Tech Bytes - December

It's December, and to borrow a line from Silver Bells, "in the air there's a feeling of" excitement. In the midst of the wonder of the season, try out these ideas for technology integration.

Be In the Know:

Seesaw released Activities earlier this year. Just a couple of weeks ago, they added the ability for teachers to share their created activities with each other. Here is an example I made for understanding characters and one for a word sort. A fellow educator shared a fabulous creation of templates that can be utilized for the activities. And educators are sharing links to their creations that can be added and edited from your Seesaw Activity library. I hope you take advantage of this ability to layer student thinking over their Seesaw submissions. If you want to learn more, please ask your ITF, we will be happy to assist.

iPad App: 

Scratch Jr for iPad - We are ending the Hour of Code week today, but my hopes are that our students continue to code. I was fortunate this week to be in classrooms where students were coding. I had the privilege of introducing a class of second graders to Scratch Jr. This app allows students to snap together programming blocks to make their characters move and talk. While programming, they are solving problems, designing projects, and expressing themselves creatively. They are using math and language skills in a meaningful context allowing them to not only learn to code but "code to learn."

Our lesson this week was on understanding characters in the story by knowing what the character thinks and feels throughout. So what better way to show understanding than to recreate the story's beginning, middle, and end through coded characters. Check out this lesson for the details. 

Cool Tools Corner:

Escape Rooms are a great way to have some fun with friends and family. Perhaps you are thinking about participating in one over the holiday break. You can bring that excitement into your classroom tied to your curriculum. BreakoutEDU has physical kits with locks for boxes or you can do a digital breakout using Google Forms. You can create digital breakouts that use Google Apps to create and share a series of critical thinking puzzles to open the virtual locks in the Google Form.  The ITFs have created some for the district and will be happy to help you create one specific for your standards.

If you want to give it a try before Christmas break, check out these options for elementary students. K-2 would need help and hints, but 3-5 could probably solve collaboratively. For K-2, perhaps you could do the breakout as a class activity. You are only allowed 30 minutes to solve the clues.

Finding Frosty

Save Christmas

Elf Panic

Merry Christmas!

Tech Bytes - November

Welcome to the busy holiday season and time spent with family and friends. As you are gearing up to head out for Thanksgiving, ponder these technology integration ideas. How can you integrate them into your upcoming units and standards?

Be In the Know:

Image from Pixabay

Emojis and Educators...Oh What Fun!

Students and teachers alike love Emojis right? So why not incorporate them into your content? For example, did you know that you can insert emojis into Google Docs? Yes! From the Menu bar, choose Insert > Special Characters. Then click the drop-down and choose Emoji. If you are having your students publish writing in Docs, let them use emoji's to enhance their story. They can even draw their own Emoji (I'm thinking character, self-portrait...). Eric Curtis has published a blog post on 5 Emoji Learning Activities complete with screenshots and directions.

My latest find that I LOVE is using emoji's to help organize files and folders in Google Drive. Did you know that you could use special symbols to group and organize your Drive? Well, thanks to an extension called Emoji For Google Chrome, you can organize with Emojis! Check out information on how that works here.

Share any ideas you have or have found on using Emojis in the classroom.

iPad App: 

Notes App for iPad - The native notes app will do so much more than just keep a list for you. Notes provides a way to include photos, videos, drawings and text all in one place. Of course, it saves to your camera roll, providing an opportunity to upload into another app to continue creation and learning. With iOS 11, you can even scan a document in Notes. The Document Scanner automatically senses it is a document, cropping the edges and removing tilts or glare.

Cool Tools Corner:

20 Questions is a favorite of children, parents, and teachers alike. It's a sneaky way to get some critical thinking skills past the students! 😉 Google is using its Artifical Intelligence interface to bring the game to you today called Mystery Animal. You can play this game on the Chromebook. Check out the video below for more information. Have fun guessing the animal!

A Little Something Extra:

Looking for templates to use with Chromebooks? Then check out these two sites for a jackpot of resources!   Technotes Blog   and    Engaging Students Google Resources

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tech Bytes - October

Can you believe that October is almost over? It's time for this month's Tech Bytes and the wonderful things in the world of technology integration. 

