Those of you who noticed what your 1st-5th graders were doing in computer class last week will be familiar with this week's highlighted technology tool, StoryKit. StoryKit is a digital storytelling app for iPad. It allows students to create their own electronic storybooks by writing and illustrating a story, then recording their own voices as they narrate the story. In computer class during the two weeks after spring break, all students in grades 1-5 created a storybook about what they did during their spring break. Once they were finished, students uploaded their storybooks to the web and received a private link to their story. They could then share their storybooks by emailing the link to parents, friends, etc. Students can also read and listen to their completed storybooks on the iPads.
Please take a look at these examples of stories created by our students to get a sense of what StoryKit storybooks look like!
This week's highlighted technology tool is Jing, a free, easy-to-use program that allows you to take screenshots or create screencasts on your computer.
To use Jing, select any window or region on your computer screen that you would like to capture. Then decide whether you want to take a picture (screenshot) or create a video (screencast). If you are making a video, Jing will capture everything that happens in the area you selected. From simple mouse movements to a fully narrated tutorial, Jing records everything you see and do. Also, it will record your commentary at the same time as your movements.
Once you have created your screenshot or screencast, it is instantly ready to upload and share over the web or email. You can easily share it online via Jing's free website, Screencast.com. Or you could embed a video on your Veracross page using the embed code provided by Jing.
Using Jing is a great way to create video tutorials on your computer. Want to see some ideas for the kinds of things you could make a video tutorial for? Here is a video made by Peter Moore (who is a big fan of video tutorials!) that explains how to to reserve library time using a Google Doc. This is a video I created for 4th graders to explain how to insert a text box in PowerPoint. Finally, here is a training video I created for teachers on how to post a video in Veracross. (Both of my videos were made using Jing!)
If you would like to download Jing on your school computer, please email IT Requests or stop by the IT office!
Have you heard of the Google Art Project? Google has been taking extremely high-resolution images of famous works of art from around the world and posting them online. Not only can you see highly detailed images of famous paintings and other works of art, but you can even take a virtual tour of galleries like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery in London, the Uffizi in Florence, the Palace of Versailles, and more!
To use the site, select a museum from the homepage and then either choose "Explore the Museum" or "View Artwork". Once you are in the main site, use the drop-down menus or the side info bar to navigate between artwork and museums. You can even create and share your own collections online!
If you are interested in showing artwork to your students in class, using Google Art Project to display images of paintings can allow you to zoom in to see the tiniest details. You can zoom in so close, in fact, that you can actually see more detail than you could see in a museum (where guards would undoubtedly stop you from getting too close!) Another fun class activity would be to take your students on a Street View tour of one of these famous museums.
Google Art Project can allow you to dig in to artwork and discover things you might not otherwise see if you were looking at an image of art in a book or magazine. Check it out!
This week's Tech Tool of the Week is Quizlet, a fantastic online learning tool for playing educational games, memorizing vocabulary, and studying online.Quizlet has over 10 million free sets of flashcards covering a wide variety of different subject areas (including Chinese!) Users can access these free sets, or create new flashcard sets with their own terms and definitions.
Students can view flashcards in several different modes. In Flashcard Mode, students simply familiarize themselves with the material. In Speller Mode, students can listen to a word and then type it. In Learn Mode, Quizlet keeps track of a student's scores and retests incorrect answers. In Test Mode, Quizlet generates customizable tests including true/false, multiple choice, matching, or short answer questions.
One cool feature of Quizlet is that students can create a group to share or discuss flashcards with their friends or classmates. Teachers, you can host a group where your students can create and discuss study materials for your class. In addition, students can play fun, competitive study games on Quizlet to make studying more fun!
Students can access Quizlet both on the web and through their mobile device (iPhone, iPad or Android). There are several flashcard apps (like Flashcards+) for mobile devices that integrate with Quizlet.
Here is a short demo video that highlights some of the features of Quizlet:
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:
