Tech Tuesday for December 3

Welcome back everyone! I hope all of you had a very nice Thanksgiving Break. I'm happy to be sharing this blog out to the district again after a short hiatus. Teachers had been asking me to add them to my email list, so I thought it would just be easier to send it to everyone. I promise I will not be sending these blog posts out every week and clogging your inbox. Feel free to bookmark my site in Chrome and visit it when you have a minute. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to send me an email or leave me a comment if there is something you are looking for or something you would like me to share to the rest of the staff. Have a great Tuesday!

Writing Prompts/Journal Posts

Here is a great site that has a bunch of prompts that you might find helpful for your classroom. CanTeach has a long list of possible questions to ask your students. I have found writing prompts to be wonderfully helpful in getting my students to think outside of the standard curriculum and have led to great discussions in class. If you are looking for a digital place for students to write their responses, KidBlog is an excellent (free) site that I have used in the past that is perfect for all ages. It does not require students to have an email and teachers can lock it up so only students and teachers can see it if they want. Digital writing is an important skill to learn and combining prompts and blogging is a great way to help students become more comfortable with it.

Eyewitness to History

Eyewitness to History is a great site that brings together stories and media to tell a complete story of historical events that occurred around the world. The site offers links to famous speeches and photos of important events throughout history. Students can here Charles Lindbergh speak after his historic flight or listen to a reporter describe the invasion of Normandy as he witnessed it live offshore. You can also show students the first narrative film The Great Train Robbery to give them a sense of how far things have come in film. There are pictures galore that could make great additions to class for writing prompts or presentations.

The pictures are interactive as well. If you click on certain parts of the picture, it will take you to another story that provides a rich background to the photo and the time period. This is a great site for students and teachers to make history a little more hands on and visual. 

Interactive Simulations for Math and Science

Here is a great site from the University of Colorado that can give some students a chance to try experiments at home without destroying their house. Here is a quick snapshot of what they have to offer.

The site offers great simulations for students of all ages who might need a different way to look at a concepts being covered in class. Take a look at these and share your favorites with other teachers in your building. 

Thanks for taking the time to read the post and feel free to drop me a line if you have questions or want to share something you use with everyone else. 

Give it a try!

Nick

Tech Tuesday for October 22

Happy Tuesday everyone. I have a couple of quick tech tools to share with you that can make your life just a little bit easier.

TubeChop

 Tubechop is a website that lets you take any youtube clip and chop it down to size. It is very simple to use and does not take very long. Just select the video you want, select the portion you want to watch and click the chop button. You will be given a link or a code to embed into a website. Below you will find a chopped version of The Ghostbusters Music Video by Ray Parker Jr. The orginal clip has an extra minute at the end that I don't need to see, so I chopped it out. Take a look at the video.

For those that like to show video of interviews or clips from movies, this is a great way to condense that information. No longer will you have to waste class time searching for the right part of the clip you want to show. You can set it up ahead of time and post on your website for kids to use safely.

Times Machine

This could be such a fun tool in class. Times Machine is a full collection of the New York Times dating back to 1851. Students can research any date they want and share their findings with the class. Important events in history could be discussed by reading the newspaper itself. Students could research events that happened on their birthday and compare them with others. Classes could review the difference in print ads from various decades and create their own. There are so many possibilities for this site in the classroom it would be a waste not to take a look around. You need to be a subscriber to the print edition to gain access to the papers. Talk to Courtney about our NYT subscription to see about access.

Tech Tuesday for October 15

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! I have some great things to share with you this week. Now that the school year has settled down a bit, I will get back to sharing on a more regular schedule. If you ever need help with specific tech tools, feel free to contact me and I will do my best to find a time to meet with you and lend a hand.

Crash Course

I was very lucky to get to hang out at YouTube's offices last week and talk education and technology to some really great people. YouTube is trying to create more videos that can help students and teachers deal with complicated topics. There were some great content creators at this meeting and I was excited to share some of the wonderful resources you might want to use in class, post on your website or share with your students.

Crash Course is just one of many great YouTube sites dedicated to helping explain complex topics. Crash Course has a Playlist that focuses on Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, World History, US History and Literature. They approach these topics in a fun and interesting way that some of your students are already using to help them with their work. Here is an example of a Chemistry video by Crash Course.

I think this is a great resource for teachers looking to spice up their class or website with helpful videos. I will be sharing more YouTubeEDU channels over the next few months that can be used to help the amazing things you already do in your classroom. Stay tunes!

Google Apps Tips

I wanted to share another quick site that can help you explore the use of Google Apps. This site offers tips on how to use Google Docs, GMail, Calendar and Chrome. If you have wanted to use Google more in your classroom, this is a great site to help you understand the different elements.