TECH TIPS TinyURL!

Ever come across a URL that is really long and you want to make it easier for students to type in.

Try Tiny URL  http://tinyurl.com/

Welcome to TinyURL!™

Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you've come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.

Enter a long URL to make tiny: Custom alias (optional): http://tinyurl.com/ May contain letters, numbers, and dashes.

You can even customize the URL to fit your needs.  

TIPS OF THE WEEK a Google a day

Want a fun way to help students practice and enhance their web research skills while discovering answers to trivia questions? Then check out “A Google A Day!”

http://agoogleaday.com 

Basic Instructions:

1. 1.Go to http://agoogleaday.com
2. 2.Read the question at the bottom of the page.
3. 3.Use the provided search window to try to find the answer.
   Note - The search window at agoogleaday.com automatically filters out published answers so you get a spoiler-free experience.
4. 4.Click the “Show answer” link at the bottom of the page to see if you are right.

Extensions for Students:

1. -Ask the students to guess what the answer will be before they do any searching.
2. -Once they’ve discovered the answer, ask a higher-level extension question.
   Example: If the answer is George Washington, ask something like:
   - What is the most surprising fact you found about George Washington?
   - If you could meet George Washington, what one question would you ask him?
   - List three ways George Washington’s childhood home was different from yours.
   - If George Washington could visit your classroom today, what would surprise him the most?

Tip of the Week CopyPasteCharacter

Ever need a special character like ✄ or ✎, but you can’t remember the key combination to create it? Well, this week’s tip will provide a quick and easy solution to that problem...

CopyPasteCharacter

http://www.copypastecharacter.com/

Instructions:

1. 1.Go to: http://www.copypastecharacter.com/
2. 2.Click the desired character.
   (This will automatically copy it to your computer’s clipboard.)
   Note - Do not right-click or control-click. Just a regular mouse-click will copy it!
3. 3.Go to wherever you want to paste the character.
   This could be a Word document, a Google doc, an email message, a blog post, or even a Tweet or Plurk. You can paste the character anywhere!
4. 4.Paste!
5. 5.That’s it!

Options:

1. •Hold the Alt or Option key while clicking to copy multiple characters.
2. •Click the “As HTML” link at the upper right to copy the html code for the character.
   
   
   credit: www.tammyworcester.com

IPAD APPS

http://threering.com/

Three Ring

Three Ring is an app that allows me to create an electronic portfolio for each of my students. As my students are working independently, I walk around and take photos, video, or audio samples of their work from my iPad or iPhone. The work samples are immediately uploaded into my account on the Three Ring website and appropriately filed by the student's name. I can tag photos with titles I create, such as "independent work" or "test." From the website, I can also type in notes about each sample.

ClassDojo

ClassDojo is a behavior management system. On the ClassDojo website, you can set up your classes, award points or take away points based on behavior, get multiple behavior reports, and email the behavior results to parents or teachers! Students and parents log on to view the number of points the child has gained or lost. Teachers also set the specific positive and negative behaviors—by doing so, one can easily see which behaviors earned or lost points.

While this isn't an app in the iTunes store yet, the ClassDojo website does allow you to link your mobile devices to your online account.

Too Noisy

Too Noisy is a volume control tool. Once you launch the app, a speedometer appears. The needle moves as the noise volume increases or decreases. Teachers can increase or decrease the sensitivity as needed. Teachers may also be interested in Too Noisy Pro (US$0.99/£0.69/0,79€), which offers audio notifications if the classroom volume becomes too loud.

Book Retriever Classroom Library management system cost .99

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/book-retriever/id512115889?mt=8

Needs Images, Clipart or Sounds

Most of the sites are free to use or share without having to worry about Permissions.

ClipArt sites

You can use the Google Advanced Image Search to check for licences and only return images that are covered for reuse or commercial use. To find the Advanced Image Search, either follow the link above or go to Google, click on the Image tab and enter a search term. When Google Images has returned the search results, click on the icon of the cog in the top right and look for Advanced Search. At the bottom of the advanced search page, look for Usage Rightsand change it to Free to Use or Share to get Creative Commons licensed images from sites such as Flickr and more.

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Clipart and Presentation Object Sites

Clipart ETC: This site provides free clipart (sample pictured right) for students and teachers and comes with complete source information to cite in school projects. Teachers and students are allowed to use up to 50 clipart pieces in any one, non-commercial project without any further permission. It has a library of 20 topics full of black and white drawings and photos in a variety of subjects. Within each topic there are other subdivisions. In math those subdivisions include: angles, clocks, counting, currency, fractions, geometric patterns, geometric shapes, geometric solids, geometry, math tools, probability, thermometers, and trigonometry and analytic geometry.

