Edmodo

I recently had the opportunity to participate in Edmodo Certified Teacher Training. The experience was a great lesson in how teachers can structure learning activities through Edmodo. If you haven't experienced Edmodo recently, I encourage you to explore it. Accounts are free and students do not need email accounts to participate. If your district has created a district domain, you may need to find out your school code in order to create your teacher account.

One of the ah-ha moments for me in the course was how it was structured using small groups. The leaders organized our class materials in small groups, each small group represented a week's worth of assignments. It made it very easy for participants to locate assignments without having to scroll through an entire feed. Once you click on your group, Small Groups will appear under your group summary (if any Small Groups have been created):

Another ah-ha? Having students turn in assignments (especially comments on other's posts) by capturing a direct link to the post they were responding to and turning that link into the teacher on the TURN IN assignment link. This avoids the teacher having to scroll through and manually locate endless postings and responses. Here is how it works.

Students will create their group postings, or respond to a post in their group. They will then locate the gear icon to the right of the post, click on that and select Link to this Post:

When the window pops up, copy the link: 

Return to the assignment from the teacher, click TURN IN and copy link to turn in: 

If you're interested in Edmodo training, contact me at Region 20. I'm doing a class this June, check out our summer digital learning catalog here: http://learn421.net/content.php?pid=214879.

iPad Screencasting

I made a wonderful discovery today. If you have the AirServer software, it now allows screencasting recording of your iPad. Requirements are a Macbook, AirServer software and updated iPad. When I made my first test recording I noticed the microphone is automatically muted, but a quick click on the AirServer screen on your Macbook allows the audio recording to capture simultaneously.

More information here: http://support.airserver.com/customer/portal/articles/1479754-how-to-use-the-recording-feature-currently-mac-only-

This will be a great tool to demo activities for teachers and students!

Graphite from Common Sense Media

Anyone who has spent any time teaching digital citizenship over the past few years has hopefully discovered the wonderful resources available for teachers, students and families that are available through www.commonsensemedia.org. Direct access to teacher oriented resources is here: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators.

Recent additions to the Common Sense Media site include the Digital Passport, where teachers can set up accounts for students in grades 3-5. Digital Passport includes educational videos about digital citizenship issues and engaging games for students to play at home that reinforce the messages we are teaching at school. Teachers start here to setup your accounts: https://www.digitalpassport.org/educator-registration.

Another new resource released early this summer is Graphite. Graphite is designed to assist teachers in selecting the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula rated for learning. Watch this video for an introduction to Graphite and sign up for your free account! Don't forget to contribute ratings and reviews for your favorite digital resources so that this collection will grow in scope over time.

iPad Resources

It has been a very busy summer settling into my new job at Education Service Center, Region 20. I am loving the opportunities I have to meet teachers throughout our service area. I have been teaching a lot of different iPad Basics and iPad integration sessions as many districts are deploying iPads or going to 1:1 initiatives.

A constant question I get is "Where do you find your lesson ideas?" Honestly, I like to start with the educational goals, and then work into what type of student outcome/product I think will allow students to express their learning. At that point I pull upon my knowledge of various apps, and I have a list of my favorites that I turn to over and over because of their ease of use, intuitive design and flexibility (Popplet, Strip Designer, Educreations, Videolicious, Screen Chomp, Haiku Deck, Doodle Buddy, Trading Cards, Notability or PaperPort Notes, Puppet Pals, Scribble Press or Bookabi or Book Magic).

For teachers new to iPad lesson design, it is often helpful to see what other teachers have come up with. Here are some of my favorite resources:

Tech Chef 4U - Download the free App, and visit Lisa Johnson's blog for extensive blog postings with lesson ideas from a wide variety of teachers and content areas. I used to work with Lisa and she is an amazing enthusiast and advocate for all things iPad!

Lisa and Yolanda Barker (another former colleague - I have had the pleasure of working with some very talented folks over the years!) also wrote a free iBook called Hot Apps for HOTS (available for free in the iTunes store). This book provides lesson ideas aligned with Blooms Taxonomy to inspire teachers to use a variety of apps to support all levels of Blooms.

