I love when I run across tools that are quite useful…completely by accident. I found embedly as I was working on a post about digital storytelling with instagram for secondary students. (posting shortly after this one) Embedly is a tool that allows users to embed any linkable content to a website with an interactive responsive card that is then easily sharable across networks. I no longer have to grab an image, edit it and upload it to my blog. I simply paste the link into the blank on Embed.ly. A card is generated that I can then edit further to upload to my blog. Of course, if it is content that is already set up to easily embed, then I’ll just embed from that site but for resource sharing, embed.ly is kind of cool! Embedly makes your content more engaging and easier to share | Embedly Here is another for the storehouse story that I created from a previous blog which does not have the capabilities to embed. Creativity by Rafranz Davis Here is an embed for Canva, another of my favorite tools! Canva - Amazingly simple graphic design for blogs, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers and so much more.

When most teachers hear the phrase, "digital storytelling", they probably think of telling a story as it would be in a book. For that reason, many teachers struggle with understanding what this is or should be. Stories that are similar to those that students would read in books are only one type and may not apply in every content area or lesson. There are other types as well. Digital storytelling in my classroom was rarely the "storybook" kind. They were almost always a collection of details that allowed students to bring content together and into focus from their point of view. It was about their curation of things that they created which included how, why, what if and what now. Storytelling enabled students to look at math from the perspective of their world and formulate their ideas about it. Student stories could be anything from video to slideshows, posters, audio recordings, screencast or even physical printed stories. Below are a few tools that you may already be familiar with including my insight on each one which I have embedded in the descriptions of each card…a cool feature of embed.ly 1. Tackk.com (image, text, audio, video, websites) < Log in with Google Acct Tackk - Content Creation + Sharing Students can log in with their google accounts. Students can connect instagram to pull images and video. Includes free image search from 500px. Simple to set up and use 2. Padlet.com (image, text, video, audio with link, websites) Log in with Google acct Paper for the web | Padlet Padlet is awesome for bringing content together. I love that it too integrates nicely with instagram. Students can connect with their google accounts and also create custom urls to make their content searchable. 3. Storehouse (Ipad Only) (images, text, video…import from instagram) Ipad ONLY: Storehouse: visual storytelling I love the interface of storehouse. I do not like that it is ipad only. I also do not like that accounts can only be create via facebook connect or email. With that said, high school students with email accounts will love being able to pull from almost every sharing site and also add text. 4. Thinglink.com (image, text, audio, video, websites) Log in with Google acct ThingLink - Make Your Images Interactive Create a custom image first. Students can then add their images, video and text to bring their ideas together. Honestly, as much as I love thinglink, it really is a more effective tool if students are linking their own content. 5. Tapestry (image and text) Tapestry: Beautiful Storytelling Remember, it doesn’t have to be a "storybook" story but tapestry works now on any device and allows users to build beautiful slideshows. LOVE this for poetry/creative writing. 6. Haiku Deck (images and text) Presentation Software that Inspires | Haiku Deck Web and mobile creation. Make slides but add more using notes! 7. ExamTime (mindmaps and notes with images, video and links) I really do wish that the name of this product was not "examtime" because it truly is an amazing tool that goes well beyond use for exams. I like that students can build their own mindmaps and take notes which include images, video and links. I also like that students can create their own quizzes to share along with sharing their interactive mindmaps. I do not like that email or facebook is required to login. ExamTime - Changing the way you learn 8. Google Apps Google Apps for Education What better way than using the tools of google to build a collection of learning? Using docs, spreadsheets, slides…etc…can only be more powerful by allowing others to add content as well. 9. Movenote Movenote I can’t stress how much I love movenote enough because it’s use is too simple NOT to love. It’s simple. Make something that is not a video. Upload it through the app or web and record a video to talk about it. 10. Blogging with any blog site of choice I can’t stress enough how powerful it is for kids to simply blog. To have a place that is their own where they can share as they choose as well as reflect on life, learning and everything in between is a great thing. How they do that could be any site. Below is kidblog which is what our students use if they aren’t using blogger. Kidblog | Safe and simple blogs for your students.

