Google Teacher Academy

Well, its done! I officially submitted my application for this year's Google Teacher Academy.
The theme for this year's Academy is "Innovative Education Leadership in the Age of Google." The academy will select 50 participants from a pool of applicants. I got my idea for the video mainly from David Wiley's What does open education look like?, thanks to a post from @ShawnRoner.

The trend of openness is growing rapidly and I definitely think it's time that we as educational leaders be informed enough to hop on board, and I'm sure Google will help lead the way!

Register Your School to Win a Free Projector!

Audio Visual Giveaway

Video on Teachers Using Facebook

This vid is a bit outdated, especially with the recent changes in Facebook privacy settings, but it gives teachers a good general overview of the possibility of its uses in the classroom:

Facebook for Educators from Inigral Inc. on Vimeo.

Creating your own YouTube Channel

For teachers who have not yet journeyed into the vast world of YouTube, but have a Google account (Gmail) you can create a YouTube account using your Google login. (I think this is supposed to simplify the process since YouTube is owned by Google however, I think for some it just confuses the process.) Or, you can go right to YouTube and create an account.Once you have an account created you can search educational videos, add your own channel to your blog or website as well as add videos to your playlist. I recently created my own YouTube channel which includes a playlist of How-to videos.

Tip...
If you are looking for a way to share a favorite video without displaying the distracting comments use Silentube it!. Silentube it! allows you to open a video within this site and play the video in peace!

How to Start a Blog

I started blogging about a year ago and have tried to be somewhat consistent in posting to my Technology in Education blog. Tech Tips, Tools is a newly created blog which encourages my goal to share more this year. By way of today's #30Goals challenge to become a guest blogger and reading shellterrell's blog post I learned that that subscribing to YouTube and creating your own educational channel is a good way to organize educational videos. Here's one on How to start your own blog:

Focusing Efforts in 2010

I just read a blog post from MZimmer which gives tips on how to focus blog efforts each day. Not that I will be able to follow his same outline, but I will definitely begin to use this as a spark for focusing my ideas. Oftentimes, I fail to write simply because of the overwhelming wealth of information that I receive from my Personal Learning Network (PLN) ....thank you! As I continue my morning routine of checking my Google Reader and reading my Twitter feed I will continue to share with other educators in the quest to effectively integrate technology in education.