Tech Tool of the Week 2: Storia

Since our first Tech Tool of the Week is a Chinese app, here is a similar tool that is appropriate for our English classes.  Storia is a new iPad app that is designed for reading Scholastic eBooks on iPads, Android tablets, or Windows computers.  The app is free and comes with five free eBooks.  Beyond that, teachers (or parents) can purchase from a wide selection of books appropriate to a variety of different age levels.  Scholastic is continuously expanding their library of eBooks, so more and more titles will become available over time.


The eBooks include audio narration, pronunciation tools, and phonics and vocabulary activities.  Older readers can highlight, take notes, and watch videos that provide real-world context for book topics.  Scholastic also offers a series of "Enriched eBooks" which feature word games, story interactions, and animations.


This is a great app to recommend to parents who are looking for educational iPad apps for their children to use at home!  While Storia is not currently installed on our classroom sets of iPads, we would be happy to install it if teachers are interested in using it in their classes.

Tech Tool of the Week 1: ChildRoad for iPads!

Many of our Chinese faculty are already familiar with ChildRoad, a website that offers over 1,000 books read in Mandarin by professional actors and television hosts in China, with characters and Pinyin for reading along.  ChildRoad has now released an iPad app featuring all of the books from its website!  This app is newly installed on our Lower School and Middle School iPads.  Now Chinese faculty who are interested can borrow the iPad carts and allow children to read and listen to ChildRoad stories on the iPads.  Please feel free to spread the word to parents who may like to download this app on their personal iPads for children to use at home.

Summer Workshops on Teaching with Technology

There are a number of exciting opportunities for technology professional development that are happening this summer.  We would really like to support technology professional development for teachers, so if any of these workshops sound interesting to you, we encourage you to attend!  Please contact me if you have any questions.

1) Harker Teacher Institute

Registration is now open for Harker’s Annual Teacher Institute!

The Harker School (in San Jose) has again partnered with SVCUE (Silicon Valley Computer Using Educators) to host our annual Teacher Institute on Saturday, June 9th at Harker’s Upper School campus from 9:00 AM to 2:45 PM.  The $20 registration fee includes three sessions, lunch and a 2G flash drive!  Click here for a list of workshop topics.

Go to the following web page to register securely:
http://tinyurl.com/HarkerInstitute

2) Back for an amazing THIRD year: The CUE (Computer Using Educators) Rock Star Teacher Camps!!

Small class sizes: 6+ Lead Learners and a cap of 60 attendees! • Amazing Lead Learners, almost all of them are Apple Distinguished Educators, Google Certified Teachers or BOTH • THREE FULL DAYS of hands on sessions • Price includes light breakfast, lunch, beverages and ice cream • Only $159 for all three days* • Morning "Shred Sessions" where you get a LIVE DEMO by each presenter! Join and change the way you teach!

Who Should Attend?

The CUE Rock Star camps are focused on developing teachers who want to join a larger group of Ed Tech oriented educators that want to "step up", either designing and executing better styles of teaching and learning, or who desire to become presenters and advocates for the use of Educational Technology.

Rock Star Teacher Summer Tech Camp - Central Coast: July 11-13, Santa Ynez School, Santa Ynez, CA

Rock Star Teacher Summer Tech Camp - Minarets High School: August 7-9, Minarets High School, O'Neals, CA

Click Here to Register    Twitter hashtag: #cuerockstar
This camp has sold out both years - sign up NOW - RockStarTeacher.US
Questions? Email Jon Corippo - jcorippo@gmail.com

3) Head-Royce: Institute for 21st Century Educators

http://www.headroyce.org/page.cfm?p=2224
Session I: June 12-15
Session II: June 25-29
One- and two-day workshops in a variety of topics, held at Head-Royce School in Oakland.

4) Nueva School: Design Thinking Institute

http://www.nuevadesigninstitute.org/

June 18-21, 2012

Learn design thinking skills and check out Nueva's super cool Innovation Lab.  Nueva is located in Hillsborough (about a 20-minute drive from San Francisco).

5) The Urban School: Center for Innovative Teaching

June 18-22 (San Francisco) and August 13-17 (New York)

The Center for Innovative Teaching 2012 at the Urban School of San Francisco offers educators its seventh annual program with workshops in key academic, leadership and co-curricular areas. CIT workshops are hands-on and designed to share classroom-tested activities and approaches that will enhance the educational program at any middle or high school.

This summer, CIT workshops are available for a range of disciplines including Math, Science, Language, Leadership/Co-Curricular, Technology & Pedagogy, and Service Learning and will take place in San Francisco and New York. 

6) Google Apps for Education California Summit

If you're interested in Google Apps for Education, this is the first annual Google Apps for Education California Summit to be held at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara on July 12 & 13, 2012. This high intensity two day event focuses on deploying, integrating and using Google Apps for Education to promote student learning in K-12 and higher education. The program features Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, practicing administrators, solution providers, Google engineers, and representatives from the Google Apps for Education team.

For more info or to register, go to http://ca.gafesummit.com/

Tech Tool of the Week: Educreations

This week's highlighted technology tool is an iPad app called Educreations.  This app makes it easy to create, narrate, and record whiteboard video tutorials on the iPad and share your videos with others.


You can find Educreations in the Photo/Video folder on the CAIS iPads.  When you start the app, you will see a blank screen that looks like a whiteboard.  There are ten ink colors you can use for writing.  When you are ready, press the record button.  Begin to write/draw and speak.  Everything you write and say will be recorded into a video.  You can pause while recording if you need a break, then start recording again to continue.  If you run out of space on the page, simply tap the arrow to go to a new page.


One great feature of this app is that you can put a photo or diagram in the background. To do this, click on the image of a photo. You can add images from the iPad camera, the Photo Library, or Dropbox.  You can also move and resize images while you record. 


Prefer to make your video on your computer instead of an iPad?  No problem!  You can create video tutorials on Educreation's website.  Simply set up a free account.


Educreations hosts the videos themselves on educreations.com.  Teachers using the site can choose to share videos privately or make them public so that anyone can see them.  (You can also embed the videos into your class website!)


Educreations is a great tool for creating videos that your students can view at home.  Kids could use your videos for extra practice or even to learn a new concept!  For example, this could be a perfect way to illustrate stroke order or explain a math skill.  Consider saving valuable classroom time by creating videos and having students watch at home!


Here are two examples of Educreations videos made right here at CAIS! The first was created by Kui Lao Shi. Her video explains fraction multiplication.  The second is a basic algebra word problem by 4th grader Hannah F.