Transitions

Today we are speaking at a New Teacher & Mentor workshop for LCPS and have been asked to provide some resources for transitions. We are showcasing the tool, 'Thinglink', with the resources we found for this group of teachers. Thinglink allowed us to start with one large 'thing' (bumper cars pic) and then add 'links' from it. Our links all have to do with transitions, of course!

SymbalooEDU

Learn to make a visual web-mix for students, parents or colleagues by adding colored tiles to a SymbalooEDU!

The ULTIMATE Graphing Calculator

Desmos.com is a fast, FREE visual, graphing calculator! On the smart board it is invaluable. It has a projector mode which darkens the lines so students can see it more clearly. It is very very fast. If you you have a need for a graphing calculator you won't find a better one on the web.

Dropbox

I thought it was time to showcase Dropbox to our readers as not only a MEGA tool but also a Teaching/Learning Tool. I call Dropbox a MEGA tool for a number of reasons:

• 250MB storage with many ways to earn more FREE storage (see below for an extra 500MB).
• Platform Friendly ...no matter what device you use (PC/Mac/Android/Apple/iPhone/iPad/Droid/Blackberry).
• Syncs at all times on all devices!

Extra Handouts
Think about a place online for your class that is just for extra copies of handouts for students that lose their paper copy or are absent on the day you hand it out. By sharing the folder with your students they can access it anytime. And since most students all have cell phones now...they could also now access your study guide handouts on their phone to review for today's test!
Homework
Shared folders can also be used as homework drops too for students. Forget receiving 30+ emails for one class assignment. Have your students 'drop' it in the class project folder and be done! Dropbox will time stamp it so you will know exactly when each assignment was submitted.
Presentations
And finally, use Dropbox as a place for students or for yourself to load PowerPoint files or other large presentation files that won't fit as an attachment or on a flash-drive  If everyone loads their files into the same project folder then class presentations will breeze by without each student having to login/logout of their own accounts. 

Contact your ITRT if you'd like help getting started using Dropbox. We'd be happy to help you! Use this link to get an EXTRA 500MB of STORAGE when you install Dropbox on your desktop.

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.

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

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