Tech Tuesday for March 10

Hello gang! I wanted to share a quick survey and a tech tip with you for today. The tech tip below is about using accents on a Google Doc. Sorry Latin, it doesn't have that for you, but I'm still looking.




Easy Accents Add-on

For the language teachers (Sorry Latin, it doesn't work for you.) Doing accents can be a pain in Google Docs. Well, here is an add-on to Google Docs that can make your life a bit easier.

Follow the link above and add the Add-On to your Google Docs account. You will then find it here,

We have French, Italian, Spanish, and much more. This is something you can share with your students to help them with their writing in class. If you need help with putting this on your Google Account, please let me know and we can meet and set it up. 

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

Foreign Language Support

Here is a great site shared by Ms. Grimmer that offers tutorials, videos and other ideas for teaching a foreign language.

http://creativelanguageclass.wordpress.com/

Check it out and see if there is anything that you would share with the rest of your department.

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.

Foreign Language Sites

I feel bad that the I've excluded the Foreign Language Department from my Tech Posts. I sent some Tweets out yesterday and have a host of wonderful sites to offer you. Take a look at these sites and let me know if they are helpful.

Here is a great webpage from Sra. Bivens. She uses this with her class and has links to other helpful resources that students could use. Seeing how my Spanish Education stopped in 1994, I leave it to you to navigate the page and explore the contents. Warning, it does have music that plays when you enter the page. I was rocking to Shakira. :-) http://srabivens.webs.com/

Here is another great collection from Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1). He has orgaized an entire directory with links for German, French, Chinese, and Spanish. He added the German section just for me and you. Please check out the rest of his blog for excellent resources. Since I'm not a master of these languages, please explore these sites and let me know what you think. If you find any that are helpful, let me know and I will give them a spot on the blog. Here is the page. http://cybraryman.com/foreign.html

Here is a blog post from What Ed Said that talks about making Foreign Language more engaging. It's a quick read with some very interesting ideas that may actually apply to other classes as well.

- Give it a try!