Some of us are FREE from school schedules during June, July and August, in the northern hemisphere. But this same idea will work year round, whenever you are not tied to your school or work schedule.

All of us can participate in reviewing and commenting on the Common Core Science Standards, including Science and Engineering. Then if you are so inclined, you can be on the ground floor of developing classroom connections, classroom lessons, connections to English and Math standards, and finally, connections to the Social Studies standards as well.
Why is this important? Many of us have education happen to us or happen around us. However, at this time, we can be instrumental in the R&D, the research and development of how the Common Core Science Standards, including Science and Engineering, will impact our schools, our students and our lives.

I love the opening paragraph in the Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas, Reports Brief.

Science, engineering, and technology permeate every aspect of modern life. Some knowledge of science and engineering is required to understand and participate in many major public policy issues of today, as well as to make informed everyday decisions, such as selecting among alternate medical treatments or determining whether to buy an energy-efficient furnace.

Just that paragraph alone should have everyone running to download the FREE pdf on their tablet, or laptop, or desktop. This should be required reading for all communities of learners because without knowledge we are powerless to make effective decisions in this changing society and information age.

The framework is the first step in a process to inform state level decisions for improving science teaching and learning across the country. As of July 2012, 45 states and 3 territories have formally adopted the Common Core State Standards. If you are interested in specifics about the Common Core check out their Frequently Asked Questions. This is a comprehensive list of the most important talking points which will be informing the next generation of informed citizens as well as talented scientists.

There are 3 dimensions involved in the Framework. Dimension 1: Scientific and Engineering Practices, Dimension 2: Crosscutting Concepts that have Common Application Across Fields and Dimension 3: Core Ideas in Four Disciplinary Areas. All of this can be accomplished by introducing our earliest readers to non-fiction and providing the building blocks of this Framework throughout their K-12 school experiences.

What pleases me the most is that “throughout grades K-12 students should have the opportunity to carry out scientific investigations and engineering design projects related to the disciplinary core ideas”. This means that our students will practice scientific problem solving throughout their school years and NOT just read about great scientific ideas and solutions. Every day I am a scientist. Every day I must solve a problem. Every day I must be creative and look for patterns in order to find a solution. No longer should our students be asked questions with one answer. Rather our students should be smart about problem solving, trial and error, data management and collaborating to find their solutions.

Check out the Framework, we should all be thinking like a scientist, everyday.

To list or not to list? It’s Summer in the Northern Hemisphere! by Cheryl Oakes

Each summer as we near our solstice and the end of our school year, as we call it a wrap, we also begin asking each other, our students, our families, just what we will all be doing during the precious weeks away from a schedule and school.

I always ask myself, do I make a list or go with the unlist? A very famous movie titled, the Bucket List which was diligently carried around the world, had the actors check off their most amazing activities from their Bucket List (the things they wanted to accomplish before they ‘kicked the bucket’. I even found a website Bucket List, a social network, for just that “way to kickstart your life goals.” ( who knew?) I confess, I am not that lofty and that I plan to begin with my summer activities.

In this day and age of unconferences, I am going to go with the unlist and share with you my top 5 activities I am looking to accomplish this summer. Why 5? I can keep track of them on one hand.

• Cooking School- with my nephew
• Use Catchup (catchupmath.com) math as a student would, so I can be knowledgeable about the online program I am asking my students to use.
• Create a way for my niece to “take a photography class”, 30 Days of Digital Do’s with photography tasks for the young photographer. Join me for this activity.
  
• Read a real book, read a book on my ipad, read a book on my iphone and have a virtual book talk with friends.
• Play outside every day with my puppy Seraphina and work in our yard.

Why is this important to make an unlist? Even at an unconference there is a point in time where the participants list their interests or questions and begin sharing with others. My purpose is to challenge you (and myself) and encourage you (and myself) to reflect, and create your own vision, then share your satisfactions later this summer as comments.

Happy Summer, Happy Unlist!

Thanks to Wes Fryer for this chance to guest blog. Although it was not on my unlist, it made my summer better!
cross posted at:
Speed of Creativity
Cheryl Oakes
Tech Learning

Resources
If you are really into photos try this Photo a Day http://365project.org/
Catchup Math

The Places You’ll Go!

In the land of special education once a student turns 14-16 a significant part of Individual Education Planning focuses on something called a transition plan, where the team including parents, students, teachers and others’ who work with the student help direct the student through a series of activities designed to end up with the student making a choice about what they may want to do post high school and beyond!

