Tech INSPIRED: June 2012

Thursday 28 June 2012

Popsicle Sticks, Punch Cards, and Presentations

Well, I've been busy all last week working on my Pinterest projects and our presentations this week at UNA. I have managed to complete more than three classroom projects *cheers* and prepare for five, YES FIVE, presentations this week (with Shelly's help, of course!!) I haven't forgotten about my kiddos, though, as we also did some fun projects last week. We've been busy! Here's what we've been up to...

Projects for my classroom:

I can't take credit for these great ideas--you can find links to the original posts HERE.

This is my "Great Readers" mirror...I am going to face this toward my small group table so that students can see themselves as they are back there with me. Isn't this a fun way to motivate struggling readers? I think I will probably end up adding some kind of border to it.

Speaking of small group table...I made these pointers out of popsicle sticks for students to use as they follow along while we read, either in small group, OR I made enough to use during whole group, too! And speaking of popsicle sticks, I made these multiple choice sticks for students to use for quick checks at the small group table.

This project is the one I'm most excited about...my good behavior coupon box!! I LOVE this and can't wait to use it. I was tired of buying "treasure chest" stuff for good behavior, and when I saw these coupons for FREE rewards.....I knew I had to have it for my room. I'm going to couple that with the behavior punch card...each child will get a punch card, and when they receive 10 punches, they can choose a good behavior coupon from the box. Soooo excited!

*The link to the free PDFs is here.

I didn't get to the painted foam mat last week because I couldn't find one that was as thick as I wanted. I'm moving that project to my to-do list for this week. :(

Dax has been busy this week, too. Here he was painting using different toy cars. See the different patterns that the treads make on the paper? He thought this was soooo cool!

Okay, these ice cubes were tha bomb!! I don't know what the obsession was with these, but Dax LOVED them. They are just ice cubes made from water and a drop of food coloring. He caught them with his net, he bounced on his trampoline with them, he fished them out of the water with a spoon, he asked to make more. :) Easy, but a couple of hours of fun!!

What a busy and fun week!

This is Shelly and me at UNA working on our presentations. All of our presentation resources are posted on my blog as well. Check them out! :)

What's on the Pinterest list this week, you ask? Along with the painted foam mat...

Sorry for the long post, but with our presentations, I have been out-of-pocket for a few days!

Wednesday 27 June 2012

Web-Based Tools for Teaching and Learning

This module includes TONS of great web resources. Take some time to explore them...there's no end to what you can find!

Survey tools:

Survey Monkey

Google Doc Presentation

Google Docs Home --forms

•Response-O-Matic:
http://www.response-o-matic.com/

•Kwik Surveys: http://kwiksurveys.com/

•Flisti: http://flisti.com/

Creativity Tools:

Voki

•Mixbook: http://www.mixbook.com/

•Blender: http://www.blender.org/

•ZFlip: http://www.zflip.com/

•Blabberize: http://blabberize.com/

Word Clouds:

Answer Garden

Wordle

§Tagxedo

§ABCya ! (Grades K – 5)

§WordItOut

•Storylineonline

•ReadWriteThink

Bookmarking Sites:
•Diigo http://www.diigo.com/

•Delicious: http://delicious.com/

•Google Bookmarks: https://www.google.com/bookmarks

•StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com/

•Portaportal: http://portaportal.com/

•ikeepbookmarks.com

•www.jogtheweb.com

Student Friendly Search Engines

http://www.sweetsearch.com

•Alabama Virtual Library http://www.avl.lib.al.us/

•Famhoo: http://www.famhoo.com/

•AskKids: http://www.askkids.com/

•KidRex: http://www.kidrex.org/

•SchoolWAX TV: http://schoolwaxtv.com/

Cartoon, Comic, and Online Story Creators
http://www.toondoo.com/

•Thinkfinity’s Comic Creator: http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•Pixton : http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•Xtranormal : http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•Storybird : http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•Make Beliefs Comix : http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•Animoto : http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•Animoto Education: http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

•Kerpoof ***

•DoInk

•Pivot

Blogs and Wikis

kidblog.org/6thGradeSWATTeam

•http://www.glogster.com/

•Edublogs: http://edublogs.org/

•Wikispaces: http://www.wikispaces.com/

•WordPress: http://wordpress.com/

•PBworks: http://pbworks.com/pbworks-basic-edition (basic edition is free for educators)

•Blogger: http://blogger.com/

•TeachersFirst – Wikis: http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/ (ideas for how to use wikis in the classroom)

Mind-Mapping Tools
•Bubbl.us: http://www.bubbl.us/

•MindMeister: http://www.mindmeister.com/

•XMind: http://www.xmind.net/

•Mindomo: http://www.creazaeducation.com/mindomo

•Gliffy: http://www.gliffy.com/

•Popplet: http://popplet.com/

•PrimaryWall: http://primarywall.com/

•Wall Wisher: http://www.wallwisher.com/

•PiratePad: http://piratepad.net/

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Incorporating Video in the Classroom

Fifth and final ALEX module that we are presenting this week...this is all of the resources that we will share to help incorporate video into the classroom.

