Using the same Google Slides templates over and over gets a little tiring. Check out Slides Carnival for new Google Slides templates!
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Monday, April 20, 2015
Chrome Extensions for Teachers
Here are a few handy Chrome extensions:
Time Warp kindly reminds you not to procrastinate when you need to get things done.
SnagIt is a quick screen capture tool. With TechSmith SnagIt's Chrome App, you can screen capture, screen record, image edit and share. With TechSmith SnagIt's Google Chrome Extension, you can take screenshots or screen recordings of anything on your screen including your browser, desktop and applications you have running.
For more ideas, check out this list: Chrome Extensions for Teachers
Friday, April 17, 2015
Chrome's Hidden Mute Feature
Don't you hate it when you have multiple tabs open and one of them starts playing music? Sometimes it can take a while to figure out which one you need to mute. This article explains how to activate Chrome's hidden mute feature, making it easy to mute tabs in the future.
Create Word Clouds from Google Documents
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Managing Student Cell Phone use in Class
Check out this article on Managing Student Cell Phone use in Class. Though the article is based on an ESL class, the idea can be used in all classrooms leading to buy-in from students.
PPT Presenter View
If you have your computer monitor and projector set up with Extended Desktop (see Penney for help), you can use Presenter View in PowerPoint to display the presentation on your projector and a speaker view on your monitor.
It's located on the SlideShow tab.
Pretty cool!
Friday, April 10, 2015
The Most Important Skill for Students? Communication, Say Most Americans
Check out this article based on a Pew research study:
Finding the Funds for Technology Projects
This article was in the March 24, 2015 edition of TCEA TechNotes.
In today's world
of tightened budgets and a lean economy, teachers find it difficult to secure
adequate funding for all of their classroom needs, including technology. But
just because the funding isn't there doesn't mean the need for that equipment
is non-existent. In fact, we would argue that the need for educational
technology is greater today than it has ever been as teachers work to personalize
and differentiate teaching and learning for all students.
There are still
ways to secure funds for your classroom projects, and TCEA is happy to share
these with you. Here are a few great resources that require a little extra
work, but are well worth the effort.
Donors
Choose - DonorsChoose.org is a
non-profit association that allows individuals to donate directly to public
school classroom projects. Founded in 2000, the organization asks teachers
"What change do you want in your classroom?" A teacher answers that
question by choosing exactly what items are needed and describes the project
online. Once funded, the items are sent to the classroom for immediate use. 70%
of projects posted are funded. Teachers can sign up here. Adopt A Classroom and ClassWish are similar
websites with crowdsourcing donation programs.
Digital
Wish - Digital Wish has
everything you need to locate funding specifically for classroom technology.
Just like a gift registry, teachers build a wish list of technology products
for the classroom and then tell prospective donors how their support will make
a difference to students. In addition, Digital Wish offers discounts on common
technology for the classroom.
Grant
Wrangler - Grant Wrangler is
dedicated to providing information about grants available for teachers. The
site divides the grants available into several different categories like STEM,
Arts and Humanities, Health and Physical Education, Libraries, Technology, and
more.
EdTech
Team Student Device Grant - The EdTech
Team provides class sets of Chromebooks or Nexus devices to schools around the
world out of their training profits. So far, they have donated 20 class sets.
The short online application is available here.
Corning
Incorporated Foundation - The
foundation supports competitive grants for
instructional technology for the classroom. Currently, they provide 136 grants
in education totaling about $3 million.
Funding
Factory - Get your community behind the effort to
recycle inkjet and toner cartridges, cell phones, and small electronics and
earn points toward technology. The program is
completely free for schools and even includes the cost of shipping the
items.
Grant
Watch - This website offers
information on all of the latest grants available. New grants are posted every
day.
District
Foundations - Many school districts now have a separate
foundation that provides grants to classroom teachers. Check with your central
office to see if your school has one and take advantage of that opportunity.
Fund
Raisers - If you're tired of selling cookie dough to
fund your classroom projects, here are several different items to help you
raise money.
·
LockerWorks is a great
fund raiser for the beginning of school that offers a flexible organizer that
hangs inside a locker.
·
Provide each student with their own flash drive
through the fund raising program from Pexagon Technology.
And for something really
different, try selling Mixed Bag Designs,
which offers beautiful bags.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Monica Lewinsky's TED Talk on Social Media and Public Shaming
In
1998, says Monica Lewinsky, “I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation
on a global scale almost instantaneously.” Today, the kind of online public
shaming she went through has become constant -- and can turn deadly. In a brave
talk, she takes a look at our “culture of humiliation,” in which online shame
equals dollar signs, and demands a different way.
See her TED Talk.
Top Tech Tools for Formative Assessment
Common Sense Media's Graphite put together their list of Top Tech Tools for Formative Assessment.
**Note: Infuse Learning is unfortunately closing doors in the coming weeks so skip that one.
There is also an online BYOD Assessment Tools workshop that you can take this summer. Sign up for either Mon, June 15 - Mon, June 29 or Mon, July 27 - Mon, Aug 10
Top Test Prep Apps and Websites
Common Sense Media: Graphite's Top Test Prep Apps and Websites
Some are free, some are paid.
Take a look and share with your students!
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
SmartyPins: Putting Trivia on the Map
Google Maps brings you Smarty Pins: Putting Trivia on the Map.
Test your and your students' knowledge of trivia and geography.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Wordmark.it
Wordmark.it quickly shows you how a word or phrase looks in each of the fonts loaded on your computer.
Find apps for your Chromebook
To help support your classroom use of Chromebooks, Google put together this list of "Find apps for your Chromebook".
It’s a list of “If you want
to… On a Chromebook, you could use…” and includes things like making a presentation, organizing notes, edit a video, create music and much more.
Let me know if you would like help exploring any of these!
Google's Story Builder is BACK!!
Google's Story Builder is back! This is such a fun and unique way to share content or tell a story!
Check it out:
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