Intel Teach LIVE - March 2011 - What's in Your Digital Toolbox Spring 2011?

Looking forward to this session...see you all online!

Currently, I am the Migrant Liaison and Technology Specialist at Sublette Elementry, USD 374. I recently presented at the MACE conference in Manhattan, Kansas over the use of iPads in the Classroom. I am honored and excite to present at this webinar a few of the applications for the iPad to use with students in the classroom. I am equally thrilled to hear about more iPad applications that I can use in the classroom!

Tuanua Swartz

I use the iSeismograph app with my 7th grade students. Our state core requires students understand how scientists learn about Earth's layers. This app allows students to see seismographs similar to the expensive ones used by earthquake study centers. Students enjoy trying to jump on the floor and model an earthquake. From this app they can see how the seismograph works instead of just reading about it in a textbook.

I'm sure this app might be useful for content besides science. I'm curious how others might be using this app with their classes.

I'd have to say my most valuable tool these days is my Elluminate account.  Since my focus is professional development with teachers around the state, and travel is so limited due to weather, gas, etc. I can still reach them via webianrs.  I also hold my monthly meetings with my Technology Integration Specialists-in-training using it.  Of course, all these other Web 2.0 tools that you are all sharing here will be some of my new content for my next meeting!

Can you verify the time of this event?  The registration link and the information in the community are very different.

Hi! I am Diane Sidoroff, Educational Technology Facilitator with Austin ISD in Texas!  I will be presenting on a Web 2.0 tool called Storybird and a great tech tool, the Livescribe Echo smartpen.  I hope you will stop by and see the great things that can be done in the classroom.  I will discuss how to use Storybird to enhance the writing your students do and how the smartpen can help out with mathematics.

Cool website helps you to print a poster in .pdf as large as you wish on
your  own printer. Blockposters.

The list of digital tools is long and diverse!  Currently, I am eagerly exploring mindmeister and the thinking space app on my android device.  I love being able to create thinking maps on my device!  My students and I also enjoy using edu.glogster.com to share our ideas and research.  My students really enjoy being able to give comments on their classmate's projects.

Love the ISTE std connection to the webinars...nice touch!

I have been working with the 6th grade ELA team on their mythology unit. The students had to learn about the characters and their relationships. They created facebook pages aka greekbook pages on their assigned character. So if they had Zeus then they created a friend list, relationship status, profile info etc.  They used a fake convo editor to create a discussion amongst his friends. The template was in Word and looked like a facebook page. It was so cool and the students learned so much. It was a lot of work to get the page designed and the teachers worked hard on it. Then I just saw this on twitter - http://www.classtools.net/fb/home/page

A Fakebook creator - so if you are looking for a cool tool to create something similar ...maybe for historical figures then this is your tool! Any other ideas of how this could be used in the classroom?

ISTE Fun

The Smackdown is my most favorite thing at ISTE. It is a battle of online tools...which is the best! I will not be going this year but I can still be a part of the smackdown session. They will be putting on a Family Fued game (boys vs girls). I must say that looking at the teams - the girls Rock!

This is a bit of info on the session http://tlsmackdown.wikispaces.com/ You can be a part of the session by taking the survey https://tlsmackdown.wikispaces.com/feud_survey on digital tools. Steve Dembo from Discovery is the host and he is so much fun so I am jealous of anyone who goes. Share some of your knowledge tonight from the webinar!

A great website I've begun to use is Voki.  At first I used it as a source for solving math problems, but today I used it to do some sequencing which was great.  The kids love it so much they are thinking about other ways of using it.  One student suggested we use the Voki to create our How to books.  It is really easy for students to use and it helps them be creative.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Images help our students make connections to words and ideas.

If you need clipart... take a look at the following website:

www.phillipmartin.com> Click the Clipart link to view lots of categories.  Note the terms and conditions... It's FREE.

Phillip Martin is an artist.  His artwork is beautiful and he allows teachers to use his clip art for education.  Teachers can select a graphic(s) for worksheets, websites, and newsletters.

Example:  Select a catagory (Internet) > Select an image (IT Students) > Right click the image to select Save Picture As or Copy.

Just like our guest speaker Taunua (sorry if I misspelled her name), I found an app called Rocketmath. It's a lot of fun for the students and it encourages them to keep their rocket in space and you can design it the way you want to. Students can earn "cash" for each correct answer- for their rocket ship. You can pick levels to match your students needs.

I have learned so much from all of these posts and look forward to checking these out and have my students create and explore.  I have recently started working with the App -- eclicker -- from Big Nerd Ranch guys.  It is for your iPad/iPhone/iTouch

http://www.bignerdranch.com/software/mobile/eclicker

The host app is $9.99  and the client is free -- to be used on iPhones/iTouches.

Basically what you do is create question sets -- you can even draw images.  You save them.  Next your students log on via iTouch/iPhone or laptops (will give you a http address), they will log in, hen you will post the questions to them -- they have a certain amount of time to respond to the question at hand.  The answers will be posted to you, you can see how they rank and it will be graphed too!

My students loved it!  You can do this individually if you have enough devices that can get online or you can do it in teams too.  We have tried it both ways and both are highly effective, fun and keep students engaged.

Some ideas we have used it for: math vocab. review, reviewing for a test, informal assessment, interesting questions of the day, students can create questions for others to answer too.

short video to show how I used it

http://22geckos.posterous.com/technology

Have you seen this:   http://blog.brainhoney.com/

Someone just showed it to me. Blended learning for the everyday teacher is what I would call it. Like many sites- some features (many) for free and some you can pay for.

I have not used it but had a teacher in a workshop  yesterday that had used it.

~Jennifer

I had intended on adding to the discussion about "gaming in the classroom."  I recently joined edWeb and am collaborating with other professionals about how scores are improving in Math with students who are playing math games on the computer.  Game based learning is not intended to replace traditional teaching but enhances it tremendously. I encourage math teachers to join in on these discussions, watch videos they provide and see for yourself how it could work in your classroom.  The next webinar is on April 26th 4pm Eastern; Topic: Death of Textbooks, Emergence of Games.

My two favorites are Storybird and Livebinder.

Helen

This spring, I began to use my ipods and ipad daily during my literacy centers block in my 1st grade classroom. Before, I was using them for audio books, for children to watch movies to see directions at centers, to read eBooks that they created or ones that I downloaded, to use various apps, etc..

Recently, I just found some apps with leveled readers to correspond to my guided reading lessons. I have used Reading A to Z and Learning A to Z before in the past, but now I can download those same books instead of having to print them out and bind them or pay for an annual subscription for students to access them online. You can purchase leveled library sets or download some free ones. They have really made a difference with my guided reading groups and helped keep my students engaged and motivated while working independently or in small groups on their own levels.

http://books.readsmart.com/LAZ/index.html

http://books.readsmart.com/LAZ/free.html

I like hoodamath.com. My kids love the math games.

iPad apps - Telling time, Bills and Coins, Bones Lite(free), Anatomy Lite (free).

app - Ninja Math - fun, but more game than math.

app - Math Drills (free)- Looks like a chalk board, drills addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

My students and I take pictures and videos of class projects, activities, and field trips. We use a digital camera or our new iPod touch. We load them on Shutterfly.com on a weekly basis. I have created a free share site for my parents and students to view. This gives my parents an opportunity to see their children in action. I just discovered a Shutterfly iPad app. that loads all the photo albums that I have created. In the classroom, the students can view the photo albums on the iPad. You can also show it as a slide show. I began to look at some of our field trip albums and want to use them as a reflection lesson with the students. I also want to show them to students who were not able to attend some of the field trip due to illness.

I have found a new ipad app.  I am always looking for new apps to enhance my student's reading skills.  I found a fun and challenging app for my middle school students. This is a vocabulary game in the format of a game show. It is called Who's the Smartest? Vocabulary.  Students answer questions from easy to hard, As students correctly answer the questins they recieve points in the form of money.   The students spin a wheel and answer questions that are related to parts of speech, word usage, synonyms/antonyms, definitons, and a few other categories  The music is a bit boring, but the words are challenging and it is fun for the kids to get points in the form of money.

Here are some images from the app.