Technology Tidbits
March 26, 2014
Contact information
Danita Russell
Email: drussell@lee.k12.nc.us
Twitter: @Danitar
School Webpage: http://www.lee.k12.nc.us/Domain/939Technology Conference Edition
If you have a website or an idea that you would like to share in an upcoming edition, please email me. I will give you all the kuddos and fame :)
Until next time ~
Danita
Things that make you go hmmm .....
Why do black olives come in cans and green olives come in jars?
Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
How is it possible to have a civil war?
If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
If the #2 pencil is so popular, why is it still #2?
How do you know that honesty is the best policy until you have tried some of the others?
How come there aren't B batteries?
How do you throw away a garbage can?
How does a thermos know if the drink should be hot or cold?
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
If you get cheated by the Better Business Bureau, who do you complain to?
If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?
If you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do hot dogs come 10 to a package and hot dog buns only 8?
Why do tourists go to the tops of tall buildings and then put money into telescopes so they can see things on the ground close-up?
Why is it that bullets ricochet off of Superman's chest, but he ducks when the gun is thrown at him?
Why is it that night falls but day breaks?
Why is it that you must wait until night to call it a day?
What if the Hokey Pokey IS what its all about?
When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why you're just sitting there, staring at carpeting?
What happened to the first 6 "ups"?
Why do banks charge you a "non-sufficient funds" fee on money they already know you don't have?
Why do they put Braille on the drive through bank machines?
- If nothing ever sticks to Teflon, how do they make Teflon stick to the pan?
Teacher Spotlight - Christina Reed, SanLee Middle
This is my 13th year of teaching.
The newest technology tool I have tried is educreations for flipping my classroom. Each of my students have their own accounts. I can upload a video from my Ipad straight to the site and students can view the videos as many times as they need. I can even assign a video to certain kids. I use this for note taking and as a homework help each night.
If I were queen for the day, I would change the fact that education has become more test driven. It used to be about teaching the whole child. Now I feel that people are more worried about scores than making sure a child understands,
- Educreations Educreations.com
- To learn more about Christina and her class, visit her webpage: www.tinyurl.com/mrsreedmath
Lee County Presenters
- Two Flipping Elective Chicks - (Robin Neville and Hannah Thomas)
http://lee.schoolwires.net/Page/12872
- Pancake Math in the Upper Elementary (Kim Collazo and Jon Mitchell) http://tinyurl.com/nvlj8mw
- Pancake Math Website http://coreinstruction.weebly.com/ (Kim Collazo and Jon Mitchell)
- URcast http://tinyurl.com/mdy995y (Amy Thomas and Cindy Johnson)
- Edmodo link for presentations - Search for NCTIES 2014 and use the code smdhaf to join
Language Arts
- Inklewriter(Gregg Halkuff) - collaborative storytelling website great for language arts classes.
- Grammaropolis - A wonderful introduction to grammar topics, Grammaropolis will get students excited about different parts of speech. With this app kids can access videos, music and tons of resources. The free version gives you all of the content related to nouns but the other parts of speech require in app purchases. (Danita Russell)
http://classtechtips.com/2014/03/11/grammaropolis-for-ela/
- SpellMania - For a fun way to practice spelling and push students with word games check out SpellMania. This free iPad app asks children to locate words on a grid. A super cool feature is the ability to tap on any word to access a complete dictionary entry. SpellMania includes three options for students: Free Play, Puzzle Mode and Time Attack. (Danita Russell)
Math
- 56 great math Websites for any age (Danita Russell)
- March Math Activities and Lessons (Danita Russell)
http://mathlanding.org/node/1568
- Pi Day showdown (Danita Russell)
Science
- Earth and Space Science passages listed by grade level and Lexile level (Danita Russell)
http://www.readworks.org/earth-space-science-passages
- 50 Websites that make science fun (Danita Russell)
Social Studies
- Google Maps Gallery (Danita Russell)
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/03/google-maps-gallery-now-offers-hundreds.html
- US Civil War Maps (Danita Russell)
Flipping Your Classroom
- Good ideas and websites for flipping your classroom (Danita Russell)
- David Kapuler Flipper Classroom Pins (Danita Russell)
All Grade Levels
- A symbaloo of tutorials for Web 2.0 tools. http://edu.symbaloo.com/mix/pblhub1 (Carole Troutman)
- LearnZillion (Sherell Stevenson) - You can set up a class on LearnZillion and assign lessons whole group or small group, You can set up several group. My whole class is in one group and then I have a group of students who need to review second grade skills. You can differentiate easily with this site and it is free. It was easy to set my class up and the students can view the videos as many times as needed. There are also online quizzes the students can take and you can easily retrieve those grades.
