What a wonderful year its been! While we are looking forward to continued learning we also take time to reflect back and look at a sampling of our top posts and content for the year.Five Simple Ways To Use Edmodo Everyday-We rolled out Edmodo district wide this year and its been just plain awesome. Teachers all over are making global connections and carrying learning conversations outside of the classroom. This post give 5 really simple ways to start using Edmodo today. Technology Advice For Administrators- There are some easy technology-related...
Friday, 30 December 2011
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Let's talk about Ad Hoc questions in ActivInspire using ActivExpressions. First of all, Ad Hoc is more like asking a question spontaneously. In order to do this, there is a button on the toolbar in ActivInspire. this button has a question mark in the middle of it and the tag is Express Poll. Once it has been clicked, a button will be placed into the flipchart. Hover over that button to see the different types of questions that can be asked....
Friday, 23 December 2011
Take a look at this short video.It really spoke to me. Connections are so important. Watch the video again and look at the different emotions on the faces of the folks. Some think it's a joke. Some are just happy-go-lucky. Others genuinely needed the connection and were glad to make it.Now take the idea of connecting and turn it virtual. Social media has made it so much easier to connect with others. Many people can attest to the life-long friendships formed because of connections made through social media (be it Twitter, Facebook, Nings, etc)....
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
My daughter is in Kindergarten. She amazes me each day with the words that she says (and uses correctly). I know that her verbal vocabulary is much greater than the words she can read and write. She also has a very active imagination (hmmm ... wonder where that comes from?).After talking with her teacher, it is clear that she has a good understanding of letter knowledge. She can the identify letters and tell you what sound that letter makes individually....
Monday, 19 December 2011
The other day I was learning about how to register ActivExpressions. Here is what I learned:To register ActivExpressions, you need to have your voting browser open. Click on View, and then click on Browsers. The Voting Browser is the last browser in your list and has a picture of a voting device on it. Once you have opened the browser, click on the image of the clipboard (which is Device Registration). Click on Expressions and click Register....
Friday, 16 December 2011
Recently Promethean's ActivInspire program has had a fairly significant update to the software to provide a lot more versatility to its users. The latest version of the software is 1.6.46087 and if you aren't sure what one you have you can click on Help in the Main Toolbar and then Click About to see which you are running. If you are not running the latest version you are missing out on a lot of new improvements to the software. ...
As part of my instructional technology responsibilities, I try to help teachers use whatever resources they have available in their lessons. Teachers have access to computers, the Internet, some interactive whiteboards and numerous applications so they can create new activities and assessments and/or use SMART or ActivInspire lessons that coorelate with the desired standard.I have really enjoyed finding resources and helping the teachers learn...
All of us in the Instructional Technology Department are always on the look out for something new to share or exciting to read. Most of us have our Google Reader set up to follow many blogs and try to keep up with the ever changing field of Technology In Education.One of the best ways to find new folks, ideas, and resources is the Edublogs Awards. In a nutshell, these awards highlight the best in not just the Edublogosphere but on Twitter and other places as well. In late November folks from all over the world nominate blogs, Twitter folks, hashtags,...
Thursday, 15 December 2011
The North Carolina Virtual Public School has a help center to support students taking NCVPS courses with technical issues. The main issue that comes to mind is students who have forgotten their Blackboard password. The Distance Learning Advisors of the schools and the District Distance Learning Coordinator can look up the students password only if they have not changed it from the original password given to them by NCVPS. If the student has changed...
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
It's holiday time again! Many schools are looking at how other countries are celebrating the holidays. I gathered some resources and wanted to share them. Below are web sites that have information for students to learn about different countries and their holiday traditions. I hope you enjoy them! The Gift of Holiday TraditionsWhat is Ramadan What is Rosh HashanahHow do People Celebrate the Winter Holidays in Different Ways? NCWiseOwl websitesGerman...
Monday, 12 December 2011
During a Planning meeting last week with one of my schools we were looking over some of the layers available on Google Earth and the information that you can get from them and we noticed something that was new to us. It may not be new to anyone else but we thought it was very interesting. What we noticed was that there was a date in the bottom left side of the window when we were viewing our location in Google Earth. When we clicked...
