Mind blown!

Life-long learners-it’s the goal of every teacher, every school and every district I’ve ever worked in… Technology is the key to motivating and inspiring students to become what we’ve always wanted them to become.  Although I’ve always thought of myself as a life-long learner, technology has created a new meaning of that term.  There is now so much to learn, we will never be able to take it all in.  HOWEVER:  we have some great teachers to help us tackle the world of technology-our students.  I witness my granddaughter, at the age of 18 months, tackling and learning how to operate an iPad and iPhone with ease.  She has NO FEAR of messing up.   That is an advantage in learning-an open mind without fear of messing things up.  It’s how I want to approach my life-long learning with technology. 

Students will eagerly embrace learning with technology.  They are more engaged, intrigued and involved when our lessons incorporate their world.  Their world is technology.  When I can present something new to them in the world of technology; their minds are blown!  So, I will make it my quest to continue to pursue technology to stay on the cutting edge. 

Coming up in January, my students will complete a research project on three colleges of their choice and look at future careers.  The assignment will be altered this year; the students will be working within Google Drive to access their work from school or home.  They’ll also use the Google Research to cite sources and build a works cited page with ease.  Google Book search will enable them to research multiple sources with no excuse of needing to go to the library or the book store – the resources are right at their fingertips!  The search tips will enable the students to find pertinent information quickly.  Technology is not only something to learn but a tool to enable us to learn better! 

My goal is to incorporate technology more, and to ask the students for their knowledge and expertise in this area.  If we are to be life-long learners and competent teachers – it is a must to continue to embrace technology. 

Here's a start-there are so many YouTube videos to get started. It's time for my students to begin investigate the things we've been delving into in our Master's Program!  

Twenty tips to get us started!

Pinterest Rocks! Say YES! to Social Media in your classroom!

I’ve been addicted to Pinterest for years now.  I can draw inspiration for art, teaching, and life from this one site that offers so much.  Before I discovered Pinterest, I was forever creating word documents in an attempt to keep great ideas in some format and then try to organize. TRY TO are the operate words of that sentence.  I needed the creators of Pinterest to give me a hand!  Now, I can tap into unlimited sources to teach any topic within the curriculum, find great gifts to create, garden with new ideas, find ways to refresh my closet-truly unlimited reasons to tap into this amazing website.  Get started with an email address and password.  It’s user friendly and you will get hooked immediately!  Join Pinterest!

Are you interested in social media in the classroom?  As for me-YES!!!!  Although there are a few disadvantages because students get distracted and can stumble across inappropriate content, the world is at the fingertips of our students if we can open our minds enough to allow them to explore and become engaged in connecting with the right people for the right reasons.  There are safe sites like Edmodo or Google Classroom to engage younger students in and hopefully allow them to expand to other social media sites as they mature.  This is an opportunity to provide rigorous, real-world, unpredictable problems for our students in a way that is very relevant to them.  There are some great articles to review if my opinion isn’t enough to persuade you.  Check out Pros and Cons of Social Media or The pros and cons of social media classrooms to read opinions of both the pros and the cons of social media in the classroom. 

Social media is the way kids and many adults function in today’s society.  It’s our responsibility as educators to teach the way students learn, not make them learn the way we teach.  

                                     

There's no end to the possibilities of ...  

Google forms, add-ons and templates offer the educator many conveniences to make their lives easier.  Spending time exploring to find a few to utilize is key because there are so many - there's no possible way to use them all.  This week, I will highlight a few I found this week to use in my own classroom.  I'm excited about the additions of these new-to-me features!  

First of all, let me introduce Flubaroo.  This is a wonderful add-on from Google documents and spreadsheets to assist teachers in grading.  After the first year of transferring tests to Flubaroo-this will save countless hours of time.  The program grades the tests for you and reports the grades to you.  It averages and gives information useful is helping us use data to drive the curriculum.  Great for formative as well as summative assessments.  View this short overview and add Flubaroo to the top of your list to use!  

Google also has add-ons-there are so many - there's something for everyone!  I've added another video and hopefully you will be curious enough to discover what's available.  A few I'm excited about...Easy Bib, Thesaurus and Pro Copy and Editing Quote.  There are so many options;  it's also very easy to use and will save educators more time once added and used! 

The templates available from Google are also amazing.  Risking sounding redundant-there are so many, everyone can benefit from exploring the options.  This school year, I am going to have my students use a resume template as part of our career unit, they will also use a scrap-booking template to illustrative a narrative story and also I will use a rubric template to create professional looking rubrics for projects, assignments and essays with ease.  Peruse this article to find a few you find valuable.  Google Template Gallery is a great place to look at a few to get you started.  Also, you can use this link to peruse even more.  Happy Hunting-you may discover something even better than a

Thanksgiving turkey if you look hard enough!  