Tonight, as I was going through my training events from now throughout the summer, I had to laugh at the number of events that I plan to go to that are coming directly from my pocket. I laughed because I know that personally paying TO PRESENT professional development is just a normal part of what we do sometimes. Some schools will cover expenses but for many of us, that doesn’t happen unless there is funding. It most certainly does not happen for out of state events. There are events like, Educon, that I would pay for in a heartbeat because I will leave that place as a better human being. Having said that, tech events are not the same. I rarely learn anything new that I could not have learned through twitter, blogging or a google hangout…so why on earth am I paying out of my pocket to go? Events can be hundreds of dollars to attend…and that’s just registration. Add airfare and hotels and that means that our out of pocket expenses could be over $1,000 per event. By the way, when I say "our", I am 100% referring to those of us that present on the basis of submission. There are a few who have "earned" featured spots and for the most part, those speakers are there expense free…other than meals maybe. Those spots are typically the exact same people conference to conference because those are the people that draw a crowd and get others to pay to attend. They’re typically people who have a resume of great sessions, a reputation, have an insane number of twitter followers and who have extreme visibility. How and Why I will say that without the relationships formed through twitter, travel such as this would be financially impossible. Typically if a group of us are going to an event, we’ll split the cost of lodging. It’s those relationships that keep us paying to go teach because those events are where we typically connect face to face. The learning, for me, happens in those conversations and not necessarily in a session. Honestly, I kind of despise sessions that are not conversations. I’m a bit "edcamp-spoiled" in that aspect…which is why I LOVE Educon. Free Registration This summer, I’m presenting at TxGoo, Ipadpalooza and iDesign Coppell. Each event gave free registration to presenters, which should really be a no-brainer! Why aren’t they all this way? Hello TCEA, ISTE and Miami Device! I’m attending Discovery Ed Summer Institute as well as the SMART Global Summit in Canada. Aside from travel TO Tennessee, both of those events are free events but both required an application and acceptance. Anytime that we can get PD at zero cost, we’ll try our best to do it. (Edcamps are awesome for that) Paying to teach? No Really…Why??? I hate sessions yet I love teaching with a passion! I will even say that I’m pretty good at it and I’m not going to back down from that statement either. I also love seeing new faces and places. I’m not complaining about selling my left kidney to teach because it is a choice. We don’t have to go. We choose to do it and largely because we’re just that passionate about what we do. I also go because as someone who has a great deal to say about lack of diversity at these events, I think that it’s necessary to be present, counted and heard. One last thought… At some point the "featured presenter" page needs to not be void of color because there are plenty of us in this edtech world with just as great of credentials as the typical faces that appear.  

It may have been two weeks ago when Michelle Baldwin‘s class tweeted that they were inspired by Braeden and making puppets. We’ve shared every bit of his process in doing this across twitter, instagram and facebook. One thing that I did not consider was putting the entire story together in one place to make it accessible to anyone that wanted to read it. So, when I saw the tweet from Michelle’s class, it was a no-brainer that this one last component needed to happen so I created the TACKK below. TACKK is a simple FREE tool for creating digital posters. For our students, it’s one of the goto tools since kids can create their accounts using their non-email google logins. In addition, users can customize every aspect of their poster in so many ways…from choosing a custom url to adding a background image. Every piece can be customized to the user’s disposal. I loved that I could easily import images from instagram as well as instagram video. I had so many images that I had to choose as there is a limit of I believe 20 imports from that service. After I reached my limit, I was able to save and upload with no problem. My favorite parts about TACKK are the sharing features. Check out the video below as I take you inside our TACKK to learn about sharing! Sharing TACKK

