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...
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
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...
Sunday, 19 December 2010
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...
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
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...
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
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...
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...
Friday, 10 December 2010
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....
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...
Thursday, 9 December 2010
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...
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
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...
Monday, 6 December 2010
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...
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,...
Friday, 3 December 2010
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...
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...
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
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...
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...
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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