Diigo is an answer to prayer for this right-brain, random-abstract, creative-not organized teacher!  I've tried keeping a notebook list of websites I love, bookmarked way too many to keep track of and even made little business cards with hole punches to a binder clip to flip through. Much to no-one's surprise...none of those really helped.  Diigo has me hopeful that I can not only save useful websites but categorize them and search for them later to actually use!!  It even has the option to collect websites to share with your students or co-workers.  There are numerous options to explore.  Diigo
Here's an article to read to illustrate the usefulness-Using Diigo in the Classroom  and a video to help you get started:

Another organizational tool I like is Remind.  It's a safe way to communicate with students and let them know of a test coming up, a special day to dress up for, or a project's due date.  The website takes care of the texting so you don't have to give out your cell number to the students.  iTunes Preview of Remind

Thought Boxes is the last organizational tool I'll focus on tonight...  it's like a web-based to-do list that is a bit more creative.  Thought Boxes article will enlighten you to the benefits of the website.  I'm eager to give this tool a try as it mixes organization with a little bit of creativity.  Sounds like a win-win to me!

I'm continuously amazed at how much technology offers to us if only we take the time to pursue.  It's in the attitude of progress that I've made a promise to myself to be a life-long learner, be a 21st century and use technology as much as possible and meet the students where they best learn.  Continuing to explore what the internet has to offer is the best way to be the life-long learner I want to be.

Edmodo!!!!

Edmodo is by far one of the places I visit on the internet most often.  To begin- a quick YouTube video to explain the basics.

Not David Letterman, but Anna Mitchell's Top Ten Reasons to LOVE Edmodo:

1. All resources for class in one place-no more paper shuffle
2. Students who are sick can still access the day's activities
3. Saves copies because students can easily view what they need on their computer screen and print only what they feel they need.
4. When students have questions at home-Edmodo allows them to ask their classmates or teachers the questions and they don't get stuck.  This makes it much easier to get their homework done!
5. Quizzes and assignments can be created, graded and the results posted for the teacher's convenience!
6. Documentation so no parent can say their student didn't know of an assignment, paper or due date!
7. Connecting with other teachers is as easy as setting up your own classes.
8. Teachers can share resources quickly and painlessly.
9. There are PLNs within Edmodo to find many resources from teachers around the country who like to share and network.
10. A text at 11 o'clock at night lets me know my kids are working!!!!

All it takes to get started is an email and a password.  Edmodo-give it a try!

Technology is truly an amazing gift if we just open it!  This week's topics are PLNs and Twitter. It was my first time to explore either and I'm amazed at the vast resources these two topics offer.

First of all, when PLN popped up as an assignment-I flipped through the rolodex in my brain and couldn't come up with a match.  Although, I'd actually used one, I didn't know the acronym or the name of this category.  The other piece of Personal Learning Networks that surprised me were the many PLNs available.  I could sit and home and learn all day!

Since I realize none of us can go overboard on the Professional Learning Networks, I am going to focus on learning more about Edmodo.  I use it with my students and their parents but feel I'm only accessing the tip of iceberg compared to the possibilities it offers.  It's like Facebook you set up with your classes.  It makes absences easier to deal with, it can help you organize your lessons, and allows students to ask questions while they're working on their homework.  I get texts from Edmodo, not the student, and can get on my phone app to answer their questions.  It benefits everyone involved.  

The PLN I just discovered and am very excited about is the English Companion.  There's so many topics to learn about, resources offered, a place where teachers of English can connect and brainstorm or ask one another questions.  As a fairly new Language Arts Teacher, I'm thrilled to tap into this new resource!  I'm equally excited about expanding my learning about Goodreads.  It's a great place to find books to interest everyone!  Books have been reviewed by others, quotes of great books available at your fingertips, and an authentic audience waiting for students.  My classroom is getting more techy all the time!

Full confession:  I have avoided Twitter for years.  I've been on Facebook for years and love it.  I've connected to students from 25 years ago, friends from high school and college, family and learn about new friends.  Other social networks just seemed unnecessary and overwhelming.  Much to my surprise,Twitter is amazing!  I was shocked at the ease and user-friendliness of the network.  I had NO idea it was a wealth of information and a hot spot for resources!  Resources I will be using this week in class and I'll be trolling Twitter and finding resources for years to come!  My favorite searches thus far:  #engchat, #edutopia, #teachertoolkit and #tlap.  Seriously, CHECK IT OUT!  

