EdReach Show

This week on EdReach: The benefits of having social media helpers in the classroom, why education in Finland is so much better than America, the Kindle Fire helps us saying goodbye to the old library, and should teachers go back to the new-and-improved Delicious.com? Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: James O’Hagan and Greg Garner The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki.   Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

This week on EdReach: Picking apart Remind101.com, a purportedly new “Twitter” for teachers, making the case for ditching paper textbooks, and that pesky NY Times article creeps back again into another show.  This show really tried to answer the question: what happens when the fibre optic cable is fried at your school and you’re just about to record a podcast? Listen, and find out! Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: Judi Epcke, Greg Garner, and Scott Weidig The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki.   Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

This week on EdReach: Gmail and Apps goes offline, the Kno Textbooks App goes postal with college students, and the ERIAL project goes blue on Google Search. Make sure to check out our One Thing to Share this Week – some great tools and apps in there! Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: James O’Hagan, Jay Blackman Special Guest: Greg Garner The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki.   Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

Well, how can we ignore the Steve Jobs news? We discuss the importance of Steve Jobs to education, as well as talk about Codecademy.com, and again- some wonderful Matt Damon/Arne Duncan news! Don’t forget our One Thing to Share this Week – some great tools and apps in there. Our guests this week include Jen Wagner, Judy Epcke, and Scott Weidig. Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: Judi Epcke, Scott Weidig Special Guest: Jen Wagner from Projectsbyjen.com   The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki.   Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

Textbooks come to the Web in a big way (Kindle), NCLB explained for dummies, and  Arne Duncan says that states can have waivers for NCLB this year- with a catch. Make sure to listen to our One Thing to Share this Week – some great tools and apps in there (and one about nanobots). Our guests this week include Razor’s Ed host James O’Hagan and regular contributor Judi Epcke. Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: Judi Epcke, James O’Hagan The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki.   Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

Blooms Taxonomy for Apps, Matt Damon, and the Social Network Police all make for interesting fodder for the EdReach Contributors this week. Make sure to listen to our One Thing to Share this Week – some great tools and apps in there. Our guests this week include Razor’s Ed host James O’Hagan and EdReach regular Scott Weidig. Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: Judi Epcke, Jay D. Blackman Special Guests: Jim O’Hagan, Scott Weidig Subscribe to the EdReach Show on iTunes Subscribe to all of  The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast RSS Feed. Add EdReach as a Spark on Google Plus. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

Welcome back the the EdReach Show! We’ve been off for a couple weeks, so we’re coming back stronger. We’ve actually been spending time researching some video streaming options, so hopefully we’ll have more to share on that soon. This week we catch up on the Atlanta cheating scandal, some Google Plus shares, and a controversy over one parent’s choice to shame their son into getting better grades. Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show guests: Judi Epcke, and Jay D. Blackman Subscribe to the EdReach Show on iTunes Subscribe to all of  The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast RSS Feed. Add EdReach as a Spark on Google Plus. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

ISTE has come and it has gone, but it was a grand time for all. Today’s show, besides, of course, talking about the possible education implications about Google Plus, we give our ISTE reflections, and pore through three segments of Chris Lehmann’s wonderful keynote. We were all taken aback at the powerful positive reaction following Chris’ speech, which, quite frankly doesn’t get much better. For ISTE, under such a microscope, educators have in the past tended to be quite critical, but we didn’t hear much on the negative side of this presentation. Great job, Chris! And here’s to a great education conference. Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show guests: Judi Epcke, and Jay D. Blackman Subscribe to The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast Feed. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

Exciting! Scott, Judi, and Jay all join me to talk about getting into the ISTE van, and heading to Philly this week for the ISTE Conference. The big story at ISTE definitely seems like it will be iPads and tablets. We discuss the controversy over the ISTE Keynote, which has always been a point of contention for some of the attendees of the conference. We talk about many of the awesome, innovative educators to keep an eye out for, such as (but definitely not limited to): Kevin Honeycutt Scott McLeod Kathy Schrock Joyce Valenza Angela Meiers Sylvia Martinez Gary Stager Steve Dembo David Jakes We’re very excited to be engaging with many of you- we hope we can learn something from you. See you there! Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show guests: Scott Meech, Judi Epcke, and Jay D. Blackman Subscribe to The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast Feed. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

What is the Flipped Classroom? What is Khan Academy? Should we use these teaching tools and methods in our classrooms? EdReach is all about reaching out to innovative educators and highlighting the cutting-edge techniques that are being used in our schools throughout America and the world. This week I had the pleasure of speaking to John Burk, out of Atlanta, GA. John blogs at Quantam Progress, and has a lot of insight into the online curriculum known as Khan, and offers a primer for new teachers that are just discovering the subject of the Flipped Classroom. If you’ve ever been interested in hearing what the Flipped Classroom is all about and if it will work for your classroom, Mr. Burk has got a lot of ideas. Show Host: Daniel Rezac Special guest: John Burk Subscribe to The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast Feed. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH

This week’s show brings us more signs that Wikipedia is getting stronger and more relevant to today’s educators and higher educators. Also, we touch briefly on Apple’s iCloud, and the implications it has on schools using Apple products, as well as how it compares to Google Docs. Then we get introduced into an alternative to Khan Academy called Project Euler. What is Project Euler? We try and decipher that, along with a very tough math problem. Finally, we get into our Keynote of the week, and are introduced to educator Shawn Cornally who gives a fresh approach to motivation in the classroom. Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: Judi Epcke and Jay Blackman Subscribe to The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast Feed. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.

