Fake Conversations Made Real

So this is pretty cool.  Conversations in the 21^st century have changed dramatically.  No longer do children run outside and yell for their friends to come outside.  Nor do they pick up the phone to call them to see if they can play.  They text each other and tweet them.  Texting and tweeting, along with voice search programs like Siri, also allow students to find answers to questions.  In the classroom these ways of communicating with each other can be turned in to a powerful educational tool.    Now I know there are dangers with elementary age children having Twitter accounts. And I also know that we cannot buy iPhones with Siri and Texting for all students.  But there are web-based programs that allow students to do just that.  First I will share the programs then the applications for the classroom.

iFaketext.com – This program lets students type in a texting conversation between two people.  Then post it as a screen shot. (you can even pick the cell carrier).

iFakeSiri.com – This Program allows you to produce diaglog between a person and Siri, then post a screen shot of it.

Faketweetbuilder.com – (This is my personal favorite) This program will allow you to create a full twitter conversation, with pictures and handles and everything.

So what do all these have to do with education?  Students to have different platforms to express themselves in a way many students more accustomed to.  Instead of writing facts about a famous American they can have a Twitter interview, or ask a question of Siri and then write Siri’s answer.  Students can write text messages between two main characters of a book.

Here is my example:

SMART Stop #5: Working with Timers

Today we are working with timers for teachers with and WITHOUT a SMARTBoard. Starting off I wanted to showcase a website that has tons of classroom timers available online. Take your pick from the 11 posted on this page: Online-Stopwatch.com

And for SMARTBoard timers...Search the gallery for 'timers' and choose from the following:

SILVER BULLET

DYNAMITE

MEGA TIME

Shortened URLs + BONUS: Microsoft Office Templates

Today I needed a quick way to get a web-link to students so I used bitly.com to shorten this URL:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=poster&ex=2&av=zwd150 

to this:

 http://bit.ly/17xetIO 

Now I can quickly tell my students to type in the above URL address and they will quickly get to the choices for their project today. Other contenders: goo.gl, tinyurl, and ow.ly.

BONUS:
 Just in case you are curious...the link goes to Microsoft Word poster templates that the students are going to use to showcase their 'Wonder of the World' project they will be creating. Microsoft offers a fantastic supply of templates on their website that is searchable by either the software package you would like to use OR the style of template you are needing. This has been a great resource to me for years and is always up-to-date with newer layouts and styles in publishing.

A Simple Booklet

I am sharing some tools with new teachers and mentors later today and I decided to pull together my ideas using simplebooklet.com. Here is the one I created using a free account (there is a $10 fee for an education account which includes 30 student accounts); two of my six pages are ads so I am not sure I would use this site again without upgrading as I expected more of a logo stamped somewhere and not for my newsletter to be made 33% longer. This site is not as flashy as glogster.edu but the cost to have some teacher control over student creations is far less.

Check out my product here or below, where I share some details about Google, searching for images, creating a custom search engine, and more:

simplebooklet.com

Live Binders

Tired of not being able to find the digital resources you need when you need them? It is time to take all those links you have scattered on word documents, in favorites, and on flash drives and organize them into one place. Live Binders is a tool that allows you to create a digital binder with tabs and subtabs for your content. 

The sky is the limit! Binders for each subject, each project, each SOL, each class, websites to use at home, information for parents, websites students can use to do research, teacher tools.......the list can go on. Watch a quick video on Live Binders

Live Binder Introduction

Comic - Technology Connection

Something I remember from growing up was reading the Sunday Comics. I would sit on the floor, even before I could read I would look at the pictures and make up stories of what the characters said.  As I learned to read, I became more excited to read and share the comics with my family.  I even attempted to create my own.  Now i am no artist, not even in the slightest, but I still tried.  I thought that I could be a comic strip writer, even without any real artistic talent.

    

    Now I am sure you are wondering what this has to do with a Technology Blog.  There is a great website that allows you to create your own comic strips and comic collections.  The best part of it all it is free! There is also a choice to purchase some add-ons if you want, but as I worked through them I found I didn’t need them.  Toondoo.com allows you to create most type of comics.  They have single square panes (much like the classic “Far Side” comics) they also have multi-pane comics so people can work with sequence of events.

            Toondoo.com allows teachers to do many things.  Students learn about sequence of events of course.  Teachers can use it to teach grammar in a different way by typing in the speech blocks and having students find what is wrong.  If teachers decide to leave the speech bubbles blank students can create their own stories, which engages higher level thinking skills.  Teachers can also leave the last square of a comic strip blank to work on inference skills.  Having the students fill out what they think will happen and able to back up with reasons why also works on higher level skills.  Given time, teachers can use them to create study guides in a more engaging fashion.  And even though I say teachers, parents can do this as well.

Here is one I created on my own:

SMART-Stop #4: Dual Page, Pin a Page & Screen Shade

 (Dual Page) Displays two pages at a time. *Can be saved as part of a notebook file.

 (Pin a Page) Makes one page in notebook file stationary while you can flip through the other pages. *Can be saved as part of a notebook file.

 (Screen Shade) Gray shade tool that works as a 'reveal' page. Shade tool can be revealed from any of 4 sides. *Can be saved as part of a notebook file.