Be In The Know:

Are you ready to teach untethered from the front of the room and make the shift to "guide on the ride?" Many teachers in our district have fallen in love with annotate.net. Annotate has a free feature that allows you to use your mobile device as an interactive whiteboard while presenting to your computer's attached presentation device. It even has built-in formative assessment tools that you can add to your lesson.

You can create notebook presentations with the software or import content you have in your Google Drive. Check this document for more information and instructions if you are interested. 

Note: At this time, GCS does not use the downloaded version of Annotate Client. 

iPad App:

 iOS 11 brings some new features for ease of classroom use. First, you no longer need a separate app to scan QR codes, open the camera app on the device and scan away. Tap the notification to open the site for the QR code.

The new dock will now hold up to 13 apps. App icons will appear in the dock as you open them. This feature makes it easy for our young learners to find the most used apps. 

Cool Tools Corner:

I have long been a huge fan of the Book Creator app for the iPad. It is the. best. paid. app. for education ever! I always felt sorry for classes that didn't have iPads to take advantage of this tool. Why do I love it so much? It is an easy tool to create multi-media books that can be shared with others. Imagine your students' creations containing images, text, sound files, and videos. Yes, all that is possible with Book Creator. So, this past summer when they announced they would be bringing to Book Creator to the web, I got all goose-bumpy with excitement. I am excited to share that the web version is just as wonderful as the app. You can create a library and invite your students to share. Together, you can create 40 books for free. If you want to know more, let your ITF know. In the meantime, here are instructions for creating a book. Enjoy! 

Reader's Workshop & Technology Integration ... Yes It is Possible

You don't need me to point out that literacy is changing. Don't get me wrong, this digital girl still prefers to read books....that are, well, ... actual books. And my idea of reading is not to read to take a test. (Can I get an amen?) To quote The Book Whisperer (Donalyn Miller), "The only thing kids need to be doing during reading workshop is reading books, talking about books, and writing about books." And, oh, the ways technology can help kids do all three.

Reading Books:

First, let's have a balance of reading printed text and digital text. And let's examine the need to always have students read digital text just for research purposes. A terrific digital resource for elementary students is Epic Books. Did I mention it is free for elementary teachers and media specialists? Epic

offers thousands of high-quality children's books and even allows teachers to create a collection for students to read (think digital book box).

So by balance, I'm not just talking about reading printed and digital text, but let them respond to the text both digitally and with print. If they are reading a digital text, let them respond by writing their thinking, their stop and jots. If they are reading a printed text, let them respond digitally, perhaps a #booksnap. And yes, elementary students can do this, we just wouldn't use Snapchat.

Since digital reading requires a different set of skills than reading print, (clarity of words on a screen, hyperlinks, extraneous material on screen, etc) teachers have to model and teach students during mini-lessons how to successfully read digital text.

Talking About Books:

Turn and talk is prevalent in reader's workshop, we ask students to share their thinking about their reading, the action of the story, information about characters, and more. As a teacher, it is impossible to hear each child every single day. Let's harness the power of technology to get students talking about books. Have you tried Flipgrid yet? It's a digital discussion platform easy enough for Pre-K students, but also robust enough for adults. Give it a try with book talks and see what happens.  Build a community that talks about books, recommends books, and gives students an audience for their work. You will be amazed and surprised at the possibilities. Plus it gives you a chance to hear from your students more and adjust instruction to meet their needs.

Writing About Books:

Ever notice how popular Goodreads is? Ever notice how unpopular the reading log is? I have an idea...Let's use a digital tool such as Seesaw to transform the reading log. Students can use Seesaw to take a photo of their book cover, annotate on it, add an audio recording of their personal response, and even upload book trailers from other apps into a "Goodreads" folder. Students can comment and have conversations as they write and talk about the books within Seesaw.

Every tool I mentioned will work on iPads and Chromebooks. Every tool I mentioned is free. If you want help implementing any of these ideas or want to talk about ideas that have sparked in your head, please contact your ITF. We will be happy to help!