The biggest problem I foresee with all this technology is time.  I want to explore, download and plan exciting new lessons-teaching school is really going to get in my way!

Blogs, blogs and more blogs!

So many options, so little time!!  Before this week, I hadn't spent too much time looking at blogs.  WOW!!!  My thought now-why buy another magazine??  My focus this week was educational blogs but I am certain there are blogs about EVERYTHING you can imagine and eventually, I'll look into those blogs as well.

My favorite blog is Edutopia.  A wealth of current information about all things educational.  There are videos for inspiration and teaching activities and ideas as well.  The articles chosen are timely and intriguing.  I actually follow Edutopia on Facebook and seemingly always feel the need to go explore whichever article they post.  The other blogs I found interesting were The Tech Savvy Educator, The Thinking Stick and The Innovative Educator.  There are many, many ideas and articles of interest on this blogs.

As I reflect on my learning of blogs, I want to incorporate blogging into my classroom.  Kids are naturally tech savvy and spend a lot of their time in front of a screen so perhaps, as educators, we should ask them to write in their most comfortable venue.  I may start this project with this YouTube video:

Go ahead-explore some blogs and have a little fun with it!!! Here's a few to get you started- The 100 Best, Most Interesting Blogs and Websites!!

Creating your own Google Site...

Creating my own Google Site was challenging for me because of a hard week of a tummy ache.  It's hard to focus when your body is hurting but...I persevered and my site is up and running.  There was a benefit to the process while I wasn't feeling good.  It was a great lesson for perspective when my students are having a difficult time while they are struggling with illnesses, are too busy with activities or having a tough time emotionally.  Although I can empathize with them, I can also talk to them about the characteristic of perseverance.  Speaking from experience, I can tell them life can be tough but it's about rising above it and being tougher!

With that said, the project of creating a Google Site is the topic for the week.  My site has many things my students will need for the upcoming units of study in 8th grade language arts.  There are links to many documents, websites, YouTube videos, Google Earth Tours, a Picasa album of my current students as 4th graders, a survey on bullying, projects that are finished as well as upcoming presentations.  It's like an all in one organization of things we all need to cruise along in Language Arts.  Check it out!  8th Grade Language Arts

Of course, because I teach the advanced language arts students, my ideas are geared towards having my students creating sites as assignments for future projects.  With the use of technology, student motivation always increases.  I see a collaborative effort to have groups create sites about the Holocaust to share with their classmates and parents.  To get them started, I'll have them watch the following YouTube video.

The students will probably find it easier to just build.  It seems they just 'get' technology easily but for those students who need it, I'll provide videos and assistance at each step.  I'm looking forward to seeing the projects the students come up with-their brilliance and skills never cease to amaze me.

This technologist in training will continue training and incorporating all I learn into my classroom-my students will be better in technology and more prepared for the real world.

Bells and Whistles

There are so many aspects of Google-this week was so much fun!

Picasa is a free download to organize, edit, play with and share photos.  It's user friendly and so much fun!  Photography is one of my hobbies so this was like taking a kid to the playground to frolic through the many features of Picasa.  I've spent many hours playing with pictures of my beautiful granddaughter, Avyana.  Here's a photo to share her beauty with the world.

I hadn't previously understood how easy it was to share photos with others through Picasa and Google.  Now, I can share with my daughter, my extended family and my friends when I want to share pics of Avy!  Also, I'm excited about the potential to incorporate the features and share knowledge of this awesome program with my students.  We use photography in several projects and this will take the confusion out of submitting photos for A Day in the Life of an AMS 8th Grader, Photo Essay of the Genres of Literature, and The Playlist of My Life.  There were times in the past that turning the actual photos digitally was the most difficult aspect of the project.  Here's my photo folder to check out pictures of another hobby of mine-gardening.  To learn about Picasa-check this out! 

And for some instructions on how to share your photos-click here.

YouTube also has a lot of cool features I wasn't aware of until I looked into it this week.  WOW!  Entertaining, educational, and easy to use-You Tube could easily be a teacher's best friend.  There are two features I learned about to make You Tube a little less of a monster to maneuver through and less distracting than the old search and find method of my past.  

The first feature I'd like to discuss is Quiet Tube.  This actually creates a page that will play only the video without all the comments at the bottom of the page.  I use You Tube to introduce some controversial topics to get kids thinking-those distracting comments can ruin that plan very quickly! 

