Apps for Summer

Happy Last Day!

I hope you enjoy this last day with students and look forward to some time to relax and rejuvenate.

Whether you’re headed out on vacation or heading out to the back yard, here are a few ideas to play with:

• A Summer of Android: 93 Apps to Try This Summer
• Kathy Schrock’s Guide to iPads
• Good Reads: a place to find and share good reads!

Tuesday Tech Tip: TED-Ed!

As you know, I’m a fan of TED.  But even if I weren’t, I’d definitely pass this along… TED-Ed has launched a website that has some really great possibilities…

There you’ll find the tools to:

• Watch great educational videos, created by teachers and animators.
• Nominate a fellow educator!
• Each TED-Ed video has a supplementary lesson…
  • Take a multiple choice Quick Quiz while watching the video (with video hints!)
  • Find open-ended questions in the Think section.
  • Dig Deeper to find more resources
  • Save your answers

But here’s the coolest part… you can “flip” any lesson!

• Customize the quizzes, write your own open-ended questions, and modify the resources.
• Grab your finished lesson’s unique web address and share it with students.
• Track your students’ work.
• You can flip any video from YouTube using the TED-Ed platform, including ones you create!

Watch the tour:

Want to win a prize?  Create an account and participate in my flipped lesson here!

Tuesday Tech Tip: Quietube

Today’s Tip comes from Ashley Nowak at EPES.  She shared a nice tool for watching YouTube videos:  Quietube.  It’s a tool to remove all the distractions like comments, related videos, etc., and especially nice for projecting videos in the classroom.  Here’s an example.

The thing I like best is that there’s a Chrome extension for it.  Just install it in your Chrome browser and whenever you’re on a page with a video (Vimeo, YouTube, etc.) you’ll see a circle in the address bar.  Click it and viola!  You can even link to this page instead of the original video if you’re sharing the video with others.

(image credit: Dominic’s Pics via Flickr)

Mobile Learning I: Stories to Share

The inaugural Mobile Learning I group just finished the class before Spring Break.  We wanted to share some of the project ideas they tried.  They’re committed to playing, setting learning goals, and trying new things with students!  Mobile Learning I will again be offered in June and in the fall.  Mobile Learning II is also on its way this fall.

Chris Smith (HS Art) is determined to dig deeper with Twitter.  He also created QR codes for The Glenn that point to YouTube videos of his students talking about their process for creating the murals inspired by Glenn Olson’s garden.

Caryn Odgers (HS Science) and Kari Diederich (HS F/CE) collaborated using a mind-mapping app called Mindjet.  They are using their mind map to help students learn more about medical occupations.

Briana Gustafson (HS Special Ed) used Audioboo, CamScanner, and Barcode Scanner along with QR codes to cue her students in daily living skills so that they become more independent.  One of her students is most excited about is seeing his own picture next to each code.

Jen Vogel (Early Childhood) used Audioboo with a student who read an alphabet book.  He was so excited to hear himself speak, as were his parents and grandparents!

Margi Wachowiak (HS Library Media Specialist) is using QR codes on her Summer Reading posters that point to book trailers for each book.  And she’ll be trying the codes out for Freshman Orientation next year!

Jodi Acker (MS Math) is using Audioboo to enhance student’s portfolios.

Tammy Breitlow (MS Social Studies) is using iPod Touches with students to create and edit propaganda ads as they learn about WWII.

Anne Tredinnick (MS Science, MS Computer Literacy next year) will be trying todaysmeet.com for her 5^th and 6^th graders to “backchannel” while watching a video about internet safety and digital citizenship.  She’s also going to have her science students use Audioboo to describe the robots they build as part of their energy unit.

Cyndy Johnson (MS Special Ed) is going to have her 8^th grade students record podcasts of their own poems as part of their scrapbook project for English.

Rebecca McDermid (HS Science) used Socrative Teacher and Socrative Student to capture quick formative assessment check-ins.

Natalie Slaby (3^rd Grade, WES) will be creating a QR code scavenger hunt to kick off her Fractured Fairy Tales unit with 3^rd graders.

