it relates to very specific problems is a task that must be proactively lead by the campus administrators.

So how do we break teachers of the knee jerk reaction, taking away the device if it is seen or heard? How do we help teachers and students understand that if you take away the device, for many of us we will be taking away our notes, calendars, textbooks, projects, dictionary, encyclopedia and more? How do we get to the point where we accept that these devices, just as it is with paper and pencil, will not always be on task? Perhaps most important, how do we get all teachers to allow students to learn in their own natural and comfortable manner?

Throughout the ages stones have been used for both building edifices as well as tearing them down. Every tool can be used to be productive or destructive, but if our children never get the chance to learn how to be productive with these tools they are likely to default to the easier and more menacing and destructive uses of today's technology.

Problems with Managing Multiple IOS devices...

IOS devices are inundating classrooms around the world. They just make sense in Education. Afterall the teacher can put almost all of their course content on the device, and students love using them. It's a great combination. So what's the problem? After managing one school set of iPod touch devices at each of my campuses, there are a few things that I wish Apple would address for Educators managing these devices.

Control over settings - With tools that are currently available it is NOT possible to lock or remove the settings app for students. H.S. & M.S. students are experts at being malicious with technology, especially when it comes to changing the wallpaper, lock screens, and the accessibility settings. Each time they do I have to restore that iPod from a saved backup. It's time consuming hassle.

Configuration profile updating - The iPhone Configuration Utility lets me push out all sorts of settings and webclips which I am very grateful that this doesn't have to be done by hand. However, if I ever need to update the wifi passcode or make a quick change to the profile it takes hours. These configuration profiles don't sync. To make any change they must be removed from the device, then update the profile on the mac (or create a new one), then reinstall the profile on each device. Not to mention the need to click install one time for each device from the mac and then 2X for each profile on the device itself. If I have the devices connected to the computer, allow me to click install one time to push out each profile to all the connected devices.

Manage home screens & App folders - iTunes allows you to manage home screens & app folders one device at a time. The ability to manage these settings in iTunes or ICU so that all devices could look and function identically would be powerful. This way you could organize your apps by subject or function, or even genre.

Installing apps - As my campus technolgy faciltator, I need to be able to add apps quickly and easily. But I also need to be able to prevent students from loading apps of their own. The ICU has a setting that prevents apps from installing. However, it also prevents me from installing apps even when I'm hard wired to my mac. The ideal situation would be to lock the installing of apps to the user, while at the same time enabling a way to push out apps over the air. (BTW - the over air installing of apps works beautifully, now if only there were an OTA uninstall).

Erase all photos - All I'm asking for is a button that erases all photos (except for the ones from my iPhoto library) without requiring me to download them to the computer first. As it it right now you must download all the photos to your iPhoto library before you get a delete button. To add inusult to injury, you can only download from one iPod/iPad at a time. With 30 iPods, this can take hours!

I like these devices. Mobile devices are the future of education. It is, perhaps the fastest/cheapest way to acheive a 1:1 ratio for most school districts. However, mass management & delivery of these devices is obviously a major obstacle for all mobile OS devices including IOS, Android, & RIM(Blackberry). Especially if they want to win over education.

Do you have other problems or solutions to my problems? Please drop me a line.

BYOD - Infrastructure

Another key piece of our new BYOD policy was our infrastructure. We couldn't tell students to bring any device they want and not have an internet connection for them. Not to mention telling students and parents they would have to use and pay for their data on their own wireless carrier was just out of the question.

Fortunately our district's technology coordinator has uncanny foresight and convinced the board to approve the purchase of an enterprise quality wifi network for each campus, capable of multiple SSIDs. I'm sure our team of network and IT guys helped her find a quality system that would meet our needs. (For more info on our wireless network visit http://www.xirrus.com/products/). Her sales pitch included a two year, multi-phase plan which placed campuses on a list prioritized by their curriculum and equipment needs. That was nearly 2 years ago. Today all of our campuses are pretty well covered for wifi.

Wifi Partitioning

Disclaimer: I am not a network guy nor do I play one on TV. The following is my best effort to explain what has been told to me.

Our wifi has been partitioned into 4 separate pipes. I have listed them below in their order of priority on the network:

1. Official District devices (laptop labs, etc.)
2. District mobile devices (iPods, tablets, Phones, etc)
3. Teacher owned devices
4. Students

As far as I understand the first pipe has priority and is able to expand to take over the lower levels as demand increases. This way all official school business and learning have priority on our bandwidth. In other words we aren't being bogged down by students downloading videos or music. As of right now all of these pipes receive the same level of internet filtering, (yes we do block YouTube). Also, our networks guys setup the wifi to require our students login to the wifi with the same credentials they use to login to any other computer on our district network.

All public schools are required to filter the internet for students. So to handle that we wrote into our BYOD policy a requirement mandating that the student use the district's provided wifi rather than their own mobile 3g or 4g network. While it is true that it may be hard to police this, it really comes down to classroom management. Where before this policy everyone was hiding their devices, now if they are hiding their device they should stick out and that is the student you need to monitoring. (More on classroom management to come. In the mean time check out "Branding BYOD: On/Off" by Jason Ohler.)

BYOD - Bring your own Device...

It's actually here...the 2011-12 school year is in full swing in my office! I feel like time is a freight train and I'm desperately hanging on the back trying to slow it down. But I digress.

This year our district is embarking on an experiment that we are calling BYOD: Bring Your Own Device. We are by no means the first to try such a policy, but we may be ahead of the pack. This is sure to be a learning experience for all of us.

In order to document our learning for any others behind us I will begin a new set of tags titled BYOD, this being the first. I'll try to share all the ways in which we researched, prepared, struggled, and adapted along this journey.

To kick this new section off I'll share some of our district's resources:

1. We decided to enroll in Google Apps for Education. (This was one major piece to the technology puzzle that really makes our BYOD policy possible)
2. We began midway through last school year by surveying parents, students, teachers, and administrators about their own mobile devices and their willingness to use them in the classroom. Check out the survey and it's results here: http://www.friscoisd.org/ly/departments/technology/ConnectingWithParents.htm
3. We looked to other districts that have tried this before us. Among them we found Forsyth County Schools in Georgia. They have a collection of great resources you can find @ http://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/byot (I can't say enough about how much their videos helped us and gave us direction.)
4. We looked for resources on classroom management. Here is one of best articles we have found "Branding BYOD: On/Off" by Jason Ohler.

I look forward to sharing more and more I my eyes are opened and I begin to see just what we've gotten ourselves into. However, whether we stumble or soar I'm grateful to be moving forward!