Installment G, H and I ...

Here you are ... three more tips ... numbers 7, 8, and 9 of 26!  I will be sharing this entire presentation this weekend at the MN Google Summit with other educators around the state!  Enjoy your preview!

G is for GoNoodle!

GoNoodle is great in Minnesota this time of year when we are forced to have indoor recess!  This site is perfect for those times when your students need to get their "wiggles" out!  All sorts of short activities with great videos and music to accompany them.  I do recommend previewing them on your computer solely to make sure they aren't being stopped by your filter.  Don't limit this to elementary students!

H is for Hangouts on Air!

Our elementary recently used this to conduct a PBIS all school Bingo game.  The principal ran the bingo session from her office and the students watched in their classrooms.  It was perfect!  Teachers could pause when needed, track bingos in their classrooms, and the principal did a great job using the built in effects to add glasses, hats, and sound effects!  What a great way to have a grandparent read a book to a class from the comfort of their own home in a different zip code during I Love to Read Month!  So many possibilities!

I is for iFakeText

Use this site to create a text message for your bell ringer, it's a screen shot of a text message that you can share with students!  Have students create messages between book characters, historical figures, even between different chemical compounds!!

Enjoy these recommendations for leveraging learning in your classroom with technology!!

D, E and F ... the series continues!

I promised to keep this up, so here's another group of letters!  F has lots of possibilities...

D is for Docs Quick Create extension ... have you tried extensions in Chrome.  They really add to the whole Chrome experience!  With Docs Quick Create you will get an icon to the right of your Omnibar that will allow you to create a Google doc, form, sheet, slides or form right from your Chrome browser ... no going back to Drive and creating something new.  It's handy, efficient, and available always from every tab in Chrome!

E is for Educannon.  If your students are 1:1 or you are interesting in doing some "flipping" this will be an incredible tool!  You can take almost any video you can find online or one you've created and added to YouTube and create an interactive lesson.  Add questions, assign through Google Classroom, Schoology, email or however you want to get the word out!  This one is a game-changer!  Try this link - you will need to create an account - but simply click on the "Sign In with Google" and you'll be set ...

F is for Fakebook.  A knock off of a popular social media site ... the kids will love this.  Have them create a Fakebook page for a character in a book, a historical figure, and how about something unexpected - a rock, a disease or even an animal!  Checkout this one for Winston Churchill!

Have fun AND, as always, give me a shout out if you want some help getting going on any of these!

Stay warm!

New Year's Resolutions and A, B, C!!

Did you resolve to level up your technology use?  I resolved to do a better job keeping up with this blog and sharing my ideas.  Did you know that I presented at conferences from Las Vegas to the Wisconsin Dells last year - about 12 in total!  It was great!  I only bring this up because one of the presentations I do is called "Animoto to Zaption:  Techniques to Leverage Learning"  In a fast-paced one hour session, I share 26 add-ons, websites, and Apps that can be used to leverage student learning.  I would love to do it for our staff live - but it doesn't look like we have an hour coming up so I'll share it here!!

My goal is to share a regularly until we hit Z!!  If you want to learn more about any of them, let me know and I'm happy to sit down with you and work further on them!

A is for Animoto

Animoto is a great resource for creating slideshows.  It is device agnostic - there's an iPad App and a great interface on the web.  Users can add text boxes, change the order and Animoto has a great library of music.  This is a free or pay service.  The free service has enough features that make it valuable for student use.  The subscription service is worth exploring if you do a lot of picture slideshows.

B is for Blabberize

 Blabberize - Take any picture and make it talk!  Great tool for young and old and just who doesn't want to see a picture talk?  Imagine if you Blabberized your students to leave messages at for their parents at conferences, sent a picture of you with a message to a sick student ... SO many things you could do!!  Enjoy this one!!

C is for Canva

Canva is a great free tool to make unique slide backgrounds, invitations, and posters!  You can even add them to your home page.  Check out this slide background I made!  You can choose their layouts and personalize them with different colors and images.  There are options to purchase items but the free version does LOADS of things!  

Next time ... D, E, F!!  Watch for it!!