There are moments when it’s difficult for me to have certain edu conversations. I would love to drown my thoughts in twitter chat hoopla but it’s not happening…not today. Today, I get to deal with real life and not to say that what we discuss in the edu realm isn’t real…but this is the stuff that we never discuss…the real stuff that children face when they leave our schools. Yesterday, I watched a young single mother clutch her children as her belongings sat on the side of the street of the home that she could no longer afford. We stopped to help them pack and move them to her grandparent’s home. I did not know this young lady nor did I know her children but I knew the pain in their eyes all too well. Her babies were 5, 6 and 11 years old and this is the memory that they will carry with them…their things on the side of the road. By the way, they will all walk into a classroom Monday morning with these memories…their baggage. We don’t know what kids go home to. We know what they allow us to see. We think we know but we really have no idea. Even when we do know, some issues are out of our reach yet the children that deal with them daily are well within our hold. I’m not talking about situations where children are in danger. I’m talking about those moments when parents are doing all that they can…yet life for them is just much more difficult than most. It’s hard to get a kid to care about math when he’s worried about where he’s going to lay his head at night. It’s hard to get a kid to care about science when his only meal, which happens to be at school, was missed because the cafeteria ran out of food. For older kids, especially those accustomed to struggle, it’s even harder to get them to envision a life beyond high school where they would leave their parents to seek higher education, because through all of the struggle they just want to stay and help at home…which is typically what occurs. On a personal note, it has been an incredibly difficult 8.5 months watching my sister struggle to make ends meet while dealing with the disruption of her family. What I could do is what I did. We make sure that the 9 year old is ok…that he has an outlet to create and deal…that he can still see the light through darkness. His puppets give him that. Today, as I sit and watch him dance around and sing "The Circle of Life", ironically in spite of life…I know that in doing all that we can do, we are doing as we should. Now, we just have to find a way to make sure that the rest of these kids have this kind of access to "light in life" too.

Yesterday I taught what was supposed to be an intro session to google forms in my school district. I wasn’t scheduled to teach but a peer took sick and of course I volunteered to teach the class. I’ve taught google forms quite a bit so teaching on the fly wasn’t that big of a deal. Typically when I teach a class, I pre-send resources to attendees. This can be anything from a video to simple "getting started" instructions. In the case of this course, I went to the google forms article below written by Beth Still for Connectedteachers.org which really is a brilliantly thorough guide for those getting started. Google Forms Sharing resources such as this actually help to accomplish three other intended yet unintended goals. 1. I get to provide my teachers with another way of learning…a new resource or blog post. 2. I get to share a new person to learn from socially. In this case, it was Beth Still. 3. When teachers have tools like this ahead of time, they actually spend the time going through them which save time during sessions as I did not have to repeat basic information. I believe wholeheartedly in the power of social learning and sharing from my peers gives me room to communicate that. In addition, I did not have to recreate the wheel on a resource as it was already done. It’s important that we do this as it communicates to teachers about the power of sharing. I don’t "re-brand" the work of my peers as my own. Teachers need to know that there are other resources out there for anything that they want to learn. It was great seeing teachers walk in, get on their computers and pull that resource up. Quite a few of them printed it and were not just making new forms but were embellishing the ones that they started earlier in the day. My session was no longer a "basics" but a "What do I do now to apply this knowledge" session which meant that we were able to spend time on add-ons like Flubaroo and Autocrat which we would not have gotten to otherwise. I owe a huge thank you to Beth Still because her sharing made my session an amazing learning event and our teachers were pretty ecstatic! If you have not connected with Beth, you should! Beth Still (BethStill) on Twitter The latest from Beth Still (@BethStill). Wife & mom - Nebraskan - Founder ISTE Newbie project - Difference maker - Love to empower teachers and students. Sharing is an important part of what we do. Truthfully, there are so many new tools out that one cannot possibly be the expert of them all. Whether admitted or not, we are all sharing a piece of someone else. I believe that it’s equally important to say, "I didn’t create this, but this person did and it’s amazing" as it is to say, "I created this for you to use." because both of those statements lend themselves to… "You can create this too"…which is where we should be aiming to be.

