Happy Tech Tuesday February 28

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone. Here are some goodies I wanted to share with you this week.

Edcamp Detroit

Last year, I organized an unconference at Wayne State University and it was a huge hit! I'm happy to say that Edcamp Detroit will be back at Wayne State on Saturday May 5th. You can checkout our website at EdCampDetroit.org or click here to be taken directly to registration. Act now because there are only 93 tickets left!

We have worked very hard to get even more sponsors and predict that space will fill up fast, so be sure to lock down your spot as soon as possible. Like last year, this conference will be free for all who attend and we will be looking to live stream many of the sessions for those who cannot make it in person but want to watch at home. I have been to 3 different EdCamps and I have to say it has been one of the best learning experiences I have been part of. There were many GPPSS teachers there sharing and learning with teachers from all over the state. I hope to see them and many new faces at EdCamp Detroit 2012!

GPPSTechGuide

On the right side of the page you will see that I have replaced the @MrProvenzano Twitter feed with a new @GPPSTechGuide Twitter Feed. This feed will be dedicated to sharing resources that come across my twitter feed. I encourage you to join Twitter and follow the new account so you can see some great sites I find. Now, everyday could be Tech Tuesday. It's a dream come true for many of you. :-)

Flisti

Flisti is a quick and easy polling/survey creating site. It's free and doesn't not require sign up or registration. You enter in your question, provide some answer options and create the poll. The poll can be embedded into a webpage. If you are looking for somethign simple to add to your SchoolWires site for parent or students to use for feedback, this is a great option.

Video Creation Tools

Tech Genius Richard Byrne has a blog, Free Technology for Teachers, that is always filled with awesomness. I'm not sure how I mised this great part of his site, but I just noticed it the other day. He has a whole page dedicated to video creation. He covers some great tools and have some videos on how to use YouTube and other services to great awesome videos for your classroom. If you have been considering introducing more video into your classroom, you must check out this page. If video is not your thing, just check out Richard's blog. It is amazing and has something for everyone.

I hope everyone has a great week. Do not forget that I have pages at the top of the blog dedicted to Dropbox, Social Media and other goodies. Check them out.

- Give it a try!

-NP

Tech Tuesday for January 31

Happy Tuesday everyone! Here are some goodies I want to share with you.

Edcamp Detroit

Last year, I organized an unconference at Wayne State University and it was a huge hit! I'm happy to say that Edcamp Detroit will be back at Wayne State on Saturday May 5th. You can checkout our website at EdCampDetroit.org or click here to be taken directly to registration.

We have worked very hard to get even more sponsors and predict that space will fill up fast, so be sure to lock down your spot as soon as possible. Like last year, this conference will be free for all who attend and we will be looking to live stream many of the sessions for those who cannot make it in person but want to watch at home. I have been to 3 different EdCamps and I have to say it has been one of the best learning experiences I have been part of. There were many GPPSS teachers there sharing and learning with teachers from all over the state. I hope to see them and many new faces at EdCamp Detroit 2012!

Here is a video of my friend Kristen Swanson who explains how EdCamps started in Philly and spread across the country. If you have any questions, send us an email at edcampdetroit@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at @EdcampDetroit

Muzy.com

Leo Provenzano

I was able to create the collage above using photos from my Facebook account by using Muzy.com! I found this site on my Google Reader and I played with it for a little bit and I'm hooked. The site allows you to create photo collages and share them directly on Facebook or Twitter. Once they are created, you can download the image and place it in blogs if you want. You could print them up and place them in a frame.

You do not have to use photos from Facebook though. You can upload the photos you want directly to the site. There are many different collage layouts you can choose from to make the picture look the way you want. There are also effects you can add to the collages as well if you were looking for more of a retro look.

There is actually much much more to Mazy, but I have only scratched the surface. I recommend that you dive in and see what hidden gems you can find and use.

This could be a very fun way for a teacher to share pictures of class trips or fun things happening in the classroom. These pictures can be placed right on the school website. Please take a look at Mazy and see how you might use it in class.

Kicksend.com

Kicksend is a pretty simple concept. Let people send very large files through email. We all have had issues with multiple documents that are to large to email and have to send many emails in a row. If you are not ready to go to Dropbox and want to share documents, pictures and video over email, Kicksend is just perfect for you. It is a free site that does not require you to sign up to use. Just go to the site and start uploading the files you want to send.

Kicksend allows you to download their app for your computer for even easier sending and it even has an iPhone app so you can send large photos and videos you take directly from the phone. This site is worth the time to look at.

Museum of Obsolete Objects

This is a funny site I wanted to share with all of you because I remember when some of these things were cutting edge. The YouTube page is a collection of videos that talk about technology that has now become obsolete. Here is a great video example,

This could be fun to share with your students to show them what communication used to look like when we were growing up. I wonder if the the telephone game will still be called the telephone game by the time Leo is in school.


GPS Featured in Japan!

A couple of months ago, some reporters from a Japanese newspaper came to my class to see how I was integrating social media into my classroom. Here is the article that ran on the front page of their evening edition that has 2-3 million subscribers. I always thought social media would take me places, but I never thought it could do this. The reporter said he is working on a translation for me, but I thought I would share this with all of you.

I hope you give some of these new tools a try. 

- NP