Tech Tuesday for January 21st

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! I have some cool things to share with you this week. I hope you have a moment to check them out. 

TEDxGrossePointeSouthHS

I am beyond excited to announce that Grosse Pointe South High School will be hosting a TEDx event June 7, 2014! As part of my students' 20 Time Projects, I worked on my own project to bring a TEDx event to South so my students could share their work on a world stage. More details will be shared as we move closer to the event, so stay tuned!

Here is my Cloud Tools survey for the book I am working on for Corwin Publishing. If you have a minute, please share what tools you use in the classroom so I might be able to feature some of the amazing things Grosse Pointe Teachers are doing. 

Photo Pin

Photo Pin is a great site that allows Bloggers to use images free of charge. Now, many of you might not be Bloggers, but you might be assigning more web based projects and this is a great tool to share with your students who are looking for picutres. Some of the pictures shown will say there is a charge, but there are many more that are free to use. It is never a bad thing to have extra search options when it comes to photos. 

Block Posters

Have you ever wanted to take a picutre and blow it up into a poster? Well, with Block Poster, you can do that with just a few clicks of the mouse. Block Poster is designed to allow a user to choose how many sheets of paper they would like their blown up poster to use. You can scan in student work and blow it up for your classroom or hallway. This would be a great way to surprise students and share their work with everyone. Once pieced together, the poster could be laminated and given to the student to take home. This looks like a great site to share with your students and parents. 

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.

Tech Tuesday for January 14

Welcome back everyone! We had some snow days added to our break and I hope everyone enjoyed their time off. I'm excited to share some cool things with you and ask you for a little favor if you have the time.

Seven Free Online Whiteboard Tools for Teachers and Students

Richard Byrne is great at finding and sharing amazing tools for educators to check out and possibly integrate into their classroom. His website, Free Technology for Teachers, is always a "go to" spot for me when I am looking for something new to check out for my classroom. 

In this post, Richard shares 7 great whiteboard tools that teachers and students can use to collaborate. If you have been looking for other tools to use with your Smartboard in your classroom, take a few minutes and check out what Richard has shared on his site. 

iPiccy

iPiccy is a free photo editing website. All of the touch-ups or photo editing you have wanted to do, but felt you couldn't because you didn't have Photoshop, can be done on iPiccy. 

Here is an example,

I'm not sure how often you will need to create a Tiger/Student hybrid for your class, but you could do it with iPiccy. I have used it for quick cropping and some added text for things on my website or slides for presentations.

You do not need extensive photo editing experience to figure out iPiccy. It will guide you along the way and you will become a photo editing guru in no time.  

Cloud Tool Survey

Before break, I signed on with Corwin Publishing to write educational technology books. My first endeavor is a book about Cloud Computing. As part of the book, I want to feature teachers that are using these tools to provide practical examples for other teachers to see how they are used in the classroom. 

I know there are many great things happening in this district and I would love to share them with the world in my book. If you have some time, please fill out this survey and share how you use Cloud Tools in your classroom. 

Thanks you so much for your time and have a great day! 

Tech Tuesday for December 17

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! I wanted to share a couple of cool tips and tricks regarding Edmodo. Some have started to use it, but might have hit a snag here or there. Here are some great places to start your Edmodo adventure or see what others are doing with Edmodo in their class.

10 Tips for Getting Started with Edmodo

Here is a nice blog post on the Edmodo website written by a teacher that used it his class. These are very short and simple tips on how to use Edmodo in your class to make your day to day life as a teacher a little bit easier. This is a great read for those that are looking to start using Edmodo in the second half of the school year.

15 Brilliant Ways to Use Edmodo

Here is another post by Edmodo on how to use their site with your classrooms. What I like most about this post is that it has people you can connect with after each suggestion. You might like the idea on the page, but you could still have questions. You can connect with the teachers listed and ask them how they do it in their classroom. The post is a few years old, but the ideas still work. I know of many teachers that are doing amazing things with Edmodo and swear but it in their classroom. The Edmodo team is also a great group of people that are very helpful. If you need help, ask for it through email or Twitter (@Edmodo) and they will get back to you.

20 Ways to Use Edmodo in the Classroom

20 Ways to Use Edmodo from seyfert6

Here is just one more resource on using Edmodo in your classroom that is worth checking out if you are really committed to using it or are looking for reasons why you should start.