For the past week, I’ve been trying to brainstorm my GTA video and thinking about how to best tell a story in 1 minute. I sat down and wrote a script, recorded a movenote and sent it to a colleague. It was still very "vanilla" to me meaning that it sounded more "teacher voice" instead of conversational. It’s like I was reading what I wanted people to hear instead of saying what I believed in my heart…if that makes sense. I hate talking in my "teacher voice" because it can often come across as "plastic" and I’m definitely not fake. The thing is… we can all attest to the tools that we use in the classroom. We can talk about how we train teachers. We can talk about how we use the suite of Google Apps. We’ll throw in words about Docs, blogger, groups, google+, chrome, chromebooks and even youtube. However, can we attest to the impact that these tools are having at home. How are kids really using them in their world after the bell rings? I took a step back from my "fake cue card read video" and looked at the kid right in front of me. For months, I’ve shared and talked about my nephew and his puppets. He’s not in a google school. Heck they can’t even use "google search" but he’s definitely a "google kid" meaning that the apps are a part of him. As I was coming home to excitedly talk about what we were doing and sharing…he was learning. He picked up on tools through conversation and watching me work. He learned about tools as he needed to accomplish a goal and sometimes he’s even taught me a thing or two. Everything that he has learned has come from a google tool. I’ve watched him take a flat sheet of foam, design a pattern and give it curves. I’ve watched him watch youtube videos for hours as he honed in on his techniques. He’s using docs to write scripts for his videos and sharing them with me to gain feedback. He’s blogging using blogger. He even makes google forms in order to collect data on his puppet types as people request them. Last week, he learned about spreadsheets and now maintains one where he’s keeping track of his savings in order to purchase a few Axtell puppets. He is 9 and if he is owning these tools as they relate to his normal life, I can only imagine what our kids are doing when they go home. How we use technology shouldn’t be some abnormal event but should be a part of our "normal" just like it is for him. The same rules apply to our kids in our classrooms and that is what our kids are exposed to as we integrate with google apps. In the past, I didn’t apply to GTA because I honestly didn’t "get" it. I wasn’t in a google apps district and I wasn’t effectively using these tools. Yes, I am all about community, learning and growth but I also have to believe in the power of the purpose. It seems only fitting that at this stage, while I was thinking through ideas, they were right in front of me all along. No, I’m not going to talk about Braeden but I’m a storyteller and through him, I "feel" the story and that’s important.

Today I decided to complete my application for the Google Teacher Academy and anyone that knows me knows how much of a big deal this is that I did it so soon as that does not typically happen. Yes, applications are due in May but with a media fair, after school sessions and a trip to NY looming, I knew that today was the day…now or never. I didn’t have the luxury of a classroom to include, students or other teachers. Correction: Had I waited, I’m sure that I could’ve rounded up a few people but today was not feasible and I was determined to get this done. I was appreciative of the required reflective questions as they forced ME to think about why GTA mattered. This time last year I could not have answered those questions. I definitely get it now. After recording, re-recording and remaining in that cycle of uncertainty for a while, I went back to my blog post from yesterday and in one shot ended up recording the base of what I needed…the story  

