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

Back From Denver

I spent part of last week in Denver at the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) conference. Of all of the conferences I have ever been to, this was the best. It was the best Professinal Development I could ever ask for in regards to technology. I met teachers from all over the country and the world and we shared some interesting ideas about tech integration and professional development.

The one thing that I walked away with was the fact that, like myself, there were many teachers that were there because they wanted to be there. They were not sent their by their district, they found the conference and asked the district to if they would send them. Technology in education is something that needs to be teacher driven and building/district supported. That is the only true to grow and expand technology in the classroom. The connections I've made over the past 6 months on Twitter and the various blogs and Nings I'm part of will have a major impact on my methodology this upcoming school year.

I have a few blog posts I'm linking to for your consideration. They cover various aspects of the conference and technology in schools. Take some time and consider what they mean to your classroom or building. Now is the time to get on board and be innovators instead of playing catch up a few years from now. I hope your summer is going very well and you are resting up for another exciting school year. Please, please leave a comment with your thoughts on this post and others. Without your input, we will never know what direction to head.

Here is The ISTE Ning if you are curious as to what ISTE is. 

Here are a few posts from me during and after the conference.


A Blogger's  Cafe In My Classroom?

Man in the Mirror

Classroom Creativity

So, Now What?

Mary Beth Hertz - She was recognized as an Emerging Leader by the ISTE at the conference and I had a chance to hang out with her and talk for a bit. She is very smart and has some great ideas about technology in the classroom. Here are a couple of posts from her that you should read. Follow her on Twitter at @mbteach

Dissecting the 21st Century Teacher

Is ISTE Still Relevant to Young Educators?

This post is by George Couros who is a principal at K-12 program in Alberta, Canada. He has some interesting insight into technology in the classroom for administrators. If you are an admin or are working on your Masters in Administration, you should check out the post below and his other posts. If you are still not on Twitter, sign up and follow him at @Gcouros.

An Open Letter o School Administrators


Here is a great set of videos from Buzz Garwood about Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). You should watch it because it has me in it, but more importantly it further explains the value of Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) to teachers. I'm in the one at the bottom of the group of videos.




Kyle Pace is an Instructional Technology Specialist and is active on Twitter. He moderates the US version of #edchat. You can follow him @KylePace. An excellent post on PLNs and what they can do for teachers.

The People of a PLN

Kristina Peter's post on the Digital Generation is a must read. Our students do not learn the same way we did in school Here are some great notes she took during an ISTE Conference Session that explain this generations learns and what we can do to help them.

Those are just a few of the posts from people that I had so much fun meeting and sharing ideas. I look forward to meeting these teachers at other conferences and continuing to grow and push the limits of technology in  my classrooms and others. Please leave me a comment if you have any ideas about PLNs, Twitter, ISE, etc.

Thanks and as always,

- Give it a try!

Summer Tech Tuesday Treat

Happy Last Tech Tuesday (of the school year)! I found some time between checking essays and entering in grades to put together some info on some great sites for you to take a look at over the summer. I wanted to take a quick moment and thank all of you who have bee supportive of the blog and have sent me words of thanks and encouragement. It's nice to know that the blog is helpful to some of you. I will continue to post over the summer from time to time, so please add my blog to a RSS feed or just pop in and take a look around to see if there is anything new. Thanks again for the support and I hope you have an awesome summer.

Social Studies!

Here are two sites care of ILearnTechnology. Kelly Tenkely's site is always full of amazing reviews and these two American Government sites are amazing. I know I've said this before, but if you are not checking out her site on a regular basis, you are missing out on tons of great material for your classroom.

The first site is the Branches of Government. It's a very simple game that has students drag leaves from the ground onto the three different branches of the government tree. Each leaf had a fact pertaining to a specific branch of the government. The goal is to place all of the leaves on the correct branched with the fewest mistakes. This would be perfect for use with the Smartboard since you can have students get up and drag and drop the answers by hand. It's a fun and simple game that can be used for review after discussing the three branches of government.

