Tech Tuesday for February 10

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone. I hope everyone is feeling well and has great plans for the upcoming break. I've got some great tools to share with you that will help you and your students.

EasyBib Google Docs Add-On

Getting students to properly cite their work is an ongoing issue in the classroom. While many of us had to memorize the proper format of citations in a bibliography, there are now tools available for students to use that make it easy for them to create their works cites pages. EasyBib has a Google Docs Add-on that allows users to create bibliographies right in the documents so they do not have to leave the page. They can cite, books, journals, and websites right from the Google Doc. Here is a video that walks through this cool add-on to Google Docs.

Research Tool in Google Docs

There is a great tool in Google Docs that also allows you to do research, add footnotes, and cite images. Here is a video that walks you through how to do this so you can show it to your students. 

PD Without Borders

I wanted to share one last resource with you. As part of my Google Certified Teacher program, GCTs had to create a project that is designed to improve education. A teacher from Mexico and a teacher from Canada have come together with me to create short videos to show off cool webtools that can be used in the classroom. We will be uploading 3 videos a month and I'll share those out when the become available. Here is one of the first videos that shows a very neat tool that allows users to take notes on a Google Doc while watching a YouTube video on the same page. It is called Videonot.es and it is great. Check it out!

If you have any questions, please let me know. 

Have a great day and I hope you give them a try!

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

Poll Everywhere

Here is a great blog post on how to use Poll Everywhere and a tutorial video on getting started. Great work from Greg Kulowiec.

The Post - Poll Everywhere Advice and Questioning Strategies

Storybird Tutorial

This webtool allows users to use pictures to tell a story they have created. Here is a video on how to use this tool in the classroom.

Google Sites Tutorial Videos

Here is some great information on using Google Sites with students. Now that our students all have Google Accounts, they can create their own websites easily and for free. Check out the videos below to see how to use Google Sites.

Skip the first video, it is the user showing everyone Google Hangouts.

Livescribe Pen Tutorials

Livescribe Pens are becoming great tools for many teachers around the building. I have put together a playlist that will walk new users through how a Livescribe Pen works and the different ways you can use them in the classroom. Before you get to the videos, here are a couple of examples of how I have used it with my students.

Here is one example I created for In-Text Citation for my students.

Here is another example on how I used it for Plot Mountains.

Here are the Tutorial Videos

The picture below shows you how to watch all of the videos in the playlist.

To watch the other videos in the play list, you need to click this playlist icon seen below. Hold your mouse over the screen for the menu to appear at the bottom.

Evernote Tutorials

Evernote is a free tool that allows user to take notes on their digital platform and access them on any internet ready device. This device could be an iPhone, iPad, Android device, Windows phone, PC or Mac desktop or any other device that lets you have access to the internet.

Evernote is a great tool for education because it allows users to organize the notes in a way that best suits them. Once the notes are created and saved in notebooks, they can easily be shared with others through Facebook, Twitter, Email or links that can be posted to websites. Here is an example of a link I created for my students and their assignments.

I also use Evernote for all of my lesson planning needs. I can place links, photos and documents in notes to access anywhere and anytime. I can edit these notes on the go and share them with other teachers looking for ideas for their lessons. It has made life much easier using this instead of the traditional paper plan book.

Here are a series of videos for your to explore to see how Evernote works. If you are interested in learning more about Evernote in education, we can set up a time to chat 4th hour to go over the different uses.

To watch the other videos in the play list, you need to click this playlist icon seen below. Hold your mouse over the screen for the menu to appear at the bottom.

Last Tech Tuesday of 2011-2012

Good afternoon everyone. I hope this post finds you all well. I wanted to make sure I sent out the last Tech Tuesday of the year on Tuesday.

While I will be continue to explore and catalogue awesome new sites over the summer, I will not be updating the page until the school year starts. Thanks for all of the support and kind words. It's always nice to know that the site is helping teachers.

Here are some final plugs for those interested in attending a conference or getting some Grad credit over the summer. 

The Digital Teaching Series
I'm teaching a grad class online on Project Based Learning using Web Tools. If you are interested in exploring 21st Century instruction, consider taking my course.

The summer is a great time to relax, but also get needed credit hours. Here is a great program that offers online professional development from experts.

