Places I am Learning from this Spring Break.

It is spring break here which means I have some spare time to catch-up on some professional development and reading. I thought I would take a minute and blog about a few of my favorite places to find ideas, resources and inspiration. So today’s blog is called:

Places I am learning from this Spring Break.

Twitter:

www.twitter.com

Twitter offers quick bites of pro-d without too much stress. The trick is to find great educators and follow them, then read what they have to say. Join in on the conversation by following hashtags that apply to you.  I personally love #edchat #frimm #kinderchat  and #langchat.  When I find someone who interests me I then follow them. Some of my favorite education tweeps are: @2learn2  @web20classroom  @WeAreTeachers  @Fr_Immersion98 @sylviaduckworth @MmeVeilleux

Check out  http://www.cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html for a great list of education hashtags.

New to Twitter? Check this out: 

http://edudemic.com/2010/06/the-ultimate-twitter-guidebook/

Scoop.it

I started my scoop.it page a little by accident not really understanding what it was but I love it. It forces me to look for targeted resources on my topic on interest and evaluate them in terms of quality and usefulness to others.  I also love the topic newsfeed that gives me a quick glance at articles connected to my interest areas and the ability to easily erase them when they aren’t useful to me. 

 http://www.scoop.it/t/primary-french-immersion-education

Pinterest

http://pinterest.com

No really, stay with me on this one. It is all the fun of scoop.it but without the “expert” tag.   Pinterest is a wonderful place to get introduced to new ideas and new teacher blogs, websites and resources.  It is also a great visual way to keep track of ideas you want to try. My art program has become much more interesting since I discovered pinterest.  The trick for me was to follow teacher boards that I found useful. I rarely follow all the boards a person has; only teaching boards that are useful for me.

You can check out my pins here: http://pinterest.com/yolindanne/

Videos:

Ten Videos Every Educator Should Watch.

http://eductechalogy.org/index/?p=285 

This article was brought to my attention by Twitter. I am making my way through this list. Some interesting videos here to reflect on. A good reminder that I need to spend more time listening to TED talks too. 

Spreeder:

http://www.spreeder.com/

I follow a lot of blogs and am a little behind on my reading.  Enter Spreeder to the rescue. This tool helps me “Speed Read” my way through those blog posts I have been meaning to read. Train your brain to look at words faster and find meaning. I use this to get through a lot of data quickly. When I find a rich document I need to read more slowly I go back and read it again without the tool.

So these are some of the places I am learning from today.  I would love to hear from other educators about what they are using. What are some of your favorite pro-d tools? What are your go to spots online?