Technology in Education: Notes from the Closet

Communicate with Parents Remind, formerly Remind 101 is a service that allows teachers to communicate with parents and students.  This FREE Web 2.0 tool allows teachers to create classes of students or parents and send group messages via text or email. Features One-way communication: teachers do not use their personal phone numbers, students and parents can not respond to the text/email. Only whole-group messages can be sent; no one-to-one communication Messages can be scheduled to send out automatically at a later date Photos, documents, Pdfs and more can be attached Teachers can see who viewed photos/documents Voice messaging is available Remind keeps a messaging history and never deletes messages Messages from Remind can be embedded on class websites or blogs It's FREE! Ideas for Using Remind Send motivational messages to students Field trip reminders Homework Spelling lists, class notes home Fun Facts Information:  meeting dates, topics y...

Each semester in my undergraduate and graduate courses we spend some time talking about digital tattoos and our online presence.  I show students personal information that can be found online about me for free. Information such as usernames, addresses, relatives and more.  We then data mine 'strangers' (aka my friends that have consented to a mine). After the evening many of the students are not only concerned about the Internet but more aware of the need to manage their online presence and teach the importance of this to students.  Those that were already weary of being online and social media usually throw out a "this-is-why-I-don't-use-these-sites" argument.  While it is important to be cautious about the Web it is also important to use it to our advantage as well. For Good, Not Just for Evil In my courses students also create professional portfolios.  This not only helps to build their web design skills but allows them a place to showcase their work pr...