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Wednesday, 22 December 2010

ActivPrimary in the Classroom

Posted on 16:17 by Unknown
If you are using ActivInspire in your PreK - 1 classroom you have another alternative. You can change the look and feel of ActivInspire to benefit your younger students by setting the system to open using ActivPrimary.To do this you will Select the Configure button from the Dashboard and then put a check in the box on the Right side of the screen that says "Launch next time using the Primary look and feel."Don't worry I have included this video:When you open up ActivPrimary you will immediately notice the new look. One thing to keep in mind is...
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Posted in Evan Herreid, promethean | No comments

The 5 Reasons I Use Social Media

Posted on 14:30 by Unknown
1. To share thoughts and ideas with others in my field.2. Quick answers to questions I have on technology issues3. Build relationships with my peers in Education4. Helps me to keep track of resources.5. Provides me the opportunity to help out others just as much as they help me.For the past few months now I have been delving more into the realm of Social Media than I had ever before. I have to admit that I was a skeptic and was always worried that whatever I said could come back to haunt me. So I tended to stay away from it, positioned myself to...
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Posted in Evan Herreid, Social Media | No comments

Sunday, 19 December 2010

Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease ...

Posted on 16:59 by Unknown
I have recently been looking at the Verizon Thinkfinity site. One of their content partners (logos and links at the bottom of the Thinkfinity homepage) is Wonderopolis. Well, with a name like that, I felt a need to go check it out! I am very glad that I did!It just so happened that the first day I looked at Wonderopolis, there was great information about the Wright Brothers and the First Flight. Being a former 4th grade teacher, that was one of my...
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Posted in Melissa Edwards, parents, web-based tools | No comments

Wednesday, 15 December 2010

IWB Resources on Symbaloo

Posted on 07:43 by Unknown
Below is a Symbaloo Webmix that I created for interactive white board resources. The orange buttons are for Promethean web links and the blue buttons are for SMART web links. Everything in pink or brown can be used on either software or board.  IWB Symbaloo Webmix My IWB Symbaloo webmix has links to blogs and wikis from people that I follow through Twitter, Skype, or their Blogs. I added video tutorial links from Promethean and SMART's...
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Posted in Dorene Bates, IWB, Symbaloo | No comments

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

What else can we find?

Posted on 11:08 by Unknown
Let's look at some of the resources that are available (just from one site ... that is linked in WSFCS Learning Village on the dashboard)?Did you know you can find information on 21st Century Skills in Thinkfinity? Did you know you can find student interactives on Thinkfinity? Did you know you can do a State Standards Search on Thinkfinity? Did you know you can look at information on Today in History in Thinkfinity? Did you know you can find lesson...
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Posted in Learning Village, Melissa Edwards, Thinkfinity | No comments

The Super Book Of Web Tools For Educators

Posted on 07:44 by Unknown
There is lots of great information on there on Web 2.0 and using technology in the classroom for teachers. Heck, that's our job! But often if you have teachers that are just starting out or need some help figuring all this tech stuff out, it can be a daunting task as there is lots of information.My good friend Richard Byrne, writer of the wildly popular Free Technology For Teachers blog approached me a few weeks ago and asked me if I would contribute to a free ebook he was putting together. I was happy to contribute a section on social media. Beyond...
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Posted in ebooks, Steven Anderson, web 2.0 | No comments

Friday, 10 December 2010

Lessons From A Smackdown...

Posted on 09:13 by Unknown
One of my favorite parts of many conferences is the Smackdown. What is a Smackdown you ask? Well, it can take on many different forms depending on who you ask but for the sake of our discussion a Smackdown is when people get up and they have a very limited time to share information about their favorite technology tool or trick. It could be anywhere from 60 seconds to 3 minutes. Here is a video of one I did at #NTCamp in Philly over the summer.Recently at EdcampCitrus in Florida they did a Smackdown session where several tools and tricks were shared....
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Posted in Conferences, Steven Anderson | No comments

Learn360 and Interactive White Boards

Posted on 08:08 by Unknown
You have created a lesson in SMART Notebook or ActivInspire and you have found the perfect video clip in Learn360 to enhance your lesson. What do you do with it? In Learn360, change the format of your video to Flash by clicking on the "Switch to Flash" button under Formats. Once the format has changed, click the Download button to download the whole video or a segment of the video. Click Save and choose where to save the video. Always remember where...
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Posted in Dorene Bates, IWB, promethean, SMART | No comments

Thursday, 9 December 2010

Information from an Owl? I hope it is a Wise one ...

