BYOD Equity Panel at #SXSWedu 2014

On March 5, 2014, I was privileged to moderate and participate on a panel on Bridging the Digital Divide with BYOD Equity at the SXSWedu conference in Austin, Texas.

The panelists were a true joy to plan and present with. I highly suggest you follow each of them on Twitter to learn more about best practices in educational technology. My fellow panelists were:

• Jessica Herring, 7th Grade English teacher and practitioner of BYOD in the classroom at Benton Middle School outside of Little Rock, Arkansas
• Dr. Tim Clark, Coordinator of Instructional Technology for Forsyth County Schools in Georgia. Forsyth County Schools was an early trailblazer in BYOD initiatives and is looked to nationwide as a resource for how to implement BYOD and implement it well.
• Dr. Michael Mills, Assistant Professor of Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Arkansas. Michael keeps his hand in K-12 education by partnering with schools and teachers on BYOD integration projects. He also conceived of this panel and brought us all together to participate on it, for which I am truly thankful.

What I loved about this panel is it stretched the conversation about BYOD Equity beyond just devices. Of course access to devices is important when we are asking families to send technology to school with their children, but there are so many more equity issues involved. Some of the topics our panel touched on were:

• Internet access outside of school
• Support for and understanding of BYOD from school and district administrators
• Acceptance and sound implementation of BYOD by classroom teachers
• Ongoing, robust professional development for teachers
• Clear communication with families of students
• Support from the greater community in which the school or district operates

Here is an audio recording of the panel:

I am thankful that my Central Texas edtech colleague Diana Benner attended our panel and posted notes she took during the discussion to her blog. 

As I looked through Tweets later on the day of the session, this one really stood out because it was such a high compliment and made me realize it wasn't just my biased perception that the panel had gone well:

.@AquiAmigo @JessicaRae929 @BYOTNetwork @EdTechSandyK Best panel seen on BYO in 3 yrs, new thoughts are great to hear.
— Dave Saltmarsh (@Dave_Saltmarsh) March 5, 2014

I also used Storify to try collect Tweets which used our #BYODequity hashtag during the panel. Below is a slideshow of the Tweets I collected.

This conversation was just a beginning. I hope all of the documentation of the session which I am posting here can serve as a starting-place for more detailed conversations which lead to solutions for getting powerful learning technologies into the hands of students.

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Tips for Education Conference Presenters

Photo from Flikr User MattHurst Used Under a Creative Commons License

My favorite part of attending conferences like SXSWedu, TCEA, Tech Forum, or iPadpalooza is getting to learn from education colleagues and share my own learning with them in formal and informal spaces. Having just attended two conferences within the space of a month and done a solo presentation at one of them, I have a few tips fresh on my mind that might help anyone who plans to present at a conference or professional development event. These tips are based on a mixture of my experiences as a presenter and as an audience member. I think these tips will benefit first-time and experienced presenters.

Presentation Tips

1. Create digital resources and post them online so your audience can refer to them during your presentation and refer back to them after the event.  If you are creating a slide deck or other digital resource to use during your presentation, make it available to your audience at the start of your time with them. This will help them know how many notes they need to take and where they can go back to to reference your information after the event is over. Some of my favorite tools for this are Google Presentations, SlideShare, LiveBinders, and Prezi.
2. Make it easy for your audience to access your digital resources. Go to a website like tiny.cc where you can make a shortened link and a QR code for your resources. The shortened link helps tremendously, especially with anything hosted online that has an ugly long URL. A QR code is easily scanned by the numerous folks using their smartphones or tablet devices. Be sure to use both a QR code and short link if possible to accommodate all of your participants. If you can use only one, the shortened link will suffice for everyone.
3. Create a hashtag for your session so attendees can create buzz by Tweeting about it! This will help you in numerous ways. You can go back and search for the hashtag later to see what stood out to your audience based on what they shared. You can also invite participants to ask questions of you using the hashtag and get back to them later via Twitter if you run out of time during the session. You can also use Storify to curate the Tweets from your session after it is over; having a unique hashtag to search by will make your curation much easier.
4. Make any QR codes you use REALLY BIG on the screen. Don't be afraid to make it as big as possible. You likely won't know the size of the room you are presenting in until just before your presentation. Nothing can slow down the momentum of a presentation like everyone having to walk up to the screen to scan a QR code because they are sitting too far away. Although I like tiny.cc for creating shortened URLs, the QR codes it makes are very small and they get blurry when I resize them to make them larger. I recently discovered QRCode Monkey, which lets you choose the size of the QR code you are creating. I choose "Bumber sticker" size (their misspelling, not mine!) and that usually allows me to fill the screen.
5. Display the shortened URL for your digital resources and/or the Twitter hashtag on every screen in your presentation if possible. This will allow participants who come in late to easily access your resources and catch up. It also acts as a support for anyone who might get lost during the presentation by accidentally closing out of a tab in their web browser or because their device malfunctions. I have not used this technique myself in the past, but saw it in use at SXSWedu and thought it was a great idea! I will definitely incorporate it in the future.

