The GPS Tech Guide is a site designed to support the amazing teachers of Grosse Pointe South High School. Please use this blog as one of the many great tools you use every day to provide the top notch education the students have always received.
This seems like the perfect name for my blog, but this is actually a great site. SuperLame is a site that allows people to upload photos, add speech bubbles, word balloons and other features to create a fun project. One of the things I love about this tool is that it does not require a log in, registration or even an email address. This is perfect to use for all ages. I was able to upload a photo, add a word bubble and a "sound effect" in just over a minute. After I was done, I downloaded the picutre and posted it here.
I can see this being a fun way to get students used to some minor photo editing and uploading for various projects. For those of you having student create more web-based work, this is a great tool for students to create photos and add them to their work.
Happy Tech Tuesday and First Day of Spring everyone! I hope you have been leaving your technology indoors and have been enjoying the beautiful weather. I assure you, there is no app for these beautiful days.
I have one really great site to show you today. Let me know if you have any questions.
On Wednesday. Apple announced their new iPad, their new Apple TV and their software update, iOS 5.0.1. If you have an Apple Device, you should consider the update. It does not take very long and has some nice additions. Sorry, no Siri if you do not have a 4S. Here is a great article by Mashable explaining how to update your device. This applies for all iPads, iPhones and iTouches.
iPiccy is a free online photo editing tool. It does not require any registration of sign up. You can upload any photo you want and start to edit it using the tools provided. Here is a quick photo I edited this morning.
The picture on the left is the original and is at least 6 years old. The one on the right is the one that I edited this morning in only a few minutes. Notice the brighter colors and better cropping of the photo.
I'm not a photo editing expert. I just played with the settings until I liked what I saw. iPiccy is perfect for photo editing anywhere and anytime. I was able to save the file onto my desktop without any problems.
This could be great for quick photo edits at home or for student projects.
Happy Tuesday everyone! Sorry I did not send you an email last week, but MME Testing and my trip to MACUL gave me a busy schedule. I did come back from the conference with some great new tools to share with you over the next few weeks, so please take a moment and check these out.
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 sold out all 175 tickets and have started a wait list. Schedules change and people cannot make it to the event, so please sign up if you still want to go. This is not just for teachers. Anyone involved with education can attend and share. Media Specialists, Special Education, Administrators and school board members are encouraged to attend. Please visit our site and put your name on the wait list. As the organizer, I've got some pull if you really want to join the fun on May 5.
On Wednesday. Apple announced their new iPad, their new Apple TV and their software update, iOS 5.0.1. If you have an Apple Device, you should consider the update. It does not take very long and has some nice additions. Sorry, no Siri if you do not have a 4S. Here is a great article by Mashable explaining how to update your device. This applies for all iPads, iPhones and iTouches.
The idea behind UJam is simple and awesome. Allow anyone the ability to create music and share it with the whomever they want. Here is a video that explains how it works.
As a teacher, this could be a fun way to introduce new concepts to class and create songs to make some ideas more memorable for the students. This could also be used by students to create their own songs for any number of projects. For the musically minded, UJam is a great FREE web tool that can attract students to almost any lesson.
By typing in the time you want after the /, you can create timer as long as you want. There are also some special timers you can have fun with in class or at home.
While not a revolutionary idea that is going to change the way we teach, it is a nice little FREE web tool that can make class run a little more efficiently.
I want to thank my friend Steve Dembo for showing me these, and many more, web tools that I know get to pass on to the great educators of Grosse Pointe Public Schools.
