Using Screen Captures to Enhance Your Lessons

In my tutorials for this blog I take pictures of my screen or things on my screen to give visuals for the directions. For presentations in the classroom I often do the same thing so I can use the examples for my lessons. For example, when organizing math lessons, I might take a screen shot of an example from the online textbook and put it in my flipchart. That way I use the same steps the textbook uses without having to recreate it.

Like in this lesson:

So I could refer to the students' page in front of them and stay on my flipchart, I took a screen shot of the page and incorporated it into the chart.

Then I took a screen shot of the chart they would fill out and typed in my numbers over it.

I did the same thing to make a worksheet students used to do at their seats and turn it into an interactive lesson. (The worksheet was first scanned and turned into a PDF file.)

If you find yourself needing pictures of things on your screen, you can do this in several ways:

On a Mac: 

command + shift + 3 takes a shot of your entire screen and saves it to your desktop.

command + shift + 4 allows you to click and drag to highlight the area you want to take a picture of then saves to your desktop.

On a PC:

alt + print screen (on your keyboard) then open paint and paste (crtl + v). You can crop from there.

I find the PC process time consuming, so I like to download a free screen capture software. I have used Screen Hunter before. You just open the software and choose a full screen or to highlight part of it. This will also usually save to your desktop or wherever you decide to save them. 

Smart and Promethean both have screen capture abilities:

Smart:

On the top toolbar choose the camera icon:  

 Then you can take a picture of anything on your computer. The camera tool always stays on top so you can go to another screen

Promethean:
Go to Tools --> Camera, and choose your option.

Taking screen shots takes seconds and then the images are incorporated into your flipchart, notebook, Power Point, etc. in the same way any other image would be. 

Introducing Sumdog!

Sumdog is actually a pretty neat site that is easy to implement in your classroom. It is basically a site with math games for students. The students get their own account and avatar. The incentive to play and do well is as they play games, get right answers, and earn coins, they can use their rewards in the Sumdog store. The store allows them to add things to their avatar, like new clothing, musical instruments, sports equipment, or even play other games.

To get started, go to http://www.sumdog.com and register for your FREE account. When you do, you'll be given a username and a "request to join" will be sent. Another teacher at the school will have to log in and "approve" you to join before you will be able to log in. This is just a safeguard to make sure the correct teachers are making accounts for the correct school.

Once approved you'll need to add your students to create free accounts for them. It will give you usernames and passwords for all of your students.

If you go to "Students" and select your class, there is also a print out that you can pass out to the students with their information already on it. Just hit print. Have them keep it in a safe place. They can access the site from school or from home.


The URL you will want students to use for their "quick login" is:
http://www.sumdog.com/sch/southwest-elementary-school

*Give this to students to access at home and add this page to your favorites (or Symbaloo!)

The other thing you'll want to do is to restrict student skills. All the games are the same for all grade levels, but each student plays according to their skills. If you don't restrict the skills you could end up with a kindergartener trying to do a multiplication problem in their game. (Unless, of course, you have a kindergartener who is able to do a multiplication problem.)

To do this go to "Southwest" at the top of your screen.
Choose "Skills"

Choose "Students"

Edit by choosing "restrict their skills"

Then you will be able to choose according to grade level. You can always go back and change this for students who are experiencing difficulty or need more challenging games.

Now your students are ready to play!

Other information you should know to start out:
The Sumdog Blog has great information:

You can get students to join national, state, and county competitions. Just another way to give students an incentive to play.

• The only thing you can track with a FREE account is when students have last logged on. You are not able to track skills. 
• You can create challenges and activities for your class for FREE up to 5 times. I would use them wisely. But definitely try them out!
• Parents can make their own FREE accounts or they can pay for their student's account. When a parent buys an account our school gets credits towards more paid accounts. Please share this information. http://www.sumdog.com/en/Families_information_for_students
• More resources can be found at http://www.sumdog.com/en/Classroom_Resources
• How to Videos: http://www.sumdog.com/en/Teachers_Help

Sign up, try it out, and let me know how you think it works for you. 

