Tabs I Have Open 1-20-14

My Small List of Tabs

Each month I want to talk about "Tabs I have Open." So here is what I had open on January 20th 2014:

Starting in the middle I had BIE.org open. (Full disclosure, I am on the BIE National Faculty.) Their new website design really makes for a great place for every level of PBL instruction. Are you new to PBL and want to know more about what it is? Go to their Resources Tab. Want to see what services are available to you and your school or district? Go to the Services Tab and select either Teacher, School, or District.  Already a veteran PBL teacher then you've probably already been here. Take time to see how things have been rearranged to see your favorite spots such as the Project Search.

While there are over 15,000 people who are members of The Educator's PLN(the tab to the right of the BIE tab), the next site, Classroom 2.0, boasts nearly 80,000 members! (I'll say more about The Educator's PLN, below).  I would join Classroom 2.0 and get on their notifications for the Saturday Classroom 2.0 Sessions. There are great topics and interesting guest speakers. If you have a free Saturday morning and you have nothing to do - well, you now have something to do! Give yourself plenty of time to explore this site.

Need a "One Stop Shop" for learning, in general?  How about Edutopia?  There are tons of great videos to watch but, even better, is the impressive list of bloggers who write for them. Check out the Blog tab and you'll see headings from Administrators and Assessments to Game-Based Learning and PBL. I subscribe to many of the blogs so I never miss what gets posted.

My last tab belongs to Discovery Education. I was an early member of the Discovery Educator's Network (DEN) and, to be honest, I came back to check this out because I have several friends who are very active DEN members and I know they have incredible resources. Check this site out for great resources with STEM-related course and other awesome stuff.

An extra tab I had up is The Educator's PLN. This Ning site has been around for a long time and therefore has some great educators who have some vast experience and knowledge.  I joined it in August of 2010 and, to be honest, lost it off of my radar screen. I, just recently, went back over to check it out and discovered that there are still some things you can check out over there (although there really isn't much new activity on there any more). One thing I like is that people use this site as a place to meet up with friends to discuss specific topics.

Looking below my address window you'll see that I have Dropbox, Symbaloo, Livebinders, Diigo, and Edmodo ready for quick access. These are all life savers for various reasons. And,if there are any of those that you haven't looked at before, then get hot! They are all websites that have been around for YEARS and there are great educators using each of them for their own reasons. I would select one of them and make it your own. I dabble in each of them and, because of that, none of them are things I use frequently.