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 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.

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

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 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/

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.

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 21^st Century Educators. Are you up for the call?

Motherboards

I learned something new thanks to one of the best technicians I have ever had the pleasure of working with. I really think he would make a fantastic teacher. He demonstrated replacing the motherboard in our laptops. Then I got to fly solo. (Ok he sat next to me in the event I needed help.)Here’s what we did.

Pinterest as Professional Development

Pinterest. I could talk for three days on the wonders of Pinterest. I absolutely love it. I actually now use it as a search engine – totally not what it was intended to be. I use it to plan meals for my family. I pick out new treats for various ministry projects. I look for instructional resources to share with teachers during professional development trainings. I even use Pinterest to find tutorials for things I want to learn. There are many in my house that would love to discuss the evils of Pinterest as it occupies a lot of my attention and creates more work for them. Let’s talk about how to use Pinterest for Professional Development.

Think about strolling through a Teacher Store and being able to look at every single book in the store. Then imagine being able to get a copy of the pages you like or maybe even purchasing single pages from those books. That’s what Pinterest is. Imagine enjoying a relaxing beverage while visiting with a master teacher. That’s what Pinterest is. You can “visit” with mentors and master teachers by viewing what they pin on their virtual pinboards on Pinterest. Many of these pins will lead you to blogs to inspire you to try new things.

So, here are some Educational Technology Pinterest boards for you to check out.

Free Technology for Educators

Educational Infographics

Great Books for Teachers

Free iPad Apps for Teachers

40 Educational Tweeters

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/12/40-educational-tweeters-every-teacher.html

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!! Yes, I know that greeting is a few weeks late but technically aren’t you supposed to say that the first time you see someone you haven’t seen since the previous year? Isn’t that a required regulation mandated by the federal government for the entire month of January? By the time February rolls around the year is a month old and the countdown to summer vacation has started. So, since it is still January and I haven’t “seen” you since last year – Happy New Year!!!!!

Let’s talk about Social Media. Social Media isn’t just about keeping up with friends and family or stalking ex-high school sweethearts. Social Media is great for Professional Development and Life Long Learning. The three main Social Media platforms we will focus on in this series of installments are: Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

Last night was the Grammy’s and my Twitter Feed was well, all a-twitter with live Grammy updates and quite frankly it was more interesting than the Grammy’s themselves. Twitter does provide for quick access to all things trivial, entertaining and viral; however, it can be a great source of useful professional information, as well. First, let’s look at the anatomy of a Tweet. Click here.

Tomorrow we will talk about Twitter Feeds you should follow in the name of Professional Development.