Dana Ringhand (2^nd Grade, WES) used a QR code to share a podcast created by her 2^nd graders reading a story they wrote about an alien they created using Abby Monster.  When you scan the code, you’ll see the “alien” and hear the story!  Listen for the elements of a story…

Many of these apps are also web-based.  Android4schools is a nice site for Android device users.

Today’s Technology Tip: a Teaching Tool and a Tablet Tip

A teaching tool:

60in60.  A nice wiki with a ton of ideas.  There’s a cheat sheet at the bottom of the home page if you’d like “60 in less than 60.”

A tablet tip:
Mobile devices are audio recording devices, among other things, and have the capability of translating speech to text (and vice versa).  Why might this be useful?

• For capturing a note or composing an email quickly.
• To search the web without using the touch keyboard.
• For students with difficulties writing or keyboarding—if they can speak their ideas, their hands don’t get in the way of their thinking.

Android:

• The keyboard includes voice.  Anything you can type, you can speak:  Google searches, Twitter, Note Everything (a nice note-taking app), Evernote…
• Google Translate will translate text to speech, even English to English.

iPad apps:

• Google Search
• Dragon Dictation: speech to text
• iSpeech TTS: text to speech

Difficulties with accuracy?  Speak clearly and slowly with good volume, and no gum.
Difficulties connecting to wireless?  Here’s the scoop.
Need more ideas for how and when to use your device?  Ask a colleague; most of the best learning comes from sharing!

**Last week’s TED winner is Kate Boyce, who plans to use TED talks with her seniors on C days!

Have an idea for a tip?  Please let me know!!

Tuesday Tip: TED

Yesterday, the TED-Ed YouTube channel was launched.  Here’s the scoop.

Not only can you consume TED content, you can create it.  TED-Ed is an invitation to educators, including you!

The biannual TED conference was held a few weeks ago in Long Beach, CA.  TED was created in 1984 as a place for “Ideas Worth Spreading” in the areas of Technology, Entertainment, and Design.  It has since broadened its scope to include science, education, innovation, creativity, culture, and more.

Speakers are invited to give “the talk of their lives” in 18 minutes or less.  There are over 900 TEDtalks available for free and include speakers from Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Al Gore to 12-year-old app developer Thomas Suarez and 10-year-old Adora Svitak talking about what adults can learn from kids.  Ken Robinson’s legendary talk about creativity in schools has been viewed 11 million times, with 10,000 views added each day.

TED Wish: Each year, $1,000,000 is granted to someone with “a wish to change the world” Watch Jamie Oliver and Dave Eggers’ talks about their wishes for kids.

It goes without saying, there’s a few TED apps out there as well.

• TED Air: an Android favorite
• TED for iPhone and iPod Touch
• TED with Subtitles for iPad

Why not share some of these fascinating talks with students?  What sort of discussion might they have about these big ideas?

Why not share some of these fascinating talks with colleagues?  Add a comment here with a favorite TED talk of your own.  It’ll also enter you in this week’s prize drawing… you know the drill.  🙂

QR Gallery at YES Art Festival

A new attraction was unveiled at last night’s Art Festival at YES… a QR code gallery of student work!  At the suggestion of a parent, and with the support of Jeanne Freer and her student teacher, Rachael Larson, we worked with Sarah Gorres’ first grade class to pilot this project.

We used an app called Audioboo (available for both iOS and Android) to record students talking about their art work.  Then we created a QR code that when scanned with a smart phone or other mobile device, led to the audio podcast.  Families could listen to their child describe their art while viewing the piece.  It was a big hit!

Norski Ninja: Week 9!

