How can you use Symbaloo to organize those frequently used websites for students? Check out below how you can easily make your very own! Check out my Website Collections section of this website to see my Symbaloos in action!
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I am taking a new approach to my blog, as to not feel so pressured to make posts. I think it is time that I really make this blog about what I am seeing here at my school since so many teachers are embracing technology. The posts are going to be more authentic and about #edtech versus all the tips and sites. So here it goes...
This week we completed 2 Mystery Skype sessions. What is Mystery Skype? Check out the presentation I made for teachers! Or go to the BLOG POST I made on it last year!
Mrs. Woods' class connected with Meredith, New Hampshire and Mr. Reichard's class connected with Ottawa, Ontario. So much fun!
Mrs. Woods' class did a great job of narrowing their state down to New Hampshire by asking some great questions. Mr. Reichard's class was able to learn their school was in the province of Ontario by learning whether it was surrounded by water or not. Then they worked to narrow their city to Ottawa. We then took the opportunity in both classes to use Google Maps to explore the area we Skyped with each day. Such a great opportunity! It's time for intervention time at school, you have a group of students who need enrichment, but you are tired of just giving them additional reading time. They are tired of getting additional reading time, needing more challenge or something exciting. Enter: The Global Read Aloud. A teacher came to me wanting something new, refreshing for the students coming to her room. I came across, through the wonderfulness of Twitter, The Global Read Aloud - #GRA15. Pick a book, sign up, find a class (or classes) to share your thoughts on reading with, and connect. The whole point is to share the book as a read aloud. Each book has a breakdown of the dates of how much should be read. It lasts 4 weeks, which is great for students! You can find books for all levels. The books this year:
Go to The Global Read Aloud website and get started today. The best way to get started is to go to the tab labeled "Info for 2015". I think we are looking to use Kidblog.com so our students can respond to reading, connect with other students, and then respond to each other's posts. In Google search, you can refine your search to make it better for you. There are the obvious options of Web, Images, Videos, News, and More (maps, books, flights, apps) that can be found under the omnibox (search box in Google). There is a greatly overlooked option called Search tools. If you choose this option, an additional line comes up underneath with Any time, All results, and, sometimes, your location. From there, you can refine your results. Under Any time, choose to search for items updated between certain time ranges: past hour, week, month, year, or set your own range. This is GREAT for researching, current events, help desk answers, and probably much more.
Under All results, you can select to see all results or you can have it pull out the sources that have what you typed, verbatim. Your location helps you to see relevant results from your area, so it may know to pull weather or news from where you are instead of somewhere opposite of where you live. You can even change this to search other areas of the US. Happy searching! I did my Under 5 series on Remind.com this week! Check it out! *Ignore the fact I look like I am going to start singing to you. For some reason, YouTube would not let me pick another thumbnail!* Maybe you noticed Google is working on some branding with their company? New font, colors, icons...LOVE IT! The Admin panel has made some changes. For one, the color is now a dark teal color, similar to the one used on my website. The icons have also changed, as far as the ones used for actions to account. If you need to reset a password, it is not in the 3 dot menu that is next to each user. It is now a lock with a refresh arrow around it. That seemed to throw me off at first. The felt like I saw most of my changes on my iPad app. The icon changed colors and my users menu just changed to one large alphabetical list of ALL my users. I still wish this would show up as it looks on my desktop view. You can also send text messages to your users when you reset their passwords, add multiple users to a group, and more! Just keep in mind that Google is doing some changes, so there may be some differences in the future. Remember, be flexible and patient as these changes happen! They are meant to help up. If you don't like something, there is a feedback link on the bottom of each page! Use it! Our littles love Starfall at school! If you need a site for younger kids to explore their ABCs, learn to read, or do some easy reading, this is the site you need. You can find interactive books and phonics games. Look how fun and colorful it is! It is very kid friendly and allows children easy use. My child, when he was 3, was able to use it successfully. I love the Learn to Read section because of the way the material is organized. There are stories for the different phonics areas. There are movies, and games associated with each book. The books are fun for the kids, too!
Inviting people to events is a great way to do a few things: invite people, get an RSVP, and put the event on their calendar for them. Funny thing is that I actually started using this feature more through my husband. He would have a work function and send me a Google invite, I would accept, and then find it on my calendar. That took the work out of it for me because it was already added. As a teacher, I like to do it for those meetings I need someone to attend or when I am going to meet with a teacher over learning something new. When you go to Create an event, on the right side you will see the option to "Add guests". Put their email in there and then make your checked selections below. Yes, you can invite more than one person. By doing this, once you save the event, it will trigger the calendar to send an email to the invited parties. They can then Yes, No, Maybe the event. Pretty awesome!
*Side note, did you know you can add attachments to the event, too? This is pretty neat for attaching agendas or images to the event. |
AuthorFifth grade teacher in a 1:1 iPad classroom, sharing my journey with technology in the classroom Categories
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