Here in 60 Seconds

I have so much I would like to say about infographics, but I felt I needed to put this infographic on my blog ASAP. I have just returned home from ISTE 2011 and my head is spinning. I always hate going back to work the day after this conference, because I am in quite a daze (good daze, but a daze all the same). There are ideas, people, inspirations, future creations all running through my head, and I really need to sort them out. OK, with that, I have used 60 seconds to type these words, and in that same time, so much has happened! For better and for worse, the world is moving faster than ever, and educators need to teach to generations of children who are accustomed to moving at this pace.


Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Infographics

Infographics, digital presentations, digital storytelling and others are all names for the act of visually presenting data or information to make it more appealing. As a visual learner, this is something of interest to me on a personal and professional level. Recently I was shown a video on youtube of a visual representation done by Cognitive Media in a style called scribing. The example I will show is of Daniel Pink speaking about Motivation in regards to his book Drive.



This is a very professional and high level infographic, but there are many other types that can allow students and teachers to use this very powerful display method to share ideas and information. Not having access to a group like Cognitive Media, students and teachers alike will need to find other tools and strategies to make their information POP!

The Wild Apricot Blog has a great post on Making your own Infographic. This article has links to strategies, examples and How-To websites. The Wild Apricot Blog quotes Wikipedia,

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. With an information graphic, computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians develop and communicate concepts using a single symbol to process information.

Like much of the information we access in today's educational settings, students need to have information readily available and the ability to quickly present complex information is essential for teachers of these types of students.

One of the best guides to help anyone create an effective infographic is an article by Sneh Roy, The Anatomy of An Infographic: 5 Steps to Create a Powerful Visual. With a working knowledge of the 5 steps a student or a teacher could create an easy to navigate informational visual on almost any topic.

Two of my favorite tools for engaging info graphics (this is just two of many) are Wordle and Prezi. Wordle is a word cloud creator that is easy to use, customizable and allows the user to cut and paste any text into it. prezi is a unique presentation tool that instead of using traditional slides, allows the information to be placed on one single workspace and then the user can navigate, zoom and rotate the view from piece of information to piece of information to make an interactive visual presentation.

While this post only shows a few of the tools and resources for infographics, it is meant as an introduction to the topic and how it can be used more effectively in educational settings and in particular for those involved with Media and Technology within education.

Moving toward Greatness

Last week I read a short Monograph by Jim Collins, titled Good to Great in the Social Sector, and the impact this 35 page booklet had on my view of the role I can have on any agency was profound.

The book starts out with a simple difference between businesses and social agencies speaking about ways to measure greatness. In business, profit is a great way to measure greatness, however in the social sector, greatness must be assessed relative to the mission! This made me ask myself, how does my current agency measure itself? When I read our mission what will be our measure of greatness.

Collins goes on to give five frames that an organization should use to become great:

1. Defining "great" - calibrating success without business metrics

2. level 5 leadership - getting things done within a diffuse power structure

3. First Who - Getting the right people on the bus within social sector constraints

4. The hedgehog concept - rethinking the economic engine without a profit motive

5. Turning the Flywheel - building the momentum by building the brand

Each of these five factors will help to shape an organization and help move it from being simply good to GREAT!

This Diagram illustrates how each of the five frames interact and work together to help move an organization through the "pivot point", the moment when an organization changes its path from good to great! Each of the different frames is an important element all to itself and requires thought and time. This is not an overnight fix, but one that can be used by any member of an organization regardless if they are the head or the maintenance person.

I highly recommend this read, whether or not you have read the original book Good to Great.

Library Transformation

Let me begin about 18 months ago. I took the position of Director of Educational Media and Technology at an Independent School. In plain English, that means that I am in charge of the technology and the library of the school. In the first 12 months, I have been working with teachers and faculty to transform the way that technology is used in the classroom, but in the last 6 I have changed my focus to the school's library.

To give a simple picture, our school library is in a new building (4+ years old) and we have a good sized collection of books, that include reference, fiction, nonfiction and graphic novels. Our librarian keeps our collection up to date. Over the summer we converted our catalog system to Follet Destiny, with the add-on of Destiny Quest.

Other than that, we were using the model that had been at the school for over 10 years. PK- grade 2 classes would have scheduled library time, the teacher would drop them off and leave them for the librarian to read a book to and maybe start a discussion. For grades 3-5 teachers still have scheduled time, but they stay with their classes and use the space as they see fit. Some use it as computer time, others as silent reading time, some use it for regular class time in a "new" location.

This signaled to me that there was a need for a transformation, a way to re-frame the library space and give people extended options for its use and the use of its print, electronic, and human resources. The beginning of the transformation was a meeting with the library staff to develop a shared vision of what a library should be. While our ultimate goal was to get to the library to a 21st century library model, we knew this would be a process. Our first step was to market the library as a HUB of learning. We needed both students and teachers to see that the library is more than a space with a lot of books.

