Tech&Learning Web Sites

These web sites were showcased in the latest edition of Tech&Learning online and in its current magazine.


Boom Writer
Interactive story starter web site.  Engages great writers and reluctant writers by allowing the teacher to create a story starter for a chapter of a book, sharing it individually with each student online, and then the students finishing the starter story to create their own chapter.  The students then share it back to the teacher who then shares each individually story anonymously with the rest of the students to vote on which story they think is the best.

TimeSearch
Search year timelines for information on all areas/subjects.  So for instance when you click on the year you were born you would see the discoveries, inventions, people born, people deceased and more during that time.

Smore Pages
Similar to Glogster where interactive posters can be created.  These interactive posters can included embedded videos, web sites links, additional resources and more to make the poster vibrant when printed or vibrant and interactive when showcased online.

DrawIsland
Free drawing web site.  No username or password required.  Just click on the web site and start drawing with basic, intermediate and advanced tools.  Simply print your final creation or delete it to start another one.

Interactive Note Cards
Looks like actual note cards that can be typed on and added to a stack of cards that are laid out, typed on and used individually or typed on and printed out to use.

Popplet
Interactive mapping organizer that allows you to create an interactive flow chart where each area can be clickable to take you to resources or can not be clickable to simply print out.

Fish Smarty
A variety of curricular areas covered and interacted with including games, drawing and more.

Graphing Calculator

Technology Tools Advent Calendars

The season of Advent is always filled with eagerness and expectancy.  Build some of that anticipation into your school day by allowing students or yourself to unlock a new secret on the advent calendar each day.  Use these advent calendars with the whole class on an interactive whiteboard or projector, or set them up as a quick center activity that students can visit.  Use the advent calendars that reveal a story to practice looking for foreshadowing clues, using context clues to guess what will happen next, or as story starters for students own stories.  

The potential curricular related advent calendars are wonderful for teaching students some of the history of Christmas and the way that other cultures celebrate the familiar holiday.  

The technology tools advent calendars showcase a different Web 2.0 Technology Tool each day for teacher use, student use or both.

Technology Tools Advent Calendars

http://www.wix.com/ktenkely/advent

http://www.librarycraft.com/festive24things/2010/12/01/

Potential Curricular related Advent Calendars

http://dirtdirt.com/advent/09/?tillchristmas
Click on a number and an animation will be added to the tree.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/calendar/index.html#calendar
This is a fun way for students to test their knowledge and learn about the ways that Christmas is celebrated all around the world.  As an extension, plot the places around the world that they are learning about on a world map.

Google Mail, Google Docs, Google Calendar-Tips

Morton Mondays is provided to HDCSD staff members 2 times a month to showcase different technology items and provide technology support outside of school hours, hopefully during the times when the teachers are more available.  Different features related to Google Mail, Google Docs and Google Calendar was showcased during the 1st Morton Mondays.  Below is a little bit of what teachers might have missed, forgotten or not known about related to these online Web 2.0 tools.

Google Mail

Click on the HD Bulldog Icon to Refresh your Inbox

Click on the Gear in the upper right hand corner and click on Mail Settings.  The features below are available.

Within the General tab: 

*You can change the Language

*Click on My Picture to add a picture to your profile            

*Add an automatic Signature at the end of each composed email

  -Might include: What you Teach, Where you Teach, Best way to reach you

*Turn the Vacation Responder on when you are gone for a sick day or meeting, letting the people emailing you know where you are out or when you are available to reply to their email

Within the Labs tab, add different labs (widgets) to enhance your Mail, such as:

*Calendar Gadget- Add a sidebar to your Mail showing a snippet of your Google Calendar events for the day

*Docs Gadget- Add a sidebar to your Mail showing a snippet of your most recent Google Docs

Google Docs

Click on the Gear in the upper right hand corner and click on Document Settings.  The features below are available.