Another Blog Post about SAMR

Yes, I know what else can be written about SAMR? I just returned from a road trip vacation, which was awesome, thanks for asking. ;-) Anyway, I started thinking of how things have changed when traveling from back in the day, you know the day of paper foldout maps for each state you travel. We have come a long way!

Lisa Johnson, AKA TechChef, wrote a post on S.A.S.S.Y. SAMR in which she included four awesome questions to help guide educators in transforming instruction. So to give you an idea of real world SAMR application, I'm going to share the technology we used on our trip and let you think about how they relate to the four questions. Ready?


Does the technology/tool allow for collaboration (e.g. within a school, district, state, nation, globe, experts, PLN)?
Does the technology/tool allow for publishing to an authentic audience and archival?
Is the technology/tool student-driven?

Does the technology/tool allow for feedback and formative assessment?

Waze - GPS Navigation, Maps & Social Traffic

I highly recommend this app. It is real time routing based on a community of drivers providing real-time traffic and road info. Through the collaboration, we knew traffic jams, road hazards, cars on the side of the road, etc. so we could re-route if necessary. Easy to report what you see as you travel too. 



You have to eat while traveling, so let's use collaboration to find the best places to eat and even top things to do in that area. Enter the next two apps:
Yelp & Trip Advisor. 

With Yelp, you can filter the search results, so you can find things within in the neighborhood you are in at the moment and what is open. And it's easy to leave your reviews as well to help travelers that come behind you. 

With Trip Advisor, you can find hotels, restaurants, and things to do in the community. And it's easy to leave your reviews as well to help travelers that come behind you.



And last, but not least is Gas Buddy. 
Again, by crowdsourcing information collaboratively we can find out gas prices at stations close by for the best price. 

So notice how all these integrate into a trip? And how all were based on collaboration? Notice the tools are user driven, providing the information we need when we need it in an authentic way?

That is seamless technology use and that is what I love to see happening in classrooms. Talk to your ITF about tools that can help you make this happen for your students. 

Formative Assessments - Checking for Student Understanding

As teachers help their students grow in understanding and learning, they "take a pulse" during lessons to make sure students are understanding and grasping the concepts. The idea, of course, is to  make sure that once students reach the end of a unit of study or the end of a school year, they will show mastery of the content. In the past, teachers would verbally ask the students and most would nod their heads. Oftentimes, when teachers probe deeper they would find the students really didn't understand and would adjust teaching accordingly.

In classrooms of today, teachers have a plethora of devices (whether BYOD environment or 1:1) for students to use to show understanding. There are many choices for teachers as well from Socrative, Nearpod, Kahoot, Quizizz, and goFormative. Even for classrooms without devices, teachers can use their tablet or phone and Plickers.

I met with teachers this week to show them two of the above-mentioned tools: Plickers & Quizziz.

Plickers is super easy to use provided the teacher has a tablet or smartphone available. Go to the site, create your account and add your students. Next, print the cards. The cards can be used for multiple classes, so for those of you in secondary, you can use this tool as well. You can verbally ask questions or embed them in your presentation. When you are ready to ask the question, simply open the app on your device, select the question, and choose scan. You will see the student's name pop-up on your screen and their answer choice will be recorded as you use the camera to scan the cards. Plickers work for multiple choice and true-false questions. You will need to teach your students how to hold the card and not to turn the cards while you are scanning, otherwise their answer will be changed.

Quizizz is one of my all time favorites. Why you ask? Well, if you ever played Kahoot, you know how much fun that is and how it engages students. Students even love to create quizzes for their classmates. Quizizz is similar except, wait for it...the questions display on the student devices! You don't have to project the quiz and this allows students to work through questions in a different order than their peers and at their own pace. Points are still awarded for speed and correct answers. Students also will see memes after each answer. You can search many of the public quizzes or create your own. You also have the choice to duplicate a public quiz and edit to suit the content you are assessing. Quizizz also provides the option to let the students complete the quiz as homework. You select the date and time the homework quiz needs to be completed. And finally, Quizizz is customizable as you can see from this image.

