Tech Time Saver #2 - Flipboard to Supplement or Supplant

In Tech Time Saver #1, I summarized how RSS Readers such as Feedly, Zite, and Flipboard could save time by delivering pre-curated content to your web-connected device. My appreciation for Flipboard has grown substantially since reading Sue Waters terrific post on The Edublogger. Other than looking sweet on the iPad, Flipboard is fast becoming my favorite "do everything" app for information, learning, and sharing. Here is how Flipboard can be a time saver for connected learners like me.

Flipboard can be used as a social media "aggregator". Social networks such as Twitter, Google+, and Linkedin, can be subscribed to, and reviewed alongside your favorite articles and videos. Efficiently, subscriptions can be created based upon social media criteria such as, Twitter hashtags, or Google+ circles. As with other popular RSS readers, your favorite content can be shared with a single click out to your social networks.
Flipboard can be used as the "reader" for collections curated in other apps. For instance, I can subscribe to those favorite contributors that populate my Blogger reading list. I can check in on the "instructional technology" folder that I had previously set up in Google Reader. I can also subscribe to local news outlets.
Flipboard can be used to create collections of web content that can be shared as "magazines" to social networks, or resources to be shared with students or colleagues. Others can be invited as contributors to the magazine, thus making collections collaborative. Much like Diigo or Delicious, Flipboard can be used for social bookmarking - identifying favorite web content and sharing it with relevant groups, and subscribers. Here is my first magazine, The Linked Learner, which I created and shared earlier this week. I also invited a few friends from my PLN to be contributors to this magazine.
Flipboard can be used to create a repository for student blog posts, or tweets. Teachers can quickly read, review, and share student submissions from a single app. Students can collaborate to create class magazines that feature their research and learning. Students take particular pride in the number of subscribers and flips that their works receive.

As you can see, Flipboard can be used to either supplement, or supplant other apps on your computer, tablet, or smart phone (Yes, Flipboard is device independent). These are significant considerations as teachers look to provide opportunities with focus and authenticity for their students. I plan to use Flipboard to supplement content for professional development to our teachers and staff. How about you? How will you use this versatile app to support connected learning?

Related Reading

Flipboard for Educators - Inside Flipboard

How to Create an Education News Feed in Flipboard - Sam Gliksman

15 Fantastic Ways to Use Flipboard - Vicki Davis

What Teachers Can Learn From Effective Coaches

In my educational world teaching and coaching involve the same processes. The people that impacted my own learning most significantly were coaches. Could it be that great coaches were ahead of their time with respects to instructional best practices? Let's take a look at ten coaching practices that thankfully have found their way into the classroom. http://www.coachwooden.com/files/PyramidThinkingSuccess.jpg Standards-based Grading - coaches aren't concerned with arbitrary measures of success such as letter grades. Great coaches identify a requisite set of skills that are necessary for advancement and success. Promotion and achievement are based upon clearly identified levels of skill mastery. Authentic assessment - coaches are looking for their athletes to demonstrate their skill mastery under game-like situations. The best coaches incorporate game simulations and competitive, game-like drills into their practices. Winning coaches will use the contests as assess

Board Games in the School Library: 3 Reasons Why It's a Winning Play

"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein “Play is the work of the child.” – Maria Montessori In our recently remodeled school media center, we have a space dedicated to active engagement in fun learning activities. Part maker space, part literacy lounge, board games are being incorporated to promote a culture of joyful learning. Whether it's a game of Rummy , Yahtzee , or Scrabble , family game night serves as a communication elixir and solidifies our domestic climate of togetherness. Shouldn't similar opportunities for interaction, challenge, and fun exist somewhere in our schools? Broken families, cultural fragmentation, and poverty are impacting opportunities for children to play. As we unpacked and tagged our new media center games, I was more disappointed than shocked by the number of students who had never played Monopoly , Boggle , or Sorry . One skeptical teacher commented, "Oh great, now we're letting students pl

Self-Directed vs. Self-Determined Learning; What's the Difference?

"We need to move beyond the idea that an education is something that is provided for us, and toward the idea that an education is something that we create for ourselves." - Stephen Downes In this age of abundance of information, shifting classroom pedagogy isn't nearly enough to make learning in school more relevant and authentic for the learner. Self-directed learning ( andragogy ), and self-determined learning ( heutagogy ) are the ideals necessary in making students " future ready " to live and learn in a web-connected world. While original research applied these concepts to mature learners, it has become apparent that even young children have an abundant capacity for recognizing and directing their learning. Anyone who has observed toddlers learning how to walk and talk understand the motivation and skill development that quickly develops during these processes. Considered by some to be on a learning continuum, self-directed learning, and self-determined

Nocking the Arrow

Search This Blog