While we used to believe that post secondary college options were not for our Intellectually Disabled, today we know differently, and now we move on to promote this to others.

A paragraph from the Community for Inclusion lays the groundwork for this journey, “Of all students with disabilities, those with intellectual disabilities have the poorest post-school outcomes. Until recently, the option of attending college, especially the opportunity to participate in typical coursework, has not been available to high school students with intellectual disabilities. The usual options for these students, especially those past the age of 18, have been limited to segregated life skills or community-based transition programs. Inclusive PSE (post secondary education) options are beginning to replace such programs and have great potential to improve student outcomes.“

If you are familiar with planning transitions it should be easy to add college to your list of options and turn them into activities for your students. If you are unfamiliar with college as an option for your students with intellectual disabilities please check out the information from Thinkcollege.net where you will be introduced to planning documents, webinars, research and journal articles. The best part of this informative website includes student videos about why they want to go to college.

As an educator building transition plans for my students, I have a vision that all my students will take a college class at our local community college while they are still in high school, dual enrollment. What I have learned since becoming familiar with Thinkcollege.net is that all of my students can continue with a customized college experience once they graduate from high school and are no longer considered as a dual enrollment student. Dual enrollment will help them get their foot in the door and a customized college program will keep them there. The benefits of our students with ID continuing in a college program include: “... that students with intellectual disabilities who had some type of PSE experience were much more likely to obtain competitive employment, required fewer supports, and earned higher wages. Additionally, students had increased self-esteem and expanded social networks that included students without disabilities, and all involved had overall higher expectations for these students.”

Planning for our special education students will keep them on the road towards being a lifelong learner. It is exciting to be involved with new options for our students and their families.

• http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/trans.index.htm
• http://www.greatschools.org/special-education/health/873-transition-planning-for-students-with-ieps.gs
• http://www.communityinclusion.org/article.php?article_id=178

Includes articles, videos, and procedures ,past webinars http://www.thinkcollege.net/trainings-past

2012-04-15 techlearning IEP

The first step to take in understanding your role in the IEP process with your identified students is to begin with “I” statements! How easy is that? Well, actually, it is the most difficult step to take. By virtue of IDEA 2004 always being referred to as Special Education Services, many of us take a step back and say “those students” or “your students," when actually it should be my “my students” or “our students.” While in middle and high school most of us would not presume to tackle a specialized math curriculum, a specialized science curriculum or physical education program. We all have knowledge about math, science and being physically active, but we would not presume to take over the instruction for those subjects because we are not highly qualified. However, this is the opposite of the model for including identified students who receive special education services into all classrooms.

It used to be that mainstreaming identified students into all classes within a school assumed that the special education teacher remained primarily responsible for the education of “those students”. However, “Inclusion is the more popular educational term referring to the move to educate all children, to the greatest possible extent, together in a regular classroom setting. ….Therefore, skills in curriculum-based assessment, team teaching, mastery learning, assessing learning styles (and modifying instruction to adapt to students' learning styles), other individualized and adaptive learning approaches, cooperative learning strategies, facilitating peer tutoring and "peer buddies," or social skills training are important for teachers to develop and use in inclusive classrooms. Soffer (1994) emphasizes that these are not just good special education practices, but are good practices for all teachers.” With this shift in education communities you will find, “It simply means that the ultimate responsibility for the education of all students in a classroom resides with the classroom teacher in charge....This does not, however, mean that special educators have no direct involvement in the education of these students.” Inclusion: pros and cons (http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues43/definition_inclusion.html)

With all this information, how does your role in the IEP process change? Best practices in classrooms today include all learners. One model for this is Universal Design for Learning.(http://www.cast.org/udl/) “Universal Design for Learning is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.” For educators looking to offer more inclusive classrooms and facilitate the learning process for all, you may want to check out the examples and resources made available by CAST (http://www.cast.org), the Center for Applied Special Technology at this UDL examples site. This is not a program but rather a change in your way of instructing and facilitating learning for all in your classroom.

An example that we can all benefit from is called Minimizing Threat and Distractions (http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/examples/examples7_3), think ADHD students and others. On this webpage alone you can find a free online reading practice activity, which simulates how to read better in spite of distractions on the page, or a blog post which focuses on classroom distractions and ways to minimize them. While you may have a student in mind as you make changes in your classroom, most likely the changes will benefit many! Your classroom will become a more inclusive and welcoming environment.