Posted on 05:46 by Unknown
One of the resources that is available for WSFCS teachers from Learning Village is NCWiseOwl. I admit that for years I thought NCWiseOwl was just for the media center. I am happy to find out that I was wrong. I have been pleasantly surprised at the things I have found on NCWiseOwl. There are zones for Elementary School, Middle School, and High School with resources for each level for students as teachers. There is also a Professional Zone as well...
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Posted in Learning Village, Melissa Edwards, NCWiseOwl | No comments

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Online Project Receives 2.5 Million Grant to Aid Middle School Science

Posted on 08:25 by Unknown
Inamge from http://phet.colorado.edu/The National Science Foundation and the O’Donnell Foundation has given grants totaling $2.5 million to PhET Interactive Simulation Project to design 35 online simulations specifically for middle grade science education. The simulations will demonstrate how scientific concepts apply in real world scenarios. Once the simulations are created they will be available free to all science class students to enhance the...
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Posted in DeLea Payne, science, simulations | No comments

Monday, 6 December 2010

Awesome Library

Posted on 07:23 by Unknown
I was looking through SimpleK12's 101 Free Tech Tools for Teachers to find something new for me to try. Even though I saw lots of great sites and tools that I want to check out, the Awesome Library caught my attention. Actually I guess it was the description of this site that caught my attention:Awesome Library organizes the Web with 37,000 carefully reviewed resources, including the top 5 percent in education.I decided to look at what this site...
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Posted in Melissa Edwards, web-based tools | No comments

Come See the IRC!!

Posted on 04:36 by Unknown
The IRC has a multitude of seasonal and holiday books for you to read to students! Come Check us out! Feel free to call us or log into our catalog to request that books be sent to you through school mail.WSFCS Employees are encouraged to come browse our print and video resources (including the FREE Employee book exchange), get a headstart on their winter bulletin boards, use our educational professional database, laminate to their hearts content,...
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Posted in | No comments

Friday, 3 December 2010

Next Generation Learning

Posted on 08:36 by Unknown
Next Generation Learning is the concept of using technology to develop learning models and personalized education pathways. Currently in the United States nearly 30 percent of students don’t complete high school and only 42 percent of students graduate from college with a bachelor’s degree. How will we address the learning styles and needs of the next generation of students and prepare them with 21st century skills?The publication Next Generation Learning was produced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “The foundation has invested $5 billion...
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Posted in 21st Century, DeLea Payne, online learning | No comments

No more Ink from Overheads on Hand

Posted on 04:32 by Unknown
Are you still using your overhead machine? Tired of dealing with cleaning the marker ink off of your hand after school each day? Since I am left handed I had ink all the way up my arm and had to scrub my arm raw every day to get rid of the ink.Well there is a ray of light at the end of the tunnel "so to speak." If you have a Document Camera in your classroom along with an Interactive White Board or Tablet you can be ink free very soon.With either...
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Posted in document camera, Evan Herreid, IWB | No comments

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Open the Gift of Information Each Day!

Posted on 15:16 by Unknown
Kelly Hines and Kelly Tenkely are two of my favorite people to learn from. Kelly Hines is a teacher here in North Carolina. The first time we met in person, she just plopped down beside me and started a conversation. Kelly and I had "met" online before (Twitter and Skype). We even got together a few weeks ago for pizza! She has a great blog, Keeping Kids First, and is very involved with the Discovery Education NC group. Kelly Tenkely is someone...
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Posted in calendars, Melissa Edwards, web 2.0 | No comments

Being Successful in an Online Moodle Course

Posted on 07:39 by Unknown
In order to be successful in an online Moodle course in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, several things should happen. First, you should always use your WSFCS email address when signing up for Moodle. This is the only way that you will receive updates to the Forum's; our Moodle does not recognize outside email addresses. Before taking one of our online Moodle courses, Atomic Learning has "Introduction to Moodle 1.9" videos in Atomic Learning. These...
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Posted in Dorene Bates, Moodle | No comments

Technology Fun in December

Posted on 05:54 by Unknown
Image from Crayola.com Many times some of the most fun that students can have is with colored pencils, crayons, markers, paper and glue. I enjoy reading the monthly Crayola newsletter to see the list of projects and craft ideas. This month as I read thru the list I started thinking of how many of these projects students and teachers could create with available technology. The first one that caught my eye was taking old CDs and turning them into...
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Posted in creativity, DeLea Payne, technology | No comments

