A Cleaner Youtube

I just found a new extension for Chrome browser called "A Cleaner Youtube." This extension removes all suggested videos which may display images that you don't want to appear in you lesson (however, you must be using Google Chrome browser, will not work on Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer, though there may be similar extensions.

Take a look at the difference below:

APP Insanity-Puppet Pals

Puppet Pals HD

By Polished Play, LLC

Description

Create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time!



Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later.

This app is as fun as your own creativity. Act out a story of Pirates on the high seas, fight as scary monsters, or play the part of a Wild West bandit on the loose. You can even combine any characters however you want!

Your creations are only limited by your imagination (and voice acting skills in my case).

FEATURES
- Create an actor from a photo
- Use a photo as a backdrop for your storytelling
- zoom and rotate your characters using two fingers
- flip them around with a double tap
- a wide variety of creative characters to download (including famous talk show hosts and politicians)





- limitless possibilities of story creations
- buy the director's pass and receive ALL current and FUTURE content!

...More

Export video of your new shows!
Create your own characters!
Use your own photos as backdrops!

iPad Screenshots

Customer Reviews

Such Outrageous Fun Made Possible

by SJP-iPad

Ahhh! Now that's what I'm talking about! An app that will make you laugh your head off as you create slapstick, silly cartoon animations that can now be shared with friends. I loved the app but with the ability to share videos, it just became even more lovable.

Wow

by Kaleegray

I love this app. I always wished you could make yourselves characters and wala ! Thanks!

"Canned Responses" in Gmail

What is that? QR Codes in the Library...

Source: http://goo.gl/iEO6J

I have been working on this project for a few months now. There have been a few technical and logistical challenges to overcome but it is finally ready for the Grand Opening. Working with the high school librarian we have been able to add student-written reviews to in house library books and make them accessible to students on the web and (probably more importantly) on their cellphones. We have done this using QR codes. (Follow the link to learn more about QR codes).  

A couple of months back our library adopted a new cataloging system from Follett Software Company; Destiny Library Management. The most exciting thing I heard about the new cataloging system was the ability for students to write their own reviews of books in the library. I instantly saw this as a great opportunity to make the library a more collaborative and connected space. 

After one quick discussion, the high school librarian was completely on-board and excited for this new challenge and opportunity. It took a little experimentation and prodding to get the first students to write reviews, but we are off and running with a handful of reviews written which are linked to QR codes that have been pasted to the inside covers of the books.  

This the official "debut" to the district as a whole, but I have been talking with other staff members to brainstorm some ideas to promote this among the students. 

• Chocolate - The librarian will be offering a small treat to students who write a review for a book. Can’t go wrong there... 
• Advertisement - We’ve already hung a poster about QR codes in the library but we’ll be making additional efforts to let students know what is happening and get them involved. 
• Integration - I’ve got multiple english and reading teachers who are making plans to integrate book reviews into their curriculum and more specifically integrate their classes with the library on new and different ways. 
• Education - All of my students know what QR codes are and how they work, but that is about it in the school population. Part of this process will be sharing this tool with other students and teachers. 

Hopefully this is the beginning of a new implementation of new technology in the larger school community. If you have more ideas of how we could expand or improve this please leave a comment! 


For more info on QR Codes you can also look here: http://goo.gl/aFR5s

Using Groups in Gmail to Make Your Life Better!

Gmail provides a number of tools to make your life easier. One of these tools is Groups. With groups you can assign different contacts to a group and when sending an email you can enter the group name rather than typing in each individual or sending an email to a large number of "extra individuals."

The process of creating and populating a group is fairly simple and explained well here (http://goo.gl/Qu9dj) so I won't repeat it. Or if you would prefer a video tutorial watch here (http://goo.gl/lr90g).

Here are a few ways that I use my contacts groups:

• I have a group set up for each of my classes. That way I can send an email to my students very quickly to give them assignments, information, updates or anything else. 
• I have a group set up for the teachers that have the freshman class for study tables. This allows me to request students to visit me without overloading other teachers' emails. 
• I also have groups set up for students that I work with in extracurricular activities for Lights-On activities, Key Club, Robotics, etc. Again it is a great time saver. 

If you have any questions or other ideas for Gmail tips you might be interested in just leave a comment below! 

Book Lending on Kindle

In case you hadn't heard you can now lend and borrow books on your Kindle. For information on how to do this look here.

Multiple sites have quickly sprung up to connect people who want to lend and borrow Kindle books.


Here are three:

booklending.com

lendink.com

lendle.me

 
Each of these services works basically the same; you submit a request to borrow a book and if someone else on the service has it available for lending you can receive notification. Some of these require that you register (free) as a member in order to lend books, some also require that you put up your books for lending as well.

This should be a great tool for classroom, teachers, and students to have access to more books on the digital devices without having to fork out as much cash!

Happy Reading!

SnagFilms! Thousands of Free-to-Watch Documentaries.

I've heard of this site multiple times and heard that it was great, but I had never spent the time to take a look at it. They have an amazing number of documentary films, past to current on nearly every topic imaginable. I was able to find what looks like every National Geographic movie and all for free! It looks like they currently have over 2000 documentaries and they are adding more all of the time (at least weekly - I get an update about once a week of new SnagFilms being uploaded). There is even a SnagFilms iPad app where you can watch all of the movies. The videos can be found at www.snagfilms.com

Education Buzz Carnival

Education Buzz--Life's a Carnival New Year's Edition

Using Google Forms for Student Surveys and Quizzes/Tests

Google Docs includes an item known as a form. This is basically an online survey builder that

allows for all types of questions; multiple choice, select from a list, free response short, free response long, etc. The responses are collected in an automatically generated and populated spreadsheet as students complete their surveys. They can be easily emailed or shared with students or even posted as a url. There are even ways to give the questions on the iPod touches!

You can learn how to make these simple forms by looking here You can also look here and here for more ideas!

Google for Teachers I & II

Click to launch the full edition in a new window
Publisher Software from YUDU


Click to launch the full edition in a new window
Publisher Software from YUDU

These are two resources that walk you through many possible uses for Google in the classroom including creating a personalized search engine, Google sites, Google Alerts, Google Docs, Google Maps and a few others. Each resource includes step-by-step instructions and ideas for applications to education. Check it out!

Museum Box!

This is going to be something I do with SEEK students in the near future. It looks like a lot of fun. It did take a while to get signed up (10 days). I will let you know how it goes. I registered under RWE, so if you would like to add your name as a teacher so that you can manage your class, try clicking on the teacher tab at the top right of the site. If you can't sign up as a teacher... let me know and I can add you manually.

http://museumbox.e2bn.org

Welcome to Museum Box, This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie. You can also view and comment on the museum boxes submitted by others. More...

Our inspiration

Thomas Clarkson

The project was inspired by the anti-slavery campaigner - Thomas Clarkson, who did exactly as described above.

Thomas Clarkson's Box

He carried around a box of items (ranging from African produce to diagrams of transportation ships) to illustrate his arguments during his campaign.

Create your own
Museum Box

Click START above to begin creating your own Museum Box. You can add text, images, video and sound to the side of the cubes. To save your box you will need to register.

Teachers:

• Lesson guidance and instructions for use are available in the Teachers Area
• You can Register your school here.

Super Book of Web Tools for Education

This is a truly amazing resource. It is a ebook/PDF written by many of the leaders in education technology today. Each author has contributed what they think are the best FREE web resources for elementary, middle and high schools. Each resources includes and overview and description along with suggestions on how it might be used in the classroom. Each resource use the technologies students already know and love (and some that they might not know and love, yet, but we are here to learn, right?)

This resource is so loaded with value that I will add a poll where you can vote for a resource that you would like to hear more about. I will post about the resource and the suggestions for implementation provided by the authors (and any I might be able to come up with).

Please check it out! You can download it free here!

Prezi and Animoto

Here is some examples of student work from Prezi (http://prezi.com/ )and Animoto ( http://animoto.com/ ) to use within the classroom.

Prezi is a great tool to use within the classroom. Prezi is a web-based presentation application and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional slides. Text, images, videos and other presentation objects are placed on the infinite canvas and grouped together in frames. The canvas allows users to create non-linear presentations, where users can zoom in and out of a visual map. A path through different objects and frames can be defined, representing the order of the information to be presented. The presentation can be developed in a browser window, then downloaded so that an Internet connection is not needed when showing the presentation!

Here is a student example for the country of Jordan in the Middle East by Jordan Jamieson:

Jordan on Prezi

Animoto is a great tool for a presentation mode to use within the classroom. It can turn your photos & videos into a pure amazing product. Animoto automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music. Fast, free and shockingly easy.

Here is a student example by Sallie Myers of the African country Ethiopia:

Ethiopia


If you have any questions just let me know! :)

Using Poll Everywhere in the Classroom

Every wondered what everyone in your class or meeting was thinking about a topic, but never felt you could get a good feel for what they were thinking because only a few attendees would answer your questions? You might think to use a classroom response system or “clicker,” but what if you don’t have the money for a system? I’ve actually been using two methods. I have a classroom response system and regularly use my classroom response system, ActiveInspire from Promethean but I also use a free-ish service known as Poll Everywhere. I say free-ish because it is free for up to 30 responses per question, so for most school classrooms this is perfect. If you are looking to poll larger audiences there is a fee attached.

I like both systems, Poll Everywhere and my hardware based Promethean system. However, there is something about Poll Everywhere that makes it more accessible to more students and more teachers. Students typically respond using a text message, however there are options to respond via the Poll Everywhere website via a question specific URL or through services such as Twitter or various smartphones. Poll Everywhere also allows for questions to be integrated into a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation with responses pulled live from PollEverywhere’s website (or they can be viewed live on the website.)



The questions are easy to set up and manage and the instructions for replying to questions are relatively easy to understand (you wouldn’t think you would have to explain texting to teenagers but they have messed it up a few times!) Each question has a unique keyword so responses end up where they are supposed to go. There are multiple types of questions MC, text, etc. There are also several different formats for showing student responses (the one shown here is the standard setting.)

Here are a few ways I have been using them in my classes (and one video example, MAKE SURE YOU ARE LOGGED IN PAST THE CONTENT FILTER FOR YOUTUBE!)

-I use daily journals in each of my classes and I typically only call on a few students to share their responses (using the Class Cards iPhone App to randomly select students and track their participation points for journals), but on days that I want to see what everyone has answered I use Poll Everywhere. It is quicker than getting out and setting up the classroom clickers if we aren’t using them that day.

- I used Poll Everywhere before I got text response clickers. If I had a question somewhere in the lesson I would let students respond using Poll Everywhere.

- One use I really like is having students give responses to questions or ask their own questions about reading assignments or the like OUTSIDE of class. Every teacher has been there when you’ve given an assignment and on the following day ask, “Do you have any questions?” and you only get blank stares or one word responses. This way students respond while they are reading, it has helped to get more thoughtful responses and more meaningful questions.

I am looking for a few more ways to use this service in my classes. Again, one of my major goals is to use technology like this to connect with students outside of the classroom and at the point where learning or questions happen, even though I am not physically present.

Any suggestions about how else to use this tool?