Our role in the IEP process has changed significantly. We, all educators, are responsible for providing a classroom environment that is effective and welcoming to all students. The ways we can do this are promoted on the CAST and UDL websites. Focus on one area of your classroom or instructional practice to begin with. Look at the results for you and your students as this one change becomes part of your daily routine and culture. Then add one more change to another area of your classroom or instructional practice. Soon you will have designed or redesigned your inclusive classroom not just for “my special education students”, but for all our students.

Resources

Inclusion: the pros and cons

http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues43/definition_inclusion.html

What is Universal Design for Learning?

http://www.cast.org/udl/

Universal Design for Learning Examples

http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/examples

CAST- home page for the Center for Applied Special Techology

http://www.cast.org/about/index.html

Minimizing Threats and Distractions- part of the UDL examples site

http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/examples/examples7_3

Readability - an app which removes distractions from webpages, works on Firefoxhttp://www.readability.com/

cross posted on cheryloakes.com

Each year for the past 4 years, I have attended the ATIA conference in Orlando, FL. ATIA stands for Assistive Technology Industry Association. I think one of the best ways to get to a conference, is to present at a conference. Share your knowledge, share with others, learn with others and once you leave the conference, share again. Here is my bit of sharing from the great speakers I had the opportunity to listen to, some great apps, and the encouragement I gained from being with others in this field of special education.

I was fortunate to hear several speakers who spoke about the necessity of various organizations to work together and collaborate on transition plans that all our special education students must have by age 14. Transition plans are designed to take the student from the supportive environment of the K-12 school systems to the post-secondary life of a young adult. One take away from those speakers, teach our students well, and teach them how to use their assistive technology while in school, because once they leave they will probably not have as much support to program, care for, find batteries for, or add to the customized contact list and customized learning that will enhance their future!

One of the most exciting sessions I attended was call the App Smackdown, apps for the ipad/ipod/iphone. How exciting to be in a room of 300 assistive technology users to hear their stories about various apps and share the best of the best, or at least the best of January 2012! You can check out the apps which were promoted by various assistive technology users by checking out this page and the various links. http://bit.ly/atiasmackdown

I would be remiss if I did not have a little selfless promotion and mention the whole reason I attended the ATIA Orlando 2012 conference, which was to present again with my colleague, Beth Goodwin, about how and why to create a digital toolkit,titled Empowering Students with a Customized Digital Toolkit for Writing. Check out our agenda and links!

If you are looking to attend one of the best technology conferences check out ATIA Chicago or ATIA Orlando. Even better, submit a proposal and begin your journey of sharing, collaborating and learning with some of the best technology users around.

cross posted at cheryloakes.com

Each year for the past 4 years, I have attended the ATIA conference in Orlando, FL. ATIA stands for Assistive Technology Industry Association. I think one of the best ways to get to a conference, is to present at a conference. Share your knowledge, share with others, learn with others and once you leave the conference, share again. Here is my bit of sharing from the great speakers I had the opportunity to listen to, some great apps, and the encouragement I gained from being with others in this field of special education.

I was fortunate to hear several speakers who spoke about the necessity of various organizations to work together and collaborate on transition plans that all our special education students must have by age 14. Transition plans are designed to take the student from the supportive environment of the K-12 school systems to the post-secondary life of a young adult. One take away from those speakers, teach our students well, and teach them how to use their assistive technology while in school, because once they leave they will probably not have as much support to program, care for, find batteries for, or add to the customized contact list and customized learning that will enhance their future!

One of the most exciting sessions I attended was call the App Smackdown, apps for the ipad/ipod/iphone. How exciting to be in a room of 300 assistive technology users to hear their stories about various apps and share the best of the best, or at least the best of January 2012! You can check out the apps which were promoted by various assistive technology users by checking out this page and the various links. http://bit.ly/atiasmackdown

I would be remiss if I did not have a little selfless promotion and mention the whole reason I attended the ATIA Orlando 2012 conference, which was to present again with my colleague, Beth Goodwin, about how and why to create a digital toolkit,titled Empowering Students with a Customized Digital Toolkit for Writing. Check out our agenda and links!

If you are looking to attend one of the best technology conferences check out ATIA Chicago or ATIA Orlando. Even better, submit a proposal and begin your journey of sharing, collaborating and learning with some of the best technology users around.

