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. 

Social Networking for Teachers

The Facebook IPO may not have panned out as well as investors thought, but social networking still has great benefits, especially for teachers interested in collaborating with others and learning more. Here are a few great networking  and learning sites for teachers:

TeachHub: Join the Teach Hub community for free and gain access to updated articles, blogs, lesson plans, and discussion forums. Sign up for weekly updates, start or participate in discussions, share what you are doing in your classroom, and connect with other teachers. 

SimpleK12: Ok, this isn't actually a networking site, but it does have a blog and some free training via webinars for technology. There is plenty of free content and information, but also a paid version that gives you access to even more great training. Sign up for emails and be alerted when membership fees go on sale. 

TeachAde: An online community for teachers to browse lesson plans, articles, and videos or connect with other teachers. Join groups and discussions and share your resources with others. TeachAde is free for K-12 educators with great resources. 

Classroom 2.0: A social network for educators interested in technology to use in their classroom. Join in forums, view live training, and connect with other teachers to collaborate and share ideas. Really neat technology information at this site!

We The Teachers: Another social networking site to collaborate and share ideas with other educators. Free to join. Search for resources, tools, and groups to be a part of. 

ISTE Connect: The International Society for Technology in Education has a place to connect with other educators using technology in their classrooms. Network with others via blogs, wikispaces, Twitter, and other social networks. ISTE does have a membership fee, but also has great information and resources for learning more about integrating technology. 

Don't discount Facebook groups and Twitter as great ways to discussion education and share ideas as well. Check these out over the Summer as you prepare for next year. And really be sure to check out the webinars that some of these sites offer. I learn most of what I know about instructional technology through these trainings that I can view on my own time. You can view and learn from the comfort of your own couch! 

Slideshow Creators

It's nearing the end of the school year, yay! Have you been collecting pictures of students working, science experiments, field trips, and awards? Well, put them in a slideshow to share with your class and their parents. Have 10 or 15 minutes? Here are a few quick and easy (and free!) slideshow creators to use:

Smilebox: A free download with neat templates for creating slideshows, collages, and more. Easily upload your photos, drag and drop, and choose background music. So easy! Save it on your computer, burn to DVD, or share via email.

Photosnack: Web-based, upload photos from multiple places, choose backgrounds, and share. You should be able to embed this to your website too!

Photopeach: Add photos, choose background music, and share! Incredibly easy, and it will pan and zoom through the photos seamlessly. You can download a copy when you are done. Watch again from the website.

You could also use Windows Movie Maker or iPhoto which take a bit more time, but allow for your own personal creativity.

Student Created Technology Projects

Just as we use technology to enhance our lessons, there are many ways that students can use technology to demonstrate or further their understanding. Like the digital storytelling we've talked about before, students can create other projects from in-class lessons and independent research. These projects can be created using computer or web based software. There are hundreds of websites, programs, and projects out there. Here are just a few software and project ideas to get you started:

Software you may already find at your school:

Microsoft Office: Word, Power Point, Publisher, Excel

© Microsoft

Windows Movie Maker
Audacity
Photostory

Web Based Projects:

Glogster ($)
Prezi (There are ways around the "no one under 13" rule and allows you to be the sole owner of the account. Read about it here.)
Posters for Teachers
Big Huge Labs (create magazine covers, movie posters, or other fun items from photos.)
Weebly
Wikispaces

© Prezi Inc.

A student project can be as easy as a Word document or Power Point, or more involved like Glogster or Prezi. Either route you choose, students can add photos, embed videos, add animation, sound, timing, flashy colors and fonts, and whatever else their imaginations desire.

Ten Ideas for Student Created Technology Projects:

1. Poster : Such as: Biography, Safety, Animals, Characters.

2. Video: Such as: How-to, commercial, acting out a scene from a play, book, or their own writing.

3. mp3: Such as: How-to, Public Service Announcement, advertisement, writing and poetry.

4. Digital Storybook

5. Brochure: Such as: geographical destinations, biomes or landforms, biography.

6. Presentation: Such as: biography, animals, how-to

© Weebly, Inc.

7. Map: Geographical locations, places to travel, map routes different peoples have taken

8. Data Graphs

9. Webpage

10. Scrapbook Page


It might be the end of the school year, but it's not too early to think about projects that can be planned for next year!

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.)

Importing PDFs and Fit to Width

I've previously posted about this, but since it is standardized testing season I figured you might want a refresher. There is a super easy way to use those online text examples in ActivInspire to highlight, underline, or take notes.

1. Find your PDF and save it to your computer.

2. In ActivInspire select File--->Import---> PDF.

3. Choose your PDF.

4. On the next screen you have a few options. I usually just select "at the beginning of this flipchart" and select OK.

5. Now, the PDF is in Best Fit mode. This means the whole page is shown and now the text is too small to see. If you zoom in or try to make the page bigger, any highlighting or notes you write will not move when you move the page to see the next paragraph or question. To solve this problem, on the top right drop down menu choose Fit to Width.

This will fit your page to the width of the screen and give you a scroll bar on the right. In this mode you are able to highlight, underline, and add anything else you want and it will stay on the words or location it was placed. For example, when I scroll down the page, the highlighting I put on the picture above stays where I want it. Now I can go back and forth between the questions and the text without having to clear the screen. 

I hope this helps in testing review! Don't forget that there are plenty of resources on Promethean Planet to help as well as websites such as these:

http://cuacs8.mck.ncsu.edu/mathsampleitems/main.html

http://www.bes.ccs.k12.nc.us/testing-practice%20for%20eog/EOG%20Practice.htm

http://www.nhcs.k12.nc.us/blair/EOG.htm

And don't forget to check out my delicious.com bookmarks for more!