- Penzu is a free online diary and personal journal focused on privacy. Easily keep a secret diary or a private journal of notes and ideas securely on the web. (Sherell Stevenson)
- Zondle - gamifies learning. Students earn zollars, collect badges that you award, and compete on game leaderboards: increasing motivation and achievement. I haven't tried this one yet but it was highly recommended. (Sherell Stevenson)
- Comic Creator (Danita Russell)
- Screen hero - screensharing (Danita Russell)
http://screenhero.com/features.html
- Tammy Worcester Tang’s Favorite Websites (Danita Russell)
- Tammy Worcester Tang’s links for her presentations at NCTIES (Danita Russell)
http://tammyworcester.com/ncties-2014/
- FutureMe.Org - send emails to yourself and others in the future (Danita Russell)
- Discovery Education March Madness Websites
A different Website everyday! (Danita Russell)
http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/blog/tag/2014-march-madness/
- Lesson Corner
Lesson Corner is an excellent free site for finding an abundance of educational resources. This is a great place to find a wide variety of worksheets, free K-12 lesson plans, and even puzzle generators. Best of all these resources are rated on a 5 star scale and even provide and answer key for worksheets/lessons. (Danita Russell)
- Chromebooks for your Classroom (Carole Troutman)
Their Chromebook stats found that “Chromebooks reduced the need for additional IT staff to support them, reduced the per-device cost of ownership, increased the degree of reliability, and reduced the total cost of infrastructure.”
- Transform Today’s Students into Tomorrow’s Innovators (Carole Troutman)
http://intel.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/home
Mrs. Goodman with DPI gave a great overview of the Intel Teach Program.
She explained that the goal is to provide tools and resources to help educators develop student-centered learning through technology integration and project-based approaches.
- How to Use iPads in a Non 1:1 Environment (Carole Troutman)
Group shared a wonderful Powerpoint full of great information. I can share the presentation with anyone that would like or they can retrieve from Edmodo
- K-5 Technology Projects (Carole Troutman)
Beyond Chrome Basics - Jeff Crews (Carole Troutman)
Explored extensions and Apps in Chrome browser. Extensions allow for customization and more efficiency. Large number of Apps for education
- YouPD - YouPD is an educator, peer-led professional development community (Danita Russell)
- eduClipper Pinterst-like site for teachers (Danita Russell)
- Getting content to elementary student’s (Danita Russell)
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/05/three-approaches-for-getting-content-to.html#.UyB50_BX-uY
- Using Google Forms to Power 1:1 Instruction (Danita Russell)
- Minecraft - using the game in education (Danita Russell)
http://edurealms.com/?page_id=865
- Want Students to come to class prepared? Roll the dice…. (Danita Russell)
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/368-want-students-to-come-to-class-prepared-try-rolling-the-dice
- David Kapuler’s Pins for EdTech (Danita Russell)
http://www.pinterest.com/dkapuler/
- Adding voice comments to Google Docs (Danita Russell)
- EOL (Danita Russell)
http://ites.ncdpi.wikispaces.net/EOL+LaGarde+Formative+Assessment+2.0
- FlipQuiz - FlipQuiz™ was created to provide educators with a quick way to create gameshow-style boards for test reviews in the classroom. Traditionally, these are created (tediously) using posterboard, chalkboards, or dry-erase markers on an overhead slide. The review questions are usually even written on a separate sheet of paper. With FlipQuiz™, questions are displayed on-screen and boards are saved for later use. Combined with a well-designed board, students are more likely to be interested and stay engaged with an otherwise disjunct test review process. (Ellen Duncan)
- Self-check quizzes (Jane Twigg)
http://tammyworcester.com/selfcheckquizzes/
- ScreenLeap Screen Sharing (Danita Russell)
- Richard Byrne’s Best of the Web 2014 (Danita Russell)
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2014/03/best-of-web-2014.html#.UyG-0c4XetN
- Curriculet - Curriculet’s digital reading platform allows teachers to enrich reading by embedding their questions, quizzes and rich media directly into the reading. Curriculet is FREE for both teachers and students. (Danita Russell)
- YouTube Conversion (Gregg Halkuff)
If you replace everything prior to youtube on the address line with just ss (e.g., ssyoutube.com/watch?v=xxDIqZoHOGs&list=PLN_VEYjh8gCByLq9iBB_yP4Qyhh95DMyH
), it will take you to a website (savefrom.net) where you can download the video in a multiplicity of formats. It also has a browser extension you can use with a variety of websites
- My favorite take-aways (Elizabeth Wiggs)
1. Google timer: head to google.com and type in “set timer for ___ minutes”
2. Aurasma augmented reality app
3. Using QR codes to link student projects to video explanations of them
4. The digital personality test for helping students and teachers get digitally organized: http://ncsucedmetrc.weebly.com/digital-personality-test.html
5. Kahoot for student quizzes
6. Using Todaysmeet for backchanneling during Socratic Seminars--I tried this today with my students during a fishbowl Socratic Seminar, and they were obsessed--they said it was the best seminar they’d ever participated in.