6 Week Courses

4.5 CEUs

3 Graduate credits available

The Digital Teacher Series is perfect for you if you:

• Want to dramatically improve student engagement and retention during your class
• Recognize the need to meet your “digital learners” on a new level
• Are feeling pressured to utilize district-purchased technology
• Understand your role in preparing your students to become “online learners”

There are 6 course on a wide variety of digital topics that are worth checking out.

 

Michigan Google Conference

Michigan has it's own official Google Conference set for October 19th. Registration is open and I encourage teachers that are interested in exploring what the free tools that Google has to offer can bring to their classroom. I may be biased as a featured speaker, but trust me when I tell you that this will be a valuable conference for teachers looking to learn more about Google tools. I encourage you to sign up quickly before space runs out.

Below you will find links to topics I have covered on this site. Each link will take you to posts that contain the topic I tagged them.

I hope everyone has a great summer and I look forward with working with all of you in the Fall.

Dropbox           Elementary               English               Google               Math         

Science             Smartboards            Social Media      Social Studies    Technology

I hope everyone has an awesome summer and I hope you will give some of these a try.

NP

Tech Tuesday for November 8th

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone. I hope you are all having a great PD day. Here are some things you might find useful.

Superstar Teacher

I met a man while I was at AuthorSpeak2011 last week and we talked about how tough it is for teachers to afford the the little things in class sometimes. Many of us talked with Todd about the way money is spent and how many teachers are fighting for the same scraps as others. Well, Todd Thornton has set up mini grants for teachers all over! Follow the guidelines and you can earn up to $500 for your classroom. Check out the site now before all of the money is gone!

Digital Storytelling Apps

Do you have an iPad and are you looking for apps that will allow you to make fun and exciting stories to share with your students? Well, here is the site you have been looking for. It's a simple Google site that offers a few different apps and explains how they could be used in digital storytelling. See if you can use any of these in your class or at home.

Algebra and Geometry Games

Here is a link to some fun Algebra games. The tabs say Grade 6-8, but this might be useful at the HS level. Take a look and see if these would work in your class or at home with your kids.

Gary's Social Media Count

Here is a very cool graphic that can show you the role Social Media has in the world today. Our students are responsible for much of the content that is being created on the web right now. It's important to keep that in mind as we look for different ways to infuse technology into our classroom. It might not seem important to you, but your students might be ready for something completely different.

- Give it a try!

Tech Tuesday for October 11

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone. I have some fun links to share with you this week.

I've been in almost every building on the South end this week and you guys are doing some amazing things. I cannot wait to see more fo you in action.

Here are some fun sites for learning!

Sum Cloud



Sum Cloud is a fun site for young math students that works great on the Smartboard. Using 6 different levels of difficulty, the game allows kids to take a look at the possible answers and select them. It's a fun game to have kids practice their Math skills.

Invention At Play

This is a really fun site! If you want kids to work on their problem solving skills or maybe you want to have some fun in Physics class, take a look at this awesome site.

The students can move and rotate objects to create a device that get the ball into the container. There are many possible answers, but it is interesting to see what kids can come up with in class. You might ask the kids to come up with a soultion using all of the devices or as few as possible. This could be a fun lesson to share with your students that works great on the Smartboard.

Inside Story Flashcards

Inside Story Flashcards is a great flashcard site for kids. Check it out!

My friend Kelly wrote an amazing review of a site I want to share with you, so I'm going to send you to her amazing site for the full run down. iLearnTechnology is a site filled with amazing resources and I encourage you do to some snooping around there. I'm not kidding when I say she has covered almost every educational site on the Internet. She is an amazing person and you need to check out her site.

I hope you nejoy the sites!

Give them a try!

Happy Tech Tuesday for 9/27

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! I hope the week is going well. I have a couple of things I want to share with you that you might find helpful.


I want to remind everyone that Mike and I have split the district to best help teachers with their technology curriculum needs.

Mike: North, Parcells, Ferry, Mason, Poupard, Kerby, Monteith and Barnes.

Nick: South, Brownell, Pierce, Defer, Maire, Richard, Trombly and Barnes.

Feel free to email us and set a time to meet. We have already been in some buildings helping teachers and it has been great. We look forward to meeting with you helping you integrate technology into your already brilliant lesson plans.

Writing Prompts

I found this on my Google Reader the other day and I love it. This site has over 250 pictures that pose a question for the reader. Here is one example that I love,

Here is another fun one,

I think this would be great for most ages at the start of class. Check it out and see how you could use it.

