This week's highlighted technology tool is Wordle. Wordle is a fun, free website that allows you to create a "word cloud" using text that you provide. Simply write or paste a paragraph of text in the word box. Then select "Go" and watch your word cloud form! You can customize your cloud by choosing the color scheme, font, and direction of word placement. In addition, you can click "randomize" to allow Wordle to create a different word cloud using the same text. Continue to click randomize until you find a style you like. Check out the Wordle website tosee others' work for inspiration!
Here is a Wordle I made using text from my blog:
There are so many possibilities for creative classroom use of Wordle! Possible uses for Wordle include: spelling lists, poetry, introducing new vocabulary, reflections, book projects, and much more. For more ideas on interesting ways to use Wordle in the classroom, check out this website full of great suggestions for using Wordle. You can also take a look at the presentation below: Once you are finished with your Wordle, you can print it or save it on Wordle's website, where others will be able to view it. If you would like to save your Wordle as an image that you can later insert someplace else (like in a Word document or PowerPoint), follow these steps:
Press the "PrntScr" (Print Screen) button on your keyboard
Open Microsoft Paint
Paste (Ctrl + V) your image
Select the Crop tool
Drag the crop box around your Wordle, then click "Crop" again to crop your image
Choose "Save as" and save your file as a JPEG picture
For those who are interested, below is the presentation I made at yesterday's Faculty for Faculty Meeting. If you were not able to attend the workshop but would like to learn about using iPads for digital storytelling, please let me know -- I am happy to schedule a time to meet with you individually!
Coming soon: a detailed, step-by-step written guide on how to use each of the digital storytelling apps on our iPads.
This week's highlighted Tech Tool is an iPad app called Pic Collage. Pic Collage is a fun, easy-to-use app that allows you to quickly and easily create beautiful photo collages. Import photos from the iPad's Photo Library or Facebook, or download images from the web. Using simple touch gestures, you can add photos, then resize, rotate, and move them around. You can even crop photos or change their borders. There are lots of fun backgrounds and stickers for you to use, too! When you're done, share your collages on Facebook, Twitter, or email. In addition, you can order a postcard of your collage online and have it shipped anywhere in the world!
Pic Collage would be a fun and easy tool to use with students. Think about ways this could be used in the context of a project you already do in your classroom. What topics do students study in your class? Students could find images on the Internet about a topic using a kid-friendly search engine, then make a collage of the pictures they find. They could create a collage of pictures of their family, their friends, their interests, etc. There are so many possibilities!
To give you a sense of what the collages might look like, here are a few examples of collages created using Pic Collage from the Pic Collage website.
This week's highlighted Tech Tool is Evernote, a wonderful, FREE tool that can help you organize and remember information. You can use Evernote to record your thoughts, capture interesting things you see, create notes, clip interesting web pages, store PDFs, and even snap photos. You can download Evernote to all of your devices including your computer, iPad or Android tablet, and smartphone. Then you can access your notes on any of your devices or even anyplace you have access to the web. So no matter where you go, Evernote is always with you!
To keep things organized, you can place all of your notes, articles, and photos in Evernote into "notebooks".
Do you ever come across articles online that you would like to read, but just don't have time at the moment? Evernote makes it easy to "clip" articles and save them for later. This is my personal favorite feature of Evernote! Brad uses Evernote to take notes at conferences. He also finds Evernote useful for organizing photos that he takes on his smartphone.
If you would like to get Evernote on your school laptop, just stop by the IT office so we can install it for you. Also check out Evernote's website for schools, which has tips for teachers on using Evernote.
Would you like to have your students type up a story, a report, or an essay? Think you need to reserve the computer lab or borrow some laptops from IT? Think again! There's another option: you can have your students use the iPads! Our iPads have an app called Pages, which is a word processing program. Pages is simply Apple's version of Microsoft Word. Students can do everything in Pages that they can do in Microsoft Word. They can even type in Chinese!
Here is a short introductory video on how to use Pages to get you started:
This week's highlighted technology tool is an exciting new website called Edmodo. Edmodo is a free service that allows teachers to create and maintain their own safe and secure, collaborative classroom communities.
When you take a look at Edmodo, it looks a lot like a Facebook for the classroom. Edmodo allows you to create a social learning network specifically for your class. Unlike Facebook, however, Edmodo is completely private and secure. And it allows you as teachers to manage class content, collaborate, and more.
Teachers can share educational content, manage projects and assignments, handle notifications, conduct quizzes and events, and facilitate other engaging learning experiences with students. Schools and districts can claim unique Edmodo web addresses for added communication and customization. And teachers can build profile pages on Edmodo, which they can use to meet and stay in contact with other educators, plus share best practices and top resources.