- (Elizabeth Wiggs)
Also, on the Friday of the conference, I emailed the kids all of my favorite new tech toys, and told them they were welcome to play with them, as long as they provided me with honest feedback. Here are their thoughts about various apps, websites, etc.: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15WWyfL1SpHDLWXd0G6cXbNnDOYV72A2TDdL897cBPBE/edit?usp=sharing
- (Robin Neville)
I really liked 2 things at the conference amongst the multitude of things that I saw and learned. The first was an interactive game that you create questions for then you have your students log in with a password to play. They have 30 seconds to answer but will show the first person who had the correct response. You can import pictures into it as well. this would really work for any subject as you are the creator. Getkahoot.com https://getkahoot.com
- (Robin Neville)
The second thing I really liked was a screen sharing program. It is very similar to smart sync in the fact that you can share your desktop with your students. You could have a presentation that you want to share or show them a software program. Whatever is on your screen they see. Screenleap.com Www.screenleap.com
- (Priscilla Gooch)
• Several sessions that I attended were on Flipping the Classroom – the surveys, digital tools tracker, flipping newsletter, and accountability forms were useful for first time flippers.
• Out of the Workbook and into the IPad was a great session that showed how iBooks were used to customize content, provide individualization/differentiation in any subject for students using pictures, popups, and various widgets for video and quizzes. iBooks Author was used to create the books and the layout seemed very easy to use because it was paperless, multimedia could be added as well as interactive content along with extension assignments.
• Google Smashup had great tips; one that stood out in particular was the use of a tool called flubaroo to grade fill-in the blank and multiple choice assignments.
- Richard Byrne’s Presentation Site (Danita Russell)
http://richardbyrnepresents.com/
- EdGeekCast - The Podcast by, for, and about geeks that teach (Danita Russell)
http://edurealms.com/edgeekcast/
- (Joy Thompson)
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOUR STUDENTS ARE PROPERLY PREPARED FOR DIGITAL ASSESSMENTS AND 21st CENTURY SKILLS
Session addressed the importance of keyboarding skills and key it will have when Smarter Balance begins.
Google Web Apps & Extensions
Small programs that add new features to your browser and personalize.
HELLOSIGN for gmail (signing also can make signatures)
ONE TAB
NEW TAB
GOOGLE HANGOUTS
SEND TO GOOGLE DRIVE
SPEAKit
Diigo
Webpage Screenshots
Elementary Sites
- That's Not What I Want!- Searching for Answers in Elementary School
https://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/ (Carole Troutman) Helps your students become better searchers. Contains lots of web search pointers. Site contains lesson plans, etc to help provide your students with ways to obtain the most meaningful information from their searches.
- Flipping the Classroom - (Joy Thompson)
Edmodo code: v2regv
Start with one subject - most recommend Math
Don’t try to make the perfect video. 1st video is the hardest. Work with a team.
- Teacher Resources besides creating your own (Joy Thompson) Learn Zillion (www.learnzillion.com), YouTube, Khan Academy
- CHROMEBOOKS in the Classroom (Joy Thompson)
https://infogr.am/chromebook-stats?src=web
StarTech.com Mini HDMI to VGA Adapter for Digital Still / Video Camera - Video converter - black
- Use kidsblog to journal (Joy Thompson) http://kidblog.org/
Apps
- Hang On Man (Sherell Stevenson) - for iPAD - a twist on the game hang man
- Popplet Lite - for IPAD - is a tool for the iPad and web to capture and organize ideas (Sherell Stevenson)
- Tellagami (Gregg Halkuff) - make easy educational videos using any background images after creating an avatar. It's an iPhone app.
- Educreations for iPad or web-based (Andy Booth): create and narrate lessons that kids can access.
- Flick for iPad, Mac OS, Android, Windows: share files between devices (I believe even desktops/laptops) with just a flick of the finger. (Andy Booth)
- Popplet-iPad app & web (Andy Booth): create simple mind maps (free); paid version adds more utility
- Showbie for iPad/Web (Andy Booth): Teachers can create lessons to share with students who can share back. The iPad app is not necessary to create and share or for the student to share back.
