Tech Help is on the Way!

Welcome back to school! I consider our first week to be a success! There were definitely a few hurdles to jump (networks down, bare floors, you name it) but everyone pulled through and welcomed all the smiling faces back from summer break. Many of us even got together early to participate in the TEACHnology conference held in August. There were plenty of great sessions to attend. If you missed out on one or two have no fear! Tech help is on the way! Beginning in October there will be Technology Tuesday professional development sessions offered at 3:45 at the high school every week through April. We will cover topics from the TEACHnology conference, new emerging technologies, ways to go digital to save paper, Eno board trainings and more. To check out any of the information from the TEACHnology conference, click below. There are notes, handouts and links for all the sessions that were offered.

http://rossteachnology.wikispaces.com/

Your feedback is always appreciated! If you have ideas for tech trainings or other tech related feedback please let me know. You can start by voting in the poll to the right. It is just for fun this week but the question will change every week.

I also wanted to thank everyone for their patience with all the "hurdles" we are jumping over due to construction pains. The tech support staff is doing their best (and a great job!) to get everything up and running as quickly as possible!

Elda and Morgan Teachers
As many of you already know, there is a student website for each building. Jenna Rahrig created one for Morgan originally and I created one for Elda. The sites are a great way to get the students to the programs they need quickly and painlessly! The Elda site is a work in progress, but ready to go for the basics. Check out the links below:
http://www.rossrams.com/Morgan/mediacenter.html
http://eldastudents.wikispaces.com/

Apple iPad for Education

Apple released the new iPad a few weeks ago and it is amazing! It is really easy to use and has a surprising amount of ways to use for teaching and learning. It has a big enough screen to actually read and compose on and it has a great battery life (up to 10 hrs). The whole screen is touch sensitive so anything you want to do is intuitive. The size is a great benefit. It is big enough to be useful, yet small enough to be easily portable and let students work collaboratively if needed.

There are a lot of great education applications that are completely free and others available to purchase. There are flash cards, vocabulary builders, maps, books and many more apps to choose from. For example, the Kindle app is a great way to read books and be used as a study tool. You can take notes right in the app for the page you want in the book and highlight passages. The Kindle app syncs with your Amazon account (once you create one) so you can log in and see everything in one place. So, instead of having to flip through pages to find notes or passages you want to reference they are all organized in your Amazon account. You have it all right in front of you electronically that you can sort and organize in any way you want. Plus, there is a built in dictionary that you can highlight any word and look it up right there on the spot from the book you are reading.

Another great way to use the iPad is to download free resources (documents, videos, podcasts, etc) from Ohio iTunes U. You can view them all into your iTunes account on your iPad and view them even with out internet access.

I am sure you will find plenty of other ways to utilize an iPad in your classroom and daily life once you take a look at one! I know I have!

Make your own video tutorials for free!

Have you ever seen a video tutorial of a computer screen with instructions and wonder, "How do they do that?" Now you can make your own tutorials with free software! There are several different software programs available to make this happen, however 'Jing' is free and easy to use. You can capture sill images of your computer screen, record a video of your screen and share your files online. The next time someone asks you how to do something 'techie' you can create a quick video with your instructions instead of typing them out and sending them over email. It will be faster then typing out all of the steps! Check out the link below for a free download and more information.
http://www.jingproject.com/

Once you create your video/webcast/vodcast (video webcast) there are many ways to share it. If you have a wiki or webpage you can upload it there. Or, if you are not that fancy yet you can use 'Screencast.com' to share your videos. It is basically saving your files in 'the cloud' (or, online). You can share the link to your internet storage space so others can view your videos. Screencast.com is also free. You just need to set up an account. From there, you can upload your videos and files. You can even control which files are public (anyone who has your link can get to the files) and which files are private. Private files are only accessible to you when you sign in so others can't see them. It is super easy to get started. Check out the Screencast link below to get started.
http://www.screencast.com/



Check out my tutorial below on how to add a file to a Wikispaces page.
Link to my Screencast shared page:
Add file to wiki

What's Up with RSS?

Have you ever wondered what people are talking about when they say 'RSS Feed'? Or, have you seen those little orange boxes on websites with the letters RSS and wondered who this RSS person was and why they keep leaving their initials everywhere? Well, here are some basics to help you get up to speed. The icon below is another common symbol for RSS feeds.

RSS feeds are a great way to for you and your students to stay up-to-date and informed with 21st Century skills. RSS typically stands for 'Real Simple Syndication'.
"RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter. The number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly and includes big names like Yahoo News. 

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?

Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use."(http://www.whatisrss.com/)

 

There are several options out there to choose from for feed readers and/or aggregators such as Page Flakes and Google Reader.

"Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available." (http://www.whatisrss.com/)

 

As mentioned above, Pageflakes is a great site to view your RSS feeds and to use in education. One reason I like Pageflakes is that you can make your page public and share it with others. So, the next time you teach a unit on habitats you could set up a page flake to bring in articles from sites that you choose all to one place. You can share the Pageflake link with your students so they have the most recent information and content to read and it will all be about the topic you are covering!

http://www.pageflakes.com/

2nd Grade: Saving Forests with Clickers

If you thought second graders were too young to use Turning Point clickers, think again! Second grade classes at Elda and Morgan are using the clickers for their district assessments. Turning Point slides were created for all of the multiple choice questions for the Science and Social Studies assessments. We started the project at Elda with Dave Williams and Mandy Brosier's classes. The students loved it and did a great job! It was so easy! They picked up with the paper/pencil versions for the fill in and short answer questions after they 'voted' in all of the multiple choice answers.

The project will pick back up again next week at Morgan. All second grade classes will be using Turning Point for assessments. The idea is to pilot the clickers for district assessments this year with a few classes to see how it works. If all goes well (so far it is) we can use clickers for more assessments and grade levels in the future. Just think about all the paper and money we could save by using the clickers for multiple choice questions. If we only have to print the short answer and fill in questions we will save whole forests! Well, it might take a few years to save a forest but why not dream big?

iMovie for Mother's Day

Mother's Day is coming up and Maria Meyer (2nd grade at Elda) had a wonderful project idea. She wanted the students to do something special for their mothers. We sat down together and came up with the idea to make a movie of the class talking about their moms. We decided to use iMovie and the built in camera on the computer. Each student took his/her turn recording (well, I ran the computer) a message to mom. The clips are all saved in the same 'event' and will be put together to make a movie. Mrs. Meyer's class is hosting a special event for Mother's Day and the movie will be shown on the projector.

So far, this has been a great experience for the students. They get so excited to see themselves on the computer! They also have really enjoyed watching the clips being replayed back for them. Each student composed a message and either read it out loud or memorized it for the videos. This is a great project for moms but even a better experience for the students! They have learned a lot from watching themselves read on camera!

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a great, free website that lets you create questions and have your audience respond. It is web based so you need access to the internet, however your audience has a little more flexibility. They can vote online via computer or other hand-held device (iPod Touch, etc) or they can text in their answers from cell phones. It is a quick, easy way to get some audience participation and feedback. You can create multiple questions for multiple surveys. If you are familiar with Turning Point it is a similar concept. There are advantages with using Turning Point over Poll Everywhere, however it is free and you don't need to check out additional equipment. Poll Everywhere questions are great for getting quick feedback from your class that you don't need to track. It could be a nice way to keep your students on their toes to always be listening. They will never know when you will ask them to vote in their responses on your questions!

Turning Point will track your answers (who answered what) and export them into Excel. You also have all the equipment you need on the cart in your building and don't need internet access for it to work. If you are using the polls for a quiz or grade Turning Point is still the way to go. However, if you want a quick survey from the audience Poll Everywhere is a nice alternative! If your students are already in the computer lab you can have them vote right from the computers. Or, if you are working with older students that have cell phones (or adults) they can text the answer in! Of course, you would want to let your participants know that their cell phone service providers will charge them for sending a text just as they normally would. Lets face it though, for better or worse many teens already have texting plans and it won't cost any extra to send a text to Poll Everywhere.

If you want to check it out, go to:
http://www.polleverywhere.com/

I have some handouts from our last SOITA Tele-Tech Tuesday presentation that I would be happy to share with you. You will need to set up a username and password to use the site. You will be able to save your surveys and copy/paste your old questions to make new ones! Let me know if you have any questions.

Unlock your You Tube Potential...Carefully!

You Tube offers countless educational videos that make great additions to your lessons! You just need to know how to access them. If you work in Ross (or probably any other school district) you may have noticed that You Tube is blocked. There is a good reason for that. As many educational and appropriate videos as there are, there are just as many inappropriate videos and content as well! So, to make sure students don't wander onto something they shouldn't be watching most districts block all the videos. However, there are ways teachers can still utilize the appropriate content in their classrooms.