This site is an epic game. Road to the Capital places the user, in this case, the class, in an election against a politician that wants to ban and review all media for kids. As a class, or as individual students in a lab, you can review important case information on Freedom of Speech, Assembly, Religion and other important rights and then go to different parts of the map for mini-quizzes on the materials you have studied. Each mini-quiz will award you poll points. The goal is to end up with more points than your opponent and win the election. I sat down and played this game for over 30 minutes and had a blast.

This is a great way to teach the different aspects of our electoral process and the importance of individual freedoms in a way that students can understand. I highly recommend that Social Studies teachers take a look at this site and think of a way to use it in class next year. Very rarely are they fun and interactive ways to teach government, but this site is the exception. I really think students learning about government would take away some important information if this site is used.

Vocabulary

Wordia is a site I only recently found through Twitter and I'm still exploring. I have high hopes for this site and it is currently working on a school version for users. The gist of the site is that it takes everyday words and gives you the standard dictionary definition. Next to the Standard Definition, there is a video of a person's view of the word, the connotation. The idea behind the British site is to make stronger connections to words beyond the standard definitions. The word Pitch is a great example of SD and Connotation. While the Lion is a bit goofy, the point is well made that there are words that have other meaning besides the SD.

The site has one vocabulary quiz game and a couple more on the horizon. It's always good to see more vocabulary games on the Internet. The more practice students can have with new words, they will become stronger readers and writers. The school version will help build those skills as well.

The school version of the program, once it's up and running, will allow schools to upload their own videos and share within the school or district only. This keeps the site safe for kids to use at school or at home. Comments can be moderated and approved to keep the site safe and appropriate for all ages.

I would love to use this in conjunction with my daily vocabulary words. I could have students record their own meaning of words and post them to the site and have other students comment on them. This would allow students a different way to learn vocabulary instead of looking up words and staring at a page. Working with the vocabulary words will hit far higher on Blooms than staring at a piece of notebook paper with definitions. As this site grows, I look forward to seeing what other things it has to offer for students and teachers to help grow vocabulary.

That's All Folks...

I hope all of you have a great summer and come back with a fresh set of batteries. If you have questions or ideas, please feel free to leave a comment on the blog and I'll get an email. See ya! :-)

A Quick Collection of Links

Chemical Elements - This is a fun site for Chemistry teachers to share with their students or use in class when discussion the periodic table. It's an interactive chart that allows the user to select an element and it will take you to a new page where it will display a host of information. Here is an example of our friend Oxygen.

This could be useful for review or possibly introducing new elements to students. It would also work well on Smartboards since the entire Periodic Table responds to clicks. Take a look and see if it would fit in with your Science lessons.

Curriki is a great website that is filled with wonderful lessons for all grade levels and content areas. It is a free site that works as a wiki. Teachers can upload various assignments and lessons and other teachers, like you, can browse lessons by subject and grade level to see if there is anything you could use for your class. You do need to sign up with an email address, but you do not have to pay for anything and you should make sure to click the box that says you do not want emails from the site or their buddy sites. I've used this a few times to look for ideas and get my creative ideas going. You might not have used the exact lessons found, but I have used some as a jumping off point for other things I have done in the classroom. Everyone could find a few things to use in their class with Curriki. Also, don't be afraid to upload an awesome lesson you have to share with the rest of the world.

Create a Coat of Arms - Here is a fun site for teachers and students. It is a very simple site that allows you to create your own coat of arms. With the proper lesson in place before hand, this could be a fun lesson for students to create a Coat of Arms. Here is one I created in just a couple of minutes.

I hope you enjoy the links I put together today. We only have a couple of weeks left and the blog will be available to all of yo over the summer, so don't stress out about checking these sites out now. I'll even update them over the summer as cool things come along. If there is something you are looking for, please send me an email or leave a comment on the post and I will see what I can do to help you.

StoryCorps - America Telling Their Story

Thanks to Michael Zimmer for passing this site along on his blog. 

The one thing I really wish I had was some of the stories my grandparents told about growing up in Italy. I hear some of the stories from relatives that remember bits and pieces of them and I remember some of those stories, but we all know what happens when you play the telephone game. Now there is a way for our generation to save these important stories for our future generations.

StoryCorp is a site that offers to store your stories for free. Here is a snippet from their About Us page;

"StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, over 50,000 everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages."

