Tuesday's Tip #1 - Growing Your Instagram Audience

I meant to get this post written last night, but by 7:30, I was already exhausted! I was in bed by 8. :( Hope I'm not getting sick.

It's the first Tuesday of 2014, and one of my New Year's blogging goals is to share tips with you on Tuesdays, so here's...

Tuesday's Tip #1 - How to Grow Your Instagram Audience

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Ok. So, maybe there's 4 tips included in today's post. :-)

If you follow me on Instagram, you might remember that on Thanksgiving, I had 726 followers. I was hoping to get to 1,000 followers by Jan 1.

That didn't happen, but I am at over 950 now, and I thought I'd share with you how I grew my audience.

Tip #1 Follow those who like your posts.

With every new picture I shared, came likes. I'd scroll through the likes and follow everyone who like my post, if I wasn't already. I'd then scan through the new accounts and like any of their pictures that struck me.

Tip #2 Use hashtags.

Hashtags help other people who aren't already following you, find you! Simple as that. There are a few apps that can help you, if you don't know which hashtags to use. Next week I'll be sharing my favorite IG Apps, so be sure and stop back by if you want to know which apps I use for hashtags.

Tip #3 Cross post on your other social networks.

If you're on Facebook or Twitter or have a blog, be sure and share your IG posts on those other channels as well. If your other followers don't know you're on IG, how will they know to follow you? :) It's pretty easy to cross post directly from the IG app, and if you're on the IG website, you can get an embed code for your blog. Easy-peasy.

Tip #4 Invite new followers from your other social networks to find you on Instagram.

One of the things that really helped me was to welcome new Twitter followers and immediately direct them to my IG account. Something like: Thanks for following! Please check me out on Instagram, too. Be sure and include the URL to your IG account, so they can easily find you.

Pretty simple, right?! There are probably lots more ways, and some might even result in faster growth, but this is what has worked for me.

There are also apps that can help you monitor your followers. I'll get into those next week when I talk about the apps I love.

What other tricks have you used to increase your Instagram followers?
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There's an APP for that!

Did you miss me yesterday? Ha! :)

I ran out of time and didn't get a post up. I've got to start planning better if I'm going to be successful the rest of #Blogember. Good thing I'm taking a rest day today, so maybe I'll get a couple other posts scheduled.

November 6: 5 favorite apps

This is a hard one. I'm not really an APP girl. I mostly just use my phone for email and social media. Let's see if I can come up with 5.

CharityMiles. This is an awesome app for runners, walkers, or cyclists. You just start the app when you start your journey, choose a charity, and get out there! For every mile you go, money gets donated to the charity of your choice. Win-win!!

HIIT interval. This has become my lifesaver on long runs. I set the intervals for 10 min of work and 1 min of rest, and I'm off! It will also come in handy for after the marathon when I get back to doing other workouts beside primarily running.

PhotoGrid. This is my favorite app for making collages for Instagram. I ♥ Instagram!

FitFluential. I don't use this one as often as I'd like, but it's a great app for all things FitFluential. You can easily share their posts from all their social media channels.

FedEx Mobile. If you get a lot of random packages (or a few), this is a great app. It alerts you whenever a shipment is headed your way, and makes tracking those packages super easy! Way more user friendly than the one offered by UPS.

That's really all I've got.

What am I missing out on? What are your favorite apps?
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Education World ® Technology Center: Get Outta Class With Virtual Field Trips

Education World ® Technology Center: Get Outta Class With Virtual Field Trips

Directly from the website: You look outside the classroom window and see yet another in a long string of gloomy days. Inside the classroom, restless students seem mired in malaise. It must be time for a field trip! No money, you say, for busses or admission fees. No time for travel? Then why not a virtual field trip? The Web provides the resources; you provide the fun. Every day is a beautiful day for a virtual field trip! Included: Tips for creating your own virtual field trips!

This obviously is geared for the classroom, but I think taking a virtual field trip (VFT) would be fun for anyone!

This article has lots of links to existing VTFs!