In a recent post, 'iPod Touch for Teaching' I mentioned converting a You Tube video to a file and putting it in your iTunes library. That is great if you have an iPod that can handle video. If you don't, there is still hope! There are free websites available that will convert You Tube videos into actual files (mp4). From there, you can save them on a flash drive or any other device. Once the video is converted you can play it in Quick Time (which most of your school computers most likely already have). The nice thing about Quick Time is there are no unpredictable advertisements or video suggestions of "What you might also like" that may not be appropriate to show in school! Quick Time is free software and works on Macs and PCs. If you work in the Ross District, please ask your tech staff in your building before you download anything! If you are working from home try:

 http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

One website that offers file converting is ZAMZAR. You just need the URL of the You Tube video you want to work with. If you would like step by step directions please contact me. I received my handouts from a SOITA professional development for the iPod Touch and am happy to share! Just make sure you view the entire video before you decide to use it in your classroom. You Tube is uncensored so you need to make sure the video you want to use is educational and appropriate for your grade level.

Check out:

http://www.zamzar.com/

Note: You Tube is still blocked by the district. If you are planning on searching and converting You Tube videos you will need to do it from home or somewhere other then the school district.

Don't forget that if you are a Ross teacher you also have access to Discovery Education (formally United Streaming). There are thousands of media clips, movies and resources that are all appropriate for education. Chances are good that if there is a video on You Tube you you want to use with your students you can find something similar on Discovery Education. Plus, you have much better options to search with to find what you need. If you are not already using the subscription it's not too late! Contact me (or your building tech staff) to get the passcode you will need to set up your account.

Go to the link below to get started:


http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/

Google Docs for Grant Writing

I am working with two grant writing teams right now and using Google Docs for both. Using Google Docs to share the documents will make editing and collaborating so much easier and more efficient! The days of emailing ideas and attachments, then merging documents together are gone! Now, all the members of the team can work on their part from anywhere, at any time and add directly to the shared documents. We can easily distribute resources to the entire team just by uploading (or creating them) into the cloud (Google Docs) and sharing them. This makes organization for each individual easier too. All of your documents are in one place versus spread out through your email, computer hard drive and possibly flash drives. All you need is internet access, a Google account and a project and you are ready to go!

Step 1: Create your Google account (you just need an email address)
Click here to get started!
Step 2: Create a document to start your project
Step 3: Select your document, Click 'Share', then 'Invite People'. You can email invitations from here to anyone you would like to share your document with. You can choose if you want them to be able to edit your document or just view it. (Allowing them to edit will make it possible for multiple people to work on the same document, even at the same time!)
Step 4: Get to work on your project!

Google docs is great for working as a team or on your own. You can use it to back up files, organize and access from anywhere online. You can upload any file type now. Store your pictures, movies, PDFs, or any other file type in your own cloud space!

Benefits of using Google Docs: 

Create and share your work online

Upload from and save to your desktop

Edit anytime, from anywhere

Pick who can access your documents

Share changes in real time

Files are stored securely online

It's free 

Resources: Google Docs

iPod Touch for Teaching

I was fortunate enough to go to an iPod Touch training last week. It was fantastic! Not only was the actual training (SOITA-all the resources listed below are from the SOITA workshop) well worth my time but I also learned how helpful these little gadgets can be in education! Teachers can use them to teach, students can use them to learn and teams can use them to work together faster and more efficiently. There are a lot more options then I had first thought to enhance learning and teaching. Some are completely free and some cost a small amount of money. Here are just a few examples:

You Tube Educational Videos: Tired of getting blocked for appropriate, educational videos? Well, now you can convert a You Tube video to a file, save it in your iTunes library and push it out to your iPod (or your students' iPods). Once it is in your iTunes library and on your iPod you don't need internet access to view it. Students can view it from home or you can connect your iPod to a projector and play it for the class. Yes, that's right. You can connect your iPod touch to a projector.

Present with your iPod Touch: You just need the right cord and you can connect it to a projector to show your whole class, at a staff meeting, etc.

Podcasting: You can create your own podcasts for your students to listen to (try recording your lecture!)or download any of the existing podcasts for your topic. There are a ton of podcasts that are great for students are are free!

iTunes U: iTunes U is a free resource bank for educational videos and podcasts housed in the iTunes store. There are a TON of great resources there!

Books: You can download books right onto your iPod Touch (text and audio). There are several free audio book websites out there as well as places you can get free (or almost free) books in text form. Check out:
http://storynory.com/
http://librivox.org/
iTunes Store/Applications/Stanza App/Project Gutenberg

Student Response Systems: If you have wifi in your classrooms your students can use their iPod Touches to vote in answers to questions that you create. Check out:
http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Educational Applications: There are so many! To start, you can use your calculator app. The iPod Touch comes with a standard and scientific calculator. If you go to the iTunes Store and search Applications y0u will find countless options from flash cards, books, the periodic table, math formulas, and so much more!