Within the General tab:

*You can change the Language

*You can change the Time Zone - make sure it is set to Central Time

Within the Documents page:

*Click on Create New to create new documents including:

 -Form- Which creates quizzes, surveys or tests that can be taken online and results can be reviewed and summarized online

 -Drawing- Which creates a drawing that can be collaborated and shared for others to edit or view

*Click on Upload and Settings to check your conversion settings

 -If you want the files you upload to be converted into a google docs format, √ that box

Within an actual Google Docs document:

*Click on File and Click:

 -See Revision History to see who has revised the document you have shared

*Click on Insert and Click:
 -Comment to add comments to areas where suggestions are made or comments to a turned in paper are made

Google Calendar

Click on the Gear in the upper right hand corner and click on Calendar Settings.  The features below are available.

Within the General tab:

*You can change the Language

*You can change the Country

*You can change the Time Zone - make sure it is set to Central Time

*Click on Week Stars on to choose between Sunday, Monday and Saturday

*Choose Event Dimming options to dim past events and/or dim recurring future events

*Choose Yes or No to Show Weekends

Within the Calendars page:

*Choose how you want to view the calendar by Day, Week, Month, 5 Days or Agenda

Capzles

Do you ever want to showcase student work, or have students showcase their own work?
Try: http://www.capzles.com/

I just helped a teacher use this web site, that I have never used before but have looked through, and she was able to upload 21 separate movie clips that were created and finished from iMovie, add her own background, add her own music, and she probably added over 500mb of information, all for free and easy to sign up.

The other benefit is that you can add pictures, movie clips, sound, and other items to this timeline presentation tool to showcase students work, for students to showcase their work, or to use a timeline creator.

Pretty cool.
Check out my other blog: http://hampton-dumonttechnology.blogspot.com/ for a link and posting of the teachers use of this web site and her final product.

Scribble Maps

I found this web site (free but register to save work), http://www.scribblemaps.com/, that lets you draw, create, save and print your own modifications to any online interactive map.  The maps can be based around Google maps, Street maps, Astronomy maps, Terrain maps, Topography maps, or a hybrid of some of these maps.  You can zoom in on the maps and get real definitive with your lines, shapes, scribbles, and labels or you can zoom out and place pushpins, arrows, people, and other signs on the map.  A really neat web site that can be great for a variety of activities both personally and with students.

I recently used this web site, to sketch out and draw pipe lines and sewer system mounds and to label each system and pipe material, for my dad who owns a company that installs sewer systems.  He was pretty amazed that this can be done, because the printed product will provide a for sure way for his workers to know exactly where to dig, exactly where to install the system systems, and exactly what material to use throughout the project.  A picture is below.

10 Ways to Use PBS LearningMedia in the Classroom

The IPTV:PBS web site http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/ is very similar to Discovery Educations United Streaming except it is FREE.  It is a brand new digital library designed for educators to engage students in media-rich learning environments.  10 Ways to use PBS LearningMedia in the classroom are:

Watch Videos
Listen to an audio clip
Get struggling students to speed up and push strong students ahead
Save your favorite resources
Tag your resources
Create a video homework assignment
Share what you find
Recommend good resources to other teachers you've never met
Innovate your curriculum and meet standards
Adapt lesson plans to meet your style of teaching

Technology Professional Development

Here are some Technology Based Graphic Organizers that you could:

-Create, print and individually provide to the students

-Create and project through your LCD projector to work as a class

-Put on your SchoolFusion page for students to individually use on the laptops and then print for their portfolio or as an assessment piece

Interactive

http://classtools.net/

http://www.thinkport.org/technology/template.tp

http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/cc/vp_gle/2nd/more/graphic_organizers.htm
http://crappygraphs.com/user_graphs/makecrap.php
http://cheezburger.com/FlashBuilder/GraphJam
http://www.exploratree.org.uk/

Downloadable Organizers

http://my.hrw.com/nsmedia/intgos/html/igo.htm

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/graphicorganizers/

http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

http://edhelper.com/teachers/graphic_organizers.htm

KidSpiration/Inspiration

-Reading/Writing has Comparing, KWL Chart, Venn Diagram, StoryBoard

-Math has Fact Families, Measuring and Comparing Furniture Sizes

-Science has Alike and Different, Cause and Effect, Comparison,

-Social Studies has Community Comparison, Culture Comparison, Wants & Needs, Where I Live