They have places set up all around the country for people to make an appointment and tell their story. Over time, these stories will help define who we are as a people and it can be an invaluable resource in teaching history. History is often viewed as old men doing things that happened a long time ago. History texts are just filled with names and dates and students find it hard to engage in learning that information. I feel that StoryCorps offers the chance for History teachers to bring stories of people who lived history to the classroom. There is an educators toolkit that will help teachers considering using StoryCorps in the classroom. 

One example of how this site might be utilized in the classroom is the September 11th section. There is a full collection of stories told by various individuals about how the events of September 11th have impacted their lives. Watching news stories and researching information on the internet is one thing, but hearing people talk about the event is important as students learn the importance of Primary Sources. Listening to these stories could reach some students in a very important way that a text book might never accomplish. 

Take some time and check out the site. You might find it helpful for your class or you might even decide to make an appointment and telling your story to America. 

- Give it a try!

Learning Word Order on the SmartBoard

Here is a nice little site I came across that will allow teachers to use their Smartboards in class with the elementary Students. Click here to be taken to a fun site that allows students to manipulate the words on the screen and place them in the correct order to form a coherent sentence. The cool part is that the computer will say the word that is touched by the students. Once all of the words are in place. just touch each word in order and it will read the sentence to you.

This site has great programs that will work wonders on the SmartBoard. Under Social Studies, there are some games that require students to touch and drag the names of States to the correct location on the map.

At times, I know that I have found it difficult to find applications to use my SmartBoard effectively. This website is a great resource for elementary and middle school teachers looking to find ways to get their students up out of their seat and actively participating in the class discussion. Take a look around and see if you find something particularly interesting and share it with others.

Skyping in the Classroom

Skype is a tool that allows people to chat with a video connection from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. Schools have been using this tool for a couple of years to knock down the walls of their school and let their students see the world around them. Around the World in 80 Schools is an idea from the Langwitches Blog that took the idea of using Skype in the classroom.  This blog is run by Silvia Tolisano and it is filled with wonderful ideas and resources that is worth a look through. If you are on Twitter, you should be following her @langwitches to keep up to date on her adventures in the classroom.

Her goal for this project was to connect with 80 different schools over the course of 6 months. Her blog outlines the project and offers various updates over the course of the 6 months. She created a Ning that has all of the information you could want about setting up something similar in your class. Here is a great video that explain the adventure she went on.




Here are some links that will take you to sites that can connect you with classrooms that are looking for Skype partners.

Skype other Classrooms from Edublogger

Skype in Schools

Skype for Educators

Skype in the Classroom - Click on the Comments to see those willing to Skype

50 Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom

Here are some bookmarks from Langwitches that you might find helpful.


Don't feel overwhelmed by the amount of information presented here. Like all good lessons, take you time and see how this might work in your classroom. As a student, I would ave loved the chance to talk to other students from all over the world about books we are reading or to be able to get first hand knowledge about a country we are studying. Take the time and see how this would impact your students.

- Give it a try!

Tools for the 21st Century Teacher

I found this great document on my Google Reader today and thought I would pass it on to you wonderful people. Michael Zimmer is Technology Integration Specialist and has posted many great things on his blog, The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness. Please take a moment and add his blog to your reader or scan through his posts. It is worth your time if you are interested in integrating technology into your classroom.

The document below is something Michael put together to provide some information on some very valuable tools for teachers in the 21st Century. I have used these tools in my life and in the classroom and they have done wonders for creating a more interactive and engaging learning environment in my classroom. Take a look at these tools and see how you might be able to incorporate them into your class.

Open publication - Free publishing - More 21st century


- Give it a try!

Great Collection of Sites for Teachers and Students

Here are some great sites I have found over the past few weeks and I thought I would pass them along to you. Remember that if you are new to the blog, you should check out some of my older posts to see if there is anything you might have missed that could be helpful in your classroom.

Here is a great collection of Digital Storytelling tools collected by Ozge Karaoglu. Ozge is an awesome teacher that has put together some amazing collections of web tools for students to use. Click on her name to read her profile and see her e-portfolio. You should bookmark her page because she is sure to have something great to share with each post.

