The iKnow Podcast on iTunes U

Did you know that iKnow, the Canyons District employee newsletter, is now available as a podcast? The iKnow podcast is ideal for busy teachers who want to stay "in the know" with District events and news but have busy schedules. The podcast can be accessed through iTunes U and downloaded onto a computer or iOS device (iPad, iPod, iPhone) so that it can be accessed on the go. Imagine learning about all about the latest and greatest happenings in the District while you're running on the treadmill, commuting to and from work, or cooking dinner. The iKnow podcast makes it easy!

The iKnow podcast and many other podcasts and professional development courses are available on the Canyons District iTunes U channel. Watch the following tutorial videos to find out how to subscribe:

iTunes U on iOS


  iTunes U on a Computer

What Can Canvas Do For You?

We are talking about Canvas in all of our secondary schools this year. To help teachers to better utilize this tool in their classrooms, we want to help provide answers to the question:

Why Canvas?

Maximize opportunities to Respond.

Canvas can help you to better understand what your students are learning. You can give students opportunities to share what they know and ask questions when they need help. You can track concepts students aren’t grasping, which assignments they have missed and who needs extra help.

Re-Capture Instruction Time.

Canvas is designed to give you more time to teach and to give students more time to learn. With Canvas you can extend your instruction time beyond your classroom walls and time limits, and students can learn from your instruction materials anytime and anywhere.

SpeedGrader.

Want to cut down on the time you spend grading tests, quizzes, essays and other assignments? Use SpeedGrader in Canvas to grade student work in a fraction of the time while still providing personalized feedback to each student. The SpeedGrader app for iPad lets you take your grade book wherever you go.

Professional Learning.

Teachers can become students in a Canvas course and share ideas and resources across classes and across schools. Canvas is easy to use and can engage teacher-learners anywhere and anytime, so more time can be spent teaching and working with students.

What should you be doing with Canvas now?

Most teachers won’t begin teaching with Canvas until next school year. But for some groups and for those teachers who would like to get started, there are some guidelines listed below. The goal is to help ALL secondary teachers participate in Canvas as a student this year. If you’d like to do more, contact your Ed Tech Specialist.

Click HERE to download a printable copy of this blog post.

Write About This

An app I recently shared with the teachers at my schools is Write About This.  It is a great writing app. You can use this app in whole group or small group lessons, or as an independent activity. Prompts include a picture and a written prompt. Use can use the preloaded prompts, or create your own. The app allows you to type your response to the prompt or vocally record a response.

The free version of this app provides you with 50 preloaded prompts and the ability to try the create your own feature. The paid version allows you full access to all features and costs $3.99. Your students are sure to love this app!

Watch this video for a demonstration of the features and ideas on how to use it in your classroom.

Doctopus

This year much of my time and effort has been helping teachers and counselors with csddocs.org, Google Docs.  There is no mistaking that using Google Docs in the classroom itself is not an amazing tool, but I am asked a very specific “how to” questions that Google Docs cannot do easily .  

The number one question is “How can I share documents with students so that each student has their own document to edit without students having to share the document back to me?”  

Doctopus is the answer.  Doctopus allows the teacher to distribute, share, and manage documents (templates) easily to each student.  This will help increase differentiated learning and communication with your students.  

To learn more please watch "Doctopus 4.0 walkthrough" by Jay Atwood.  The video is licensed as "Reuse Allowed" by Creative Commons.  Thanks Jay for sharing. 

Flippin' the Classroom with Knowmia Teach

 Knowmia Teach is a free online tool and iOS app that allows teachers to build and record lessons for teaching and learning purposes.  Teachers can create their own lessons and post them on the website for everyone to see, or they can search from over 19,000 lessons created by other teachers in the Video Lesson Library.  Lessons can then be turned into assignments using the Assignment Wizard Tool.

Knowmia can provide free training opportunities to teach teachers how to use the app effectively.  You can get a group of 5 or more teachers together and then schedule an online training session.  The website also provides online tutorials that provide more detail about the product.

The app allows you to build lessons by adding photos/graphics, voice, face recording, text, shapes, background color, and a pen.  It even has a pointer tool to help draw attention to specific things on the screen as you are recording.  Once the lesson has been created, it can be exported to the iPad, Dropbox, Google Drive, or added to your lessons on the Knowmia website.

To learn more about Knowmia Teach, click on the link below.
http://www.knowmia.com/watch/lesson/19724

Safeshare.tv

Safeshare.tv is a site that allows you to show and share YouTube videos without the ads and other videos that show up. If you have been on YouTube lately you know that you can't control what images and ads appear on the YouTube site.  Many of the videos and ads that appear are not appropriate for students young eyes.  Safeshare.tv is a site to help eliminate that problem. 

Once on Safeshare.tv here are the directions for how to use it:

1. Copy the YouTube link for the video you would like to share
2. Go to http://safeshare.tv
3. Paste the link in the space provided and click Generate Safe Link
4. Click Take Me to the Safe View (It will appear below the button you just clicked)
5. It will then take you to a page that just has the video you would like to view/show your class.
 You can copy the Safeshare link and reuse it.

Click here to view an example of a video shared using Safeshare.tv.

Vocabulary Spelling City

If you are looking for a place for students to practice with vocabulary or spelling words- this is the place! Vocabulary Spelling City is both a website and and app, so students can practice and play games in a variety of ways both at home and school. The FREE version of the program works really well for most teachers and most grades because you select the level of difficulty based on the words you enter.  For information on how to set up an account to use with your students see below.