-crossposted at cheryloakes.com

Each year for the past 4 years, I have attended the ATIA conference in Orlando, FL. ATIA stands for Assistive Technology Industry Association. I think one of the best ways to get to a conference, is to present at a conference. Share your knowledge, share with others, learn with others and once you leave the conference, share again. Here is my bit of sharing from the great speakers I had the opportunity to listen to, some great apps, and the encouragement I gained from being with others in this field of special education.

I was fortunate to hear several speakers who spoke about the necessity of various organizations to work together and collaborate on transition plans that all our special education students must have by age 14. Transition plans are designed to take the student from the supportive environment of the K-12 school systems to the post-secondary life of a young adult. One take away from those speakers, teach our students well, and teach them how to use their assistive technology while in school, because once they leave they will probably not have as much support to program, care for, find batteries for, or add to the customized contact list and customized learning that will enhance their future!

One of the most exciting sessions I attended was call the App Smackdown, apps for the ipad/ipod/iphone. How exciting to be in a room of 300 assistive technology users to hear their stories about various apps and share the best of the best, or at least the best of January 2012! You can check out the apps which were promoted by various assistive technology users by checking out this page and the various links. http://bit.ly/atiasmackdown

I would be remiss if I did not have a little selfless promotion and mention the whole reason I attended the ATIA Orlando 2012 conference, which was to present again with my colleague, Beth Goodwin, about how and why to create a digital toolkit,titled Empowering Students with a Customized Digital Toolkit for Writing. Check out our agenda and links!

If you are looking to attend one of the best technology conferences check out ATIA Chicago or ATIA Orlando. Even better, submit a proposal and begin your journey of sharing, collaborating and learning with some of the best technology users around.

-crossposted at cheryloakes.com

Each year for the past 4 years, I have attended the ATIA conference in Orlando, FL. ATIA stands for Assistive Technology Industry Association. I think one of the best ways to get to a conference, is to present at a conference. Share your knowledge, share with others, learn with others and once you leave the conference, share again. Here is my bit of sharing from the great speakers I had the opportunity to listen to, some great apps, and the encouragement I gained from being with others in this field of special education.

I was fortunate to hear several speakers who spoke about the necessity of various organizations to work together and collaborate on transition plans that all our special education students must have by age 14. Transition plans are designed to take the student from the supportive environment of the K-12 school systems to the post-secondary life of a young adult. One take away from those speakers, teach our students well, and teach them how to use their assistive technology while in school, because once they leave they will probably not have as much support to program, care for, find batteries for, or add to the customized contact list and customized learning that will enhance their future!

One of the most exciting sessions I attended was call the App Smackdown, apps for the ipad/ipod/iphone. How exciting to be in a room of 300 assistive technology users to hear their stories about various apps and share the best of the best, or at least the best of January 2012! You can check out the apps which were promoted by various assistive technology users by checking out this page and the various links. http://bit.ly/atiasmackdown

I would be remiss if I did not have a little selfless promotion and mention the whole reason I attended the ATIA Orlando 2012 conference, which was to present again with my colleague, Beth Goodwin, about how and why to create a digital toolkit,titled Empowering Students with a Customized Digital Toolkit for Writing. Check out our agenda and links!

If you are looking to attend one of the best technology conferences check out ATIA Chicago or ATIA Orlando. Even better, submit a proposal and begin your journey of sharing, collaborating and learning with some of the best technology users around.

-crossposted at cheryloakes.com

Each year for the past 4 years, I have attended the ATIA conference in Orlando, FL. ATIA stands for Assistive Technology Industry Association.
I think one of the best ways to get to a conference, is to present at a conference. Share your knowledge, share with others, learn with others and once you leave the conference, share again. Here is my bit of sharing from the great speakers I had the opportunity to listen to, some great apps, and the encouragement I gained from being with others in this field of special education.
I was fortunate to hear several speakers who spoke about the necessity of various organizations to work together and collaborate on transition plans that all our special education students must have by age 14. Transition plans are designed to take the student from the supportive environment of the K-12 school systems to the post-secondary life of a young adult. One take away from those speakers, teach our students well, and teach them how to use their assistive technology while in school, because once they leave they will probably not have as much support to program, care for, find batteries for, or add to the customized contact list and customized learning that will enhance their future!