 

Take these tools for a test run with your students and let me know what you think. My presentation is below.

Interactive Posters

Thanks to Lisa Johnson, TechChef, for the idea to create an augmented business card using Thinglink. Thinglink is a great tool for technology integration because it works across all platforms. I highly recommend you take a look at it. You can also associate your student accounts to your educator version. The beauty is the ability to integrate with Google Docs, so student presentations can go to a whole new level.

More Online WhiteBoard Tools

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a cool tool called PixiClip. I thought I would add a couple more to my blog that I will be showing my teachers at one of my schools.

Again, these online whiteboard tools are an awesome way to make thinking visible in your classroom.

Awwapp.com is a simple browser-based application and is super easy to use. Go to their site and simply click "start drawing." You can invite others to collaborate on your drawing by sending them the link. AwwApp works across platforms on laptops, Chromebook, Android tablet, and iPad. You can even use it on your classroom website by adding the plug-in.



Sketchlot is another free collaborative online whiteboard that works on any device with a web browser. Sketchlot was designed with schools in mind and allow teachers to create an account and then add their list of students. Each student is then given their own password to join a drawing shared by the teacher. Teachers have the capability to share to one student or to all of their students at the same time. Students can also create sketches and share back to the teacher and their classmates. With a little code copying and pasting, you can embed your sketches on your website.

Check these out as you make thinking visible in your classroom.

Technology Coaching

This year, we are spending as much time in the classrooms with our teachers modeling lessons, co-teaching lessons, and helping implement true technology integration as we can. Usually, this all starts out with us sitting down with our teachers during the entire planning process. But a couple of weeks ago, I was approached by one of my second grade teachers that really doesn't believe second grade is a place for student use of technology. She had been tasked with a technology project from the administration and wanted to do something different from the others. She had already determined what tools she wanted to use, so she asked me simply to be there to help the process.

So, we scheduled the days and times that I was to meet with her class and show them how to take their research and writing and turn it into an electronic presentation in form of an ebook.

Day 1 arrives, I bop into the room to find that students are already on their devices and trying to get the program to work. The teacher is a little frazzled because it has started out not quite as she planned (further emphasizing her belief that second graders should not be expected to do these types of projects). I jump in and get everybody on the right track and they log in successfully to their accounts. Victory #1.

Next step is to quickly show them the ins and outs of the program. Meanwhile, I can feel the tension pouring from this teacher because at first the students want to explore and have lots of questions. She wants them to just work on the project because it has to get completed. "I told you second graders are just too young for this kind of stuff!" I reassure her and ask her just to give us a few minutes. Sure enough, the students began putting their book together. Victory #2

Their project is a nonfiction piece so the topics break easily into the pages. By the end of our time together on Day 1, the teacher had relaxed a little and most of the students have finished their typing.

Day 2, I am waiting as the class arrives. The log in process goes very smoothly and I can sense a little amazement from the teacher. Today our focus is on adding images that are appropriate for the text from the day before. Of course, the students are a natural at finding their images in this program, adding them to their menu for selection and getting them on the page. They are doing this with very little help from us. Occasionally there is a little glitch with text boxes stacking on top of each other and students not quite getting how to get rid of them, but I can see that the teacher is OK with the problem once I show her how to help them fix it. Victory #3

Next, we moved on to how to add scenes to their books and the teacher actually says, "Now that is cool." Student immediately add scenes and then images to build the scenes for their text. Before long, we have a student that has finished. So I make sure that everything is saved and ask them to preview their work. As the teacher sees the program actually show the work as an ebook, she gets so excited that she hugs me and says "Thank you! I couldn't have done this without you!" Victory #4

But you know what, now she can. She can test the waters without me there using this program for another project. I am keeping my fingers crossed that she trusts herself and her students enough to try.

Blog Challenge: Day 18 "White Socks Only"

Blog Challenge: Tell about a favorite book to share or teach. Provide at least one example of an extension or cross curricular lesson.

