Many of the schools that I service regularly want their site updated with pictures.  I’ve strongly encouraged this as images that are changed regularly keep a website fresh.

One of the problems has been that the sending limit for district email is small, as well as the attachment limit.  Also, sending large files via email is clunky and slow, and not very reliable.  Fortunately, I found a solution that’s been tested to work, and I want to share this with the schools I service.

http://drop.io (100MB limit for each drop)

Please BOOKMARK this site for easy access. Here are the steps:

1. Click “Select Files.” Go to where the pictures are located.  If you have MULTIPLE pictures, you can hold Ctrl on your keyboard and use your mouse to select the ones you want to send.

Special Note: If you are sending a lot of pictures that are in separate folders as albums, it’s best to FIRST name your folders, and ZIP them: right click the folder and choose “add to zip”. Then you simply send that ONE ZIP folder as one file, and do that for EACH album folder,

2. Click “Create a Drop.” Wait for the files to upload; this could take a while depending on the size of the files and the speed of your network.

3. Copy the link at the top of your browser.   Paste that into an email and send it to me.  YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ENTER AN EMAIL ADDRESS ON THE WEBSITE.   That’s simply if you want to access that drop later for yourself; it’s not a feature that we will be using.

That’s it! I’ll get the link, download the pictures, and upload them for you.

Drop.io is a great service, and I’ll be writing later with some ideas on how to use this great collaboration tool for staff development, homework, etc.

As educators, we focus on what we can teach our students, after all, that’s what we do.  Rarely though, do we stop and think about what our students teach us.

I learned so much from my students in my classrooms.  I learned patience, understanding, humor, humility, and so many other vital qualities.  The honesty of students is what made me better at teaching.

When it comes to tech, we tend to think that since we are older, we HAVE to know more; we HAVE to be better than the students.  One thing I found out very quickly was that this will almost never be the case when it comes to your students.  It’s almost as if they were born with a technical inclination.  I’ve seen a 6 year old run loops around an adult in explaining how a technical device works.  As I traveled from school to school in my current work, students showed me shortcuts that I had never thought of which saved a lot of time, and I applied those in my future presentations.

There’s a measure of humility that is required on the part of the teacher.  Some scoff when a student tries to tech them about tech.  Some teachers outright avoid using tech in the classroom because they don’t know how to use it and want to save face; the students ultimately suffer.  How sad.

I stress to teachers all the time to learn the basics on how something works, then just go out there with it.  You’ll make mistakes, get frustrated, but the students will have your back.  9 times out of 10 there is at least 1 student who knows how to solve a problem or how to use the tech and can/will gladly help.  As a matter of fact, make figuring out the problem a project for them; you’ll be surprised at what they discover.  Let the students show you how something works.  Take your pride out of the equation.  They will feel empowered that they were part of the process, and then teaching becomes collaborative, vs. you teaching AT them.

What have your students taught YOU about technology?

This post is 100% derived from from a Wiki page, but the information is so good, it deserves to be posted again, especially to an audience where this information is unknown:

Wikis have different applications in the K12 classroom, they are used for pedagogical, administrative and social goals. You will find here some examples of the uses of wikis and links to popular wikis and readings about those uses.

Examples of uses of wikis in K-12:

• Science Fair Projects – A wiki could be set up for middle or high school students to brainstorm ideas for and plan science fair projects. Initially it would mostly be brainstorming, posting ideas and information to back them up. As they begin to flesh out the ideas that they are interested in, small groups might form to work on individual projects, but could still contribute ideas to other projects. The teacher can act as a facilitator by offering suggestions and asking probing questions to get students to consider particular aspects in the planning of their projects. The wiki could also be used to record and organize data, and plan eventual papers/presentations.

• Collaborative Textbooks – From Edutopia (the magazine) for September/October 2004, the article “Crack the Books” (p. 14) describes the California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP) which is an initiative to create online textbooks using wiki software and then eventually create printed copies. The founder of the project contends that most of the information in K-12 textbooks is in the public domain. The project aims to help California slash its $400 million dollar textbook budget. You can visit the project online at World History Textbook

• Student Portfolios – A wiki makes an easy shell for electronic portfolios where students can display and discuss their work with others. It would also be an excellent forum for peer editing and peer feedback to help students improve their writing skills.

• WikiOrganization – I used a local wiki on my computer to organize materials for a paper. I was able to save weblinks, documents, and quotes to the wiki and then just go to that particular page as I was writing. Finally, I linked the final product to the wiki. Wikis are a great organizational tool especially in a time when many of our classroom resources are digital and networked.

• Collaborative Understanding – If I were to teach middle school music again, I would try to use a Wiki as part of a music history/music study project for students to clarify their understanding of different styles of music. For example, back in the day, I had 2 or 3 classes of “beginners” each year. As we listened to different examples of music and of singing, I tried to help them understand how the different styles were related to each other (i.e., blues and hip hop). Using a Wiki would allow them to also share links to examples of music to support their ideas and opinions. I would then try to incorporate this project into one of our choir concerts to show that learning about music is about more than just singing or playing an instrument. (And this is based on the assumption that we would have access to computers in the school, and that the students would be able to use the computers after school if they did not have a computer at home.)

• Collaboration Between Teachers – The person I’m doing my consulting project with, after seeing our wiki and learning how they work, suggested using them for teachers to teach collaboratively, which is a use I hadn’t thought of originally but could have a lot of potential. They could work together creating lesson plans, track how the lessons are being implemented in their various classrooms, give suggestions – this could be a few teachers in the same middle school doing an interdisciplinary unit, or teachers of the same subject in distant places working on the same unit together.

• Literature Circles in Elementary School – Elementary students, particularly fourth and fifth grade in our district have Lit Circles. They all read the same book and then are required to answer questions about the material and pose questions. A Wiki would be a perfect way to integrate technology into thier Lit Cirles. Instead of sharing their thoughts on paper, they could post them to the wiki, respond to their peers thoughts or questions and best of all perserve this work for the next class to review at sometime during ther exploration of the same novel. Each of our elementary classrooms has at least two computers. ~Becky Small