(If only we could get rid of the advertisements as well!)  I was thrilled to learn about Quiet Tube! Here's a really quick video to explain the benefits and how to use it:

Also making the cut for this week's blog is the Tubesnack website that allows you to work within YouTube.  Tubesnack allows you to collect and organize your videos for class.  I created a playlist to organize all the grammar and punctuation rules from 8th grade language arts standards.  In the future, I will probably keep the play list to 5-6 videos but I have a monster of a playlist to pull out and show any time I need some reinforcement on a certain rule.  Love knowing how to create them-it was so simple to create.  I know it will be a feature I use a lot in the future.  Check out my playlist here. 

I'm becoming so techy-my students might think I'm one of them!  Honestly, I wouldn't want that but I do truly love learning all of the cool features Google has to offer!

Google Tour Builder-Mind Blown!

Adventures in technology are much more exciting than I originally thought possible!  This week's adventures truly blew my mind!  I had to incorporate some of the adventures into my teaching because I just had to share!!!

Google Earth is an amazing program that lets you drill down to visit anywhere on earth and virtually see places up close and personal!  It's a virtual globe that gives access to anyone who will download the program to see satellite pictures, street views, and even 3D views of anywhere in the world, on the moon and on Mars!  It's almost too cool to be true!  Although everyone loves to go see their own houses, the potential for this tool is huge for individuals and educators!  Download the program and go have some mind blowing fun!  CHECK IT OUT!  And, for those who would rather watch a video...

I know what you're thinking, there has to be a limit to how amazing technology can be...but, there's more.  Google Earth extended itself and created an addition to create more amazing things in the world of virtual travel:  Google Tour Builder is an absolutely wonderful addition to Google Earth. Hoping to spread the excitement I am feeling, I'm providing a link to an educator's blog with a tour of the Donner party.  It will just give you a glimpse of the potential Google Tour Builder has for educators.  Mrs. Mooney's Teaching World

To get started, think of a story you would like to tell.  Next, check out the 5 cool things to do with Google Tour Builder.  It's very user friendly and will lead you step by step to creating your own tour.  I chose to create my tour about a book I helped a survivor of the holocaust write.  This was a fun project to complete and so easy to do!

My tour takes you on the journey Stan Kijowski, a holocaust survivor traveled while running from the Nazis and Russian soldiers.  Surviving the Holocaust.  After I am finished taking classes for my Master's Degree, I plan on writing a series of books based on letters my great-great grandfather wrote to his mother when he immigrated to America in the late 1800's.  The series will be called, Feather and Ink and believe me-there will be an extensive Google Tour to accompany the books!  The journey begins as he leaves his home in Germany, takes him across the ocean, travels through the United States until he settled in Kansas.  I can't wait to create the tour and show my Mom!!!  

I hope you catch the excitement and create your own tour!!

And Google just keeps on going....

Another week of learning some new things Google can do for me!  I'd often heard people discuss Google Tools but until you sit in the driver's seat and really explore-it's truly unfathomable.

Google Calendar is a one-stop shop for becoming organized and staying on top of things.  Combining my school calendar with the assistant-principal's calendar, the principal's calendar and my personal calendar-I can be assured I'm not going to miss anything important.  Setting your calendar up to send texts as reminders is almost so cool it's surreal!  The possibilities are many to incorporate other events from your Google Mail account.  To get a quick look at the power of combining Google Mail and Google Calendar click here.

Another cool tool(yes, I enjoyed the rhyme), is Google Story.  I enjoyed learning how to create a story and share it with the world.  The possibilities to use this with students is endless!  After tapping in to a few other peoples' ideas, my students will be creating Google Stories for parent-teacher conferences.  The characters will be themselves, their folks and me.  They've already created smart goals so now I'm going to challenge them to take it to a new level.  On Google Story, they will create the dialogue they foresee as they tell their parents what goals they've set.  I think it will be the bright spot during parent-teacher conferences!  To learn how to use it click here. Or, if you want to dig in and just play with creating one try this.

Google is amazing.  I'm astonished to discover everything within this amazing website,  If you are curious about how big Google really is and what the future may hold; watch this video-prepare to have your mind blown!

Take a spin with GoogleDrive!