- Sparklefish—iPad & Nook (Andy Booth): MadLibs app. 5 stories for free, but you have to pay to get others. One useful feature is that when it prompts you for a particular part of speech you can drop down a list to see several examples of that part of speech.
- TellStory.me—iPad (Andy Booth): Children can take a picture of a drawing and then narrate a story related to it.
- Knowmia—iPad/Web(Andy Booth): Tools for making video based lessons. Large searchable database of lessons already created.
- Tellagami—iPad/Android(Andy Booth): Mobile app that allows you to create character and a setting and record a short (30 second) message that you can share, post to a website, etc. In-app purchases allow you to have add on locations, frames, themes, etc.
- ThingLink—iPad/Web(Andy Booth): Allows you to “tag” pictures with links to videos, audio, text, images, and web-based materials.
- Kid's Journal app for journaling.nTurns into an iBook.https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kids-journal/id528173573?mt=8 (Joy Thompson)
- Daily 5 (Joy Thompson) Favorite Reading APPS Sight Words: http://www.allfunapps.com/webapps/elementary_sightwords/
- Apps from the SmackDown (Danita Russell)
- 10 New apps for Elementary School (Danita Russell)
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/03/10-new-educational-ipad-apps-for.html
- Gadzookery - Gadzookery is a game of spelling acronyms and backronyms. It is a point scoring single & multiplayer word game that will challenge, educate, delight, and reward casual gamers and seasoned wordsmiths alike. (Danita Russell)
- SMACKDOWN (Joy Thompson)
Air Stash - allows memory card for iPad to upload pictures.
Apps: Shadwon Puppett
Tiny Tap - can make your own games
Toon Camera
Chromecast (like Apple TV) $30 wireless projector HDMI
futureme.org - write an email and have it sent later
Get Plugged In!
http://www.classtools.net/
What is it?
Create free games, quizzes, activities and diagrams in seconds!
Host them on your own blog, website or intranet!
No signup, no passwords, no charge!
How can I use it in my classroom?
You can create and personalize your activities that fit your students needs. There are several pre-made activities and templates on the site to save you time from making your own.
How do I join?
There's no sign -up! Go to http://www.classtools.net and immediately start!
Where can I find more information?
Citations
- http://meridiandaily.net/teen-culture/2014/03/17/spring-fever/
- http://coolrain44.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/songs-about-spring-springtime/
- http://sciencelakes.com/ct/8844897-spring-nature-wallpapers.html
- http://epawablogs.com/2014/03/spring-2014-outlook/
- http://blogs.lasoo.co.nz/2013/09/top-5-spring-ideas/
- http://vinhill.cn/en/perfect-wines-spring-season/
- http://www.weekendnotes.com/spring-blue-mountains/
- http://www.queenstownnz.co.nz/information/spring/
- http://naturespicwallpaper.com/pics-of-spring-28-nature-wallpapers/
- http://sciencelakes.com/ct/8826264-spring-nature-wallpaper.html
- http://naturespicwallpaper.com/hd-wallpaper-spring-nature-1080p/
- http://demonmathiel.deviantart.com/art/Sweet-Spring-120436434
- http://www.knowledgeoverflow.com/beautiful-spring-wallpaper/
- http://www.collegefashion.net/trends/the-top-5-hottest-colors-for-spring-2011/
- http://www.hdwallpapersci.com/13271-spring-flowers-wallpapers.html
- http://www.wallpick.com/spring-cute-flowers-branch.html
- http://nbwildflowers.blogspot.com/2012/03/dreaming-of-spring.html
- http://sciencelakes.com/ct/8792582-welcome-spring-2013.html
- http://wallpaperbit.com/spring-flower-wallpapers/page-3
- http://eofdreams.com/spring.html
- http://desktop-wall-paper.blogspot.com/2012/04/backgrounds-spring-wallpapers.html
- http://www.wallpick.com/beautiful-trees-spring-picture-hd.html
- http://www.kidsunder7.com/2012/04/spring-wallpapers.html#.UzBm5aKx3Ug
- http://stopaudio.com/spring-wallpapers/
- http://wallpoper.com/wallpaper/spring-daffodils-242128
- http://picsmixer.blogspot.com/2012/05/spring-2-wallpaper-i-hd-spring.html
- http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/spring/images/33876232/title/beautiful-bird-photo
- http://www.guidingstar.ca/Markham_Home_Show.htm