What Are Your Ideas or Questions?

Those are the ideas that rise to the top for me right now. How about you? If you've presented at education conferences or attended presentations, what tips would you share or suggest? Or what questions have been stirred after reading the suggestions above? I hope you'll share ideas and questions in the comments section below, so we can continue to learn together!





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 All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Got Twitter? Make it Better! #TCEA14

At the 2014 TCEA Convention and Exposition, I presented a concurrent session called Got Twitter? Make it Better! I have presented several workshops over the past few years which introduce folks to using Twitter for professional learning, but have also wanted to share other tips and tools that have made my use of Twitter more productive. So I was excited to get to do just that this year!

Here is a quick summary of what I shared. I assume folks reading this already know the basics of using Twitter and how to follow, Tweet, and Retweet. If you aren't comfortable with the basics, you should start with my Twitter for Professional Learning resources before delving into the info presented here.

Below this list, you will find a link to the LiveBinder I used to collect the information and resources for this presentation. One caveat: Don't try all of these tools at one time! I've listed them in the order I think they will be of most benefit. Try them one at a time for a little while. Get a handle on one before you try another. And not all tools will work for  you. That's ok, too! Use what will benefit you, not frustrate you.

Ways to Make Twitter Better

• Use #hashtags when you search for information on Twitter and use them on the Tweets you send out. #Hashtags help categorize Tweets to make it easier to find information that will really benefit you. For example, the #mlearning hashtag will bring up Tweets related to mobile learning, and #txed will bring up Tweets related to Texas education. In the LiveBinder below this list, I have included numerous articles listing popular education #hashtags.
• Participate in a Twitter chat. Twitter chats take place live for approximately one hour every week or every other week and are centered around a specific topic such as digital citizenship or English teaching. During a chat, all participants use the chat hashtag on their Tweets. Specific questions are asked and participants give their answers or generate other questions. Chats can move quickly. You might just want to watch/lurk on your first chat. And use TweetChat.com to keep up with the comments. A comprehensive list of current chats going on in education is included in the LiveBinder below.
• Use Diigo to save all of those links you find on Twitter! You can save links to a Word doc or favorite them in the browser on your computer, but what happens when you are working from another device? You can't get to those resources. Diigo keeps all of your bookmarks online, or "in the cloud", allowing you to access them from any computer or mobile device. It also allows you to categorize your bookmarks using tags for easier searching later. And there are advanced features such as highlighting and note taking on websites. Be sure to access the Diigo resources in the LiveBinder below.
• Hootsuite is a tool for accessing your Twitter account and seeing all of your Twitter action in multiple columns. It also allows you to set up searches on Twitter users or hashtags you want to make sure you keep up with. Give Hootsuite a try, and you might not directly visit twitter.com ever again!
• If you tend to Tweet a lot during certain hours of the day, Buffer may be the tool for you. Buffer will allow you to schedule Tweets at pre-determined times throughout the day. So, when you are working or teaching, your Twitter is still sharing information, and it is broadening your audience, which may in turn broaden the network of people you can learn from. I've connected with educators in the UK and Australia and other countries by using Buffer to send Tweets out when I am working or sleeping.
• You probably already know about Pinterest, but did you know you could do double-duty with it? If you go into your Pinterest settings and link it with your Twitter account, you can Tweet when you pin. That broadens the number of folks who could benefit from what you are sharing.
• Scoop.it is a personal favorite of mine. It is similar to Pinterest in that it allows me to save links connected to one topic, but it has the added feature of allowing tagging of posts and comments/conversation about the resources you share. Scoop.it can also be integrated with your Twitter account so when you save a resource to a Scoop.it board, you can also Tweet it out simultaneously. Scoop.it also learns your interests and suggests more resources for you based on those interests.
• Are there folks you follow on Twitter who are awesome bloggers? When you see they've written a new post, you can't wait to read it? Well, chances are, if you are only following their blog via Twitter, you are missing some posts. That's where Feedly can help you out. Feedly makes it easy to subscribe to blogs and not miss a post. And, if you do get behind on reading, it's easy to just "mark all as read" and start from scratch. When you integrate Feedly with Twitter and/or Buffer, you also have an easy way to share the good stuff you read with your Twitter network. 

LiveBinder of Resources

Visit the LiveBinder below to view the resources I collected for the tools listed above and shared during my live presentation.

Got Twitter? Make it Better! – TCEA 2014

Alternate link to LiveBinder: www.tiny.cc/twitterbetter


What tools do you like to use to improve or streamline your Twitter experience? Please share in the comments!



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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Organize, Curate, and Share Your Online Resources - #TCEA13

Scan the QR Code to Go to the LiveBinder

Today Kim Garcia (@DigitalLearners) and I (@EdTechSandyK) are presenting on the topic Organize, Curate, and Share Your Online Resources.

Posted here are a link and a QR code which will take you to a LiveBinder with the resources for our presentation. We hope you enjoy the learning!

Click to Access Livebinder: Organize, Curate, and Share Your Online Resources - TCEA 2013

Alternate Link to Livebinder: http://tiny.cc/orgcurate

Twitter for Professional Learning - #TCEA13 #Twitter4PL

Today @MagisterWarren and I (@EdTechSandyK)  are presenting a workshop on Twitter for Professional Learning at the TCEA 2013 Convention and Exposition. Below is a link to the LiveBinder with all of our presentation resources. If you are in the workshop with us, we hope you enjoy it! If you are just stopping by this blog, I hope the resources in the LiveBinder will be useful to you.

You can also follow the hashtag #Twitter4PL to see what was tweeted on the topic before and during the workshop.

Happy Tweeting!

Click to Access LiveBinder: Twitter for Professional Learning – TCEA 2013

Alternate Link to LiveBinder: http://tinyurl.com/twitter4pl2013

P.S. While waiting for the workshop to begin, you might want to check out The 10 Stages of Twitter for Teachers

Twitter for Professional Learning

On Wednesday, February 8th, I am presenting a workshop on Twitter for Professional Learning at the 2012 TCEA Convention. Embedded below is a LiveBinder containing all of the resources for my presentation. It's my first ever LiveBinder, and first ever BYOD session. Looking forward to the challenge!

Twitter for Professional Learning

Please add comments, questions, and ideas below, whether you view the binder online only or attend the workshop in person. Thanks!

Supporting Teachers and Students in the Curation of Their Digital Footprint

Today I am presenting a breakout session on digital footprints at the 2012 TCEA Campus Leadership Academy. Below are the slides I'll use during my discussion with the participants.





In addition to the links embedded throughout the presentation, I invite you to visit my Diigo links on digital footprint. The list is constantly growing!

If you have any questions or comments after viewing the presentation (or attending it live!), please do not hesitate to post them below. Also, if you have suggestions for encouraging teachers and students to curate positive digital footprints, please share your ideas so we can all learn together. Thanks!