Google

Google Doc

Penguins Dialogue Video

Toucan Rap

BrainPOP

Skype

Where to find videos...

•ALEX’s gallery360°: http://alex.state.al.us/staticfiles/podcasts.php (AVL podcast)

•Teacher Tube: http://www1.teachertube.com/

•Mathtrain TV: http://mathtrain.tv/

•Next Vista: http://www.nextvista.org/

•School Tube: http://www.schooltube.com/

•Ted Videos (ideas for using some TED videos): http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/effective-uses-of-video-in-the-classroom)

•National Geographic: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player

•Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org/video

•Nova: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/video

•Radbox (a video aggregator): http://radbox.me/

•Snagfilms: http://learning.snagfilms.com/film/category/k-5

•New Learning Institute: http://newlearninginstitute.org/

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/search.html?terms=&category=1000

iTunes

YouTube

Alternatives to YouTube:

•School Tube - Excellent safe place for students and teachers to share and view video.

•WatchKnow - Wonderful site with 1000's of videos for students in multiple subjects, organized in a clear, precise way.

•Neo K-12 - All videos on this amazing site are a 100% safe. Also, there is a complete suite of educational tools for educators to choose from, such as quizzes, presentations, and more.

•Snag Learning - An interesting site that brings documentary-style films to engage students in discussion and classroom participation.

•Qwiki - A very new (alpha) site that brings an innovative twist on video experience. While the content is still growing, one can't help but notice that amount of promise that is shown here.

•Explore - Great site, similar to Discovery Streaming for educational video. Users can either view on the web or download for their own convenience.

•Kids Tube - Excellent filtered site for kids' videos.

•Teacher Tube - Excellent site for educators to find videos for students and share in the wonderful educational online community.

•Vimeo - A nice very popular alternative to YouTube. I recommend using with a filter of some sort, or view all content before introducing to students.

•Clip Blast - A huge collection of videos can be found on this nice site; must be used in a filtered environment for safety reasons.

•The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education from the Media Education Lab, Temple University (http://mediaeducationlab.com/sites/mediaeducationlab.com/files/CodeofBestPracticesinFairUse.pdf)

•Copyright Confusion Wiki A tremendous resource w/scenarios, links, videos, Q&A, presentations, etc. (http://copyrightconfusion.wikispaces.com/)

•http://www.libraryvideo.com/articles/article6.asp

•Thinking Through Fair Use Analysis Tool (http://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/fairthoughts)

•"Copyright Law and Distance Education: Overview of the TEACH Act" by Kenneth Crews, updated 2010 (http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/files/2010/08/teach-act-summary-by-kenneth-crews.pdf)

•Additional up-to-date (2010-2011) context from Columbia University (http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/special-topics/distance-education/)

Fair Use Analysis Tool http://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/fairthoughts

WallWisher

ALEX

•Using Video in the Classroom http://www.edutopia.org/youtube-educational-videos-classroom

•Free Video Clips Listing http://videoclips.mrdonn.org/list.html

•Sample Video Viewing Guide - http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3474977/Viewing-Guide-for-The-Last-of-the-Mohicans-This-video

•Discussion on using video in the classroom http://education.ted.com/showthread.php?73-How-do-you-use-video-in-the-classroom

•Video Utilization Strategies http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/ntti/resources/video2.html

End-of-Module Survey

Monday 25 June 2012

Professional Social Networking Tools for Educators

Here are resources for our third presentation this week. All of these involve using social networking tools as a professional educator.

Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX)

STI PD

Oracle of Bacon

How can being involved in a social network benefit you professionally?

bit.ly

BLOGS TO EXPLORE:

huttonfifth210.blogspot.com

blog.kathyschrock.net

kilbykids.blogspot.com

www.freetech4teachers.com

Saturday 23 June 2012

ALEX Group Projection Tools

These are the resources in the second installment of our presentations next week. All of these resources incorporate using group projection tools in the classroom.