The Wonderful World of Edmodo

I've heard of Edmodo, visited it once or twice, and didn't give it much thought until I took a look at it again recently. It's totally amazing. (And yes, I just said totally.) Edmodo is a FREE(!) online community for your classroom that allows teachers and students to interact. It's kind of like  a Facebook-Wikispaces-gradebook-Gaggle-Blogger all rolled into one. To add to the awesomeness, there are many ways that Edmodo is 100% safe for students to use and gives the teacher full control of all content.

Start here. When you create your (free and 5 seconds to make) account, your basic dashboard looks like this:

You can add a picture and a few details to your profile. You can join groups (you might notice I've joined the Edmodo New User Group) or create groups. For use in your classroom, you'll want to create groups for your class as a whole group, by subject, or maybe even by reading or word study groups.

You can then add assignments:

 Quizzes: (That can be automatically graded. Time saver!)

Keep track of grades:

And store files in your library so you can access them for other assignments and posts:

For more information, I highly encourage you to visit the Edmodo Blog and watch several of the webinars that are available to view at any time.

Excited yet? Who wants to use this in their classroom this year?!

Morning Routines

As we approach the beginning of the school year we know we will have students who are new to interactive whiteboards, or at least need a refresher course. A great way to get students used to using the board is by making it part of your morning routine. Plus, you're already starting the day out using technology!

Check out Promethean Planet or SMART Exchange and search for "lunch count" or "attendance". You'll find plenty of templates, even by holidays and seasons. You can download them and change them as you'd like. An added organizational bonus: Use "save as" to save each lunch count/attendance to a special folder and refer back to it if you can't remember when a student was absent or how many students ordered pizza.

You can also change these templates around to use them as a poll for anything from gauging student interest to asking students to predict the weather or what will happen next in the book you are reading. You could have students use their own names or simply use shapes or icons to make the voting anonymous. There are also a few morning calendar routines on the sites, but you may want to use them as a jumping off point to creating your own. 

Digital Storytelling and Adding Technology to the Writing Process

Digital Storytelling is simply telling a story in a digital format. Why tell a story digitally? Not only does digital storytelling use many different levels of thinking, but it also allows for creativity as well as new ways of publishing writing. Technology should not replace brainstorming, planning, writing drafts, and publishing work, but it can enhance those processes. In the elementary classroom it can be used to publish student's work in a new and different way, or as an end product in demonstrating knowledge of subject areas. Digital stories can be written by individuals, groups of students, or as a whole class. Teachers can easily scan in pictures students have drawn and add their writing for a whole class book, or write stories together. Teachers can take pictures on a field trip and record narration about the trip from students to create a digital story. Digital stories can be on any topic and used in any subject area. Teachers can even write their own digital stories to use to enhance their lessons.

So how do I tell a story digitally? 

There are both software and web-based programs that allow for digital stories. It all depends on the expected outcome. You may want students to sit down at a computer and just get their creative juices flowing. There are websites that give students pictures or animations and allow them to write a story as they go along. There are some great sites just for brainstorming too. 

Websites for creative beginnings:

Kerpoof

Pic Lits (Great visuals, good for brainstorming or writing poetry.)

Xtranormal ($)

Zooburst (Basic Account Free, but only allows 10 books)

Pinball (Great for planning writing. Individual or whole class use. Great for Interactive Whiteboard.)

For more serious storytelling you may want students to take a story they have planned, written, and edited in class and have them turn it into a digital creation. You can use software or web based programs to put their writing into a digital story. Scan pictures they have drawn or have them choose pictures from any websites that allow for royalty free use. Microsoft's Photostory and Movie Maker programs are both free downloads that give good results. 

With Photostory, users can make a slideshow of photos and add narration. Motion, transitions, and titles can be added as well. With student work, pictures and writing can be scanned and added as images. Background music or student narration can be added. 

Microsoft Movie Maker allows for adding photos (scanned or in other files), slides, timing, music, narration, and transitions.  There are many similarities to Photostory, but more options in Movie Maker. 

For Mac users, iMovie and iPhoto work much the same way. The iPad has some amazing apps for creating and publishing digital stories too.

Websites for digital storytelling include: (Great for students AND teachers)

Voicethread

Storyjumper

Storybird (Write a story using the pictures they provide.)

Primary Access

Glogster (Free teacher account, $ for students)

Myths and Legends (Good for teaching myths)

Some of these sites allow you to buy a copy of your published work. With Storybird, parents can buy copies of their children's work and part of the funds will go to your classroom. 

