Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Web Tool Wednesday

Turn a quote (or any sentence) into a masterpiece.

Recite This is a simple to use website that offers a big payoff. Follow the four simple steps below and you will soon be creating things like this:

Visit http://recitethis.com
Simply type your quote (or any text you wish) into the white text box.
Select your design from the marque under the text box you just typed in.
Click on create.

That's it. Now you can see what you just created. Choose how you want to share your masterpiece. Do you want to share it on Facebook? Tweet it? Email it? Download it for later? The choice is yours. Now you have a "fancy" product without a huge time investment.

Happy creating.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Monday Mentions - Quizlet


Quizlet is a free website that provides learning tools for students, including flashcards and games. It was created by High School Sophomore Andre Sutherland in 2005 and now contains over 30 million study sets. All of the material is user generated.

Create your own study sets with terms and definitions. You can even add pictures.

You may even be able to find some that have already been created by another user. Just type in what you’re looking for in the Quizlet search bar.

Audio is also available in 18 different languages.

Study Modes available:

Flashcards

Learn

Speller

Test

Scatter

Space Race

There is also an app so that students can study on their mobile devices.

Check out the Quizlet Teacher page for more ideas in using Quizlet to make your classroom even more interactive.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Pinterest - Art Boards

Whether you are an art teacher or a teacher who needs more art in their life you may enjoy following these pinners.

1. Art Teacher

2. Art Bulletin Board

3. Art Ideas for Kids

4. Art Integration

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Tech Tip Tuesday


Pinterest is a great resource for creating your Personal Learning Network (PLN).  Pinterest is a social media site that allows users to create and share virtual bulletin boards, or pinboards. This is a great way for teachers to virtually organize their files. You can use Pinterest to bookmark blogs or other sites that inspire your lessons, you can collect lesson and activity ideas without cluttering up your teacher desk or adding a file cabinet to your already overcrowded classroom.

Setting up a Pinterest account is easy:

Go to www.pinterest.com and follow the prompts to create an account. You can even login or create a Pinterest account using your FaceBook account. Need more information? Click here to see what it’s all about. Need even more information? Click here to learn the basics.

What should you pin? Anything you want!! (Or anything that is allowed in the terms and conditions.) Create boards for Professional Books. How many times have you attended a workshop and someone mentions a book that you must read? Pinterest is a great way to keep those organized and since there is a Pinterest app for your phone you will always have your reading list at your fingertips. You don’t have to do all the work yourself. You can follow other people and see what they are pinning. That is the beauty of social media and PLNs. You can look around outside of your school building for inspiration and teaching tips.

Other boards you might think about creating:

Grade level boards

Content boards

Math strategies

Reading strategies

Literacy ideas

Classroom management and organization

Freebies

Social Studies

Read alouds

Your boards are only limited by your imagination. J Happy pinning.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Monday Mentions - Socrative


Socrative is a student response system. Socrative works on laptops or any web enabled device.

You can use Socrative to create quizzes, formative assessment or just incorporate it into your lesson to provide an interactive way to check for understanding. Question types include: Multiple Choice, True/False, Short Answer and Exit Tickets. These "resources" can be saved to your account for you to access over and over, no more "recreating the wheel". Quizzes are graded for you and exported into an Excel spreadsheet. You can even turn a quiz into an interactive game for your class. The video below walks you through creating a quiz and demonstrates how the interactive game, Space Race, works in his classroom.

Want more information? Check out the Socrative website http://www.socrative.com/




Friday, February 14, 2014

Time for a Change

The weather is not the only thing changing - this blog is going to be changing things up a bit too. Stay tuned to see what's new.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Call of the Future TODAY


What were you doing 10 years ago? Mark Zuckerberg was creating Facebook. Our students today will have jobs that don’t even exist today. Think about that for a minute. Many of us use Facebook on a daily basis. Just last night, I chatted with a friend in Alaska, I made a tentative date to meet up with some friends that I haven’t seen since college, I looked at a friend’s new baby pictures, I played an online game, I checked out the weather conditions around my state, and I discussed the Winter Olympics with people I have never met. I was able to do all of that in the comfort of my living room while sitting in front of the fire. All of that, too, in about 15 minutes. If it was 2002, I would not have been able to do all of that, because Facebook did not exist, at least not outside of Mark Zuckerberg’s world.  Here’s a recap of Facebook’s first 10 years.

We are teaching the future. We are called to be 21st Century Educators. Are you up for the call?