Our first change was to show that the library was a home for all types of resources. Our librarians began to offer their skills as information gatherers. We shared with teachers that we would help gather resources for class projects and units. For this we use a handy web 2.o tool called fur.ly (http://fur.ly).

This tool allows multiple URLs to be compiled into one tiny url that gives access to all of these resources. The advantage of this for our library was to enable our librarian to research any number of websites on a given topic and return one single url to the teacher. The teacher can then publish this to their website or any other resource list for students.

As we add transformative practices to our school library, i will be adding them to this blog.

Living in the Clouds Part 1

For most of my computer use this month I will be using a computer where the only thing I have paid for is the computer itself. I am using a browser to access all my applications, keep my notes, write this blog, store files and photos and much much more. All of the work that traditionally took place in office suite type applications, was stored on hard drives, moved around on floppy disks, then portable media drives, and then USB drives eventually printed on paper are now being done, stored, shared and submitted online. This is known as cloud computing.

If my "experiment" works, it could have multiple implications on the use of technology at my school. There could be economic, procedural and pedagogical repercussions with this type of change. In this first part, I am going to list out what web 2.o applications I am using and for what purpose. While this list is not finite, it will illustrate the backbone of what is being used.

First and formost I needed to choose a browser, and for this experiment as I am calling it, I have chosen to use Google Chrome. This is a very scaled down, low frills and fast moving browser. My usual browser of choice is firefox, but I thought this would be a great chance to run Chrome through its paces. Added onto chrome I have used add-ons for google wave, Picnik, Google Voice, Diigo, Blogger and evernote. The home page I use is an iGoogle home page with links to my most used applications and webpages.

The applications I have chosen are those that will help me with productivity, and other work and home related tasks. What I am not using this for is leisure or gaming.

Basic Tasks: Google Docs, word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, forms.

Email: Gmail, integrated with other google apps and easy to use from multiple computers.

Photos: Picasa & Picnik, depending on how involved I want to be.

Notes and Organization: Evernote, good filing system and web based.

Calendar: Google Calendar, easy to use, ical friendly, easy to organize multiple calendars.

Bookmarking: Diigo, interactive social bookmarking with good tagging tools.

Online Storage: Dropbox, 2 gigs of free storage.

RSS Feeds: Google Reader, integrated system with other google apps, easy to use.

Twitter: Tweetdeck, while this does take a good amount of memory, it is still better to organize your tweets.

Blogging: Blogger, again an easy to use app that integrates with other google features.

Screen Capture: Jing, easy to install and use. While not feature rich, until fireshot or something like it is available for Chrome, this will do.

I am sure that this list will grow, but my goal is not to spend a cent on any applications. If something changes and there is a charge for on of the above programs, I will abandon it and look for a similar application elsewhere. I will post reviews as I learn and grow with this and will blog about that too.

How-To....that is the question!

How do I...? That is the question most heard by technology educators in schools. While this is not the only dilemma we face it is a huge hurdle. How can one, ed-tech professional know everything? We cant! The greater, more important question is; can we find the resources to get the question answered?

As a Technology Educator for over 10 years, I have always strived to keep my knowledge of new technology up to speed, but alas, it is impossible to know everything about everything in our technological society. The use of Technology in education is moving just as fast as the technology industry itself and in order to reach all of the people who need us, we need to be able to both understand the students and teachers. We have students, who are now being seen as new types of learners, so we have to refine and redefine our pedegogy. We also have teachers, many of whom are seasoned veterans who don't necisarrily understand what these new learners are all about.

With this in mind, we have to address two problems, one what will be effective with our new learners, but in my opinion, even more important, is how do we teach our teachers to effectively use the new tools.

Usually, when a teacher asks, "how do I do this?" it ends up being translated as "can you do this for me?" While this may not be intentional, teachers are sometimes resistant to change. As a technology-educator, I have to be a teacher for teachers and both model the behaviors that are most effective and also have a working knowledge of what they need to make the most effective use of time. In order to do this we need resources, and there are plenty out there. While the most common is to find the answer on the internet, and read/practice what we need, but there is a more tangible answer to be found. There are a plethora of resources out there in the form of other people and professionals. I am a member of several social networks (Ning, Diigo, wikis, etc) that give me access to websites and people who can guide me and most imporantly, PREVENT ME FROM RECREATING THE WHEEL!

Here are a few websites to start the journey:

Article: 15 tutorial sites

Atomic Learning

Free Computer Tutorials

Amazing research tools

Cool Websites and Tools

What do you use? How do you best meet teacher's needs?