One of the most exciting sessions I attended was call the App Smackdown, apps for the ipad/ipod/iphone. How exciting to be in a room of 300 assistive technology users to hear their stories about various apps and share the best of the best, or at least the best of January 2012! You can check out the apps which were promoted by various assistive technology users by checking out this page and the various links. http://bit.ly/atiasmackdown

I would be remiss if I did not have a little selfless promotion and mention the whole reason I attended the ATIA Orlando 2012 conference, which was to present again with my colleague, Beth Goodwin, about how and why to create a digital toolkit,titled Empowering Students with a Customized Digital Toolkit for Writing. Check out our agenda and links!

So, do you think you want an ipad roadmap or do you want to go round Robin Hood's barn?

We know ipads are important to education, but right now we don’t know how important. There are many educators, parents and students who will agree and as many who will dispute this. The fact remains the ipad allows for instant differentiation in a classroom. This one tool allows for incredible differentiation without too much of a learning curve for student and educator alike.

When I bring the ipad into a class, all the students take notice. First they begin thinking, next they ask questions, “Is that yours?” “Does it belong to our school?” “Why do you have this?” “Do you have Angry Birds?” “Can I use it?” Each student and adult will have their own agenda of questions and their own ideas for use. That is the point! The ipad allows for purposeful differentiation.

However, at my school, I think we have skipped a step with our students. Without defining the specific use for the ipad, and leaving it open ended, we left a doorway open. Of course the students had their own uses for the ipad figured out long before the adults. We never discussed the purposeful use of the ipad in school. It is not too late, but the time has come.

How did I come to this realization? When I went to upload some audio books for our students, I noticed that I had run out of room on the ipad. A yellow caution triangle appeared as an indicator that the space on the ipad was filled! How was this possible? Well, our students are savvy, and they have logged into the ipad and downloaded games using their itunes accounts. Yes, we left the ipads “open”, we chose not to lock things down. It is easy enough to restore an ipad to the original software, and then re-install the chosen classroom applications.

So, now we will implement the roadmap of acceptable use with our ipads. This is similar to the roadmap of acceptable use we have modeled for computer and laptop use. But to our students the ipad is ‘different’ enough that they did not internalize the same kinds of explicit parameters for acceptable use that we expect with our school computers and devices. We will now be purposeful and explicit about the ipad use.

So, do you need a roadmap or can you travel round Robin Hood’s barn to get to a happy medium of ipad acceptable use in your classroom? A little bit of both! Since the ipad is so new and the availability of apps changes every day we need a little bit of traveling the circuitous route in determining uses of the ipads in our classes. However, the roadmap that we can put in place should be purposeful and explicit so all adults and students know the classroom rules and expectations for the ipad.

Here are some apps of purposeful and explicit expectations for a high school special education resource room:
Easybib- a tool for collecting bibliographic information when researching
Evernote- a tool for storing the information you collect when doing research
Dragon Dictate- a speech to text tool where one can speak about 30-40 words and then email the written text to themselves
Audio Notes- a tool for recording information which can then be emailed
Animoto- a tool for making short photo movies about a topic
Kindle- the Kindle app for collecting your books
Dictionary- Oh yeah!
Quizlet- compatible with Flashcards apps
Whiteboard- a tool for drawing and recording
SAT prep
Google Earth

One thing about working with young adults is that you run the risk of alienating them at the same time you are trying to share good ideas and ways for them to improve their learning and independence.As a special education teacher in a rural high school in Maine, I work at unlocking the doors to the future by using online digital tools with my students.

Teaching our students to use online tools under our direction, soon allows them more independence and the ability to use their skills no matter where they are. Our students are beginning their large research projects when we return to school and these apps will help our students keep things organized and at their finger tips.

Here are my top apps.

Easy-Bib app is an app for the computer where a student is able to copy a URL, clip the text from the URL and get help with a MLA bibliography. Now with the mobile app Easy Bib, the student has the ability to take a photo of the ISBN number and all the MLA information about the book is logged into the mobile device. How sweet is that?

Evernote app provides a way for our students to collect information for a research project into one place in the cloud. No matter if they use their mobile device, including smart phones or ipad/androids, or desktop computers our students are able to save everything to one space and access that information when needed. Check out evernote peek as a way to make your own flash cards or quizzes!

