Digital Learning Day 2014

Digital Learning Day is right around the corner on February 5, 2014. This third annual event is sponsored by the Alliance for Excellent Education with many partners including the National Writing Project, Library of Congress, and Edutopia. The day itself is simply a national day to celebrate innovative teachers and students and share creative ways to use technology for learning.

Digital Learning Day is a perfect opportunity to try on a new tool or strategy...or showcase the brilliant work your students have been doing over the past year. Below are just a few ideas for what you might do on Digital Learning Day and any of them could tie in nicely with the lessons you already have planned for that day.

• Explore the use of a new digital resource with your students. Some interesting ones I recently discovered include Perfect Pitch and Instagrok.
• Check out the iPad cart and have your students create a movie (iMovie), digital poster (Comic Life), or screencast lesson (Educreations).
• Sign up for the Chromebooks or Media Center and have your students create an infographic for an upcoming unit.
• Try using Socrative or NearPod with your student's personal devices as part of a lesson.
• Have your class Skype or Google Hangout with an expert, author, or another classroom
• Analyze texts or music lyrics using Wordle or Word It Out (Chromebook-friendly).
• Analyze a TED Talk or other video using Video Not.es or image with comments in Google Drive.
• Collaboratively compose a story, non-fiction text, or analytical piece using Google Docs or your classroom blog.
• Challenge your students to expand their literacy skills by using programming challenges on Code.org

Regardless of what you choose to do on Digital Learning Day, share it with the world using the #DLDay hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, Google+, or Facebook. This year too we are also going to create our own Natomas Charter hashtag for the day #NCSDLDay, so feel free to add that one as well. It is a great way to share the innovative and inspirational learning you and your students are doing. Have any other ideas for how to celebrate Digital Learning Day, post them in the comments section below.

Joe