Featured: Gaggle Tips, You Tube Education, Scholastic Storia, and Internet 4 Classrooms Online Tutorials
1. Gaggle:
I gave you an introduction to Gaggle a few weeks ago. (Get started here.) I have seen quite a few classes start to use it in big and small ways. Some teachers use it to have students turn in assignments from the computer lab. One class has begun using the discussion boards feature under My Classes for students to open dialogue about the novel they are currently reading. And, I can see in Gaggle Tube that many teachers have been saving videos to their My Videos folder for streaming in class.
These are just a few examples of the Gaggle use going on here at school. If you are using Gaggle in the classroom, share how you are doing it by leaving a comment below.
Also, I have saved some Christmas Traditions videos in my folder on Gaggle. You can access these videos through Gaggle Tube in the "School Library" folder. Just click on my name. Tip: When saving videos, I find it is good to add tags to them for easy organization. That way I can save many videos, but not have to scroll through all of them to find them. When saving a video, make sure to check "approve for student use" so students and other staff members can look through your videos too.
2. You Tube Education:
Now accessible here at school! You Tube started offering You Tube EDU a little while ago. Similar to Teacher Tube, You Tube EDU has thousands of lessons and educational videos to stream right to your classroom. You can make your own account and add your own videos as well. Our county recently opted into You Tube EDU on our network, so we can browse, search, and watch videos from a defined set of educational content. This means that sometimes you may come across videos that are not accessible on our network because it is either not suitable, or doesn't fit into the defined set of terms. I recommend searching for videos to use while you are here at school or at least testing if your videos will open here at school before committing them to a lesson. The great thing is there are many videos to choose from and unlike Gaggle Tube, you have the ease and flexibility of searching like you would regularly from the web instead of going through Gaggle Tube. (Both are great options.)
3. Scholastic Storia:
Storia is a new download from Scholastic. It is a way to download e-books purchased through Scholastic but with a few more features, like a dictionary and read aloud. Check out the site. You may not have tablets to download these ebooks in the classroom, but you can use the app with your devices at home or share this new resource with parents. Really neat!
4. Internet 4 Classrooms:
Internet 4 Classrooms has online technology tutorials available here. If you need a refresh before starting that Power Point project or want to see some of the differences between Word 03, 07, and 10, check them out here. The Web 2.0 Tools link gives some great tutorials on tools you can use in your classroom to make your lessons more engaging or to help you get more organized.
Happy Teching!