Animoto app- Have you ever said to someone , “Oh, you should have seen the fun we had!,” Now you can make good on that statement by using the animoto app on your smart phone or mobile device. Create an animoto account and take about 16 photos, then open the animoto app, gather the pictures, choose some music and create a mini video of your event. Again, there is a feature for sharing with social media like Twitter and Facebook. Our students use this as a way to share a limited number of images, with short captions when they are working on projects in school. Whenever we can use an online tool to capture the content from a course, we take advantage of the “cool factor” and the “medium is the message” theory promoted by Marshall McLuhan . Our students, especially the ones for whom writing is something to be feared and avoided at all costs can tell a very succinct and poignant story using images. After all, look at how much money is spent on 15 seconds during Super Bowl Sunday.

VoiceThread app-Is a great online tool for collaborating and telling a story at the same time. The features on VoiceThread have grown exponentially from use on computers to now on the iPad and other mobile devices, including text messages, video messages, audio messages and even a way to phone in a message with your phone.

hAPPy nEw yEAr! It is a SN-app!

One thing about working with young adults is that you run the risk of alienating them at the same time you are trying to share good ideas and ways for them to improve their learning and independence.As a special education teacher in a rural high school in Maine, I work at unlocking the doors to the future by using online digital tools with my students.

Teaching our students to use online tools under our direction, soon allows them more independence and the ability to use their skills no matter where they are. Our students are beginning their large research projects when we return to school and these apps will help our students keep things organized and at their finger tips.

Here are my top apps.

Easy-Bib app is an app for the computer where a student is able to copy a URL, clip the text from the URL and get help with a MLA bibliography. Now with the mobile app Easy Bib, the student has the ability to take a photo of the ISBN number and all the MLA information about the book is logged into the mobile device. How sweet is that?

Evernote app provides a way for our students to collect information for a research project into one place in the cloud. No matter if they use their mobile device, including smart phones or ipad/androids, or desktop computers our students are able to save everything to one space and access that information when needed. Check out evernote peek as a way to make your own flash cards or quizzes!

Animoto app- Have you ever said to someone , “Oh, you should have seen the fun we had!,” Now you can make good on that statement by using the animoto app on your smart phone or mobile device. Create an animoto account and take about 16 photos, then open the animoto app, gather the pictures, choose some music and create a mini video of your event. Again, there is a feature for sharing with social media like Twitter and Facebook. Our students use this as a way to share a limited number of images, with short captions when they are working on projects in school. Whenever we can use an online tool to capture the content from a course, we take advantage of the “cool factor” and the “medium is the message” theory promoted by Marshall McLuhan . Our students, especially the ones for whom writing is something to be feared and avoided at all costs can tell a very succinct and poignant story using images. After all, look at how much money is spent on 15 seconds during Super Bowl Sunday.

VoiceThread app-Is a great online tool for collaborating and telling a story at the same time. The features on VoiceThread have grown exponentially from use on computers to now on the iPad and other mobile devices, including text messages, video messages, audio messages and even a way to phone in a message with your phone.

hAPPy nEw yEAr! It is a SN-app!

During the season of darkness, in the northern hemisphere, we rely on daily brightness “of sorts” to lighten up our days.Here are some “gifts” for you and your students to brighten your days.

Many of us say, “If I only had more time I could .......” you can finish the statement .

What would you change about how you get your professional development?
Do you need to be in a group in order to best learn? Do you need a sandbox in order to play around with the new tools? How about feedback from your students, or their parents? Do you need to take a day off from school or work to attend a workshop?

Each time I think about learning a new tool or new professional learning, I have a new strategy. Sometimes I call a friend and we learn about a tool together. Other times I search Twitter and find people I follow and see what they are recommending. Lately, I've been using Diigo for my professional development. Diigo is a tool for filing bookmarks, articles, collecting research, highlighting information and saving all of this in the Cloud. However, there are so many of my good friends using Diigo and saving and sharing information, that I am using Diigo as my professional development.

Each morning I read through my email, then I make a 10 min. window to check out my Diigo recommendations. I have not had a day where I was disappointed. Each day I learn about some new app for my ipad or I learn about a new website that I can share with my students.

For me, Diigo is the best professional development for my time investment. I choose Diigo for my PD because:

• I have incremental learning in 10 minute blasts of time.
• I can always share one thing I learned from Diigo with my students or staff.
• I am gaining from the wisdom of others.
• I can share back to Diigo when I find items of interest.

Best of all, Diigo is FREE. Check out their informational movies, then make Diigo your PD.http://www.diigo.com/