This week we summarize and add our two cents to the Bring Your Own Device conversation started by Judi Epcke and Scott Meech, and highlight some of the interesting comments that came up during those posts. To add on to that, we bring in our new segment, Keynote Review, and discuss how Chris Lehmann’s thoughts from last year’s TEDxNY keynote on a student centered learning environment comment on the BYOD discussion. We ask some really thoughtful questions like: is forcing a 1 to 1 environment on students- student centered or teacher centered? Finally, of course, there’s some great On the Radar tools to check out! Thanks for a great discussion! Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: Judi Epcke and Jay Blackman Subscribe to The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast Feed. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.  

This week brings us the debate over whether the “freemium” model of pricing Web 2.o tools and platforms is fair and reasonable. Also, with the recent tornadoes, we share a few teaching strategies and ideas for using that as a teachable moment. Additionally, we respond to Jennifer- from Glogster EDU’s reaction to our EdRoundtable post: Have you read the morning Glog? from last week. She offers some insights to Glogster’s strategy as a new media platform, and we discuss Glogster’s role in education as a growing company. Finally some great On the Radar (Jay’s app prototype tool really takes the cake). Show Host: Daniel Rezac Show contributors: Judi Epcke and Jay Blackman Subscribe to The EdReach Podcasts on iTunes Subscribe to the EdReach Podcast Feed. The complete show notes are now on the EdReach Wiki. Call us on our comment line! If you’d like to leave some feedback you can call us on our very own EdReach Comment line: That’s: (443) 93REACH.  

This week's theme has us a little concerned over the EETT funding- possibly being cut from some new legislation being introduced in the House of Representatives. Jay Blackman offers some great insight into how his district has benefitted greatly from EETT, and what it would mean for many schools without those funds. We also delve into Scott Weidig's research into doctors using iPads, and have some very interesting On the Radar tools as well.

That’s one giant leap for the cloud.  Today the Chromebook was released, and though I was all ready to call it the second coming, my thoughtful contributors were ready to talk me down off of that pedestal, once we started to piece together the entire puzzle. Google announces Chromebook:  From the Google Chrome Blog: http://chrome.blogspot.com/ Of the Chromebook, we ask: is this the future of computing? Is this a Sputnik moment for cloud computing? Isn’t a Web OS Inevitable for Apple and Microsoft? Regarding the Chromebook for Education Subscription service we ask: Is this a solution for poor schools? Now that Internet access is becoming ubiquitous even in the poorest areas, are these schools going to find Google their Knight in shining armor?  Has Google solved the problem of digital inequity? This subscription model basically “flips,” as Dan Pink says, the traditional model of enterprise computer support and purchases. Many schools lease computers from Apple, Is this going to disrupt the way other companies do subscription business, like Apple’s? ———————————————————————————————————————- 1. News Watch:  Our (Other) Big Story Last week EdReach was off, and Osama bin Laden was killed.  We never properly reacted to the news from last week, and how it’s viewed through the eyes of educators. I was on Twitter, along with many other educators. Where were you folks?   Do you think that Social Media played an important role in that news story? Was it helpful? Or hurtful? ———————————————————————————————————————- 2. Blog Watch – theme here: Social Media  Right before the bin Laden news, there was a piece about Social Media, among others that called out the efficacy of Social Media in schools and related to students.  We respond to the post:  Is Social Media Ruining Students? This piece uses an infographic to explain all the many harmful effects that SM can have on a student. We ask: Knowing how important Social Media has been to us in our quest as lifelong learners, and how effective it can be in providing a shared experience like the bin Laden story, how do we respond to this type of Fear,  Uncertainty,  and Doubt? ———————————————————————————————————————- 3.  Twitter Talk - Make sure to follow @nnorris, Nadine Norris, for great resources regarding social studies and current events. For great resources regarding Google or Google Teacher resources, use the #gct hashtag on Twitter.  ———————————————————————————————————————- 4.  “On the Radar”- Resources/ Tools/ Functions/ EdGadget What are some of your favorite new Web tools, Ed Gadgets, or functions that you want to share this week? http://www.chromeexperiments.com/ Awesome HTML5 stuff going on here (DR) http://doodle.com A great way to schedule a meeting (JE) http://www.creazaeducation.com/ – Jay Arduino Platform – Matt http://www.arduino.cc/ Thanks again for a great show this week!