From the Mailroom...

Well, not really...Actually this is from the huge amount of subscribed rss feeds that I have going into folders in my mail program.  Thought it might be good to cull through them and do a little "copy and paste" for ideas I think I could be using in the future!  So here goes:
(most are from Free technology for teachers emails!)
1.

Slides are the medium that most people default to when they need to give a presentation in person or over the web. When used correctly, slides are useful in helping you convey a message. The problem with most slide presentations is that there needs to be a speaker's voice attached to them to make them meaningful. Hello Slide is a tool that you can use to add voice narration to slides that you display online.

Hello Slide is different from services like Slideshare's Zipcast because instead of recording your voice you type what you want the narrator to say. Where you might type "speakers notes" in other slide programs, in Hello Slide you type out the narration. Hello Slide creates the audio and narrates your slides for you. While the voice is slightly robotic, it is much much better than most text to speech services.

To get started using Hello Slide, register for a free account, upload a PDF of your slides, then start typing your narration. It's very easy to use Hello Slide.

Applications for Education
Hello Slide could be a great way for students to construct and share narrated slideshows. I think of Hello Slide as a tool for simple digital storytelling projects. You could have students create a series of slides and add narration through Hello Slide to tell a story.

2.  How can I share/publish student slideshows on the web?http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/03/9-ways-students-can-publish-slideshows.html

3. Slide Staxx - Create Slideshows of Your Web Findings

Slide Staxx is a new service that allows you to create slideshows using videos, images, and webpages that you have found or created. To create a slideshow with Slide Staxx you simply specify the URLs for the content that you want to include in each of your slides. Each slide can contain a video, an image, or a webpage. You can caption each slide or let the slides speak for themselves. You can rearrange the sequence of your slides by simply dragging and dropping them into the order you like. Your finished Slide Staxx slideshow can be embedded into your blog or website. 

4. instaGrok Oh sure, Google’s great and all…until you realize it’s not perfect. Google is designed for everyone on the planet. But what if Google was totally rebuilt with education in mind? It’d probably look exactly like instaGrok.(too bad it is blocked at school)  

5.Scholastic's Character Scrapbook provides a nice template that elementary school students can use to write about and reflect on the characters in their favorite stories. The template is quite simple to use. Students enter the name of a story and the name of their favorite character on the first page. On the next pages students list ten attributes of the character. The Character Scrapbook also allows students to create pictures of their favorite characters. 

Love this info graphic~

Image from~ http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/10/a-60-seconds-guide-to-use-of-blogging.html I really like the way this info graphic shares the benefits students receive from blogging. Although our posts aren't wonderful yet, we are making our way steadily to the idea of how posting is helping us grow as readers and writers. Putting it into context of the Learning Targets book we are reading for BLT, I see this as an area that I can develop my students as assessment capable students (as described in chapter 5) I will be able to have students develop the rubric of quality in posting and commenting. As they begin to filter through their own posts and comments, they will grow in their own ability to self assess.

Embedded Presentations

I have been searching for all sorts of "better" ways to publish my students work to share with their families. Publishing power points was one of the projects that I never seemed to be able to find a quick and easy way to share. I have explored slide rocket, slide boom, and now publishing a google presentation. Here is a quick comparison of the same powerpoint, share with all three possibilities.


 Google embedded:
 

Slide Rocket:
 

 Slideboom: (does have a word press widget!)

Kennedy2012

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Students as creators of evaluations?

I had a list of several blogs of teachers to look at for my last module of an aea online class.  I skimmed through a few and landed on this one ideasandthoughts.org/  The most current post was about customizing assessment.  You can read it here: Personalized assessment part 2

I really liked how he had his students assist in determining the criteria to be evaluated on.  He listed some great ideas to aid students' self evaluation of learnings with this google doc: Learning Project Criteria
More specifically his questions to assist in document learning would be applicable to even my elementary students. I think I will be trying to use these as blog starters to help in assessing my students learning.


Questions to consider as you document your learning:

What did I learn since last time? What can you do this week, you couldn’t do before?
How did I learn it? Was it a lot of reading, was it only practicing?
What was I thinking about as I was practicing? What specific things do I find easy, what is more difficult?
What do I think I might be able to accomplish before my next reflection?
What or who provides me with the best instruction?
Does it remind you of a past learning experience?
Where and when is the best time for me to learn? Describe and consider environment.
What do I admire about those who have mastered this skill? Who are these people?
Is there a particular learning style I use more than another?
what unintended learning have you experienced?

*text above is from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vHcJ8L7nZN0QyFFyu0AFwHic2-AjAmNHiig0q8tUOiU/edit

Fair does NOT mean equal...especially in the sense of getting technology in the hands of teachers!

Just got done reading TeachTheCloud's post on educational technology (Tools of the Trade). The gist of the article is that often it is not in anyone's best interest to try and stick all the great new technology tools in every classroom.  This is a viewpoint that I think I agree with whole-heartedly!  In my current school, built just 2 years ago, we all were given a document camera.  I know that there are many classrooms that this technology is going unused.  I guess it one of the things I can do, to help encourage others to use the technology given to them.  It is hard, though.  I think also that the idea of not all technology being applicable to every classroom is true too.  Some technology is better for certain disciplines than others; to equalize the placement of all technology may end up with money being spent on things that end up never being used at all!

Time, Time, Time ~ Ever wish you had more of it?

Time seems to be moving faster and faster as each year passes.  Summer vacations and Christmas breaks used to seem like they lasted forever; just a week seemed to last and last and last.  Nowadays, it feels like I blink and whoa..there goes another week of the year!  All of the "time flies when you are having fun" comments seem only to add to my feeling of panic. My to-do lists grow longer each day and all of the great things I find I want to implement in my classroom and teaching get lost in the piles.  I pledge right now to keep this post, right here, as my "to-do" list of items to pursue.  Posting my list here, I hope, will not let it slip by me any more!  I'll try to organize my ideas below:

Possible Teaching Organization ideas:
Teaching Word Processing as a more differentiated study, including pretest, plotted lessons based on skill, and a post-test to assess progress (Mrs. Sterlings's Word Pad)