Google Drive has so many benefits, it is difficult to choose even a few of the most important ones. It gives you all the same features of Microsoft but it's web-based. Within the website, there are places to create and save documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, and drawings. It also allows you to create folders and become more organized than previously imaginable! Auto-saving will help anyone like me who struggles to remember to do that when it matters most. Google has created and continues to improve upon some tough competition for Microsoft plus Drop Box and other online storage systems. Working within Google Drive as a norm will enable me to work from home or school without dragging my work computer home. The only limitations might fall in the area of the presentation. It doesn't seem to be as user-friendly as Power Point. However, I will have to give it more time and get some experience before I make that a final opinion. Also, it is imperative to remember to name files within Google Drive or it will become unmanageable. Google Docs is amazing and maybe one of my favorites because more than one person can edit so it becomes a great way to collaborate. The possibilities are spinning around in my head for future projects and having students work with others who aren't in their block. It would be an interesting test and seems to be a real-world unpredictable problem for them to tackle. The Google Classroom looks amazing as well. I currently use Edmodo but am going to try a couple of assignments in Google Classroom because each student in our school has a Google Mail account. It seems like the connections will be stronger. Like I said before, there are too many amazing features to pick just a few. Check out this YouTube video to get started and explore-prepare to be amazed!

I am thrilled to have learned how to create a custom search.  With Career and College Readiness Standards, there have been a lot of discussion about relevance.  This new skill is not only relevant to my teaching, it's also timely.  My students will be researching the attacks of 9/11 this week.  My custom search is EXACTLY what I needed to assist them and be assured that they were on task and getting good information.  There are times when I set a group of twenty-eight 8th graders loose on a quest on the internet and do my circling around the room to monitor if they are truly researching but know there are sites I don't really want them to access.  This feature allows my students to search inside the websites I have reviewed and know to be safe.  It makes me happy, makes the tech department happy and I have to think the students will be happy to have one step of the process already complete!  To try out my search engine, type in any question you may have about the official reports or the conspiracy theory of 9/11.  Look in the next post to see if the students were happy about this feature!  

Google mania has begun in my head!  Who knew there were sooo many cool tricks within this monster of a search engine/website/social network.  I want to know all of the bells and whistles well so I can be super-effective with my time and in my teaching.  With that said, I realize if I can learn and incorporate a few things into my working knowledge each week, I will be gaining.  And, I know where to come back to learn and incorporate more later!

The features that gave me the AHA! moments this week were many...learning how to search was eye-opening!  There are so many ways that Google has made this feature user-friendly!  With the know-how, the information one can glean is unlimited!  With just a few words, it is possible to have information concerning movies, weather, sports scores, restaurants serving a favorite type of food-unbelievable! Also, searching for a certain file type will be very useful when it comes to create lesson plans or presentations in the classroom.  Google books searches,searching by reading level and narrowing down searching to only one site are all easy ways to incorporate technology into my classroom on a daily basis.  To learn how to search in many different ways, click here.here.

Within Google mail, there are some amazing features too.  Chatting with others who are online could be quite helpful to communicate with co-workers who are across the building and schedules never allow time to meet face to face.  Setting up a calendar on Google that allows dates and events to be loaded into the calendar with just a click is an amazing feature to keep all important events in one place.  Creating a custom inbox and prioritizing the emails coming in will also help with time management.  I wanted to sing, "Hallelujah!" when I learned about the undo sent email feature as well as the notification that an email was sent to the wrong person.  Lifesaving features when we get too busy and need someone to have our backs-Google is it!  Here's a video to illustrate many of the amazing features inside Google Mail.

Google is trying to make even the most random of us organized and efficient!

Google Chrome

Google Chrome has made my life a little easier as an educator-and that's even before I knew much about it.  I teach 8th Grade Advanced Language Arts and my students are constantly giving me technology tips.  One of those tips last year was to always use Google Chrome.  I installed it and have loved it but wasn't using it to it's fullest potential-at all!  I loved the ease of navigation with multiple open tabs, I loved that it remembered where I visited frequently and I loved that it would remember my passwords for me when I wanted it to.  Little did I know ALL this browser could do for me.  

The little things(that will make a big difference) that I learned about in this first week of class, I've already started to use.  Pinning tabs to use less 'real-estate, opening more than one page at start-up and creating short cuts on the desk top have all been wonderful to use already.   I am anxious to try the other tips as well.  The Google-dashboard has promise for me as does searching web pages for key words similar to a word processor to make searching a bit easier.  Who knew the omni bar could do math or that it was called an omni bar???  I'm ready to move from a technologist in training to a technologist but I realize there will always be more to learn.  Google is an every-changing, vastly growing entity.  A name that became a common place verb, "Google it!"  

          If you haven't had the chance to check out Google Chrome, visit this link, download the                       software and get started!  https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95346?hl=en


         And, if I'm not enough to convince you-check out this video to further tell you of the wonders              of Chrome!