iPad Training Guide

I created an iPad training guide to help teachers fully implement the iPads in their classrooms.  The guide contains both information on how to use the iPad device as well as how to use it as a teaching tool.  Also included in the guide are recommened apps as well lessons for K4-6 that use those apps. 

Click here to view the pdf.

Twitter

Having always passed it off as pointless and silly, I was a late adopter of Twitter and quickly realized how wrong I had been.  Twitter is a wonderful way to share to ideas and get ideas. 

Twitter allows you to find information in two main ways.  The first is to follow a person or organization. There are many prolific tweeters out there who spend their time sharing their thoughts and ideas about a given topic. After finding these people, you can "follow" them and all of their posts will appear in your twitter stream.

The other way of searching out information is through hashtags.  Hashtags are the markers that tweeters put on their tweets as a form of categorizing them.  By searching for a given hashtag, you can view the current conversations about your topic.  Below you will find a list of educational hashtags as assembled by the New Jersey Education Association. #elearning and #mlearning are the two hashtags related to technology. 



#edchat
Created by educators Tom Whitby, Steven Anderson, and Shelly Terrell, #edchat offers a great platform for discussion among teachers and other professionals related to education. Follow along with weekly chats hosted each Tuesday at 12 pm and 7 pm with teachers from around the world to discuss weekly topics.
#edtech
You'll learn about education technology resources, new web tools for students, and how other educators are putting technology to work in the classroom and beyond.

Online Sticky Notes

http://en.linoit.com/

http://www.wallwisher.com/

Here is the basic premise. Imagine giving each child in your class a stack of sticky notes. They would then write something on one, and stick it on a board in your room. With this, instead of sitting back down and being unable to read what anyone else writes, each student can post virtual sticky notes and read other students’ notes at the same time. I initially pictured it as a great way to brainstorm with the kids, but I saw another class’ board and the teacher had students posting sentences that they constructed using a specific format. I think that this would work anytime you want the students creating multiple ideas that need to be shared with the class.

Presentation Tools

Prezi
This is an interesting alternative to PowerPoint. It is still a presentation device, but does it in a different way and without actually purchasing software. In some ways, it does make presentations more dynamic.


Glogster

What the site allows students to do is create a virtual poster.Think “science fair” boards, but instead of just pictures and text, students could include videos, audio clips, narrations, animation, and other tools that make it more interesting, visually attractive, and engaging.