In White Socks Only by Evelyn Coleman an African American grandmother tells her grandchild a story about a time when she faced discrimination. She drank water from a fountain which was for "whites only." She misunderstood thinking that the sign meant she must take off her shoes and be only in her white socks. This action begins changes for the town and its residents. This would be an excellent story to use during February's Black History Month. You can find it on Storyline Online. 

There are many cross curricular activities that you could do with this book from science (how long does it take to fry an egg on a sidewalk) to social studies (research an historical person and create a timeline of their life). I want to give you ideas based on Common Core Reading Anchor Standard 1 "Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text." We are also going to tie in a technology integration piece. 

After reading and discussing the book, students go back to the text to learn more about the characters. They do a character analysis and cite information from the story to support their ideas. Using VoiceThread, students add their thoughts and evidence. They also can go back and comment on their peer's ideas. Click here for an example from a session with elementary teachers. By using VoiceThread, you could also go outside your classroom walls and have others add their comments as well. You could partner with another class in this endeavor.

Blog Challenge: Day 17: Professional Social Media

Blog Challenge: Share all of your professional social media contact information and links. How do you engage in social media for professional learning?

In most professions, you must stay current. Can you imagine going to a doctor that doesn't keep up with the changes in practice and medicine? Me either, and in my mind, I wouldn't want to be in a classroom that the teacher doesn't stay current either. I believe that staying current is a requirement in my position. How can I help teachers integrate technology effectively if I don't know the current research, how to use the latest devices, know how to find the right applications, and blend pedagogy with technology?

So I rely on my PLN to help. I encourage you to do the same. You don't have to be on social media 24/7 to gain knowledge and insight. Dip your toe in the stream when you can, follow people that will challenge you/teach you, and read blogs of the leaders in your field. In addition to this blog, my contact information can be found by clicking the links below.

https://twitter.com/tthomassen

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/teresa-thomassen/13/910/b97








http://www.pinterest.com/tthomassen/

https://plus.google.com/118300047358151821514/posts

Blog Challenge: Day 12 Favorite Website Discovery Education

Challenge: What is a website that you cannot live without? Tell about your favorite features and how you use it in your teaching and learning.

Another of my go-to websites is one that our county provides for all employees and students: Discovery Education. The site is well known for quality educational videos that span all grade levels and include a huge variety for all subject/content areas. But it is so much more!

Along with the videos that are available, Discovery provides primary source documents, images, audio files, articles, lesson plans, and more. All of these resources can be linked, used, and  incorporated with web 2.0 tools, various devices, and best practices.

The beauty is that our students have access to all of these materials. So imagine, students using the editable video clips from Discovery Education and creating a narrative that is first person. They can also pull images into say a VoiceThread and discuss and make comments to share what they have learned. Or they can even create a digital story using the images as well. There are speeches available that students could use and add visual images to create a movie about the speech. Use the transcript from the speeches and paste the dialogue into a word cloud (such as wordle) to analyze key points from the speech.

For the teachers, I absolutely love the builder tools! These tools provide a way for teachers to create assignments, writing prompts, quizzes, assessments, and digital boards for their classes. The builder tools also allow linking to external websites and even embedding web 2.0 tools all in one place for the students. For example, I created various ecosystem projects for the students using the writing prompt builder. I included resources from Discovery of course, but also linked out to kid friendly articles and embedded a Google Presentation as well as the Voicethread for the students. So once they signed in, they had all the materials they needed for the research and background for their project. I was able to differentiate the assignments as well.

The newest feature is the Board Builder which in the teacher tools as well as the student account. The Board Builder is a digital poster creator allowing the user to embed Discovery Education material, add text, and even upload videos, images, presentations, word documents, and more.

All in all, the investment that our county puts into Discovery Education is well worth it.

Blog Challenge: Day 6 Assessment Tip

Blog Challenge: Give a tip for assessment. What is an example of an assessment you give? Share any tips for designing/giving/grading assessments.

This one is an easy challenge. Use Google Forms.

You can create a Google form for surveys, pose reflection questions for the students, exit slips for what was learned and what they still need help learning as well as student reading logs. Combine a Google Form with Flubaroo to created graded quizzes. The possibilities are endless and it is super easy to use. Click here for GCS ITF handout.

Do Ink App

My next favorite item from the Boston iPad Summit is a paid app, but I totally think it is worth it! Thanks to Greg Kuloweic (@gregkuloweic) for introducing us to this app during his App Smash Session.

What app am I talking about? It is a green screen iPad app called Do Ink. Green Screening allows you to put images and videos behind any person and make it look like they are right at the scene (or in the movie clip). Seriously, Do Ink is a very intuitive app so I suggest you give it a try. It is currently priced at $2.99 US.

Leigh Herman and I tried this app while she was working on a community iBook project. She wanted to create videos of her students doing the weather for our area. Hince the green screen app. We actually put student drawings of the four weather seasons we have while they stood in front and talked about weather. It was so much fun watching the students do this and so super easy! You can check out Leigh's post here if you want to see examples of the project. 

Newsela

As a continuation of a few of my favorites that I learned about while at the iPad Summit, Newsela is at the top of the list. A huge component of Common Core Standards is reading nonfiction text. Sometimes it is hard to find relevant nonfiction text that your students can read, let alone want to read.

Newsela steps up to the plate by providing daily news articles in a variety of Lexile levels. Teachers can create an account and then set up a class. Students join the teacher's class by going to the site and joining by entering the class code. Both teachers and student have binders that will hold articles and quizzes assigned to the class. Teachers can see the student results right within the binder. Not all articles have quizzes, but many do. They even provide a daily email highlighting some of the daily news articles. You can simply click within the email to assign the article to the class. Sweet!

Even though I first learned of this at the iPad Summit, Newsela is web based, so it will work on any device.

You really need to check it out! Let me know what you think.

Web 2.0 Resources

http://www.edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/web20tools1.jpg

I was asked to put together a quick presentation for the elementary School Library Media Coordinators to show them some of the latest resources for student use. When you are doing anything web based with the under 13 set, you have to be careful that you use sites that permit that age group to use their resources.

Since our district has Google Apps accounts for all of our students, the presentation starts off with apps that integrate with Google. From there, you will find resources for digital storytelling, graphic organizers, and audio recording which all fit nicely into common core standards. You will find my presentation below. For those of you that teach on the secondary level, head on over to Jason Mammano's blog to check out more awesome materials that will work for you.

Paper Slide Videos - Oh My!

This year I have had the privilege of meeting with teachers during planning and offering ideas for technology integration. It has been fun and it has been a challenge. Each school is different (just like each classroom is different). When suggesting ideas you have to start with curriculum content (which is the same across all my schools). Then look at the instructional strategy that the teacher wants to use (differences begin here). Then you have to look at what technology the classroom or school has available (wide differences here!). You also have to take into consideration time constraints, teacher's comfort level and ability with using technology, as well as the students' age.

There have been some successes and some failures, but I want to share an option that several teachers have tried recently and for the most part had success. It is low tech but high engagement and can be used in all subject areas. The technique was developed by a North Carolinian by the name of Lodge McCammon. Yes I am  talking about paper slide videos.

The concept is so easy. Students create a story (commercial, math explanation, etc) and then plan it out using a storyboard. Taking the plan, students draw the images needed to convey the information. Students rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse some more. Students then video their story by narrating and then sliding the paper to continue the story. It is a one shot deal, the camera starts rolling and it doesn't stop until they are finished. There is no editing (I hear a collective sigh about not worrying about animations and transitions.) Simply publish the finished product. To learn more about Paper Slide Videos, please check out the wiki here. 

The third graders at this particular school created travel infomericals for various planets. Then worked together as a group to video the finished projects.

The kindergarten classes at the same school used Paper Slide Videos to publish one of their writers' workshop pieces. So every student has their own video.

Give Paper Slide Videos a try and tell me what you think.

Google Drive ...What's the Big Deal?

If you have been reading my blog for any amount of time you know that our district has Google Apps for Education for our employees and our students. When we first began to use Google Apps for Education, the office suite was known as Google Docs. During our transition, Google changed it to Google Drive. It has been my opinion that the impact of the possibilities haven't hit our teachers yet. So today I want to examine that impact.