Presentations ETC: I really like this site. It contains free colorful backgrounds, templates, letters, frames, and buttons that can easily be used in ActivInspire flipcharts and school projects. You are licensed to use up to 50 items in any presentation without addition permission. There are over 20,000 background slides to choose from with over 30,000 buttons, letters and photo objects. included.

Clippix ETC: This site provides the teacher and classroom with a source of photos and pictures for use in projects. The license allows 25 free photos in any one school project without further permission. Photo libraries included are in agriculture, American history and government, animals, arts, business, food, health and beauty, holidays and occasions, home, math, patterns, textures, and colors, places, plants, school, science, signs and symbols, sports and recreation, technology and transportation.

Maps ETC: This site has over 5,000 maps from many different time periods and areas of the world, including world maps. You may use up to 25 maps in any one non-commercial school project without further permission. Maps come in JPEG and GIF formats (best for student websites and classroom presentations) as well as PDF (best for displays, bulletin boards, printed school reports).

Other Image and Clipart Sites

Open Clip Art Library: This is an excellent site. The Open Clipart Library (OCAL) is the Largest Collaboration Community of clipart. All clipart is released to the public domain and may be used in any project for free and with no restrictions.

Easy Stock Photos: This site contains thousands of free stock photos, pictures, and information. Photos are arranged in libraries to making finding a great photo easier. All stock photos, pictures, images, and information is royalty free and in the public domain.

Welcome to Teacher Files.com: Most of the clip art found at this site are original creations made onsite while a few were collected from free and Public Domain collections listed by the Open Source Community under theGraphics and Clip Art and Public Domain categories. They are all free for personal or educational purposes.

Pics4Learning.com: Pics4Learning is a safe, free image library for education. Teachers and students can use the copyright-friendly photos and images for classrooms, multimedia projects, web sites, videos, portfolios, or any other project in an educational setting. The thousands of photos in this collection are indexed and sorted in order to maximize their effective use by students in the classroom. The photographers retain the rights to these photos, but they have graciously allowed their use.

Clipart and Animated Gifs

Free School Clipart: Teachers can use these free colorful clipart images arranged in 80 categories in their classrooms. Students can use them for homework assignments and websites. They request a link back to their site giving them credit for the clipart used.

Clipart by Phillip Martin: Over 1,500 colorful, original cartoon drawings (copyrighted) are available for your non-profit use. The graphics are related to specific school topics like plants, fairy tales, math, holidays, certificates, seasons, science, animals and more.

Thousands of Free Clipart Graphics: The graphics are larger than normal, and arranged in categories. They are free for personal use (no commercial use allowed). The site would appreciate a return link giving them credit.

3D Toads: Fabulous revolving graphics. See dissections, fossils, animal skeletons and more, rotating up to 360º. This is a new concept in graphics.

Animation Library: This site has over 13,000 animations to choose from, divided into categories including alphabets, words, web design elements as well as animated gifs.

Glitter Text

SparkLee.com: Design beautiful text with this glitter text generator. See your text by filling out the form, then download the image and use it in your work.

Text Effect: Choose an effect, type in your text and that is all there is to it.

Dazzle Junction: Fill in the steps to design glitter text in words, phrases and short sentences.

Photos and Short Videos

US Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library: All kinds of photos are available. Simply, do a search for the animal you are looking for. I always give credit to the photographer and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

EduPic Graphical Resource for Educators: This outstanding photographer, William Vann and a few colleagues, have put together a collection of work to share with educators and their students without further permission. All others must ask for permission. His other rights are reserved.

Free Stock Photography: This excellent site is for educational use and is full of free royalty-free stock photography. It is arranged in categories for you to explore.

35 Photos of Space: These photos would make an excellent bulletin board, flipchart photos, or pictures for a report.

Teaching Channel: This is an excellent video site for all grades and all subject areas.

Sounds

Here are some sites containing sounds for the classroom. Sometimes titles can be misleading, so I encourage you to always listen to the sound effects before you use them with your students.

Simply the Best Free Sounds: This site has free to use WAV and MP3 sound files in a variety of categories (cartoon, event, humor, miscellaneous, sound effects).

National Park Service Sound Gallery: Full gallery containing free to download and use animal sounds and photos. However, remember to please give credit to the photographer.

Weather Sound Effects: This contains Public Domain weather sounds from MEDIACollege.com

Troubleshoot Activboard

https://sites.google.com/a/ccpsweb.org/promethean/tutorials/Troubleshoot%20Activboard.doc?attredirects=0&d=1

Need Help with your Actiboard.  Try these tips first.

New Math site

http://www.zoowhiz.com/

ZooWhiz

If you interested in trying it out, contact me and I will set you and your class up with an account.!!!

Where to download free music and sound effects

Here are my choices for The Best Places To Get Royalty-Free Music & Sound Effects:
MUSIC:
Free Loops
Sample Net
Open Music Archive
Jamendo
iBeat
incompetech
Podsafe Audio
Purple Planet
The Free Music Archive
SOUND EFFECTS:
Soundsnap
Soungle
Free Sound Project
Absolute Sound Effects Archive
Sound Jay
My Sound FX
Find Sounds is great. They don’t guarantee, though, that all their sounds are copyright free.

WEB 2.0

Time Toast

Time Toast is an online timeline creation program. Children can easily make a timeline including dates, titles, descriptions, and photos. This would be a great site for kids who are interested in a specific historical tracking. It can also be used as a creative project idea for open-ended assignments that are given in class to be created at home. Timelines can be shared with others, or set to private, and they are also printable. In order to save a timeline, the child must create an account.

Museum Box

A great Web 2.0 for social studies is Museum Box. This interactive site allows children to create a “museum box” to store text, photos, video, and audio into an online storage box. Learning ideas include creating a “box” that contains important facts and features about a specific person, time, or event. An account needs to be created in order to save your box. This site is very user friendly and would be a very creative and different idea for your child to use for project-based assignments.

Create a Graph

The National Center for Education Statistics maintains a website for kids that includes an online program called Create a Graph. On this site, children can create bar, line, area, pie, and line graphs. Graph skills are important to learn because they are used frequently in our everyday lives to understand complex information on the news and in society. Children get to choose the design and appearance, add data and labels, review their work, and then print, email or save their graphs. Great ideas for home use would include making a graph of their chore duties, graphing the amount of money spent from their piggy bank, or to graph the temperature. Other educational examples are provided on the website. This would also be a great tool to use for at home learning projects assigned from school.

Mentormob
http://www.mentormob.com/
Create online learning playlist...  Imagine putting all of your links and videos in one place.

Choose your Own Adventure

http://davidwees.com/content/using-google-forms-choose-your-own-adventure-style-story

 

Love this idea where students create their own choose your own adventure book using google forms.....

Timer

http://e.ggtimer.com/

Simple online timers

Symbaloo

http://www.symbaloo.com/

Bookmarking Website

Larry Ferlazzo

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

Subscribe to his blog... lots of great ideas and resources

WEB sites of the Day!!!

Fun Writing Games for Kids

Check out these fun writing games for kids. Enjoy a range of free activities, resources and practice exercises related to writing letters, stories, newspapers, debates, advertising and instructions.

The games are perfect for challenging students who enjoy interactive learning online. Find a topic that suits you and improve your English by completing as many of the educational challenges as you can.

http://www.funenglishgames.com/writinggames.html

Check out Dynamic Curriculum

http://jc-schools.net/dynamic/index.html

The Story Starter randomly generates 1,862,718,000 story starters. This idea generator can be used for short stories, novels, plays, scripts, or just for fun.
http://thestorystarter.com/?THEBIGDEALBOOK=634646271071187500

Go Graphic!
Comic Master, brought to you by Reading for Life in the UK, allows students to create their own short graphic novels. The Teachers section of the site explores how graphic novels work to help students become familiar with the medium and develop an understanding of the complexity of it.
Click Here to Visit Website
Click Here to Access Free Teachers Resources

 

Get into the Action
On the ZimmerTwins website, students can choose from various characters, type in the dialogue, choose their background scene and create a fun movie. Students can choose from the “starter” prompts and then decide how they want to continue the story, or they can create a storyline from scratch. An animated tutorial helps students learn how to make a movie.
Click Here to Visit Website

Add some Life to your Text!!!   Works great on your PPT or Activinspire Software

Write your own message on Bart Simpson's famous chalkboard! The message will be repeated over and over again just like the show

http://www.addletters.com/pictures/bart-simpson-generator/2206735.htm


Glitterfy your Text
http://www.glitterfy.com/glitter-words.php

Bloom's Taxonomy Posters

http://blog.learningtoday.com/blog/bid/23376/Blooming-Orange-Bloom-s-Taxonomy-Helpful-Verbs-Poster

Blooming Butterfly

http://blog.learningtoday.com/Default.aspx?app=LeadgenDownload&shortpath=docs%2fbloomsposterv4.pdf

Bloom's Tree