Jog the Web - This is a great site passed on by Anne Carnevale's Blog. Jog the web allows a teacher to set up a series of web pages the students explore in a set order. The best part is that it also allows the teacher to leave annotated notes that lets the teacher ask guiding questions as the student explores the web page. This would be great to use for Web Quests. There are many great examples on the site, but here is one that was created to provide background on Anne Frank before the students read her diary. This could allow students to have a guided tour of important webpages from their home. This is worth a look.

Awesome Stories is a search engine for Primary Resources. I think this site will be tremendously helpful in Social Studies classes as students look for court cases, biographies, news articles on important events and even video. Students often claim, "I can't find anything good to use." or "Why can't I just use Wikipedia?" Awesome Stories allows students to search a large archive of Primary Resources that should make their research easier and more meaningful. This should be a must have on all Social Studies websites for students doing research.

Here is a great post on Free Technology For Teachers video tutorials on proper citation. As a High School English Teacher, I find that students still struggle with correct citation of information. These guided videos could help teach students the correct way to cite information they intend to use in papers or projects. Little things like this would be great to add to personal website so students can access them whenever they have questions about citation. The videos are geared more toward Upper Elementary and Middle School, but I think anyone that has citation questions could use this and learn.

I hope you take a minute and look through these sites. They could come in very handy in class and really help students and even parents. Pass along these sites and consider posting them on your school site so students and parents can access the information from home.

As always, give it a try!

A Great Collection of Misc Sites

Here is a great collection of sites for various subjects and grade levels. Take a look around and see if there is anything you might use in your class.

The Ultimate Writing Style Guide List

Here is a great collection of sites to help students and teachers make sure they are using correct citations as they work on papers for class. I used this site to figure out how to do APA Style research for my Masters Class. I had never used it before and this site was very helpful in pointing me in the right direction for correct APA Style. Share it with your friends and the students in class that claim to have no idea how to properly cite information.

Cool Periodic Table for Science Class

Here is just another visual aid for students in Chemistry Class. It has visual representations of the elements on the chart. It could be very helpful for some students that are more visually driven in their learning. Take a look and print a few copies out for students that might be interested in using them to study for exams.

The Science Cheerleader

Here is a great site for Science teachers. This one link will take you to some Physics songs. Yes, you read that right, Physics Songs. School House Rocks still works to this day for students who need help remembering their Grammar rules and these songs might be able to help some of those students remember important Physics information. Maybe you can have kids memorize and perform them to the class for extra credit. Take a look at this page and some of the other information on The Science Cheerleader.

Fun Interactive Sites for Kids

Here is a great collection of sites for students to use at home or in the classroom. There are great spelling sites and drawing sites that really allows students to get hands on with their spelling and art. This would work great on the Smartboard as a class activity. Take a look at this page, and some of the other collections from Digital Tools for Teachers

Facebook Template for Class Projects

This is such a  great template that can be used in any subject out there.  I would use this in my Lit Classes and have student create a Facebook page for characters in a story. Imagine what Romeo and Juliet would post on their pages after a wonderful evening on the balcony. What might Tybalt post on Mercutio's wall after a exchange of harsh words in town?

You could create Facebook profiles for famous men and women in history. What might Winston Churchill place on FDR's wall? What does Cleopatra do with here constant relationship status changes? The possibilities are endless and could lead to some great projects as students research the type of music that these men and women might have listened to or they type of plays the preferred to watch. This is a template I has placed on my Diggo account and shared with my students when they worked on their Gatsby projects. Here is what JFK's Facebook page might look like.

Facebook Template

View more presentations from Nicholas Provenzano.

Science Class could be a blast as students create profiles for animals or even elements on the periodic table. Oxygen is in a relationship with Hydrogen. :-) Other bonds could be created and broken and students could find pictures that represent the elements they have chosen. Allowing students to explore different connections with the elements might help them remember these concepts for an exam.


There are many different ways that this template can be used in the classroom to allow students to explore a different way of learning. Students can have a better experience with the material if their are allowed to "play" with it. Let them create with the information you provide in class and they will have an easier time recalling it later in class.


