A minor departure from technology.

I am pleased to share a blog that I subscribe to and whose author made a point I have been trying to convince people of for a long time. If nothing else, this just shows that there are other people who think like me.

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2011/11/sweet-smell-of-success-starts-at-home.html

Since I'm on the "these people think like me" wagon, it is also important that, in today's increasingly user-centric internet, we allow ourselves to see what the other side is thinking from time to time. Just a thought. Continue what you were doing...

Have a great day!

This is both a test and a warning... what not to do.

This video scares me a little, even though I know it's fiction. How did he get his students to do that routine bell after bell? Mine are always asking questions and stuff :)

Web 2.0 for Teachers.

In the interests of using web 2.0 to discuss web 2.0, I thought it appropriate to also do a little collaboration across time and space and check out the presentation done by another professional educator. We will be going over this in class, as well as searching for other interesting web 2.0 tools you might use in your classroom.

60 in 60: Web 2.0 Tools on Prezi

One that didn't make their list, but is on mine: dipity.com

Let's use one: http://mrbecksfort.wikispaces.com

embedded video...

Screencasts

This post is addressing something that more and more teachers are beginning to use to instruct in a 24x7 scenario. Screencasting is taking video of a computer screen while someone narrates what they are doing. 


There are many options for this type of video-recording, and while I will address two of them, I will also post a link here to an article which covers others.


When I am on my school PC, I prefer to use Smart Recorder. This tool comes with Smart brand IWBs, and is pretty user friendly. You click record, and when you're done and click stop, you tell it where you want the video to be saved. It is a pretty smooth program if you have it.


If you lack that, but don't want to pay for a professional capture software (which cost anywhere from $20 to $700), then you can use screencast-o-matic. This software will allow you to record up to 15 minutes of video instruction with sound and host it online or download the finished file. It is a pretty smooth tool, but the only downside is that there is a watermark on the finished video for the free version. It is a web app, though, so nothing needs to be installed.


Here is a list of other tools put together by someone other than me.




Good Luck!

So many great sites... too little time.

Thanks to a couple emailed links, I happened across a great site which addresses the use of Bloom's Taxonomy and technology. Since that is my focus, I decided to post a link to that site here:

http://visualblooms.wikispaces.com

In the interest of authenticity, I would encourage you to consider how you would use the newest of web tools to help your students reach those higher-level skills while using their technology.

Yet another iPad article.

I found yet another article on the use of iPads in the classroom. This one is not quite as optimistic as some of the others, but I thought it worth a look.

Click here for the article.


The summary of the article, in the author's words: "There is an entire cultural shift that needs to accompany 1:1 deployments (whether or not they involve iPads)."