Tech Tuesday for October 22

Happy Tuesday everyone. I have a couple of quick tech tools to share with you that can make your life just a little bit easier.

TubeChop

 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.

Times Machine

This could be such a fun tool in class. Times Machine is a full collection of the New York Times dating back to 1851. Students can research any date they want and share their findings with the class. Important events in history could be discussed by reading the newspaper itself. Students could research events that happened on their birthday and compare them with others. Classes could review the difference in print ads from various decades and create their own. There are so many possibilities for this site in the classroom it would be a waste not to take a look around. You need to be a subscriber to the print edition to gain access to the papers. Talk to Courtney about our NYT subscription to see about access.

Tech Tuesday for October 15

Happy Tech Tuesday everyone! I have some great things to share with you this week. Now that the school year has settled down a bit, I will get back to sharing on a more regular schedule. If you ever need help with specific tech tools, feel free to contact me and I will do my best to find a time to meet with you and lend a hand.

Crash Course

I was very lucky to get to hang out at YouTube's offices last week and talk education and technology to some really great people. YouTube is trying to create more videos that can help students and teachers deal with complicated topics. There were some great content creators at this meeting and I was excited to share some of the wonderful resources you might want to use in class, post on your website or share with your students.

Crash Course is just one of many great YouTube sites dedicated to helping explain complex topics. Crash Course has a Playlist that focuses on Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, World History, US History and Literature. They approach these topics in a fun and interesting way that some of your students are already using to help them with their work. Here is an example of a Chemistry video by Crash Course.

I think this is a great resource for teachers looking to spice up their class or website with helpful videos. I will be sharing more YouTubeEDU channels over the next few months that can be used to help the amazing things you already do in your classroom. Stay tunes!

Google Apps Tips

I wanted to share another quick site that can help you explore the use of Google Apps. This site offers tips on how to use Google Docs, GMail, Calendar and Chrome. If you have wanted to use Google more in your classroom, this is a great site to help you understand the different elements. 

Tech Tuesday for September 10

Welcome back everyone! I hope the start of the year has been as smooth as possible for everyone. Like most summers, I spent my time traveling the country going to some great conferences where I met some awesome people and learned a few new tools I am excited to share with you. As you unofficial tech guy, I happy to help South Teachers with any and all of your tech related needs. The best advice I can give you is to choose one tool to learn for the semester and go from there. If you have questions about what tools you should consider, please send me an email. I'm free 6th and 7th hour and can help you after school by appointment. I look forward to working with all of you this year at the best high school in the state.

Remind 101

There are some other teachers already using Remind 101 this year, so I'm excited to share it with the rest of the staff. Remind 101 is a way for teachers to send mass text messages to students without ever having access to the student's phone number and without the students having access to the teacher's phone number. This is a  great FREE tool for teachers to send reminders to students about upcoming tests, projects, field trips, etc. Students text a special code you create to a designated number and they are in the group. From the Remind 101 app or the website, you can send texts to each class whenever you want to. The nice part of Remind 101 is that it does NOT act like group messaging. Students cannot respond to the text. It is one-way communication for the teacher to reach the students. Here is a video on how to sign up and get started.

Here are 50 Ways to Use Remind101 from Pintrest. 

I think this tool is great for the classroom, but even better for clubs and sports. It is a wonderful way to share information quickly and send friendly reminders. If you have any questions about Remind101, please let me know. 

Lastly, I want to share what I think is the best reasons to invest in technology in your classroom. Below is a Keynote from ISTE given by my friend Adam Bellow. He understands why we need tech and it has much more to do than getting shiny new tools. Please take the time and watch this video. This will fire you up if you want to do some amazing things in the classroom this year. 

Have a great year and give it a try!

Nick