Technology Gems, Ideas, and Facts
for Friday, May 29, 2009
Gem ~ a website or application that might work well for you or your students…
Animoto is a site that turns ordinary slides shows into engaging videos. Sign up for a free account (all you need is an email address) and you can create 30-second videos with images and sounds. Krista Rosensteel used Animoto to have her 8th graders create digital stories of individuals from the Civil War. You can use music from the site or upload your own (keeping copyright in mind). Krista’s students created soundtracks with narration and music in GarageBand and then uploaded them for their finished videos. You arrange the order of your images and then Animoto designs the look and feel. If you want more features and longer videos, there is a fee-based service as well. Animoto won’t take the place of Movie Maker or iMovie for longer projects, but for short, image-rich projects this is an easy way to allow students to present what they’ve learned. (http://animoto.com/)
Idea ~ a way to enhance your LFS lessons with technology…
Graphing may seem to be an activity limited to Math classes, but there are many opportunities to uses graphs across the curriculum. Create A Graph is an easy way to make all kinds of graphs online. Finished graphs can be printed from the site or saved as jpgs or pdfs. This is a quick and easy way for students of all ages to show data in a variety of ways. (http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createAgraph/)
Fact ~ just a bit of information…
Just another reminder to be sure to save all of your important files to the network before leaving for the summer. Beth Bard has directions for doing these backups here, but as always, just let us know if you need help. (https://weblog.mbgsd.org/weblog/bbard/)
You can now register on the 48 Carats site for the summer technology sessions. If you haven’t used 48 Carats before, email Dianne McGowan (dmcgowan@mbgsd.org) and she’ll get you started. These sessions are open to everyone who works with students…teachers, instructional assistants, library aides, etc. Hope to see you there!
The Summer Technology Professional Development sessions are now available on the 48 Carats site. Please visit the site to register. If you’ve never used 48 Carats before and are not sure if you’re enrolled, email Dianne McGowan (dmcgowan@mbgsd.org) and she’ll get you started. Many of our sessions are being offered on two different dates, so please be careful when you register that you choose the correct one.
If you’re registering for Creating and Maintaining a Schoolwires Webpage you’ll need to have a Schoolwires account. For Getting the Most Out of DE Streaming, you’ll need a DE Streaming (Unitedstreaming) account. We’ll need to be sure you have those accounts set up prior to the sessions. Please email me (areardon@mbgsd.org) when you register for either one of those sessions if you are not sure you have an account or if you think you have one but you’ve lost or forgotten your login information.
I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at these sessions this the summer!
Technology Gems, Ideas, and Facts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Gem ~ a website or application that might work well for you or your students…
Unless you only teach the seniors (and I live with one, so my sympathies to those of you who have had to deal with them for the past few weeks!) you’ve got about nine more days with your students this year. Looking for some websites to send them off with that will keep their brains engaged over the summer without feeling too much like work? The Best Collections of Online Educational Games is a great source for entertaining and educational activities for students of all ages. The collections were compiled by recognized Ed Tech leader Larry Ferlazzo. Use this site yourself to find some interesting activities for these last two weeks of school or send the link home for some engaging summer fun. (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/05/21/the-best-collections-of-online-educational-games/)
Idea ~ a way to enhance your LFS lessons with technology…
Webquests can be a great way to extend and refine your students’ thinking about a topic and can also serve as a great culminating activity for a unit. A webquest allows students to use the Internet to find information, but also requires them to do something with that information. Webquests can be done individually or in groups and can be designed for any subject area or grade level. You can search for existing webquests here or here or create your own. If you’d like to learn more, Krista Rosensteel will be doing a Summer Tech Tuesday session about using and creating webquests on July 21st. (http://webquest.org/index.php)
Fact ~ just a bit of information…
This is an important notice to all teachers who have a MASD Weblog account. Due to issues with that server, this summer Todd will be moving all content from the weblogs to our new blog server. The new blogs have many more features and will still allow you to post audio and video podcasts as well as other files. If you have a weblog account and would like your current content to be moved to the new blog site, please email Todd Ritter (tritter@mbgsd.org) by the end of the day on June 5th. If he does not hear from you, he will assume that you are not interested in keeping anything on your weblog page.
If it has been a while since you’ve visited your weblog and you’re not sure what’s there, go to https://weblog.mbgsd.org/weblog/. Find your name and click on it to see what you have there. If you want to keep some entries but not others, you can delete the ones you don’t want. Login to your account by clicking on the “login” link on the page and using your usual MASD network login. Under each entry you will find a Delete link. By deleting any files you no longer want, you’ll save Todd from having to move them. If you need any help with this or have any questions, just let me know.
Don’t forget…keep an eye on the 48 Carats site to register for the summer technology sessions. For instructional assistants, if you haven’t used 48 Carats before, email Dianne McGowan (dmcgowan@mbgsd.org) and she’ll get you started.