For the Pinterest fans out there (I must confess I'm not one of them!) Lisa Johnson also curates a huge collection of iPad lesson ideas here.

There is life outside of the tremendous resources Lisa has collected! Here are just a few of my other favorites:

• Texas Computer Educator Association iPad Apps and eBooks listing, organized by content and grade levels. Even includes suggestions for administrator and productivity apps.
• Kathy Schrock's iPads in the Classroom. You name it, this site has it, from recommended lists of apps to terrific app evaluation rubrics, how to create iBooks, and training materials from her many presentations around the country. You can spend endless hours benefiting from Kathy's resources.
• Tony Vincent Learning in Hand. I've had the pleasure of learning with Tony at several conferences and he shares a tremendous amount through his website and Twitter.
• Learn Moore Stuff Another former colleague, Laura Moore, blogs about a wide variety of technology topics. Check out her iPad task card resources and many other technology integration tips. Laura also curates a Listly list of Apptivity Task Cards, don't reinvent the wheel, start here!
• Lisa Carnazzo is an incredible teacher who began with a 1 iPad classroom (and now has 8 iPads). Here is her class wiki to see what 2nd graders can accomplish with iPads.
• APPitic list from Apple Distinguished Educators.

Feeling overwhelmed? Bite off what you can chew! Master a few of the basic project creation apps and be willing to learn from your students. Provide student choice in app and project use and you will be amazed at what they will create. 

Do you have any resources you found helpful as you began on the iPad educator journey? Share them through the comments!

How much do I love Gmail? Let me count the ways...

Like many people, my Gmail inbox sometimes feels overwhelming. Too many emails which are not of immediate importance, perhaps group emails that I have delivered in daily digest format, alerts from social networking sites such as Twitter and Google+, just to name a few. I often worry that while rushing to delete unnecessary emails that I am going to accidentally delete an email from a friend or work colleague.

Google has provide a way to reconfigure your email box to automatically sort your incoming email into separate tabs depending upon several categories:

You decide which categories you want to turn on, then your incoming email is automatically sorted into the appropriate category. Social media emails go into Social, business emails go into Promotions, email from individuals goes into Primary. Email list subscriptions go into Forums. A flag at the top of each tab will alert you when you have new messages in that category. Want to move a message from a tab into your Primary tab? Simply click on the Star next to the email and the message will be moved.

I'm hoping this new tool will increase my efficiency in sorting through incoming messages! If you're interested in turning the feature on, here are directions:
1. Click on the Gear icon

2. Select Configure Inbox

3. Decide which tabs you wish to utilize. Place a checkmark next to them, along with a checkmark next to Include starred in Primary. Click on SAVE.

Return to your inbox and preview how it looks. Don't like the tabs? No problem, return to the gear, Configure Inbox option and uncheck all the boxes, your email box will return to the previous one big list style.

NEISD Teacher Web Resources

One of the life lessons I have learned the hard way is that when you leave an institution, your teacher web pages often are deleted. The following resources were created for NEISD teachers to assist them in using their Teacher Web system to schedule and send reminders to parents for teacher/parent/student conferences. Although the menu alignment has changed slightly since these videos were originally created, they detail the key components of the tools.

I have learned my lesson and now create everything on sites/blogs that I own/control, however I wanted to preserve the links to these videos for my former colleagues. I hope NEISD teachers will be able to take advantage of them in the future!

How to Use NEISD Teacher Web to Schedule Parent Conferences




How to Send Parent Conference Reminders via NEISD Teacher Web




How to Duplicate a Previously Created Teacher Conference Schedule

Stamping Images Using PowerPoint

If Paint isn't your speed, or if you have a large number of images that you want to collect all at one time, try using PowerPoint to stamp image credits onto your photos. Watch this movie for a demonstration:

Stamping Images on a Mac

How to use Preview to quickly stamp image credits onto photos using your Macbook.

Stamping Images Using Microsoft Paint

A movie I created demonstrating how to use Microsoft Paint to stamp image credit on photos.

Stamping Images Using Skitch on Your iPad

As part of my Digital Citizenship training for teachers that I am presenting this summer, I include a teach piece on different ways to stamp images with source credits.

Here is a movie that explains how to capture an image on your iPad and stamp it using the free app Skitch.