January in Review

January 2010!

I started 2010 on quite an ambitious note with the 30 Goals Challenge series. I feel I grew so much as a blogger with your support in completing these challenges. You are welcome to download the free e-book of the challenges if you would still like to complete them. We have many new educators who have already started the challenges in February and blogging about it. Additionally, I am looking forward to your contribution to the upcoming 30 Goals collaborative e-book which will be much better than the one I have posted.

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What you might have missed…

Your favorite posts this month based on comments and overall traffic:

• Goal: Support a New Blogger– In this goal, I challenged you to visit and support new educational bloggers by commenting on their posts or retweeting them. You can easily discover new blogs or share them with others by using the hashtag, #newedblog.
• Goal: Create (40 Writing, Music, & Art Resources)– In this goal, I challenged you to inspire yourself and your students by nourishing your creativity. Sometimes, we leave behind our creative hobbies, but these hobbies help inspire us and relieve ourselves of stress.
• Goal: Conquer a Fear– In this goal, I challenged you to not let a fear prevent you from opportunities.
• Goal: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone– In this post, I offered you ideas on how to step out of your comfort zone while teaching. These included giving your students reign, teaching without the textbook for a day, and teach paperless once a week.
• My Favorite Goals–
  • Goal: Give Your Students Reign– In this goal, I encouraged you to allow your students to have complete control over one class period. Have them choose the material and the way they want to present the material. Just trust them and see what they create.
  • Goal: Cause A Ripple– I shared with you the ripple effect theory and how our actions cause ripples of positive or negative consequences. I encouraged you to cause positive ripples and prevent negative ripples. Everyday is an opportunity to stir the water, but are we actually making conscious efforts to do this?
• Favorite What Did They Tweet Series- In this post, our PLN shared with us the TED video- When Kids Believe They Can, the Slideshare- 7 Tips to Getting Strangers to Connect to You, the ESL e-book- Fiction in Action: Whodunnit, the video- Power of Creativity, and several contests to receive free technology in the classroom.
  
• Favorite Cool Sites Series- The goal was to give constructive feedback to students in innovative ways. In the post, 12 Resources for Giving Constructive Feedback, I shared audio tools for audio feedback, video tools for video feedback, and several rubric sites.
• My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools This Month–
  • Empressr-Upload video, images and audio to create cool slideshows with impressive effects. Use the charting and table tools, import images from Flickr, embed your presentation on your blog, and create a backchannel with Twitter during your presentation.
  • SlideRocket– Store your slide presentations online and integrate audio, images, and video. You can also collaborate with peers on presentations and create presentations online. Embed this on your blog, publish to a url, or conduct a webinar. A content library is available. For more presentation tools, check out this post.
• Where else you can find me:
  • I am now writing the summaries for Parentella’s #PTLA chat, the parent and educator discussion, which occurs every Wednesday at 9pm EST. You can read highlights about the first topic, The Ideal Communication Between Parents and Educators.
  • For great classroom management tips you may want to visit my #Edchat article on Edutopia, Should We Redefine Classroom Management?
  • For tips on activities with English language learners and mp3 players you may want to visit my Califone article, What a Bit of Technology Can Do.
  • Interview about #Edchat on Converge Magazine, One Hashtag Helps Educators Change Their Schools.
  • Interview about #Edchat on TEFL.net, Shelly Terrell Defines Edchat.

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  What was your favorite post? Leave a comment below!