We’re in the home stretch of our Norski Ninja series. And today we’ll begin thinking about the ways we love GoogleApps as next week’s tip will be just that–sharing the good parts of this change. Here are this week’s Ninja skills:

• Calendar: Sharing your calendar with others takes a few steps and we covered that in Week Three. Now you can take it a step further by creating additional calendars to share. How about a classroom activities calendar? How about a volunteer calendar? A project calendar? You may not want classroom, sports, club, or other activities merged with your calendar, so just create another one. Share it. Embed it on your web page.
• Mail: February can be pretty busy and your Gmail box might be filling up now, so use filters to automatically categorize, label, color-code, and organize your messages.  Say you’d like all of the messages from your principal to be labeled “Important”–a filter can do that. (This feature is similar to Rules in Groupwise.) Here’s how filters work in Gmail.
• Docs: Although it’s improving all the time (Tables! Presentations! Page Numbers!), I’ll admit that Docs does not do everything that Word does. Sometimes you might need a more elaborate layout than Docs can offer. In that case, try downloading your GoogleDoc in another format for revision or sharing. Go to File >> Download As. You’ll have a choice of formats:
  • Word: Use this one if you’re going to do a big layout, need more clipart or need to use the excellent SmartArt in Office.
  • PDF: Use this one if you’re not going to make changes to the document, but you want to “freeze” it for posting to the web, sharing with others, or as an alternative to printing.
  • RTF: This format is pretty universal. Almost any word processor will open it up. It won’t be fancy, but it will be shareable and editable by lots of tools, including the very confusing Microsoft Works.
• Here’s more information on downloading, including Drawings, Presentations, and more!
• You can download and upload files to GoogleDocs much like you would use a flash drive. You don’t have to convert them to upload and you may still share with others. When you’re using Docs, Mail, and Calendar to cut down on the paper in your life, you are definitely approaching black belt status.

Remember to comment on this post to be entered into our weekly Google drawing. Give it a try! Tell us how you’ve used any of these tools or any Google tools.

It’s Digital Learning Day!

Digital Learning Day is being celebrated all over the country today!  To peek in on the celebration, search Twitter for #DLDay and #WiDigitalLearning.  You can even tweet your own Digital Learning question or comment with #dldefo

In honor of the event, you’ve been adding to our Digital Learning Day Showcase.  Check it out to see what’s been happening and add your own!  You’ll see images of students and staff learning with technology, student work, a few suggestions, and even an award announcement!

Click the image below to find some online digital learning tools.
(also posted on D-Links)

(created using Tagul)

Norski Ninja: Week 7!

This week’s edition of the Norski Ninja is all about returns . . . return receipts, returning emails, and survey returns. Read on for ways to increase your Ninja skills or look back on our previous tips or there’s always our Go Google! page where we are storing all sorts of Google assistance for you.

• Gmail Return Receipts: One of the first things we missed about Groupwise was the return receipt.  Open a new message and take a look under the “To” line. You should see Add Cc, Add Bcc, and Request Return Receipt. Click on that last link and check the box that will appear. It looks like this. (This feature is not available for our personal Gmail accounts.)
• Recurring Calendar Events: If you have events that occur at regular intervals, you can schedule them pretty easily in Google Calendar.  When you click the Create button on your calendar, a new screen will open that lets you enter all the details for your event. Underneath the title, you’ll see a checkbox for Repeat . . . once you check that, you’ll see all sorts of choices for your recurring event: weekly, daily, monthly, etc.  Want to see the pictures? Take a look at this page for all of the calendar basics. Setting up a recurring meeting is a little more than halfway down the page.
• GoogleDocs and Forms:Forms are one of my favorite parts of GoogleDocs and the (relatively) new semester might be a great time for a form/survey. Create a form to find out more about your students. Create a form to see which families can help out on your next field trip. Create a form to organize the next staff potluck or select a meeting time. Use a form to create a formative assessment. The possibilities are endless. The nice part about a form is that you don’t need to share any part of the document or the results. You can send people the web address for your survey without sharing the results.
  • Here are the basics for creating a form.
  • Here’s a preview of each of the question types in a finished form format.
  • Here are some ideas for instructional staff: Forms in Social Studies, collect data for a graphing activity, collect information about your last unit, or take a look at these ideas collected by Tom Barrett from teachers around the globe.

We’d love to hear from you . . . how are you using any part of Google to do interesting things. Add a comment to this post and you could win the prize of your choice. I have to say that bug light is pretty neat.