MACUL Space

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Sharing Tips and Tricks of Using Technology in the Classroom Part 2

In your courses you have been asked to share your tips and tricks of using technology in the classroom.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jimmy Dunn on April 3, 2011 at 6:41pm

I read an article and watched a short movie about using Twitter in the classroom, during class. This particular movie focuses on a college class. Students could type questions to the teacher by using the teacher-created hash tag for that class. I could see using this in large or advanced high school classes too. Check it out for yourself: : http://goo.gl/yQqwp

Permalink Reply by Kevin Karkkainen on April 3, 2011 at 6:46pm

For security I would suggest using Chrome 10 as your browser. Not only is it the most secure browser currently out, it plays nicely with all the google tools like docs, reader, and picassa. Also, with extensions and the web store you can customize it to your liking.

Permalink Reply by Melissa White on April 3, 2011 at 10:59pm

I finally started using it and it is not too bad!

Permalink Reply by Jeannine Baum on April 3, 2011 at 6:47pm

If you are looking for a creative presentation or new way to lecture to students, try http://www.xtranormal.com/. Essentially you pick a character and a setting ( a number are accessible for free without purchasing an upgrade, and type in the dialogue you would like them to say. You can then pick body movements and gestures to make the character seem more lifelike. It is great for an intro into a new assignment to idea. I would suggest this use for teachers as well as having students create mini lectures that they could use to teach their peers. This program requires an email address. Since there are some suggestive movements that students could choose to manipulate their character, I would recommend using this program with high school students. Although it would certainly appeal to a younger age, I would not have younger students creating movies.

Permalink Reply by Jason Elder on April 3, 2011 at 10:37pm

I recently went to a meeting with other social studies teachers in my district and needed a substitute for part of the day. I wrote down the lesson plans for the classes but I also left an audio file for the sub to listen to the lesson plans. I never would have imagined doing something like that until this class.

Permalink Reply by Emily Stone on April 15, 2011 at 9:26pm

Jason, this sounds like a great for leaving lesson plans -- it would be much faster to leave detailed instructions by simply speaking them instead of writing down or typing out everything. You can also use your voice to convey subtleties that are hard to convey in words only.

Permalink Reply by Nikki Van Pelt on April 20, 2011 at 1:13pm

Great idea!

Permalink Reply by Travis Brindley on April 5, 2011 at 8:34pm

One great tool for all you teachers out there is Jing. It is an amazing tool which allows you to record your screen while you are doing whatever it is you were doing on your computer. It allows you to record your PowerPoints and add audio to it. You can also record movies you are playing through your computer and add your own personal commentary. All in all, I feel it is a great tool.

Permalink Reply by Nikki Van Pelt on April 20, 2011 at 1:14pm

The only downsides to Jing is you can't upload the videos to YouTube without converting them to another format and you can only record 5 minutes.

Permalink Reply by Scott Cox on April 5, 2011 at 9:01pm

I went to the MACUL conference and was filled up with techie stuff to try. One site that I plan to use as a review is http://www.tagxedo.com. This site allows a student to write a paragraph, or create a list of key words with definitions, or what ever you an think of and the site will pull out key words and put them into a shape of your choice. It's pretty cool and I know there are things I am not even thinking of as to how to use this, but this is my initial thought...i'm sure it will evolve. Below is an example.

Permalink Reply by Joshua Vander Meulen on April 9, 2011 at 5:50pm

Another website similar to this is www.woordle.com. On this site, users enter words and the words that are entered most frequently appear larger. It is interesting to post a chapter of a unit and have students analyze what words are the largest. Typically, this helps them grasp what terms are most important in the section in focus. Yet, I like the idea of the words forming a shape on www.tagxedo.com. This would be interesting for students to do when reading literature. What I visualize is students picking words they read in the writing that reflect a metaphor or symbol. They could add all the words in the site then design an icon that represents this symbol. If students presented these in front of the class, this would be a way to target visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles.

Permalink Reply by Antonio Aguillon on April 6, 2011 at 11:11pm

I am sure some of you may have already heard about a new project that seeks to put every book online. Well I just learned about it a few weeks ago. The project is called open library and is an open source project with, as they describe it on the site, "a wiki like interface." The sites allows users to access, add, edit, and remove content from their libraries. So far they have over 20 million records and counting. I hope you have a moment to check it out.

Thanks.