On the student side, members of an Edmodo classroom can interact with the site, take quizzes, participate in games, and ask the teacher questions. But students may not direct message each other within the site. Edmodo is not meant to be a social platform for student to student interactions that don’t relate to what’s going on in the classroom.
Finally, one other cool feature of Edmodo is that it works on a variety of different platforms, including the iPhone, Android, iPad, and laptop or desktop computers. Check out some interesting ways that you could use Edmodo for mobile learning!
For ideas on how to get started and to access teacher resources, take a look at Edmodo's blog. In addition, here is a short demo video to give you a taste of what you can do with Edmodo:
If you attended this week's all school faculty meeting, you already saw this week's Tech Tool in action! This week's highlighted tool is Prezi, an online presentation maker. According to Prezi's website, "Prezi is cloud-based presentation software that opens up a new world between presentations and slides. The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas and the connections between them. The result: visually captivating presentations that lead your audience down a path of discovery."
Explain Everything is a screen recording app for iPads that lets you turn your iPad into your very own interactive whiteboard. Write or draw and explain as you go, and the app will record your voice and movements and create a video! You can either write on a blank screen or import pictures and annotate them. In addition, you can enter text and shapes. At the end, you will have a video that you could email to a student or post on Veracross. If you've ever heard of Khan Academy, this is a way to create videos just like the ones you would find there!
What could you do with Explain Everything? How about using it as an assessment tool to determine whether students understand a concept? You could put them in groups and ask them to write a script for a video in which they explain a concept they learned in class. They could then create the video and email it to you for evaluation.
Another idea would be to use Explain Everything to create your own videos explaining concepts you taught in class. You could then post these videos on Veracross for your students to access. For students who have difficulty grasping a concept the first time it is taught, this could be a great way to give them another opportunity to learn the material.
Here are two examples of ways that our own faculty members have used Explain Everything in their classes! One is a video created by Mark Churchill's 6th grade math students explaining a math concept. The second is a video created by middle school students that gives directions around San Francisco in Chinese.
This week's Technology Tool of the Week is a pair of websites called BrainPOP (3-12) and BrainPOP Jr. (K-3). Here you can find a treasure trove of educational movies, quizzes, activities and homework help for kids. The content covers a wide range of topics across many subject areas, ranging from science and math to arts and music. In addition, BrainPOP content is mapped to Common Core and state standards.
Using BrainPOP videos and activites is a great way to introduce a new topic or explain a difficult concept. Best of all, kids love BrainPOP! BrainPOP movies are hosted by two cute and funny cartoon characters, Tim and Moby. The videos make learning new concepts interesting and fun.
To explore the BrainPOP resources, simply register for a free trial. While some of the content on BrainPOP is free, much of it can be accessed only if you have a subscription. If you like what you see, let me know. If there is enough interest we can purchase a school subscription. (Helpful hint: every week BrainPOP features one FREE movie! Go to the website to see the free movie of the week.)
Also check out BrainPOP's free iPhone/iPad app. Using this app you can watch a different animated movie each day and test your knowledge with an interactive quiz. (Consider recommending this app to your students as well; it is designed for kids of all ages!)
Finally, don't miss out on BrainPOP's free community for teachers, BrainPOP Educators. This is BrainPOP's space for teacher support. Here you can search by grade or by standard to find related videos. Teachers can also find and share lesson plans. In addition, BrainPOP Educators includes a Curriculum Calendar that shows which free featured videos are coming up.
For more information on BrainPOP or for help figuring out the best way to use it in your class, please contact me!
To see a sample BrainPOP movie (plus get an introduction to the BrainPOP site), check out the video below:
Welcome back and Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a restful break.
This week's highlighted technology tool is an iPad app called Puppet Pals. Puppet Pals is an easy-to-use app in which students can create simple animated movies. The first step is to choose characters for the story from a wide variety of cartoon characters. Next, choose one or more backdrops. Then it is time to record! Students can move the characters on the screen as they tell their story. Movements and audio are recorded in real time. The final product is an animated movie that you can post on your class website, email to parents, share with the rest of your class, and more! Students can even use their own photos to create characters or backdrops.
The beauty of this app is that it can be used across grade levels and subject areas. For younger students, Puppet Pals could be used to teach storytelling skills. Older students could use Puppet Pals to explain and illustrate a vocabulary word, science concept, or math problem. For Chinese classes, students could write and record a story using vocabulary they are learning in class. The possibilities are endless!
Please let me know if you would like me to show you how to use Puppet Pals. It's easy to learn and fun to use! I can also help you brainstorm ideas for how you could use Puppet Pals in your class. If you are interested in watching a tutorial video, here is a link to one created by the designers of the app.
To get a taste of what Puppet Pals looks like, check out how one teacher used Puppet Pals with his 3rd graders:
