Presentations that POP!

This week I'm working with a group of students that requested alternatives to PowerPoint. This sliderocket presentation offers three new vaccines to prevent Death by PowerPoint. Also take a minute to see this Prezi Perspective: Moving Beyond Slides or this short Louisa Cares example I made using the cloud-based software 280 slides.

Moodle: A FREE Learning Management System

After the earthquake hit LCHS in late August, introducing Moodle learning management system sifted directly to the top of all my instructional technology endeavors for the school year. I describe Moodle as Blackboard but FREE! Both are considered a Learning Management System or a Content Management System, (LMS or CMS). Moodle is free because schools host and manage it themselves. Blackboard is a for-profit business. Hence, the difference. :)

Damian Bailey, (I call him 'Superman'), has set up the LCPS' Moodle server amazingly fast so teachers can begin Moodling. He has done this while also maintaining his technology triage work in the county. Thank you Superman!

What does this mean for you as a teacher in LCPS? You too can make your own space in Moodle and use it for a number of resources. Some basic resources to support student learning could include: file, folder, page, URL, label, etc. Moodle can also support student activities such as: forums, forms, quizzes, databases, and workshops. The activities can be then submitted directly to you as the instructor.

My intention with Moodle was and still is to supplement instruction in LCPS. With the alternating LCHS/LCMS schedule, many teachers are looking for a way to get their students content on their 'off' days. The benefits/advantages of Moodle include:

1. Maximizes class time by eliminating general course housekeeping and announcements.
2. Allows more meaningful face-to-face time by bringing the best discussions to the classroom from Moodle forums.

3. Gives students the opportunity for online learning experience which leads to an increased 

DIGITAL LITERACY!

Would you like to see an example of other teachers using Moodle? Take a look HERE. (Username & Password are both 'shsguest' )

Contact me or Kate Straley if you are interested in adding some of your class resources online and start Moodling!

A few links to get your feet wet:

Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers
http://moodletutorials.org/
http://www.moodlenews.com

eReading

Once upon a time, I would go to the beach and read a good book along with some mindless magazines. I used to notice other people enjoying the same kind of reading but this year was different. This year was the summer for eReaders. I would say 95% of people I observed reading on vacation were reading on an eReader. It was surreal. So I thought I would blog about some great resources for eReaders. Please share other ebook resources in the comments section below.

FREE eBooks

Gutenberg books
CK12
Open Library
Google books
ManyBooks

FREE Audio Books
Books Should be Free

BONUS FEATURE:
How-to-Guide for Educators using Google Books

Jackpot!

I love finding “Jackpot” resources online and boy do I have some Jackpots for you! Starting backwards on lessons always helps me to be sure I know my assessments are going tell me whether or not my students “got it”. The first two sites are Google and Web 2.0 tools according to the Digital Blooms Taxonomy.

Once I know what it is my students need to do,

Create

Evaluate

Analyze

Apply

Understand

Remember

I can see what the best web tool or Google app/tool would be for the job!

Need a little help developing learning objectives, questions to challenge your students, and create assignments? Use this site by Jen Farr, Bloom's Revised Cognitive Domain website, to improve your instructional practice.

Jackpot #1 Bloomin' Google: Google Apps & Tools to support Bloom's Revised Taxonomy from Kathy Schrock
Jackpot #2 Web 2.0 Tools organized by Digital Blooms Taxonomy from University of Southern Indiana
Jackpot #3 Need an assessment? Try one of these rubrics from Educational Origami.

Who doesn't like snacks???

This will be my last post of the 2010-2011 year... wow the year went by fast! I have already started making plans for the upcoming school year and I know many classroom teachers are as well. This site was recommended in my Twitter feed this morning and it looks like a fun way to share content so when you are thinking about projects for next year, keep this site in mind: flipsnack.

What flipsnack does is takes a PDF file and turns them into an online book. I don't have lengthy self-created PDF files on my computer so I just used one that I was reading today:

Here is another very short one of some of my own Publisher files. I just combined three different Publisher posters together into one Publisher document, printed it as a PDF using the free CutePDF Writer, and uploaded it to flipsnack.

How cool would it be to have your students create posters on topics they are studying and then to put the projects together in a PDF, upload it into a book and have that book available online for review? Or maybe create a book to show off final projects? Registration is required and final books can be embedded in a blog like I have done or the book's direct link can be shared with others.

So along with flipsnack came a few other "snack" applications, accessible from the same site (bottom of page) using the same login. One is bannersnack, which changed my individual images into an animated image. Mine includes only two images but you can make longer ones, you can pick different sizes, and you can add text.

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There is also quizsnack. If you create a poll (only one answer can be marked) or a personality quiz (like ones you might have seen on FB) you can see the responses when you log into your account. Unfortunately, while users of free accounts can make surveys (visitors can mark as many answers as they wish), users cannot see the results for free so Google forms might be a better option in that case. Here is a short poll I created...

Response data can be put right on the widget for all to see or kept private so it is only available when you log into your account

Guilt free snacking! Gotta love that!

Comic Relief for Spring Break

Recently, it seems web-based comic strip creators are popping up all over the web. There are some really good web tools available and many are FREE!

The instructional benefits of creating comics can help students learn how to convey an idea concisely, tell a story in a logical sequence, and communicate/collaborate with others. While each tool I'm going to list for you offers these learning benefits, each offers a variety of features. Best of all, comic strips have the ability to engage students reading them and creating them.

Here's a list of FREE comic strip generators to help you narrow down your choices.

Pixton for Schools - very customizable, remix option, no email required, teacher rubric & lesson sharing

Make Beliefs Comics - easy, quick, somewhat limited options/choices, good for all ages

Marvel Kids - great tweaking ability, lmtd. characters (Marvel characters only), no option to save on site

Strip Generator - basic and simple

Comeeko/PikiStrips - your "pikis"/pictures or their characters, printing options for a fee

ToonDoo - nice balance of user-friendliness and creative options

Read Write Think - canned creator, somewhat elementary

Comic Strip Generator - one frame photos with speech bubble

Comics Lab - Any Garfield fans out there?

And just for fun...Custom Sign Generator

I ♥ These Sites!

I have been searching for FAR too long for a website that would convert videos from the Flip video output format (MP4) to a format that would work in Windows Movie Maker without a fee, without a huge logo being stamped on the video, without frustration with the user interface, without asking me technical questions in language I didn't understand, and that wouldn't crash half-way through the hours it was taking to convert the video. At last I found one; you might have heard me cheer across the county the first time I realized it worked! And I am happy to report it has worked every time I have tested it and as an added bonus ~ you don't have to download the program to your computer!

The website is: www.online-convert.com. It converts other things as well, though I haven't tested the others out. It is very user friendly but I did create a short video in case you want to see (one I also had to convert, lol, to get it to post here). If the video does not work it is likely a temporary blogger issue, not a conversion issue... promise!

So, another site I love is the one I used to create the previous video... http://www.screenr.com/. This site allows you to make a screencast ~ a video of what you are doing on your computer screen. In the classroom, a screencast could be posted to a blog or website and students can get the directions on how to use a computer application on their own desktops and review it at their own pace... no more repeating directions over and over in front of the classroom! This site is free and is internet based... no download of software required! You do need to register to save your video.

Want to use just a clip from an existing video from YouTube in your instructional presentation? This site ~ http://tubechop.com/ ~ allows you to focus on only the part of the video you hope to share... no awkward in front of the class searching for the right part of the video! After you have "chopped" the video the site offers several ways to share the clip (link, embedding, etc.).

One more just for fun: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-the-Heart-Symbol-Using-a-Computer! I have been wondering the trick behind creating a heart (like the one used in this blog title) and today I figured it out! On a laptop hold down FN, Alt, and L at the same time. ♥ If you substitute other letters for the L, you can get other symbols (and annoying beeps if you pick certain letters). ☻☺♣ ♠ Gotta keep up with the kids you know!

A Needle in a Haystack

Do you ever feel like the lady in this picture? Imagine if you told a student to go and find their work in that pile. That is a nightmare right?

If you have ever taken your class to the computer lab or brought in a set of laptops to work on a student project, you know how much time can be wasted searching the Internet for specific information. Just like it would be to search for a specific paper on the desk in the picture. It might not even be an intentional waste of time, but the student starts with a Google search (of course) on their topic. Forty five minutes later they may or may not have found any useful or valid websites.

Another scenario might be that you want your students to go to a specific website to study for a test or play educational games when they finish their class work. They might type the website wrong or continuously ask the teacher what to type in. Here are some free web-based tools that can help you if you find yourself in either of these situations.

1. Portaportal – This is an online bookmarking website that is very simple and organized. Create a free account, add some categories, and begin saving websites in a matter of minutes. example
2. Jog the Web – Kind of like an upgraded web quest or a tour. Students scroll through the websites that you have deemed appropriate. example
3. Live Binders –organized like a binder with tabs for every subtopic - Within each tab you can save multiple websites, articles, or videos. example
4. Glogster EDU – This is a site that allows you to create a digital poster. example (made by Kate Straley)
5. Evernote - (look at the previous blog post for more details)

That great thing about all of these tools is that they are free. Go ahead and get started. Save some SOL review websites, resources for a research project, or even something to share with parents so they can be in touch with what their child is learning. As always contact your ITRT if you need assitance in setting any of these things up or determining which one would be best for your lesson.

Type Talk

Last month I was in the computer lab typing up a project when I felt a pair of 7th grade eyes staring at me. I laughed and told her I was sorry to be distracting her from working on her science fair project. She replied, "Wow, you type so fast!" I have heard this from many students and every time I share with them that taking the time to improve my typing skills (in my case I took a typing class in high school, gasp... on a typewriter, and took it seriously) was one of the best things I have done as a student. The obvious first result was I could, and still can, get my work done faster and more efficiently. Also, having good keyboarding skills also helped me earn spending money throughout college, and even after doing temporary work. Now, nearly two decades later, in an economy where jobs are often hard to find but in a world filled with technology, computer skills, including typing, can only be more of an asset to our students as they continue their education and branch out to the working world.

Here are a few sites featuring typing games and activities that students might enjoy:

• http://www.wordgames.com/typing-defense.html
• http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/keyboarding_games.html?utm_source=SpellingCity&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_campaign=SC%20NL%2017May10
• http://www.goodtyping.com/
• http://www.powertyping.com/

How would I incorporate them into my classroom? First, I would make the links available on my website, so students could get to them easily both inside and outside of our building. Second, I would share them with parents so they know they exist and encourage them to have their children spend some time practicing their typing skills. And third, I would remind students, during visits to the computer lab or while working on classroom computer assignments, that if they finish their work with some time to spare, that these websites are on the "approved" list; students will be engaged in an activity of value for those last few minutes and a fun one at that!

Images from: http://www.madrasgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/typing-speed.jpg, http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/typewriter-image.jpg

More Than YouTube

As you already know, the Internet is a wealth of information, but sometimes it is too much information to wade through. I am going to bring your attention to a few specific sites today that will be useful to you when you are gathering instructional resources. Multimedia resources have become a significant part of life in the 21st Century. With the introduction of YouTube and online video streaming students have access to more video clips than ever. Educators can take advantage of many of these free resources and open a window to the outside world for their students.

Video clips are great instructional tools when used appropriately. Make sure that when you show a video you set the purpose for your students and ask them to draw conclusions from the video. Many instructional strategies can be used while students watch a video. (Think-pair-share, similarities and differences, graphic organizers, summarizing and note taking etc.)

If you like the idea of YouTube but you’re looking for something with an educational focus here are some free video sharing/hosting websites:

www.techertube.com
www.schooltube.com
www.video.google.com
www.snagfilms.com/films/
www.kidsknowit.com/interactive-educational-movies/index.php
www.teachers.tv/

Some other sites that may have resources for your content area are TV network sites such as Discovery Channel and The History Channel. Check these out and see what you can find this week. You may want to show one to grab the student’s attention at the beginning of the lesson. Or maybe you want to add it t your blog or webpage so students can view it on their own time and submit a response as homework. As always if you need help planning or implementing one of these ideas, contact your ITRT!

Remember everything.

It's no secret I love Delicious bookmarking. Since it's web-based I can get to it from any Internet connection. Delicious is sharable, sociable (meaning also a social network of sorts), and search-able by hash tags. With that being said, LET me tell you about Evernote.

Evernote has the strength of the Delicious bookmark but Evernote enables the same connectedness with EVERYTHING you could possibly want to save, not just bookmarks.

Things you can gather/add/tag/save into Evernote:

• bookmarks (that's where Delicious stops)
• clips of web pages
• notes (Google docs are free, MS Office docs offered in Premium service)
• PDFs
• scanned documents
• wav files
• images
• emails
• text messages
• Tweets
• photos taken of white-board notes, which Evernote can then scan for text in the picture :0

All this information can be synchronized/synched between your laptop, desktop, iPad, iPod, Droid, or the Web.

You categorize the items/things listed above as individual "notes" into notebooks, and you can assign one or more tags to each note. Then you can search the text in the title, the note itself or as one of the tags.

You may have heard the term, 'cloud computing' before. The term is usually associated with hosting information, data, or files on-line with a third-party vendor. Evernote can be considered a 'cloud' application because it's all kept electronically online.

Evernote notebooks are sharable by email invitations and the sharing of a web link as well as embedding a widget into any web page. There is a limit of 100 notebooks.

Did I mention this application and/or service is FREE???

~Liz Goodwin

Evernote links to checkout:

My 'Notebook' on this blog post!

http://www.evernote.com/pub/goodwies/evernote

Getting Started

http://www.evernote.com/about/support/getting_started.php

Evernote Blog

http://blog.evernote.com/

The Trunk

http://www.evernote.com/about/trunk/

Teaching PowerPoint of Evernote

http://www.slideshare.net/theunquietlibrary/introduction-to-evernote-fall-2010

Some New Year's Learning Fun...

I'm going to start the year off on a light note...

As a student, I was never one to voluntarily speak up in class and oral reports were a huge source of stress for me. In college I was required to take a public speaking course and all my speeches were recorded and to this day, I cannot watch them. Even now, speaking to a group of students does not bother me but a group of adults gives me butterflies in my stomach for days beforehand.

Knowing there are students like me in my classes, I find myself drawn towards finding activities for students to replace the stand-in-front-of-the-class-and-talk speech on topics they have researched. Of course PowerPoint and presentation software are great tools and now free movie making software is available but sometimes I just want something that is a bit more on the lighthearted side... where you might laugh the first time you see it but then you want to listen to it again.

Here is one of those sites (middle school teachers if this looks familiar it is because I shared it last year via email): http://blabberize.com/.

I found the opening video funny though I do want to warn you that it includes a conversation about peeing in one’s pants in case you are in a room full of students taking a test or something at the moment. While this site certainly was not designed exclusively for the academic world, there are definitely ways to use its features in a classroom setting.

For example, here is a clip I made with a picture and information about Susan B. Anthony (the opposite extreme from the intro. video; I went serious) ~ it took only a few minutes to create:

If you don't have a place to embed your video, that is okay. Blabberize will give you a link to share with everyone. You can see the above one here.

What a fun way to make a famous person in history share information about his or her self, or to have a character in a book talk about the conflict in his or her life, or to give a small group of students at a station directions on an assignment while you are working with other students.

Here is a link to a blog entry about Blabberize that describes several ways to use it in an academic setting: http://blog.learningtoday.com/blog/bid/27337/Blab-On-Interactive-Classroom-Tool?source=Blog_Email_[Blab+On!+–+Interacti]

Have fun! Happy New Year!