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

[Carrie Albin]

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

[Lisa Kurtz]

My favorite new site is www.cosmolearning.com.  It's a great website for teachers of any subject.  They have lots of videos to offer.  I use the Algebra 1 videos in my class and the guys aren't SUPER exciting, but they aren't too boring at the same time.  They hold my students attention and have a little bit of music playing in the background that keeps the kids attention.  I plan to start reviewing for our final exam soon in my Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 classes and will use these videos as mini-lessons at the beginning of each day just to refresh the concept.  Hope you enjoy and find something helpful for you to use!

[Robert Prudhomme]

I have always had difficulties with photos and images on my computer. Either they are too big, too small, I want to change and edit something in the picture, or I don't have it in the correct format. I used to copy and paste the images into Microsoft Word and try to go from there.

I recently learned of a few useful applications called Jing by Techsmith and Fotoflexer. Jing needs to be downloaded to a computer to be used. It is very simple to use. One can capture an image of anything on an individual's screen. One could also capture videos of the screen when a video is playing for example. Or if one wanted to make a "how to" video to share with others they can do this with Jing. Fotoflexer is a completely online application. It is found at fotoflexer.com. This free website allows users to upload and edit pictures online. It also is user friendly and incredibly simple. I am going to suggest this online image editor to everyone who has a little when it comes to photo editing. 

[Tammie Mirolli]

Hello Everyone,

I have recently been introduced to the "Flipped Classroom" and I am looking very much to next school year when I plan on implementing this instructional strategy in my STEM Chemistry and AP Chemistry class.  Currently,  my school is on trimesters with five 72 minute classes.  However, due to funding issues,  our schedule for next year will be trimesters but with six 60 minutes classes.  As I am planning my classes for next year, I am working very hard to find resources and make connections with teachers using this method currently.  One of the best resources I have found on the flipped classroom is http://cybraryman.com/flipclass.html. 

 

But there is a bonus to this resouces... the author or "Cybrary Man" Jerry Blumengarten, has a huge cyber library of resources for parents, students, educators, and administrators.  So not only can you find information on the filpped classroom, but Jerry has over 20,000 links categorized on his site. I have found this to be an invaluable resource!  Take a moment and search around.  It really is amazing!  http://cybraryman.com/index.html 

 

Tammie

 

CEP 812

[Susan Wright]

This sounds like a terrific teaching strategy. I'm looking forward to exploring the resources you shared in this post.

[David Hocker]

Google Docs has many tools that are almost "hidden."  Just doing a search for "google docs tricks" will yield pages of information.  Recently, I have learned that googledocs spreadsheets can:

 

complete a list of items you type (i.e. you type red, green, blue, then use the fill feature and it will autopopulate the rest of your list with other colors).

 

lookup answers or images for you (i.e. you type: =googlelookup("Mighigan", "Capital") and it will search for, then display "Lansing" in that cell.

 

And finally, I just recently discovered gadgets within google spreadsheets.  After highlighting a range of data, if you right click and then click "insert gadget," there are dozens of cool gadgets you can insert.  My favorites are:

 

Gauges

 

Word Study Gadget (like flashcards)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Bars of Stuff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of these tools may be more useful than others, but there are plenty of original, creative ideas just waiting to be explored with some of these tools in a classroom!

[Susan Wright]

Fabulous find=8-) I'm making note of the Word Study gadget for next fall. One can never have enough tools for vocabulary lessons when working with at-risk students.

[Laura Distelrath]

Books Should Be Free is a collection of audio books that can be downloaded for free.  This could be a great tool for students that do not have a variety of books at home for whatever reason.  It can also help students that don’t like sitting down to read a book or that take a long time to read on their own.  This way students can still get the stories and connect to the characters and keep up with lessons and class discussions.  Students can access these books from home or schools could download these books onto ipods or mp3 players that students can rent to take home.  I found this resource through http://ilearntechnology.com/, a great site full of helpful technology tips and resources!  

 

Laura Distelrath

[Spike Braunius]

CEP812

 

An Emmy for INNOVATIVE TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT

 

The more I learn about Educational Technology in Sports/PE the more I like Dartfish. And you can actually read the previous sentence again by exchanging EduTech and Dartfish as that would entirely be true as well.

You got to see it to believe it and please check the following links:

- Youth Ice Hockey

- Gymnastics

- Dartfish in PE

 

Yes indeed Dartfish has received an Emmy for Innovative Technical Achievement!!!! For all the good reasons.

 

EduTech in PE & Sports?? Here's the answer.

[Lindsay Sanders]

I just discovered a free application called Moyea while working on our web conferencing lab this week. It is a file converter, which I specifically used to change shockwave flash files into mpeg files. I recorded our web conference using Jing software, however it only allowed me to capture 5 minutes at a time and was not in a file format to upload to youtube or movie maker. I had to make about 6 smaller videos and I wanted to put all them into one video and upload the file to youtube or movie maker. After researching for a while, I found Moyea worked pretty effectively and quickly. Considering this is a free application, they include a watermark of their name on your video, but other than that it worked out well. I was able to quickly change the format and upload to movie maker so I could edit the full video. Has anyone found anything better to use with Jing for this purpose?? Thanks!

[Bill Vliek]

I am finding that Audacity is becoming a better and better tool in my classroom the more I use it. I teach music and have utilized Audacity for podcasting, recording and cutting rehearsals, making audition recordings, and numerous other functions. In addition, the software is as difficult as you want to make it. If you just want a simple cutting and splicing software, that's all it has to be, but if you want more, the capabilities are there. As an added bonus, it's completely free. For the download, go to audacity.sourcefuge.net.

[Chris]

I would like to tell you about the Disk Cleanup Utility.  The major focus of the utility is on cleaning up unused and old files found throughout your hard drive.  Over the course of time a computer builds up a collection of temporary and sometimes permanent unused files through web browsing, installations, unzips, and other activities.  Having these extra files on the hard drive can lead to it running slower when it is required to access stored information.  They also simply take up space on the drive that could otherwise be used for something else.  If you go into the system utility Disk Cleanup you are given the option of deleting or compressing files that are in locations common to the type of files mentioned above.  It is highly recommended that this be done every few months at least. 

[Steve Lawatsch]

Some of you may be acutely aware of this already but I'll share it anyway.  If you plan on doing any video conferencing or audio conferencing feedback (the mic picking up audio from the speakers and cycling, thus creating an echo or that horrible screeching sound) can be a major problem.  To avoid this issue use headphones during the session.  You will be able to hear others better and your microphone will not pick up the audio from your computers speakers.  This is a particular problem if your speakers are located near the microphone.  This post is a direct result of having worked with a small group on Vyew.  No one could hear anything once the screeching started and at other times the echo was distracting I had a hard time concentrating on the task we were working on.  Hope this makes your future video and audio conferencing more enjoyable.