WELCOME!

New Directions Alternative H.S. Program is a cooperative program in Cedar County, Iowa. Kirkwood Community College sponsors the program and partners with area school districts including Tipton, North Cedar, West Branch and others. We aim to help students who struggle in a traditional high school setting become more successful by offering a variety of instructional strategies for a variety of learning styles.

PLN RESOURCES FOR ALTERNATIVE EDUCATORS


PLN Resources for Alternative Educators
If you’re on Facebook, then you know how amazing it is to connect with old friends and chat with family members who live far away. What if you could have the same kinds of chats with colleagues in alternative education? Many alternative educators feel isolated. Many of us work in rural one-room school houses or in small schools with very few colleagues. Many of us love what we do, but don’t feel that we have colleagues nearby who really understand what our jobs are like. Through the Internet, we can join together! Here are some ways to start a Professional Learning Network (PLN) for Alternative Educators!

Twitter: twitter.com
Have brief chats, post links to news articles, and meet new colleagues on Twitter!
How to use Twitter: http://onceateacher.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/a-teachers-guide-to-twitter/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14062777/Twitter-Handbook-for-Teachers

Hashtags for Alternative Educators on Twitter:
#AltEd #atrisk #edchat #education #IowaEd #IowaSchools #IAAE
Apps that make Twitter easy (on Android, iPhone, or computer):
tweetdeck: allows you to create a home column for your Twitter feed and additional columns with Twitter filters for specific hashtags (conversations). Also allows you to view your Facebook wall in the same app! www.tweetdeck.com/
HootSuite: like tweetdeck, HootSuite allows you to monitor multiple platforms and keywords at once. You can also schedule tweets to be posted at a later date and track your followers. hootsuite.com/

To post links, you’ll need a URL shortener. These services take long web addresses and shorten them so that they fit in a 140 character tweet! Here are some suggestions:
bit.ly
tinyurl.com
ow.ly

Need help? Check out Sue Waters’ helpful blogs at http://theedublogger.com/tag/twitter/  She has information about Twitter, how to set up a blog, and how to set up/use Skype in your classroom. Still stuck? You can DM (direct message) me on Twitter @jenmardunc, contact me on my blog jenmardunc.blogspot.com, or ask for my business card so that you can email me directly.  Be sure to use the #IAAE hashtag so that I know you are from the IAAE conference!

Blogs
3 public sites for blogging
Blogger.com is Google’s blog engine
WordPress.com is favored by many (including our new Department of Education chief, Jason Glass! Visit his blog at http://educationelements.wordpress.com/about-jason-glass/)
Tumblr is another blog hosting platform

There are other blog platforms specifically for educators and their students
edublogs.org is specifically for educational purposes. It is a “safe” space for students to blog because only other students and teachers are a part of the blog system.
For help on how to start a blog, visit this WikiHow site  http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog

Need help deciding which blogging platform to use? See this comparison in Google Docs or type in this shortened version of the link http://bit.ly/gX7CTX


Examples of blogs

There are many, many more blogs! To find them, do a Google Blog Search by going to http://blogsearch.google.com

If you find some blogs you want to follow, you can usually do so in a few ways:
1. Use your Twitter handle to log in and follow (if the blog allows
2. Use your Google Account to log in and follow
3. Use an RSS feeder, like Google Reader. www.reader.google.com

You can set up Google Reader to “feed” you news stories from websites and blogs all over the world! News reader/feeder apps let you customize your own “newspaper” each day. Want to read about alternative education around the world? Search for the phrase “alternative education” in the Google Reader search page and subscribe to the feed. It will filter out every story with the phrase “alternative education” in it that is posted on the web. Then read away--on your computer or on your SmartPhone.


What does all of this look like in an alternative classroom? Here is the blog I created for use in my classroom this year. Feel free to visit and/or borrow anything on our blog http://ndaltschool.blogspot.com  Links to blogs created by alternative students are at the bottom of the page.
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