Share Documents: You can download applications to share your files with other teachers and/or students over wifi. The application will give you a URL to go to where you can upload your files. From there, you can share the URL with anyone you want so they can go there and download the files.

The beauty of so much of the available content is that once you download it to your iPod, you can access it anywhere. You don't need internet access. This is great for those students who don't have internet at home.

Worried about security once your students take the iPod home? You can set restrictions and choose what a user has access to by password protecting individual functions/applications.

This is also a great tool to help you stay organized. You can sync your calendar and email, keep all of your notes in it and manage resources all from one device. There are many more wonderful features for this handy gadget. I just mentioned a few above to get you started. Good luck and have fun!

Google Apps-So many great features!

I attended a training at SOITA last week to learn about Google Apps (free programs from Google). There are so many apps to use and they are all free!

Here are a few of Google's most popular apps:

• Gmail: email with features that help you stay more organized
• Calendar: online calendar integrated with email
• Docs: save and share documents with others via 'the cloud' (save your docs online to be available from any computer online)
• Picasa: Picture management software
• iGoogle: customized home page
• Google Earth-satellite and street views of land and ocean-satellite views of solar system

Just a few highlights:
Calendar:
The Calendar lets you manage your events online. Plus, you can share your calendar with others and control what they are able to do. You can share everything, meaning they can add events. This is great if you are collaborating with other teachers (or family and friends for a personal calendar). You can also create multiple calendars (Personal, Work, etc) and choose which ones to make public or private and who you want to invite.

Docs:
I love that you can save your documents in 'the cloud' so you can get to them from any computer online. Flash drives work great but Google Docs is free and always available! They added a new feature now so you can upload any file type (rather then just .doc, .ppt, and .xls).

Picasa:
My two favorite features of Picasa are the Web Albums and the collage feature. The web albums allow you to save your pics online so you can view them from anywhere as well as link them to blog posts or other websites.
The collage feature makes it so easy to create collages with your favorite pictures!

My favorite thing about all of it is that you only need one username and password to access all of the different Google accounts. I don't know about you, but I have trouble keeping all those logins straight! Feel free to ask me questions! I am happy to share what I learned!

Eno-Great Interactive Whiteboard!

On Tuesday we had a full day of interactive whiteboard presentations to try and find a district standard to move forward with. A lot of teachers are getting grants to purchase interactive whiteboards for classrooms, which is great news! The district is also hoping to purchase a few more for classrooms. The idea is to have one brand throughout the district moving forward. The consistency should make the learning curve faster for students since they won't have to learn a new board in each classroom. Teachers will be able to work together easier since they will all be using the same equipment and software and tech support will be faster as well since there is only one board to learn!

There were 4 companies that presented their products to the group and one stood out above all the others. It was the Eno board made by PolyVision. It is a new product and has only been on the market about a year. There are a few features that make it stand out among the rest. One is the ease of use. The board is simple, quick to learn and smooth to switch from tool to tool. This will make learning how to use it fast and easy. The educational software that goes with the board is also simple. There are tons of great interactive tools to engage and teach students included. The Eno board is also a dry erase board. Teachers no longer have to give up that space on their walls! The board is magnetic, works with dry erase markers and is interactive. Plus, if you have an extra stylus you can have two students using the board at the same time! Or, they can use the markers and you can have as many students write on the board as you have markers!

There were a few other key features about the product and company that we liked as well. Just a few include the precision of the stylus, the professional development offered and the product warranties. The board is very precise so no more clicking two and three times to select the item you want. The group still has a few questions to look into before any official decisions are made. However, the Eno seems like a great product and is definitely worth checking out!

For more information, visit the website:
http://www.polyvision.com/tabid/155/objectid/70/default.aspx

Google Wave-A new way to communicate!

Tuesday ended with another Tele-Tech Tuesday video conference hosted by SOITA. The new topic was Google Wave, a new application from Google. The company seems to always be creating something new and Wave is no exception. Wave seems to be taking online communication to the next level. To me, it seems to be a combination of an IM (instant messenger), wikis and email. It takes the best of each piece and pulls it together to form sort of an 'all-in-one' communication and collaboration tool. You can chat instantly, drag and drop pictures, videos and other files right into the conversation thread, edit and save conversations (this works great to answer questions directly under the question rather in another message). You can also work on documents live with other people. I think this is going to be a great application with a few adjustments from Google. Wave is new and still in a testing phase. I'm sure Google will keep making improvements. It is worth checking out to see where web 2.o is headed!

To hear the official description and for more information, check out:

http://wave.google.com/about.html

How many words is a video worth?

