Tablet Talk

Happy 7th Birthday, YouTube!

JR — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:09:13 +0000

YouTube celebrates as it turns 7 today. It is hard to believe that the popular video-sharing site is not older. Do you find YouTube helpful in your teaching and learning? Have you seen these helpful tips about making YouTube less cluttered on the screen? Have you seen these great YouTube channels? Either way, take a moment and enjoy the above video and enjoy some of the great moments YouTube has brought us!

Win A SMART Table

JR — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:45:48 +0000

Contest Link

SMART is giving away a SMART Table interactive learning center. I just filled out the form and it took 45 seconds. Good luck!

Tagged: Free Stuff, Just For Fun, K-1

Free Yogurt For Teachers

JR — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:52:28 +0000

The Orange Leaf in Clarksville will be offering free yogurt for teachers today through Thursday for Teacher Appreciation. Bring your ID.

Tagged: Free Stuff

Rhyme n Learn

JR — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:37:38 +0000

http://rhymenlearn.com/

How about 25 “squeaky clean” math and science videos? Use the catchy and current tunes and illustrated movies to teach, reteach, or introduce challenging content in math and science. Enjoy.

Use SendHub To Update Parents

JR — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:20:32 +0000

Would you like to send text messages to groups of parents, students, or teammates? SendHub looks like another interesting option for doing just that. According to the site, you can create a new number and a “Key Phrase.” Your audience will “opt-in” to the contact list and receive a group text message from you when you send it. It looks like the free version of the service gives you 1,000 messages per month and allows you to have up to 3 groups of 50 contacts. Find out more at SendHub.

Tagged: Parental Connection, Teacher Productivity

Use Kickboard To Track Behavior

JR — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:57:49 +0000

At Kickboard you have the ability to set up a class to track grades, behavior, and more. The site is free for individual teachers, so give it a try. You can personalize how you keep track of items (conduct points, clas cash, etc) and the site will give you an easy to use interface for rewarding and tracking behavior grades. There are progress reports available which can be personalized with the school logo. If you are looking for a new way to track grades or behavior, consider Kickboard.

Tagged: behavior, Teacher Productivity

A Magazine For Kids

JR — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:58:39 +0000

Check out “Youngzine” for news and videos for school-aged children. According to the site:

“Youngzine is a one-of-a-kind Web site where children can learn about current news and events shaping their world — in a simple, engaging and interactive manner. Our goal is to help parents and educators create a vibrant community of globally aware young citizens in an increasingly connected world. Along with news stories written specifically with our young audience in mind, Youngzine strives to inform using fun trivia, compelling visuals and videos.”

Laptops in the Past

JR — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:02:10 +0000

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/109255/how-would-a-single-laptop-affect-the-past-infographic-comic/

I wonder what historical events your students would come up with!

Tagged: Just For Fun, writing prompt

Happy Pi Day

JR — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:24:16 +0000

It is 3/14, so here are a few quick math resources to help you celebrate Pi Day!

BrainPop has a video on the subject, which you can follow up with a ten question multiple choice quiz. Don’t forget that even if you do not have a BrainPop subscription, they offer several free movies at any given time. The “Featured Movie” is always a current or seasonal piece and is worth looking at. Those who do have subscriptions enjoy unlimited free videos, the ability for students to email quiz results to teachers, and supplemental materials to go along with the movies. There are about 24 free videos on BrainPop plus the Featured Movie rotates regularly. For the younger set (K-3) there are about 12 free movies available on BrainPop Jr.

Another place to get instructional videos for younger children is Game Classroom. They link to videos and games from other sources, but they organize them by larger themes such as Geometry, so the games and teaching videos are easily found. For Pi Day check out “The Circle Song” and for the main page click here.

Moving in to the less interesting but sometime needed realm, I saw a resource featured recently called Math Aids. There was a quick write up about it here, if you are interested, but it is essentially a well organized repository of worksheets. They may be helpful for reteaching, extra practice or enrichment. I find that many of these type of sites are riddled with pop-up ads and features that try to get you to buy premium services, but this site appears to be well laid out, easily searchable and helpful.

Hope you enjoy Pi Day!

Note: Yes this is a retread. Yes, I am getting lazy. Yes, I like pie.

Tagged: Math, Teaching With Video

A-Z Cool Tools. C is for Calculator and Comic Creator

JR — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 15:35:28 +0000

Note: I am looking over the tools in my free eBook A-Z Cool Tools in preparation for a presentation. I know that many of you receive this content via RSS or the email list, and have not seen the book linked to my blog, so I thought I would post the A-Z items as blog entries for the next few days. I hope you find some of this “legacy” content helpful. Also, the book was recently revised to include correlation to the new Common Core Standards.

C is for calculator, as in, a really big calculator. Use this calculator for teaching the basic functions, working out multi-step problems as a group and playing number games.

For teachers of older students, there is an online scientific calculator as well.

C is also for Comic Creators. There are several Comic Creators out there, and it seems like more are unveiled all the time. Start with BeFunky for adding great effects to pictures that you already have. Add comic-like speech bubbles and captions to your images, they will make a great addition to your bulletin boards.

Creaza will allow you to create more complex cartoons than BeFunky. Registration is required and the tool is more advanced, but the end results are well worth it. Once you are used to Creaza be sure to check out the other tools they offer. You can create a mind map similar to BubblUs, or a movie in the style of iMovie or Movie Maker. Choose from clips they provide or upload your own. The best comic creator I have seen, though is not a free tool. Order Comic Life and you won’t be disappointed. They offer a free 30 trial of their superior comic creating product, and even at full price it is a great value.

The concept of creating comics address these Common Core Standards: KSL5,1SL5,2SL5,4SL5, 5SL5

Tagged: Calculator, comics, Cool Tools