Don’t forget to follow all of MyWeb4Ed’s Symbaloo webmixes at http://myweb4ed.symbaloo.com!

Related articles

• MyWeb4Ed on Symbaloo – Thousands of Educational Resources and Growing Daily
• Symbaloo Premium is Coming Right Along: Check Out The Huge Number Of Resources Available
• An Update on Symbaloo Premium
• Different ways to organise and bookmark your favourite weblinks
• An Update on Symbaloo Premium
• Part One… 12 Resources to Discover and Curate Digital Curriculum for Teachers and Students
• Symbaloo Premium is Coming Right Along: Check Out The Huge Number Of Resources Available

I still believe in classroom websites but now there are other choices.  It’s time for educators to find the online presence they like and grow it so that it becomes a hub for students to visit to get support for their after-class questions or to spend time strengthening their skills.  No excuses….in this day and age, it is just too simple to do, there are just too many choices, and this is the way our digital students communicate.  Take advantage of this wonderful resource and begin to build it now.  You won’t build it all at once, but begin the process.  Begin with assignments (including resources for those assignments to further understanding) and commit to the process.  Build pieces as they become necessary and before you know it, you’ll have a buzzing, active, full of activity online presence that ignites learning, motivates students, and makes your job easier!  (Yes, I said makes your job easier!)  You’ll have a “Go To” location for Learning!

So, here are five great recommendations.  These aren’t all that’s out there but these are great and will serve the purpose:

1. Edmodo – Everyone is on Facebook and Edmodo’s interface is comfortable and familiar to students.  Teachers are able to instantly create a “Go-To” site that is extremely easy to manage.  You can give assignments, include documents and links to supporting resources, and accept assignments in this location.  There’s a gradebook and the ability to create quizzes and polls.  Blogging is a cinch with the message boards and so is providing support.  Students are often more likely to post questions on Edmodo than ask them in class.   You can separate students into whatever groups you’d like:  class period, small groups, book titles for a book study, historic figures or eras…you name it.  Motivation is covered, too, as you can award badges to students.  Even at high school, they love these.  There’s a ton of apps that can be added but even the basic AND FREE Edmodo account will provide an amazing Go-To Learning Spot for your students.  And, there’s an App for Edmodo so your it’s great for BYOT/BYOD.
2. Edublogs - Don’t be fooled by the word “blog” in the title of this site.  Edublogs provides a location for you to create a great Go-To Learning Spot.  You can choose a template to begin with and have a nice place to post your information.  You can add pages to the site for all of the various content and resources you’ll want to add.    If are so inclined, for a reasonable monthly fee, you can give each of your students their own blog on Edublogs that you are able to monitor totally.  And, yes, there’s an App for Edublogs.  This site is better for someone who doesn’t mind locating the various sources (quiz ability, etc) to make the site comprehensive and enjoys the flexibility in design.
3. Twiducate - Twiducate is social networking for schools.  The video at the top of the post gives you an overview of Twiducate.  Again, the site is easy to use, free, and makes creating and managing your sources a breeze!
4. Schoolology – You can create a comprehensive site very easily here.  Schoology is free and allows for networking among teachers and students.  You can create and grade quizzes, assignments, blogs, discussions, create graphs, and groups. One very nice feature is that you can set up this info to be released at a specific time so you can plan ahead and have it open up when you are ready.  Very little effort would be needed to create and maintain a great site that serves as a Go-To Learning Spot for students.
5. Moodle – If you don’t mind creating  your own content (or want to create it), Moodle may just be the “Go-To Learning Spot” for your class.  This video gives an overview of Moodle’s ability:

Moodle Overview from Moodle HQ on Vimeo.

The main idea with these is to create your location.  If it’s going to be Twitter that you build your Go-To Learning Site at, that’s fine.  Just build it.  Start with one piece and grow it.  You will see improvements in your students. The payoff will be far more valuable than the effort expended!