We have all heard the saying, 'A picture is worth a thousand words'. Well, how many words is a video clip worth? A lot more if you ask me! I have recently purchased a Flip Video camera for my personal use have discovered just how easy they really are to use. If you want to capture video of your class the Flip is a great way to go! The cameras are very small so they fit great in your pocket and with only a few buttons you really can't mess anything up on accident! The other great part is how easy it is to load the video on your computer. The flips use a USB connector that is built right into the camera. So, you don't need to worry about finding the elusive cord that typically comes with cameras but never seems to be around when you need it. Plus, the software is built into the camera too so you can upload, edit and publish your videos from any computer that you plug into! If you want to capture video quickly and easily then I recommend the Flip!

Just think of the benefits students would get by listening and watching themselves read, perform, etc.

There are some great discounts out there for educators. Here is a site that was recommended to me by Jenna Rahrig from Morgan:
http://www.digitalwish.com/dw/digitalwish/product?id=4310

The side offers buy one, get one free for educators!

There are other pocket camcorders available on the market too. Many of them are great products as well. However, one of the reasons I like the Flip so much is it works on PCs and Macs. This is great for schools when you are not always on the same computer!

Add Slideshows to your Blog with Picasa

I was fortunate enough to attend (and present at) the eTech Ohio Conference (state technology conference) this week in Columbus. I was able to get some great information (as always) to bring back and was selected to be a presenter for one of the sessions! I can't take all the credit though. Stacy Strawser, Jenna Rahrig and Lisa Hodits all presented with me for, 'Using Blogs and Picasa for Classroom Communication'. We came up with the idea, submitted our proposal in the fall and were selected!

The presentation was great! Everyone did a wonderful job. We taught a hands on session that covered setting up a blog, setting up a Picasa account (picture management software) and using Picasa to add a slideshow into our blog (blogger.com). We wanted a way to add your own pictures into your blog as a slide show. Picasa makes that possible through the use of 'Web Albums'. Basically, you can create a folder that is stored on the Picasa server (internet) instead of your own computer. That way you can get to your picture from anywhere with internet access instead of having to be on your computer. The process is pretty smooth and since Picasa and Blogger are through Google you use the same username and password for both accounts. This means less passwords to remember. Yea!

I have uploaded the handouts from the presentation (as a slide show) and added the links to both sites we used. Feel free to check it out for your self or ask for help! Click on the slide show to make it bigger and control each slide.

The link below is Stacy's music blog. She has a slide show running in the yellow bar on the right side of her blog. It is the 'Elda Music Slideshow'. Check it out:
http://eldamusic.blogspot.com/

Picasa

Blogger

Projectable Books and the Smart Board

Projectable books are another great resource to use with a Smart Board! Shena Ashcraft (1st grade teacher at Elda) asked if I would show the 1st grade team how to use them with the Smart Board. I had not seen them before and took a few minutes to learn about them. I'm glad I did! Here are the basics:

Projectable Books
Tools for Small Group and Whole Class Instruction
Reading A-Z integrates technology and reading curriculum with leveled readers and benchmark books formatted for digital projectors and interactive white boards. Projectable Book Tips guide educators to meet literacy instruction goals for fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, and more. Plus, our companion, printable format extends lessons with leveled books teachers send home for student practice. (http://www.readinga-z.com/book/projectable-books.php)

They are a fantastic way to share books to the whole class! Plus, there are several fun tools that make teaching and learning easier. You can draw and/or highlight over any of the pages. Plus, you can use the reveal and cover tools to show/hide only certain areas of each page. The software is super easy to use and it is web-based so you don't have to download anything! I highly recommend checking these out. For more information, check out:

http://www.readinga-z.com/book/projectable-books.php

Jumping Back into Great Technology Projects!

I want to put a big "Thank you" out there to all my friends at Ross for making my transition back to work easier! After 3 months of leave I am back to work and getting into the swing of things again. Everyone has been so supportive and welcoming. It really has made a difference and made it easier for me!

It sounds like classes did a great job keeping up while I was out and it is nice to be back and able to help where teachers find they need it. Teachers are signing up for technology help in all sorts of areas. We have research projects going on, multiple grade levels using the Smart Board for various lessons, classes using the Turning Point clickers, students using Pro-Ohio, EasyTech and CCI as well as student using the IRT (Infrared Thermometer)! I know there are even more projects then what I listed!

We also have the eTech Conference (Educational Technology conference for Ohio) coming up in February. We have a great group representing our Elementary buildings and district this year. Stacy Strawser, Jenna Rahrig, Lisa Hodits and I will be presenting "Using Blogs and Picassa for Classroom Communication". I will post more about our presentation after the conference!

Stay tuned for more project spotlights on upcoming Fridays!