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

6 Nifty Ideas For Using Google Apps In The Classroom

Posted on 13:00 by Unknown
Over the past few weeks I have collected some great classroom resources surrounding the use of Google for various classroom activities. Here are a few of my favorites. (In no particular order. I don't want to make anyone jealous or anything...) Googlioshttp://sites.google.com/site/googlioproject/E-portfolios are becoming more and more popular. This site teaches educators and students how to organize all of their digital content in one place (a Google Site) for showing off their best work. Using a Google Site is actually pretty easy but Googlios...
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Posted in Google, Steven Anderson | No comments

Even on a Rainy Day you can get a Ray of Sunshine

Posted on 12:18 by Unknown
As I was walking through one of our schools today I went into a classroom and started talking with a teacher whom has one of our Interactive Classroom Solutions set up in her room. We discussed some things about her board that she could not get working and were able to quickly correct the issue and get her back into action.As we talked before her students came back in from specials she told me that this was her first year in a classroom with an Interactive White Board(IWB), and that she had not really had any formalized training. As we discussed...
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Posted in Evan Herreid, IWB | No comments

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Posted on 06:01 by Unknown
So I found a neat classroom blog today with some great projects and pictures on it (I mentioned it in another blog post).What is interesting though is the way that I found it. Where do you look for ideas and neat examples? I have places that I generally look, but I wasn't really looking this time, it just kinda found me ...So it started with when Marlo Gaddis found and shared EDU Symbalo.In EDU Symbaloo, there are collections of links and webmixes....
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Posted in blog, Melissa Edwards | No comments

Tuesday, 23 November 2010

Bloomin' Creations ...

Posted on 11:32 by Unknown
Recently I have been quite impressed with the various representations I have found online of Blooms Taxonomy.Kelly Tenkely's blog ilearntechnology.com has several (including some digital resources):Bloomin' Tree Bloomin' PinwheelUm-bloom-ra Bloomin' PeacockJust today I came across another great resource related to Bloom's Taxonomy. I was very fortunate to find a Storybird creation that uses questions to help introduce the idea of Blooms Taxonomy...
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Posted in Bloom's Taxonomy, Melissa Edwards | No comments

CPS Items You May Encounter

Posted on 11:05 by Unknown
I have received a number of questions dealing with the following things so I thought I would write a blog about the answers to these questions so that it might help someone. First of all when you open CPS, if your database is on a flash drive or somewhere other than the C drive, you will encounter the following message.This message is fine. Just click yes to continue through the process of opening your database. If you click cancel, you will exit...
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Posted in Brian Piekarski, CPS, einstruction | No comments

Using EDU Glogster in the Social Studies Classroom

Posted on 07:32 by Unknown
I had a workshop a week ago for some Social Studies teachers. They wanted to know how they could use EDU Glogster in their class with students. They also wanted to know why they would want to use EDU Glogster in their classroom.So, I created a glog on Using Glogster in Social Studies. The workshop went well. We talked about ways to use EDU Glogster and I showed some examples of how other people have used it in their social studies classroom. One of the ways I use EDU Glogster is as a teaching tool. I usually show my glog to workshop participants...
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Posted in Dorene Bates, glogster, social studies | No comments

Inquiry-Based Projects for the Classroom

Posted on 05:12 by Unknown
Inquiry-based projects provide students with authentic science experiences. Here are some suggestions for creating and using inquiry-based projects with your students.Action-Reaction blog – is it real or fake? Guided inquiry and student-centered learning to foster the development of critical thinking skills. Students may collaborate, be self-directed, communicate and analyze through inquiry-based projects. http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/ Connecting News with National Science Education Standards blog encourages middle school teachers to use current...
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Posted in DeLea Payne, Inquiry | No comments

Provide Answers To Tech Questions Effortlessly...

Posted on 05:00 by Unknown
It is very challenging sometimes to provide the help that teachers and staff need. Wouldn't it be great if you could just point them to a website that answered some of the basic questions you get everyday like what is a cookie, or how do I teach my students what Netiquette is, or how do I use Garageband?There is a great resource out there from Center for Instructional Technology at the University of South Florida called Tech-Ease that I can...
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Posted in Steven Anderson, technical | No comments

Monday, 22 November 2010

Testing Techniques

Posted on 19:51 by Unknown
When I was asked to help administer a math test, I really didn't think much about it. Testing is testing, right?All the students looked much the same as when I was in high school - young, studious faces; some a little nervous with others holding onto the "I can do this attitude." The most noticable difference was the technology piece available for them. Times have definitely changed. I had paper and pencil to figure out my solutions to the extensive questions. Some problems would take an entire sheet of paper. I watched the students read the problem...
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Posted in Colleen Fitzgerald, technology | No comments

Friday, 19 November 2010

Calling all First Grade Classes ....