Related articles

• Symbaloo Premium is Coming Right Along: Check Out The Huge Number Of Resources Available
• Part One… 12 Resources to Discover and Curate Digital Curriculum for Teachers and Students
• BagTheWeb Resource Collection For Students and Educators

Grab it while it’s free!

Information is found at their website at http://www.mycqs.com/ and it’s available in the App Store at https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mycqs/id555999518?mt=8.

For this year’s first post, I’m excited to share with you the app that is going to be my only calendar and task program. The app is called Pocket Informant and their website is http://www.pocketinformant.com.

You may recall that I have been looking for the perfect app for quite some time. I realize that I needed an app that handled my calendar, synced with Google calendar, synced with Outlook, and handled my tasks as well. I trade an awful lot of apps and Pocket Informant is the center is the perfect solution.

One of the best features of Pocket Informant is that it has a great interface that is easy to work with and intuitive, as well. If you remember the paper Day Planners that were so popular, then Pocket Informants will be a favorite for you, as well.

Pocket Informant is not an inexpensive app. The iPad app is $14.99 (however, today it seems to be on sale for $8.99) and the iPhone app is $9.99. If you want to sync everything including tags, folders, and more, the company offers a subscription for a yearly fee of $15 the ability to do so. For me, having an excellence calendar and task Is so important that it was worth the cost and nothing else came close to providing the features of Pocket Informant.

Check out this video to get an idea of how Pocket Informant works. In future posts, I’ll discuss the other calendar and task apps that I tried (and there were lots) as I delete them off my devices.

There are light versions of Pocket Informant that you can try and I recommend you do so. I will be posting about my adventures with this app but for now I am completely happy with it and looking forward to using it.

Related articles

• Pocket Informant Pro 2.6 for iOS: Best-Selling Calendar and Task Manager
• Pocket Informant Continues to Shine and Adds New Updates and Bug Fixes

See on cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com

See on comparemydocs.com

See on classparrot.com[box] ClassParrot has shut down.[/box]

Curate Web content to make your own topic bags. Publish and share your expertise. Bagging is teaching and learning.

See on www.bagtheweb.com

Create, embed and share your charts, plots, diagrams and maps online.

See on www.chartle.net

When students are working in MentorMob, they are working within the playlist moving from step to step. The framework or interface of the MentorMob playlist can be used to ensure students are on track and on task. The playlist has an easily recognizable frame and a simple glance around the room provides assurance that students are in the right place and working on the right assignment. This is a huge benefit when managing classrooms especially when some of those classrooms have 30 (or even more) students.

To enhance this tool as a classroom management feature, be sure to tell your students how easy it is to determine if they are on target and on task before they begin their work.

My favorite feature of MentorMob is its use for classroom safety. MentorMob’s interface is set up so that teacher – selected websites are brought to the students within the interface instead of the students browsing out to the Internet. This feature eliminates a lot of random searching which can lead to a variety of problems from not completing the work to happening upon inappropriate sites.

No matter what type of group you are working with, presenting in the MentorMob interface decreases the chance for distraction and improves the opportunity for engagement and focused learning.

The next time you are considering taking your students to the computer lab or bringing a laptop cart to your room, create your lesson in MentorMob first and productivity in the quality of products submitted by the students are likely to be improved.

It’s a legitimate question that I’ve received and one I’d like to explain.

On June 28th, 2008, my grandsons Quest (9 years old) and Zak (4 years old) were diagnosed with HCM.  Their younger brother, Sutton (1 year old) was cleared of the disease for the  time being.  At the time, I was working as an Instructional Technology Trainer for Ysleta ISD in El Paso, Texas and was crazy about my grandsons, my job, my district, and my home town.  The news, however, took my breath away…literally.  The doctor (who clearly did not receive an A, B, C, or D in Bedside Manners 101) explained that Quest had a mild form of HCM but that Zak was severe.  Very severe.  I’ll just summarize by saying that he said the prognosis was poor.  It took weeks before I could speak of it to anyone I knew about the news without losing all of my breath into a weeping mess.  My heart will forever be thankful to a dear coworker and friend, Cathy, who realized what was going on and literally spoke for me whenever it was necessary to share the news.

