The KnowledgeFarmer by Jim Farmer - EDM 613 Blog: September 2010

My Google Reader top picks.

RSS is a wonderful tool. As I come across great resources on the web I add them to my reader. I have organized the sites into categories to make it easier for me when I go through them. Some of my categories are:

1. Educational Technology
This is where I put blogs written by educational technology leaders that share amazing resources.

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day

Larry Ferlazzo's website of the day is a great place to find a variety of technology related links that are geared towards the K-12 teacher. He updates it regularly and he also has best of lists that range from Art to Web 2.0.

Educational Technology Guy

David Andrade is a physics teacher and former aerospace engineer that publishes a wide range of technology related articles on his blog.
2. Education
This is where I put blogs by educators that I like to read. Some are technology related but that is not the main focus. Most of these bloggers are, in my mind, leaders in the field of educational thought.

Practical Theory

Chris Lehman, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, writes amazing, insightful, thought provoking articles on this blog. His school is one of the nations leading high tech high schools.

Dangerously Irrelevant

Scott McLeod is a professor of education at Iowa State University. He is the co-author of the well known "Shift Happens" video. His blog is extremely well written on current topics in education.

3. Macintosh
I have been a mac user for a long time (let's just leave it at that). As I find great mac resources I put them into this folder so I can try to keep up with all things apple. I think the iPod and iPad are changing things in education faster than we think.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) is a great resource for Apple related news and events. They cover the iPhone, iPad, and Macs with timely articles and reviews.

4. Google Earth
If I had to choose one technology resource to use in teaching, it would be Google Earth. I think it applies to all curriculum areas and grasps students attention like nothing else I have used.

Google Earth Blog

The Google Earth Blog is not affiliated with Google but it is one of the best resources you can find to keep up with anything and everything related to Google Earth.

Google Lat Long Blog

This is the official blog from the Google Earth (GE) team. Lots of great resources and links to many GE related sites. This site is updated quite often and has news on how GE is being used in many interesting ways. I've found lots of educational resources through this site as well.

5. Interactive White Board
My school district has SMART Boards in every classroom and one of my job duties is to help our teachers use them effectively. This section of my reader houses interactive white board resources.

Teachers Love SMART Boards

Teachers Love SMART Boards is an excellent resource for teachers to find Notebook files (SMART's software), tips and tricks, and phenomenal resources. This is written by James Hollis, a teacher and SMART Board guru.

I hope you find these resources helpful. I am a big fan of Netvibes to store my rss feeds, websites, and so much more. It is similar to iGoogle, I just prefer it because I have been using it for years. One of the things I like the most about Netvibes is the ability to create public pages to share with anyone.

My Public Netvibes:

The Wimba tonight for the ETC course was very helpful but also a bit overwhelming so I thought I would jot some notes and put in some screenshots to help myself out. Hopefully it will be helpful to others as well.

Click on the images below to go directly to the resource.

1. Action Research help:

Great example of an AR blog that can help us to focus on what we need.

Sample AR site

2. Web 2.0 explained:

Common Craft videos are amazing 3 minute simple explanations on a variety of topics, mostly tech related. Make sure to watch the one about zombies... :)

Common Craft video tutorials

3. Zotero - easy way to collect references, citations, research, notes and more.

Camaal Moten mentioned this excellent site to help in organizing and citing research and sources.