If you are looking to create and buy a copy of a digital story (such as a book your class wrote) try:

Mixbook (I ordered a photo book from a recent vacation and the quality was great!)

Blurb (Very easy to use, lots of freedom, good quality.)

Check out these sites and see how you can integrate digital storytelling into your classroom assignments and lessons today. There are more links and a Photostory 3 tutorial by Jake's Online at http://delicious.com/hethomas. (Search the digital storytelling tag.)

Promethean: Creating Containers

Containers are a neat function you can create in your flipcharts that allows you to place objects or words into a "container". I like to use this feature for sorting words or objects into the proper categories. If the word or object is placed correctly, it stays in the container. If it is placed incorrectly, it shoots back out of the container. I'm going to use a map activity I made for 1st grade as an example:

Before you set up the objects as containers, there are two important things to note.

• Your containers must be larger than the objects being contained inside them. For this map, I had to make sure my text boxes were smaller than the rectangles I created. This was easily done by clicking on the text and resizing the boxes. 

• Your objects need to be on top of the containers. You can make sure they are on top by going to the object browser and moving all the objects over the containers. In the picture below all the text has been moved on the list ahead of the shapes. They can all stay in the Middle Layer. 

1. Make sure you choose to View--->Browsers and go to the Property Browser.

2. To create the containers, click on the object that will act as the container. In the Property Browser find Container.

3. For Can Contain choose "specific object".
4. In Contain Object click on the icon with three dots next to where you type the text. Don't type any text in that box. You MUST click the icon. Then, this box will appear:

5. Choose the object you would like to contain and click OK. You are done making the container.

6. Now you need to go to the object that will be contained. Click on that object and in the Property Browser click on Container.

7. You will only change one thing here. Go to the last option, Return if not Contained, and choose True. This means that if the object is placed in the wrong container, it will return it back to its original location. This step is important because if you don't choose True, then the object will stay wherever you place it, even if it is the wrong container.

Repeat these steps for each container. Once you have done this with all of your containers and objects to be contained, lock the containers so they don't accidentally get moved during use.

Now you can have students try their hand and putting the right answers in the correct locations. They'll know they got it wrong if the object won't stay in the container. This is great as a pre- unit or lesson activity, post- unit or lesson review, or as an independent activity during centers. A great way to assess student knowledge while getting them up to interact with the board.

Promethean and Change

Promethean technology is only as good as the person using it will make it. If you simply use it as another white board with annotating capabilities,that is all it will be. If you simply import slideshows from Power Point and show them in ActivInspire, then all you've done is shown another slideshow. One of the downfalls of the technology I have found is that there is a learning curve in implementing it into the classroom. If you make it a point to focus on how to use it and do the research, the more useful it will become. It also is so easily implemented into existing classroom routines and often serves as a more advanced replacement for a white board. I know I often use the Promethean to show worksheets, word problems, and pages from the math textbook online and annotate over them. I use a blank flipchart to write out charts as students share during language arts or word study. I love that I don't have to erase a messy white board. I love that it only takes a click of the pen to clear the screen. I also know that often times I am the only one interacting with the board. And since you can import from Power Point or a PDF, it is so easy to take what I used to do with a laptop and projector and just make it run smoother and more organized.

I am still torn as in the previous post. Interactive White Board is the name given to the technology because it is supposed to be interactive. And the "research" (read "advertising") on the Promethean websites totes it's interactivity and capabilities. But, as a tool in my classroom, why would I not utilize it to make my classroom routines run smoother, to save chart paper, to save time, and annotate over work the students are doing as we work through it? I see these as valuable time saving and organizational uses in the classroom and uses that I hope everyone who recieved a Promethean at my school is taking advantage of.

But I still don't want the endless resources and capabilities of this technology to be lost. With such a high price tag and such little money in our schools, we need to use everything we have. Not to mention the tremendous benefits I think students would recieve by variety, manipulating things on the board, and by reaching the visual and kinesthetic learners. I know, you already know this and believe this. But how interactive are you using it? How much do students use it? What are you doing that is making it a visual learner's dream come true? How has the Promethean promoted Change in your instruction and in student learning? How are you measuring it?

Please, share your ideas. And then visit me Delicious sites. I spent hours finding interactive activities and I'd love for you to tell me what you find useful.