Draw A Stickman

This is just a fun site that would be great for little kids. It allows you to draw pictures that interact with a preset story. This would be great to use on a Smartboard.

Cell Phones is the Classroom

This is a great article on Edutopia on the use of Cell Phones in the classroom. The article has some links to sites that are designed to help teachers utilize the cellphones the students have in class. If you have been thinking of ways to use the phones in your classroom, here is the perfect article for you.

I hope you find these sites helpful. If you have something you would love to share with the rest of the district, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

Give it a try!

Nick Provenzano

Some Diamonds In The Rough

Here are some great sits I found searching around the Internet. Take a look at some of these things and let me know if you found them helpful at all. Feel free to forward on to other teachers if you think they might like it. It's all about the sharing people. :-)

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  A Lifetime of Color
  "T'he most popular of all of Sanford's websites, alifetimeofcolor.com provides educators with a comprehensive resource of lesson plans, projects and techniques for teachers and educators!"
  That comes from their website and I would say it's a fair assessment of what they provide. There are many different lessons and project ideas that art teachers could find very useful. 
  
  
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  Physics Games - online physics-based games
  A great site for Physics Games that can spice up a classroom for time to time.
  Sometimes games are a great way to educate students about important principles. Here is a really fun site that uses games to teach principles in physics. Heck, this is just kind of fun if you are an adult and want to play around for a bit. Take a few minutes and see if this could be used in your class and on your Smartboard.
  
  
  
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  IT's Elementary!
  Great new blog for Elementary Teachers. Check out the resources she has to offer.
  This is a new blog for Elementary teachers that I think you should check out. It has some interesting links and ideas that you might find helpful. 
  
  
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  12 Word Cloud Resources, Tips, & Tools | Teacher Reboot Camp
  A variety of resources to use in class. as of right now, Wordle is down, but here are some other great sources that Shelly has but together that can help you along the way. Take a look and see if you can use that in your classroom.
  
  
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  Kathy Marie's Alternatives to Book Reports
  180 alternatives to book reports. What a great way to change up a reading class. Take a look and try to use one in you class. It will be a good day when they book report is finally laid to rest. Here are 180 ways to achieve the same goal as a book report, but in far more creative ways. Take a look around and see if there is anything you might like to see your students use.
  
  
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  Schoolhouse Rock Lyrics
  The classics are still good to use with kids. Math, Grammar, Science, and America Rock are all available to use in your class.When in doubt, I still sing the songs to myself. Try introducing these to your students if they are having trouble with a particular unit.
  
  I hope you liked these posts. If you see anything you really liked, please leave me a comment and let me know. It will help me narrow down my searches in the future.
  
  - Give it a try!

60Second Recap

I found this site today and I have to share it with everyone. As an English teacher, it is tough to get students to read "Classics". They complain about the language and want to know how this will ever be important. I spend countless hours coming up with lessons to intorduce the novel in a fun way in the hopes to hook some of the reluctant readers. 60Second Recap is a great site to use to really help students get a handle on what the story is about.

Here is their Mission Statement:

"60second Recap™ wants to make the great works of literature accessible, relevant, and, frankly, irresistible to today's teens. Through 60second Recap™ video albums, we seek to help teens engage with the best books out there ... not just to help them get better grades, but to help them build better lives."

I love this mission statement. It really expresses the goal of all literature teachers. I watched the first video on Hamlet, my favorite Shakespeare play, and was very happy with what I saw. Hamlet, played by Jenny, is taking an online quiz, "Are you Mad?" It gives a nice bit of information about different aspects of the play. There are videos on Motif, Theme, Plot, Symbols, and the Characters in the play. It was a very well put together piece.

60Second Recap currently offers recaps of some great pieces of Literature. Here are just a few:


Animal Farm
Brave New World
Fahrenheit 451 (On my Top 5 All Time List)
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn
Catcher in the Rye (On my Top 5 All Time List)
The Great Gatsby (On my Top 5 All Time List)

There are many more great pieces of Literature that get the 60Second Recap treatment. I strongly encourage all Literature teachers to give this site a look over and use them with your students.

-Give it a try!

See The World From Your Classroom

Here is a great site teachers can use to explore different parts of the world. Here are some of the places you can go:

Explore the Taj Mahal
Stonehenge
 
Mount St. Helens

The Supreme Court

US Capitol Virtual Tour
 
Louvre
 
Just click on this link and you will have access to 100 Great Trips you can take your students on.
 
Give it a Try!