Year: 2014
A Holiday Flier in Publisher
This is the only project that’s easier than the holiday card in Publisher I shared on Monday. There’s no folding and the templates are bright, colorful and exciting for kids as young as second grade: (more…)
A Holiday Card in Publisher
Greeting cards are easy enough for second graders–even early readers. Using MS Publisher, pick a template, add a picture to personalize, add their name–and they’re done. It takes about 15 minutes. Kids always feel great about creating these greeting cards: (more…)
3 education tools you don’t want to miss
Here are three tools that work-around problems you have every week–maybe every day–in your classes. Sit down with a cuppa and be prepared to be wowed.
Need a Halloween Costume? I have that
Every year, I struggle with a Halloween costume. The teams of grade-level teachers always have themed looks—the Three Bears or Eeenie Meenie Minie and Moe–but I don’t have a team. I also don’t have kids at home to inspire me into painting my hair pink or my nails black.
A few years ago, I found the solution, and now–no worries. Even if it slips by my consciousness until I arrive at school on our Halloween Parade Day to the sight of goblins, Dr Who’s and other fantasies, I’m ready. Here’s my costume:
47 Visual Learning Options for your PBL
Here’s a wide variety of visual learning options for your students, from graphs to infographics,
Charts
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Halloween Projects for K-5
Three holidays are fast-approaching–Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. If you’re a teacher, that means lots of tie-ins to make school festive and relevant to students.
Here are ideas for you for Halloween:
Projects
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How to Create a Tagxedo
Tagxedos are an excitingly versatile tool that turn words into pictures. They’re word clouds–like Wordle, but more powerful. You can use them to share ideas, collect descriptive words and phrases about events, or evaluate the import of a website. Click here for a review of the webtool and over fifteen uses in your classroom.
We used Tagxedos this summer in Summer PD and I created this how-to video for students. Watch it–if you haven’t used Tagxedos before, you will fall in love with them.
Here are Sara’s thoughts over at Teachers and Technology, and Hardy Leung shares 101 ways to use it.
19 Halloween Sites for your Students
Here’s a short list of fun Halloween websites for your students. Enjoy!
Websites:
- Carving Pumpkins
- Enchanted Learning
Funschool- Halloween games, puzzles–clean, easy to understand website and few ads!
- Halloween ghost stories
- Meddybemps Spooky
- Pumpkin Toss
- Signing Halloween–a video
- Skelton Park
- The Kidz Page
Apps:
How to Embed Student Work into Digital Portfolios
With the education spotlight on sharing and publishing, students need to be able to take a project they’ve created and place it in their blogs, websites, or another location that shares their work with others. Often, this starts with an embed code.
Here’s a video I created for my Summer PD students on how to embed a project:
A Day in the Life of a Tech Teacher
I love summer. I sit at home, reading, researching, chatting with friends. I make my own schedule, own my own time, start and finish a project without interruptions.
That is a massive high to me.
Why? I’m a tech teacher. That is like a geek+. I teach–yes–but I’m also the first line of defense (sometimes offense) for colleagues as they struggle to use the digital devices populating their classrooms. From the moment I step foot on campus, life spins out of my control. Here’s a typical day–does it sound familiar:
6:45 arrive at school
6:47 a student enters to use lab
6:48 I greet student with a friendly hi and begin work on a lesson plan
6:49 Student asks for help
7:00 Student finishes and leaves; I return to my lesson plan
7:02 Frantic teacher calls–her computer won’t boot up. She came in early to work and now what’s she supposed to do can I come right away?
7:03 I arrive in teacher classroom to help
Google Voice
Price: Free
Rating: 5/5
Overview
Google Voice is a web-based phone service that works through your current phone or your computer. It’s free, and available through a Google account (if you have Gmail, you’re eligible). Incoming calls can be forwarded to your cell or landline (or both) or ring through your computer-based Google Voice account. Voicemails and text messages are transcribed and sent to your Gmail address. Outgoing calls can be made through the website or by calling your handset (smartphone or landline) first, then it calls the number you entered. Here’s what the dashboard looks like (intentionally blurred in spots):
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