First some history, Google Docs allowed us to create a new word document, spreadsheet, presentation, or drawing. Of course all online and easily shared for collaborative purposes. Then along comes Drive adding the possibility to add Drive to our computer so we could easily drag the file to the Drive app on our machine and it sync to our cloud account.

Recently, Drive changed yet again. When you click the red create button in drive, you will notice that you have an option to connect apps when using Google Chrome. Yes, you read that correctly...apps. To. Drive.

So the impact of this should be the realization that we can add software to our account in the cloud giving us the ability to edit many different file types anywhere, anytime we have Internet access. Google Chrome really begins to act as an operating system.

If you have a Google account, I hope you will explore the possibilities.To get you started, here are a few of my favorites.

1. Powtoon EDU

Powtoon allows you to create presentations, greeting cards, and more using an easy "drag and drop" interface. Each slide is treated as a scene and you just drag and drop characters and props onto the slide, add text, and assign animation. Powtoon is exported to YouTube which you can then embed.

2. Pixlr

Pixlr is a free full featured photo editor similar to programs such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. Tools include red eye reduction, spot heal tool, drawing tools, and others. Software also contains filters and various adjustments. Connect it to your Drive account and give it a whirl.




3. Lucid Chart

Lucid Chart is a collaborative mind mapping software that allows you to create visual representations flowcharts, diagrams, and charts. It is super easy to use by dragging and dropping the shapes onto the screen and then typing. You connect the shapes by clicking on one and dragging the mouse to the other. Lucid Chart is free for educators in K-12. Click here to find out how to sign up for the free account.

4. WeVideo

WeVideo is the free full featured video creator. You can use still images and or video. Upload your media, drag and drop on the timeline to arrange the story, select your style, add audio, and publish. It is really is that easy. Did I mention that you can collaborate on that video as well. WeVideo adds a folder to your Drive called "WeVideo_Folder_your_email_address. To share a project, click on the name of the video in the folder and select share. So share it with collaborators and edit away. You can publish your finished product to YouTube or to Google Drive.

5. HelloSign

HelloSign is paving the way to a paperless classroom (or office) by providing an easy way to sign documents or get documents signed. No more printing, signing, and scanning documents. Open the file, add your signature (or text, date, checkmark, or signature request). HelloSign emails the document and it is legally binding. HelloSign also allows you to create reusable documents by creating a template for those documents you use most often.

6.  Simplebooklet

Use the free account to create brochures, flipbooks, presentations, etc. It is very user friendly allowing you to create your work from scratch or by uploading a PDF file. You can add text, images, videos, and more. You share your work by embedding on your site or by sharing the unique URL for your book.

NCTIES 2013 Thoughts & Ponderings

I don't know about you, but I love to learn. I am thankful for my PLN because the people that I follow are amazing. But I also love to go to conferences to learn even more. This month I had the opportunity to attend NCTIES Conference in Raleigh. The conference is a huge event held annually in our state and this year there were over 1400 people attending. Although the sessions were packed, information was flowing and I found out about some pretty cool things and connected to some amazing people to add to my PLN. I thought I would try to process some of that learning by blogging about it.


The main themes for this year's conference included gaming, iPads, apps, and common core. Since we are in the midst of an iPad pilot in our district and of course implementing common core curriculum, I chose sessions related to those specifically. One huge take away for me was that we need to be giving the students the tools that will direct their minds. To do this effectively, we need to dissect the curriculum...what is it we want the students to learn. Then focus on integration while incorporating real world situations and problems. As educators, we have to learn to surrender the control. So what are some tools that we can give our students? Here are two of  my new favorites.

1. Chirbit
I am sure that  any of you with mobile devices in your classrooms have been using QR codes instructionally. Well imagine how cool it would be to
scan the QR code and receive audio. Chirbit is an online program that allows just that. Did I mention it is free? It is very user friendly allowing you to record, upload, and share audio files. From the website, you can use a computer mic or webcam to record. You also have the option to type in text that will then be converted. You can also use the iPad, iPod, iPhone to post chirbits. Simply use the Voice Memo app on the device and email it to chirbit. But first, be sure that you set up your chirbit account to recognize the email address associated with the device. Chirbit audio is limited to 5 minutes.

