Friday, September 20, 2013

Back to School Tech Part 2: Livebinders


If you are looking to get into Educational Technology this year, Livebinders is the best place to start.  From a personal standpoint, Livebinders is where I started my journal in professional development in education and Dducational Technology after I graduated college.  To say that Livebinders opened my world to all kinds of educators and new ways to learn would be a understatement.  Here's a brief look at this awesome tool:

Livebinders - collect and share resources

Livebinders can be your one central source to collect resources, share resources, and collaborate with other educators and technology enthusiasts.  You can collect web addresses, documents,  photos and many other things in your Livebinder.  You can create a specific Livebinder for any purpose that you have interest in and want to share with others or you can choose to create a private one and keep it personal.     

For example, I've been a member of Livebinders since 2011.  Since that time, I've collected and shared multiple resources like Evernote, Study Blue, Social Studies topics and many other categories.  Here's some of my Livebinders:



Livebinders - collaborate and reflect with other educators

As I previously stated, Livebinders is where I started getting involved in professional development with other educators in educational technology.  As I started watching how other people were using Livebinders and sharing them on Twitter, I became increasingly eager to become involved.  One of my very good Twitter friends, Jen Petras (@jenpetras), one day asked if I would collaborate with her on a Livebinder over Cyberbullying.  Over the course of a few weeks, we were able to gather and collect resources into one Livebinder.  Here's where it is today:

Cyber Bullying

What is great about this is that I live in Texas and she lives in Ohio - two people who live in different states collaborating with each other.  Just imagine if all educators and students took advantage of this opportunity!

Why Livebinders?

I can not speak of Livebinders highly enough.  There a ton of reasons to use Livebinders and incorporate it in your classroom or personal life.  It's free, it's extremely easy to use, you will meet some amazing people and the list goes on.  One thing, however, stands out for me and that's the creators.  Tina and Barbara (@livebinders) provide the best support I've ever experienced with anything related to technology.  They love to share other's Livebinders and love to hear how what they created is making a difference.  They also are happy to provide you tech support in case you need assistance.  I once needed to correct a error on my username on my account so I sent them a Twitter message and it had been completed within a couple of hours - proof that they care for their customers.

I've previously told Tina and Barbara that "Livebinders have changed the face of education"...I firmly believe this has rung true.

Want more Livebinders info?  Here are some more resources:

My other blog posts about Livebinders:  http://engagedwithtech.blogspot.com/search/label/livebinders#.Ujz6OYZwqSo

Livebinders website: www.livebinders.com