One of the links directs you to Tramline where you can visit lots of places virtually or create your own field trip to share with others. They also have an interesting article on VFTS vs. WebQuests.

I created a WebQuest on the Industrial Revolution in my Technology for Instruction course this past spring. If you visit this WebQuest, please keep in mind that it is still a work-in-progress. I am intrigued by the idea of VFTs and will definitely explore this further.

What are you waiting for? Go EXPLORE!

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What cool tech tools are you using today?

Tech Tuesday: Prezi

I recently learned about Prezi in my technology course last semester. I like to describe it has PowerPoint on steroids. I believe they market it as the only zooming presentation tool. The zooming feature makes boring slide presentations come alive with movement. On their home page, there is a great video introducing you to this tool, if you're unfamiliar with it.

I created a couple Prezi presentations for my class last semester. Overall, I found that it was really user-friendly. For someone who tends to be a bit of a perfectionist, it can, however, be a little trying. There is no real good way to get text to line up perfectly, so the more abstract thinker will probably enjoy this tool a little better than someone a bit more concrete. It did teach me to try and let some of those things go. Once I was able to do that, I really came to enjoy this software!

There are a few other quirks, but they have a great Learn section and manual to help you along your way. There is also a showcase where you can look at presentations created by others. Some are even available for reuse, which means you can save a copy to your page and edit it to fit your needs or topics. How great is that?!

Here is a Prezi that I enjoyed. It is particularly related to education/teaching.

Playing to Learn by Maria Andersen

Here are the two Prezis I created for my class.

This first one is the first that I created. I'm taking an independent study course on Environmental Studies right now, so I created this to help me understand and learn more about Natural Selection. As a future teacher, I could use this in my classroom to help students understand this Theory as well.

Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

Ok. One more, and I'll let you get back to your regularly scheduled day. :-)

This Prezi I created as part of my final project in my technology course. My idea was to begin a unit with a timeline that showed specifics events. I would then break the class into groups and have each group choose (or perhaps I would assign) an event on the timeline to elaborate one. Each group would then collaborate on that topic and add it to the class Prezi. I've created an example of what an elaboration might look like. I'd be willing to bet that my students would be far more insightful and creative than I was!

Early Civilization in Afroeurasia to 450 BCE

I tried to embed these presentation, but they didn't look so good on my blog.

Tech Tuesday: Flashcard Machine

Here's a great online tool I found -- especially for the end of the year as finals are approaching.

Flashcard Machine

This is great for students, teachers, or really anyone who wants to create nice and easy flashcards. It's free to sign-up and use.

• You can create all kinds of flashcard sets.
• You can study multiple sets at a time. For example, if you'd created a set for each chapter or unit, then you could combine them to study for a comprehensive final.
• You can collaborate with others in creating and/or studying your sets.
• You can include images and audio.
• Sets can be printed for offline studying.
• You can search the public flashcard database for interesting topics to expand your knowledge base.
• There's even an ipod app.

Let me know what you think about this site. Would you ever use it or suggest it to a student or teacher you know?

What do you think?

Here is a video about what students say about technology in their classrooms:


Students Sound Off on School Tech Use from Education Week on Vimeo.

What do you think? Should schools adopt more technology into their classrooms? Should students be able to access the Internet outside of the library? Should they have access to web-based email programs (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) at school?

How is technology used in your children's classrooms? Is it embraced by the students and teachers? Is the available technology being used? For example, a few of the students in this video stated that there were Smartboards in a few of the classrooms, but the teachers rarely used them.

I look forward to embracing technology when I become a teacher. I feel that students will learn more when they are engaged, and using technology can be that tool to help grab their interest.
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Did You Know?

I love these videos. I'm not sure in which education course I was shown the first one, but I remember it was quite powerful.


I'm currently taking a technology integration course at the University of St Thomas. My professor sent us a link to an updated version of this video. The questions near the end of the video really resonated with me. Is education where it needs to be to prepare our children for the 21st century workplace?



A few days later, my professor sent out another link to an even more updated version. I recognize there are a lot of redundancies in these videos, but there are enough changes to really make you realize just how quickly technology is changing.