Classroom uses: Class announcements, student instructions, student digital storytelling (remember time limit), a daily exit ticket, student project publishing, podcasts, and more. Chirbit allows you to share via email, RSS feed, Twitter, or by embedding on your blog. And don't forget, it automatically generates a QR code as well. The voice clips are housed on the website under your account. Check it and tell me what you think.

2. Thinglink
Thinglink is another free site that believes that every image tells a story. The site allows you to make your images come alive with music, video, text, images, and more. Basically, you upload you image and then tag it with the various media. Once complete, it allows users to touch your image and learn more. Click here for an example.

Classroom examples: Make history come to life by tagging photos with information and video content to help students understand what is going on in the photo. Great uses for some of the images available with Discovery Education. Help students put works of art into context by tagging famous pieces with artist background, social context, etc. Science diagrams would be another great image to tag to help students truly understand the scientific principles. 

SMART Boards - Getting it into the Hands of our Students

An observation was made in our district recently that our IWBs were being utilized as a projection device. The challenge is how can we get this technology into the hands of our students to allow them to interact with the content.

So this got me thinking: What ideas can I offer to make this happen? The left brain part of me thought immediately to organize some ideas into categories. Here are the results:

Classroom Management:

Attendance: Start the day off by having students check in using the SB. As they enter the classroom, part of the routine could be to walk by the board and move their avatar (or name) to indicate they have arrived at school. This page can be as simple or elaborate as you want to make it. 

Lunch Count: Many elementary schools require teachers to send in lunch count for each student. Students could move their avatar or name to indicate their lunch choice. Since students are indicating their lunch choice, you can also see at a glance any students that are absent for the day. 

Morning Information and Activity: Elementary students are always curious about what the day may hold. Satisfy that curiosity with an information bite embedded on a page with a bell ringer activity. Incorporate the wonderful website http://wonderopolis.org/wonders/ by putting the Wonder of the day on the page as well. Be sure to include an opportunity for the students to manipulate the material on the page. In the example pictured here, students would correct the sentence.

Teaching Resource:

By all means, put that board to use as a center in your classroom! While you are working with a small group of students, you can easily see the activity going on at the board. There are lots of ways to incorporate it as a center.

1. Take advantage of the flash templates available in the Lesson Activity Toolkit of Notebook software and create instant center activities to reinforce what you are teaching.
2. Use the page recorder to allow students to record their words their way word sorts or different ways to solve the math problem. You will have an instant item that you could add to an electronic portfolio.
3. I know every teacher is aware of the variety of online "games" that can be used to practice content as well and most all will work beautifully on the SMART Board.
4. Use it as a part of Daily 5 as a Listen to someone read center. Our county has provided many online books that can be utilized in this manner. Allow the students to use the pens, highlighter, or even transparency mode to make the listening activity more interactive. In addition, to Book Flix, Tru-Flix, and Big Universe, you can take advantage of National Geographic for read alouds as well as ncwiseowl.org.
5. Let students use the SMART Board's connected computer to actually create a SMART Board activity to share with a lower grade on concepts they are learning or even share with each other in class.
6. Allow the students to listen to a story from your MP3 player, and draw what they are visualizing on the SMART Board. You never know you may have the next Monet in your class.
7. An idea that I love, is to use the video recorder in SMART. Let the students create a digital story using the features in Notebook and then use the video recorder to record a movie of it. All you will need beside the SMART Board, is a computer microphone to pick up the student's voice. Their creativity will take care of the rest.


So how do you manage the board as a center? Well...
I love this teacher's idea of how to manage the kids in the SMART Board center. She uses a baseball theme, with Who's On, Who's on Deck (for the next person), and Who's in the Hole for those waiting their turn.

Other management ideas can be found in the Lesson Activity Toolkit. Use the random number generator or the random word chooser and that student (or the number representing that student) get's a turn when their name (or number) is up.

Please share your ideas for getting this technology into the hands of the students.

Notebook lesson ideas found on SMART Exchange.