Think about all the ways you have communicated with people today?Have you talked on the phone?Have you sent an email?Have you written a letter?Have you video chatted with someone?What ways do you think you could communicate with the International Space Station?Think about what it would be like to be a NASA astronaut.What kinds of things would you see?What do you think you would experience?That could be a great idea for brainstorming, writing a journal,...
Thursday, 8 December 2011
If you have visited our new offices you may have noticed in the Instructional Technology area we have no windows. (We don't let it get us down too much though.) But we do have an Interactive Whiteboard. Normally we use it to post a question of the day. Such as:If you could have any superhero power what would it be?What is your best childhood memory?Turkey or ham at Thanksgiving?We use it as a way for all of us in the office to have a little fun and...
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Earlier this year our group adopted the TPACK model of technology integration. Basically, it takes the approach that planning for technology integration shouldn't be an event. It should be something that adds to what we are already doing. Through the use of Activity Types, teachers can take the activities they are already doing and match them up with appropiate technologies that may or may not work, depending on the context of learning.You can view...
Monday, 5 December 2011
This photo was taken on December 7, 2006 at Pearl Harbor, December 7th is a day that stands out in US History. Do you know why? Do your students know?I did simple searches on two resource sites (netTrekker and Thinkfinity) to see what classroom resources were available to help explain and understand that day in US History. I was able to find a range of things covering many grade levels and including audio, videos, images,...
Friday, 2 December 2011
I dunno about you but I might do about a billion searches a day. From everything to how to unbrick a phone to a recipe for a holiday party to how to spell words, search is a natural part of how I browse the web. Sometimes its easier to just search for a site, even when I already know the address. (I think that might be on the verge of lazy, but hey, I own it)Kids do a lot of searching too. Pictures, music, games and even research for class, they spend a lot of time searching the web for content and information too. But if you asked how many of...
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Do you know why we celebrate Rosa Parks on December 1? Do your students?Rosa Parks was not born on December 1, but she did something on December 1 for which she is remembered. If you need any ideas for things to use in the classroom, check out the available resources from these instructional sites:Scholastic.com shares information: Rosa Parks: How I fought for Civil Rights.The Library of Congress shares an American Memory of Dec. 1, 1955: Today in...
Friday, 25 November 2011
In looking at the software for the new Lumens DC 190 document camera (doc cam), you do not see any changes to the 3 by 3 or 4 by 4 grid. The software itself has been updated to v.1.0.9 for Ladibug and there have been a few updates and improvements to it for use with your computer. Again the software is available on both PC and Mac, however I did not see on the website the availability for Linux for this new version as of yet. ...
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
The topic of Critical Thinking and Google Searches seems to poke it's head out via various discussions and conversations every now and then. Even a recent #edchat topic centered around moving kids away from thinking Google has all the answers to thinking critically.First let me clarify. I use the term Google Searches loosely. That has come to mean all searches but there are obviously other search engines out there (Like Bing and Yahoo) that are still relevant and...
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Last week I wrote about my favorite go-to web sites in my blog post "Where Do I Go?". This week I am going to talk about how I organize my resources in order to share them.The first thing that I do when I find a resource is save to my Diigo account. Diigo is a social bookmarking site that allows me to access my web resources wherever I go and whatever computer I am on. Steven Anderson wrote about "Why Diigo rocks" several weeks ago. After saving...
Monday, 21 November 2011
Here are some ideas I had for using videos and activities to help students identify properties of the three forms of matter (solid, liquid, and gas) and use movement to demonstrate the distinct properties of each state of matter (movement of molecules):Brainstorm Introduction: Open class by asking questions and have students record responses on something like WallWisher, Bubbl.us, or chart paper ( for the beginning of a KWL Chart):What do we know...
Friday, 18 November 2011
Finally I have recently gotten to really sit down and take a look at the new (well almost new) Lumens DC 190 document camera(doc cam) that has recently replaced the DC 166 that hit is EOL cycle.We have been using the DC 166 model for a couple of years in our school district and will now be transitioning over to the newer design model.At first glance you do not see anything different in the look and design of the doc cam, it is their termed "Ladibug"...
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