I’m not sure it should have been that big a surprise.  The boys’ father has HCM, their aunt Priscilla lost her life to HCM at the age of 33, their aunt Janice lost her battle at the age of 16, and their grandmother Shirley, succumbed to HCM at the age of 58.  I knew all of them (except Janice who passed before I knew the family) very well.  But, for some reason, the idea that HCM could be passed to the boys only swept through my mind on rare occasions.  A general visit with their pediatrician prompted a suggestion to get the boys checked out “just in case” and that is what brought about the visit.

The boys’ parents immediately got the boys into the Texas Children’s Hospital Cardiomyopathy Clinic where a highly recommended and amazing doctor worked with HCM patients.  They knew immediately that they needed to be closer to Houston where the boys could receive the most up-to-date and best medical care possible.  They decided to move.

I could not imagine being away from those boys for even one minute at that point but I also knew that my daughter was going to need a lot of strength to get through this.  She had a husband with HCM, two sons with HCM, and a one-year old.  My thinking was that my husband and I should also go to Houston to so that we could provide as much support as possible.  I think my role is to support my daughter so she can handle all of the boys’ needs.

Of course there was much to do in the process but the main thing is that we have now been in the Houston area for four years and we grow each and every day as we learn more about HCM and also about dealing with the disease in all aspects of the boys life.

I’m sad to say that the boys’ father is struggling daily with the disease and, as I write this, he is in the hospital with heart failure.  He’s 34 years old.  Zak, now 8 years old,  is in the process of getting an ICD/Pacemaker as symptoms are beginning to develop due to the HCM.  This will allow them to increase the medicine he is already taking.  Quest is doing well and remains mild.  He has problems with asthma symptoms and is also on medication for HCM.  The boys have been through genetic testing and Sutton, now 5 years old, does not have the same gene as the other two boys.  While this is a great sign, it does not clear him entirely from developing HCM. The boys currently must carry a portable defibrillator with them.  There will be some comfort when Zak’s ICD/Pacemaker is implanted.

If you are still a little confused about this disease, you’ve probably already run across somebody or read of somebody with it.  HCM is often the cause of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and if you’ve read of an athlete who suddenly lost their life during a game, then chances are you are reading about an HCM patient.

The truth is that 1 in 500 people are affected by HCM in the USA.  HCM is the leading cause of death in the young, including young athletes.  People of all ages can be affected by HCM.

As an educator, I’ve also become aware of how little educators understand about this disease.  Defibrillators are in schools but not nearly enough, they are often not placed well, and their use is not understood by school employees.  Schools have fire drills, code blue drills, hurricane drills, and a host of other preventative plans but they don’t practice one for cardiac arrest.  There is a drill available for this called the Dr. Heart Drill (video) and I believe every school should be implementing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I know how much the people in schools care about students.  I think this lack of understanding is simply because folks don’t know enough about the reality of diseases like HCM and how common they really are among our student populations.

(Exception:  I will take exception with the district where my daughter briefly enrolled Zak where they literally had a directive that the school ICD could not be used on him, that only his portable defibrillator could be used, and his portable defibrillator could only be used by his mother (who taught there) and the school nurse.  All other school members were clearly directed that they could not use any ICD, the school’s ICD or Zak’s personal one, to help him should he suffer cardiac arrest.  If you’re shaking your head in disbelief, believe me, we still are, too.)

So, I include information about HCM and the use of ICDs in school in my hope that others will learn about HCM, Sudden Cardiac Arrest, and take a proactive approach to making it different so that less people, especially our young students, are lost to this disease.

For more information, here’s a great site to learn more to protect students in your school and your own children:

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association

Zak’s Story: