I feel like I have been away forever! As you may have read in my previous post, I was in Orlando at FETC! The trip was wonderful, educational and relaxing! Animal Kingdom is so beautiful and we were lucky to have a room with a view of the savannah. I missed my family, but having some "me" time was needed!
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At FETC...me at the "F", Denise from Sunny Days at the "E", and my other BFF, Melinea, at the "T".
Here are just FIVE technology tidbits from the conference.
#1: One piece of equipement that just ROCKS is a Promethean Activtable! Up to 6 kids can play around this interactive table. The graphics are clear and crisp and students would be completely engaged. There are tons of cool games and it has internet access! My media specialist was there and I know she's thinking about this! YEAH!
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#2: Thinglink. You can take a photo and add text, music, sound, etc. Students can upload a photo of a famous event or historical figure and use research to enhance it. What a creative alternative to a research paper! I have not tested it out yet! From I see it looks very user friendly.
#3: Remind 101 is a way to text your parents and/or students and keep your number (and theirs) private. I love this idea! I use email to communicate most of the time, but I like this for quick reminders.
#4: Tagxedo is fun. It is similar to Wordle. The kids can make word clouds from speeches, articles, books, poems, or just about any other information you can think of. I made this Lincoln Tagxedo in about 5 minutes. I just copied and pasted the Gettysburg Address into the website and selected the shape, color, and font. I think my 3rd graders will love this!
#5: I attended a session about using Pinterest as a classroom tool. Interesting concept, right? The teacher suggested creating boards around specific topics of study or research. You (and the kids if you choose) could pin websites, images, anything about the topic, and everyone in the class would have access. It sounds like a cool idea, but you would need to be careful since there are no filters on Pinterest. I think it would be great for older kids. She also shared this website, Repinly. It offers all kinds of statisical information about Pinterest. Pretty cool!
I hope to post more techie ideas, especially as I test them out in my classroom. What technology do you use in your classroom? I would love to hear about any websites or online tools that you find user friendly for the kids.
My Friday Freebie was also my Show and Tell freebie on Tuesday....I cheated! SORRY! If you did not download my February Brain Booster you can find the link at TBA or in my previous post! There are also lots of other freebies here!
Sunday is, of course, SUPERBOWL! I don't really care about football, but I will peek in to see the commercials and the halftime show. I am participating in the TpT Super Sale. I am offering 20% both Sunday and Monday! (TpT is offering an extra 8% on Sunday only!) My cart is filling up, mostly clip art right now! Glad my hubby will be distracted with the game! LOL!
Check out the list here of other TpT Sellers who will host sales on Sunday!
It sounds like you had fun and learned a lot! I love that Activtable! That looks like a lot of fun!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about Pinterest in the classroom. It seems like it might be a good idea. I've used livebinder.com before. It's a virtual binder and you can put websites on there that students can use to research. As with anything on the internet, they can still click off to never never land and end up who knows where, but they aren't "supposed" to. I've even created my own "binder" for info I wanted to remember to go back to but didn't want to overload my favorites toolbar.
Thanks for sharing!!
Amanda
Collaboration Cuties
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ReplyDeleteSorry for the delete... huge spelling mistake!!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I said:
Wow!! A room over the Savannah is Animal Kingdom sounds AMAZING!! So glad you had fun in Orlando!! I wish I would have gone to that conference! It was right down the road. =) I LOVE tagxedo... I've used it a few times this year, but not as much as I wanted when I first learned about it this past summer. Pinterest for the classroom sounds cool, but since it's not filtered IDK about it. Maybe they'll work on a classroom version of it. Hope your sale is successful!!
-Jackie-
Sister Teachers