Tech Tuesday for February 4

Happy Tuesday everyone. I have a couple of goodies to pass your way this week. Take a look and give them a try. As always, feel free to drop me a line if you have something you want to share with me or a question to ask. Have a great day!

DragonTape

DragonTape is a cool program that allows you to make mix-tapes of YouTube videos. You can select the videos you want, edit them together and play them on one continuous loop. This is perfect for the teachers that like to show multiple clips for class instruction. Instead of bouncing from one video to the next and having all of that load time, you can put all of the videos together and hit play and pause as you need. You are given one link for all of the videos and you can share that however you want.
When you are done, you can embed the mix on your website and share through social media. This is great for sharing videos that students might have missed in one spot on a website instead of having them bounce through different videos. There is even an app on iTunes if you want to mix on the go.

Here is a mix I made of my favorite SoulPancake videos guaranteed to make you smile and possibly shed a tear. (If the video is not playing, click the link to check it out.)

Random Name Picker

Here is a simple tool that adds a little pizazz to selecting students for various things in the classroom. This is a free tool that allows you to enter the names of your students and spin the wheel. When the wheel stops, the student's name appears and they have been selected. What is nice about this tool is that it gives the teacher and option to remove the name after they have been chosen. This eliminates the chance of the student being called on more than once if that is a concern. What is neat, is that this spinner can be placed on a website for future uses. You can create it once, embed it, and come back to it when you need it on your own website. It's a little tool that can make some tasks in class a bit more fun. 

Happy Tech Tuesday February 28

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone. Here are some goodies I wanted to share with you this week.

Edcamp Detroit

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. Act now because there are only 93 tickets left!

We have worked very hard to get even more sponsors and predict that space will fill up fast, so be sure to lock down your spot as soon as possible. Like last year, this conference will be free for all who attend and we will be looking to live stream many of the sessions for those who cannot make it in person but want to watch at home. I have been to 3 different EdCamps and I have to say it has been one of the best learning experiences I have been part of. There were many GPPSS teachers there sharing and learning with teachers from all over the state. I hope to see them and many new faces at EdCamp Detroit 2012!

GPPSTechGuide

On the right side of the page you will see that I have replaced the @MrProvenzano Twitter feed with a new @GPPSTechGuide Twitter Feed. This feed will be dedicated to sharing resources that come across my twitter feed. I encourage you to join Twitter and follow the new account so you can see some great sites I find. Now, everyday could be Tech Tuesday. It's a dream come true for many of you. :-)

Flisti

Flisti is a quick and easy polling/survey creating site. It's free and doesn't not require sign up or registration. You enter in your question, provide some answer options and create the poll. The poll can be embedded into a webpage. If you are looking for somethign simple to add to your SchoolWires site for parent or students to use for feedback, this is a great option.

Video Creation Tools

Tech Genius Richard Byrne has a blog, Free Technology for Teachers, that is always filled with awesomness. I'm not sure how I mised this great part of his site, but I just noticed it the other day. He has a whole page dedicated to video creation. He covers some great tools and have some videos on how to use YouTube and other services to great awesome videos for your classroom. If you have been considering introducing more video into your classroom, you must check out this page. If video is not your thing, just check out Richard's blog. It is amazing and has something for everyone.

I hope everyone has a great week. Do not forget that I have pages at the top of the blog dedicted to Dropbox, Social Media and other goodies. Check them out.

- Give it a try!

-NP

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!

I Need My Teacher To Learn

Some people might think that this song might be a bit cheesy, but I think the message is important. Thanks to @xmath2007 for sharing this on Twitter.




Here is the link if you cannot watch the video above.