I hope you enjoyed the different sites I pulled together over break. I want to give a shout out to my PLN for sharing these great resources with me and the world. You make all of us better teachers by sharing. Please feel free to leave me a comment or suggest a helpful site you want others to see.

Give it a try!

Great Collection of SmartBoard Resources

I received this link from Jerry Blumengarten. His website, http://cybraryman.com/ is filled with great resources for all teachers. Please take a moment to look around his site for wonderful resources to use in your classroom.

Here is the link to the SmartBoard Resources. There are many different links on the page, so take your time on looking through them. I'll spend some time over break to sift through them all. Have a great Thursday!

- Give it a try!

Fun with Photography

I've been meaning to write a post on Fotobabble for a while. This is a very simple site that allows people to record voices over pictures. You can take pictures yourself, upload them and share them with friends. You can also take some other pictures from Google Pics or Flickr and record your voice over them as well. This could be great for students to narrate photography projects or other classes that have a visual requirement for a project.

There is also an iPhone app that allows you to take pictures, record your voice and share the creation on Facebook, Twitter or Text. I added it to my iPhone and it has been fun taking pictures and sharing them with friends. Here is a picture that I took at Grosse Pointe South's Artfest of Bartleby by K. Peabody. It's based on a character from the Graphic Novel Bone by Jeff Smith.

Using Fotobabble is fast and easy. It shoul dbe added to your toolbox of fun things kids can use to spice up a presentation. It could be a nice addition to a lecture you give in class. Think about the many different ways you could use it.

- Give it a try!

Tube Chop

Here is a great site for teachers that want to show some youtube videos but might only want to show certain selections. 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.

- Give it a try!

Scribble Maps Makes Geography Interactive

A few teachers from my PLN suggested that I take a look at Scribble Maps. I cannot thank them enough for encouraging me to look around. If you are familiar with Google Maps, this will not be a problem for you to use. The website uses Google Maps and allows you to draw on the map you have focused on. You can draw by hand, create circles or boxes, create text and even add images. This is a great way to use the SmartBoards in the classroom. Take a look at my example. You can save them for later editing or you can save them as JPEG's so you can add them to other documents like this:

Here is one I just did of South. It only took me 5 Minutes to draw, save and upload this picture.

You can do all sorts of things with this program. They have Terrain Maps, Satellite Maps and Hybrid Maps that you can use for different lessons. I know many teachers are always looking for different ways to incorporate their SmartBoards into their lesson plans and I think this is a good tool to use with the students. This could also be used in other classes as well. In English, I could see using this to show the students where the story is taking place and adding my own visuals to the map. Perhaps a map showing East and West Egg and adding different pictures from The Great Gatsby so the students can see where the story takes place. You have as many options as you can think of with this cool tool. 

-Give it a try!

Dropbox: A Must For All Teachers and Staff

One of the biggest problems I have dealt with a a teacher is the inability to access information from my work computer when I'm at home or files on my home computer when I'm at work. I'm constantly emailing documents I create in one place so I can work on them more or use them in another place. Another way to transfer information is to use the Flash Drive. Sometimes I would forget it at home or leave it at work. I know I have talked to other teachers and they have said access to school files from home would be great. Well, I don't think the school will be opening up their servers to teachers anytime soon. Dropbox is the answer to all of our file sharing problems.

I've heard some of the teachers in my PLN talk about Dropbox, but I really didn't think twice about it.  Crawling around the web the other day, I stumbled upon Dropbox and finally decided to give it a look. I'm angry at myself for waiting this long to investigate. The days of Flash Drives and Emailing documents are over. All of my school documents are only a few clicks away. Below is a video you should watch to give you the ins and outs of the system. below I will give you some of the key points that have me excited and some thoughts about how I could use it in the classroom.

 

I hope you liked what you saw. Once you jump on their website, they have another great video walking users through the Dropbox process. Here are some of the things that really got me excited about using Dropbox as a teacher.

• I no longer have to worry about transferring documents from one computer to another. If I create a test at home, I only need to save it to the Dropbox Folder. Once I get to school, I only need to log-in to Dropbox.com to download the document and use in class. 
• Sharing is easier. We have shared folders in the district, but many of us do not use them for one reason or another. Most of what I do is created at home. Once I create it there, I email to school, make copies and that's that. With Dropbox, I can create folders for each unit I teach and share them with the teachers in my Department from the luxury of my home computer. There is no need for extra steps. Once a folder is shared with other people, they will be able to access it whenever they want. Again, teachers are no longer chained to their computer in the classroom and that is a huge plus. 
• I can create folders for work and for personal use. Sometimes I want to share a bunch of pictures from a trip. I can place the pictures in the folder and share it with family and friends. Too often, pictures are all over the internet for people to see, but this can allow people to actually keep copies of pictures taken at events. 
• iPhone access! I downloaded the Dropbox app and can have access to all of the same documents on my phone that I would see on the computer. I can double check to see what documents I have access to from anywhere in the world. If I decide to make a document accessible to the public, I do not have to wait to get to a computer to do so. I can also take pictures from my camera and post them in the shared folder. On a trip, family and friends could view pictures as I take them instead of having to wait until I get home to upload them to a site like Flickr. 
• I can share individual files with anyone I want. If I really don't want someone to look at my entire folder, I can store the document (Word Doc, Picture, Song, etc) in a public file and it will create a special URL link I can send to anyone I choose. Click here for an example.

The last point is very exciting to me. In theory, I could create public folders for each of my classes and share documents with my students from any computer I want. hey could be assignments, news articles, pictures, etc. Not only that, student could share documents with me through a public folder. This could be the last step in my attempt to create a paperless classroom. Now, any assignment I want, can be turned in to a public folder for me to grade. I'm sure there will be bugs to work out, but this could be a valuable tool as teachers look for ways to make important class information available to students no matter where they are. 

Lastly, Dropbox is not for teachers only. Any person that uses multiple computers will find this helpful. Think about the times yo have wanted to work on a document, but it was on the "other" computer. With Dropbox, those problems are now gone.

- Give it a try!

Twitter in the Classroom

Here is a great article about using Twitter in the classroom. The article is geared more toward College education, but it could prove very useful in HS classrooms as well. Using technology to engage shy students is a great idea. I have found success in using Wallwisher in my classes to motivate and encourage the shy students to participate. I'm a Twitter advocate, as you may have noticed, and I really think it can help students. Maybe yelling at students to put their cell phones away is a thing of the past. What do you think?

Mashable Article

- Give it a read!

Writing Tools

Here is a link to a wiki called New Tools Workshop. You will find great videos on how and why you should use Google Docs in the classroom. You will also find many other great online writing tools to use in the classroom. There are some good sites on citation that English teachers should check out. There is a nice collection of Vocabulary sites that teachers of all grades could use. Explore the different sites and see if there is anything that works for you. I will take a deeper look at some of the sites and blog about them at a later date.

- Give it a try!

Jeopardy Labs!

I know I have spent plenty of hours on PowerPoint creating Jeopardy games for various units. Now, there is a site that can make Jeopardy games easy and fun to use. Jeopardy Labs allows you to create the games and store them on their website. You no longer have to worry about sending large files over email or carrying a flash drive around. This would be great to use with a IWB in the classroom.

Here is a great example of a Jeopardy Game of To Kill a Mockingbird. I have students that are using the site to create a game for The Great Gatsby. It is just another way to change up the learning environment for your students. See what great Jeopardy games are already there and considering adding your own and sharing with the rest of your department. Over time, a department could create a nice collection of review games to use in the classroom.

- Give it a try!

Math Sites!

Here is a great link to a Glogster of Math Sites. Digital Tools for Teachers always offers a wonderful collection of resources that I love to use and experiment with over time. Take a look at the Math Sites she has complied and then browse the rest of her posts. I'm sure you will find something useful there. Pass this along to other teachers who are looking for different ways to approach Math.

- Give it a try!

Great Interactive Whiteboard Sites

Here is a great blog from Hall Jackson of Australia called the Interactive Classroom. In this new post, he provides a list of IWB sites for "Lower Primary Grades". To use Yanks, that would mean Elementary and Middle School. It covers all subjects and will work great Smartboards. I took a look around and there are some things you might find helpful if you do some searching. If you find something some of our Middle School teachers might like, pass it along.