Last year, I watched the Bammy drama unfold from afar…begrudgingly fielding 12 different "vote for me" twitter DMs and cringing throughout much of the telecast that I could stand to watch. From my seat, it looked like a show aimed to recognize the closed circle of twitter edu-stardom. (not to mention that the show itself was in poor taste) But then…what did I know? I didn’t know the stories behind the nominees. I didn’t know the impact of what they had on their school communities. I didn’t really know if the job as promoted online represented the one in school. No ones knows that. How could we? I knew that I was seeing people who I have grown to appreciate through twitter being honored on a grand scale…the same people who are honored for everything because reach matters…at least according to this. Fast forward to a few weeks ago…I checked my spam and saw that I had been nominated for a Bammy by "the academy". My first thought was a sarcastic "oh great" (flashback to last year) and my second was, "the academy…who the heck is that?" Then I clicked the link and allowed myself to be proud of the honor because for some reason someone thought enough of me to grab the "about me" from my blog…click my linkedin profile…save my image to their desktop and upload to recognize their perception of my work and I knew that doing that took time. In addition, the email came to my work email which meant that they had to take the time to search for it because only a few people contact me at work and most of them are Discovery Education and SMART. So, naturally I took to my SMARTee Google+ community to thank whoever submitted my name because it was nice. It had to be someone from that community…right? From that, people started "voting for me" by adding reviews and as nice as it was, I reminded them that it was not about me but to please nominate/review others who have impacted them either online or in their schools. I nominated another person, Lisa Johnson (@techchef4u), because I know how collaborative she is and I also know how much the "internets" borrow from her work. She is amazing at what she does and inspires so many so if anyone needed to be "honored", she did. I literally went through the process of adding the nomination…"borrowing" her profile pic and writing what I knew to be true of her. It all felt kind of sketchy to do but it felt right so I proceeded…and told her through FB message. Of course she was skeptical but she was okay with the "shout out" in the end…even if it meant that we were in the same category. (Again…who cares? I never viewed this as being competitive) A few days later, I received the clarification from The Bammy organization about what the honor was about. The spirit of the Bammy’s, as it said, weren’t about "me" but "us". It also stated that you could not "win" a bammy and using that term would go against what it was about. There was even a line about revoking nomination. In other words, it’s supposed to be an honor…not an award. If you get caught talking about "winning a Bammy", your nomination could be pulled. To be clear, if a person(s) is called out as "the honoree" amongst a sea of nominees…it’s an award. (Emmy’s, Grammy’s Oscar’s, local/state teacher of the year, Denny’s, Webby’s…Bammy’s) [Just Saying] With that said, I am okay with honoring those that have had impact on education. (which is every educator…good or bad) I was and am proud that I nominated Lisa because aside from my constant face to face and twitter love, it gave me a chance to honor what she does on a larger scale. I was excited to see that people from her school reinforced her nomination with actual in-school feedback as that was huge. Of course her school had to be "notified" with the link that she was nominated but even with that…those people KNOW her and their comments are real. I imagine that the community nominee/vote portion is meant to help "the academy" determine who the September honorees are and I can appreciate that as long as it’s not based on number of comments but magnitude of contribution of the person. I can appreciate that as long as the honorees represent a diverse cross-section of edu…and not only the same faces that we always see. If we are truly honoring positive collaboration, this should be a no-brainer. As for last year’s antics… So far I have gotten 5 different "vote for me" DMs and each time I could do nothing but cringe as it’s just an odd thing to do. To add insult to injury, most of them were of the "you vote for me and I’ll vote for you" kind. Again…Really?? Is it really that serious??? I know that once you are an "Oscar nominee", you retain that title forever…but do we really want our conferences to be "featuring Bammy nominee" ahead of the person presenting? (Dear conferences that are doing this now…STOP…Really??) …Because now the worst part of what we do takes this thing that could be an honor and turns it into a fiesta of business and self-promotion….BACK END DEALS…money That’s the part that I am not okay with. That’s the part that sucks the life out of honors in education. Forget the "spirit" of the Bammy’s. It’s not in the "spirit" of Rafranz. If this is what it’s going to be, I won’t play this game and you shouldn’t either.    

One of the highlights of my rebranding of all of my social spaces has been receiving positive feedback from visitors and collaborators. I love that people actually think that my blog was a big ordeal to design. It was not. I run a self-hosted wordpress blog which means that I run the wordpress software on my servers. It’s a choice that I made once I understood how blogging worked. The beauty of self-hosting is that you can choose your own theme or in my case, framework, and customize it however you choose. My blog is running the Headway theme, which is basically a blank canvas that lets me build whatever I want on every page. Seriously, if I wanted to make every page look different, I could. Headway Drag and Drop WordPress Website Builder Once I chose my color landscape, I partnered with a design friend, Social Ink DFW, to create my banner which now serves as my backdrop across almost every network. We collaborated on the banner but as far as the rest of my blog, I did it all on my own. socialinkdfw (socialinkdfw) on Twitter The rest of my blog is all about widgets, plugins and placement. Themes, Themes and More Themes… What if you are not okay with crafting your own design? There are plenty of places that have these done for you! Below are a few places to start. I will say that unless you are running a framework which lets you control the design and structure, you might still need to know a bit of coding in order to tweak certain things here and there. I relied heavily on wordpress forums and also on just "playing" and to this day, there are still small things that I have to google, but I do fully understand how wordpress themes work and can pretty much call exactly which file and code needs to be tweaked for certain actions to occur. WordPress Themes Loved By Over 230k Customers WordPress Themes | Website Templates | Create a Website | ThemeForest Chrome Extensions for Blogging Inspiration comes in all forms. What if you wanted to know more about a blog page that you are on? What if you needed to find the measurement of graphics for a page? If you’re using a tool like Canva, you might even need the hex color! Well, there’s an extention for that! I have three Chrome extensions that I use frequently. Check them out and also watch the video below as I share how to use them and what I use them for! BuiltWith Technology Profiler MeasureIt Eye Dropper