Posted on 15:17 by Unknown
I just learned about an exciting Glogster project for first grade classes. Here is some information from the wiki for this project:This project is created by Mrs. Kellam's 1st grade class with help from Mrs. Ogen, our technology specialist, at Nursery Road Elementary in Columbia, SC. We have created a glog (an online, interactive poster) about our community to share with you. Please view our glog and then create a glog about your community to share with us and other participating schools on this wiki. It will be fun to learn from each other...
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Posted in | No comments

SMART Board Basics

Posted on 07:33 by Unknown
I have been going out to schools and conducting staff development on SMART Boards. As I was conducting the staff development several teachers asked if there were handouts for them to refer back to when they got back to their classroom and tried to remember what I had gone over. This got me to thinking about how I could get them information in non-traditional ways. The first thing I did was upload several Quick Reference Guides from SMART Technologies into my wiki for workshop attendees to open and view. Next, I created a glog from Glogster EDU...
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Posted in Dorene Bates, glogster, SMART | No comments

Remember — you don't need to be an engineer ...

Posted on 06:18 by Unknown
Math and Science were not my favorite subjects in school, so when I was teaching either of those subjects I always tried to find ways to make it make sense for both me and the students. While looking at some of the resource sites available from netTrekker last week, I came across TeachEngineering. I have been impressed with what I have seen so far.Here is a description from the website:The TeachEngineering digital library provides teacher-tested,...
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Posted in math, Melissa Edwards, netTrekker, science, STEM | No comments

Centricity 2 is coming!

Posted on 06:12 by Unknown
This week, Melissa Edwards and I attended an workshop on the latest version of the Schoolwires Centricity 2, our district web hosting solution. When we transitioned to Schoolwires in March, we knew that a newer version was soon to follow. It was very exciting to hear how much the company has listened to its clients as they developed Centricity 2. WSFCS is currently scheduled to begin our upgrade on December 29, 2010. I would like to share just a...
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Posted in Marlo Gaddis, Schoolwires | No comments

How to turn current events into Real-World Projects

Posted on 06:01 by Unknown
Teachers have been looking for ways to do more than talk about current events in class by finding ways to apply science and math to real-world situations. But “how do you plan for academically rigorous projects that are ‘ripped from the headlines’?”Here are some suggestions from the article.Think about creating a project where your students take the role of the problem solvers, designing a rescue within a certain amount of time. Use the rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean mine workers as an example. Have students think about what they would need to...
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Posted in 21st Century, DeLea Payne | No comments

Thursday, 18 November 2010

Current Events in netTrekker?

Posted on 11:56 by Unknown
I attended a netTrekker Search training recently and learned some new things about the various ways to search for things in netTrekker. If you have not moved any of the widgets around on your dashboard (which you can now do to organize better for personal preference), one of the boxes at the bottom of the dashboard is called Current Events. Now at first glance, this box did not appeal to me, but after hearing about it at the training. I might have to move this box from the bottom of my dashboard to the top of the dashboard!If you click on Breaking...
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Posted in Melissa Edwards, netTrekker | No comments

Social Media And Promethean

Posted on 08:24 by Unknown
Over the last few days I spent some time with the folks at the Promethean Headquarters in Alpharetta, Georgia, talking to them about their social media presence. If you didn't know, they have one. Well, sort of. In visiting, I hoped to talk to them about what they can do to increase their presence and how each of the different teams in Promethean can utilize things like Twitter, blogs, and Facebook to reach out and advance their mission.I had spent...
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Posted in promethean, Social Media, Steven Anderson | No comments
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      • ActivPrimary in the Classroom
      • The 5 Reasons I Use Social Media
      • Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease ...
      • IWB Resources on Symbaloo
      • What else can we find?
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      • Technology Fun in December
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      • Even on a Rainy Day you can get a Ray of Sunshine
      • So I found a neat classroom blog today with some g...
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      • Inquiry-Based Projects for the Classroom
      • Provide Answers To Tech Questions Effortlessly...
      • Testing Techniques
      • Calling all First Grade Classes ....
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