Infographics in Education

Infographics are visual representations of data or information on any topic!  Janae Hunt and I presented on the use of infographics in the classrooms at UCET (Utah Coalition for Education Technology) at the beginning of the month.  I like using Piktochart and easel.ly to create visual handouts, samples of which are included in the Blendspace presentation below.

Evernote for Anecdotal Note Taking

Evernote is digital notebook that allows you to take notes, clip web pages, upload images and files, and much more.  It is ideal for note taking, organization, and storage because it syncs between computer, smartphone, and tablets making your information available everywhere.  Evernote's tagline is "Remember Everything."

Evernote is a great tool for educators to become familiar with and use for classroom organization, management, lesson planning, and file saving purposes.  Teachers are getting excited about the ability to begin going paperless and are finding many uses for Evernote in their classrooms.

Classroom Uses:

A few ideas for how teachers can use Evernote:

• Creating lesson plans and organizing in notebooks and with tags 
• Taking notes during Professional Development, faculty meetings, etc.
• Anecdotal Notes including images of student work samples
• Audio recordings of students explaining work, oral presentations, and reading fluency samples
• Create notes including PDF's, instructions, uploads to share and email to parents and students
• Save articles and web clippings that can be organized and shared later
• Upload and save pictures of students, their work, and important events
• Creating check lists and to do check boxes
• Set email reminders for a specific date and time in notes
• Online file storage including PDF's and images to be accessed anywhere
• Sharing information through social networking like Facebook, Twitter, email, and more
• Writing sub plans that can include links, pictures of assignments, and other resources which can be shared through email

To view a Prezi that is a great example of how one teacher is using Evernote in her classroom on a daily basis click here.  This Prezi was created by Rebecca Spink and was found here.  

Why aren't you connecting?

I'm going to do a brief review of a cool new app that I found out about yesterday. First I want to talk about how I found it. If you know our department, you will know that we are big users and promoters of Twitter. We don't watch our twitter feeds all day, but when we have a chance we'll watch the feed for a few minutes to see what is happening out there. Yesterday I was watching my feed and saw a couple of pictures and mentions of something called ChromVille. Not knowing what it was I did a quick search online and found out.

ChromVille is an augmented reality app. Click on the link for a definition of what it is. In the case of ChromVille what it does is it lets you print out a blackline sheet that you can then have students color. There are 5 different scenarios (villages) that you can download sheets from. You then download the ChromVille App. In the app you select the village that matches the sheet the student colored. You hold your iPad over the sheet until it reads the paper correctly, then the characters and artifacts on the page pop up in 3D. You can then rotate the paper and see the items from different points of view. Here is an example of what it looks like.

Here is the official how to use Chromville video.

How to use Chromville app from Chromville on Vimeo.

So Chromville is pretty cool. It really isn't the point of the message. The point is that I found it because I am involved with the global education community on Twitter and other places. You may say, "well I don't have time for that!" If you could make finds like Chromville and really important things, isn't it worth investing a little time everyday. I believe it is, for all of us. If you aren't on Twitter and want to know more, contact your EdTech.

Scholastic.com

Scholastic.com has been used for book orders for years, but did you know that the Scholastic Website is also a great learning resource for teachers, parents, kids, administrators, and librarians? The Scholastic Website has a lot of free resources to get people excited about reading and learning. Teachers could show book talks or even author interviews to their students.  It might just be the perfect way to get that struggling reader hooked on books. 

Although some of the materials are for purchase, many others are free.  Here are just some of the great free resources that Scholastic has to offer:

For Teachers-

• Resources and Tools
• Daily Starters
• Over 2,800 Lesson Plan Ideas for Grades K-12
• Tools
• Graphic Organizers
• Flash Card Makers
• Spelling Wizard
• Freebie Corner
• Strategies and Ideas
• Professional Development Videos
• Featured Blogs
• Student Activities
• Computer Lab Activities
• Study Jams-Interactive Activities
• Interactive Whiteboard Activities
• Books and Authors
• Book Trailers
• Book Talks
• Etc.

For Administrators-

• Videos
• Blogs
• Articles
• Professional Development Ideas
• Leadership Concepts
• Technology Tools
• Etc.

For Kids-

The Stacks (Ages 8-12) 

Family Playground (Ages 3-7)

• Featured Books and Authors
• Games
• Blog Posts about Books, Celebrities, and More
• Message Boards
• Printables
• Stories
• Etc.

For Librarians-

• Author Videos
• Book Talks
• Book Previews
• Author Interviews
• Read-Alouds
• Etc.

 Check out Scholastic.com today and see how this website can benefit you!

SMART Magic Pen

Did you know that SMART NoteBook software has a magic pen? Well it does and it’s amazing. You access it from your toolbar by selecting the 3 pen icon. That expands a new pen window to the right and you click on the arrow that is in the bottom on the pen button. Select Magic Pen and you are off.

There are 3 things that are really cool that I’m going to share with you. First, draw a line with it and it will magically disappear after a few seconds. Second, draw a circle around a area of a picture and it highlight it. The rest of the picture will fade and the circle will be normal. You can also grab the circle and move it around. Last, you can draw a square and what ever is in that square will be selected and zoomed in on. It’s like magic and the students really enjoy it.

Word Clouds for Kids

There seem to be several word cloud services available for teachers to use in the classroom.  The one that I like to use with teachers, especially in elementary, is called Word Clouds for Kids. This word cloud generator is free.  Once words are added to the text box, a word cloud is generated, and a tool bar of graphical buttons are used to manipulate the appearance of the word cloud.  Colors, fonts, and layouts can be changed and it's easy to go back to the text box to edit words just by clicking on a back arrow button.  Students can also save their word clouds to the desktop as a jpeg or print directly from the Internet site.  Another bonus for teachers is that educational computer games are offered by grade levels K-5. If you go to the home page of Word Clouds for Kids called ABCya, elementary teachers will not only find educational computer games, but also Apps for Kids to use on iOS devices. Note:  The only drawback is that there are advertisements that will be seen on the site, but that is how the site is paid for so that teachers can use it for free with their students. Check it out!

2nd Grade Examples from Granite Elementary

      

Cracking the Code...

One of the most important functions of Education Technology I have come to realize is preparing students to use Technology in productive ways that will make them successful humans after (and perhaps during) their K-12 educational experience.  I attended a technology club at a high school in our district and was so impressed with the enthusiasm of the students who came to learn and experience writing computer code.

Seeing how excited these kids were to collaborate and create something in this mystifying language was truly inspiring.  While it was extremely cool to witness such enthusiasm for learning, I couldn't help but think about the kind of trajectory these experiences were placing on the students at this activity.  More and more industry is focused on technology and in innovation and engineering solutions that drive the other industries.  Being able to write and manipulate Code has become a skill that is in high demand these days.  Many companies have reported that they have a difficult time finding employees with these skills.  The public schools are now being approached by companies who would like their core instruction to include computer programming.  This means that the tools to learn these important skills have never been more accessible.

Websites like code.org have made lessons that are easy enough for a young elementary student to begin dabbling in the exciting world of computer coding.  Plural Sight is a Utah company that has offered its free educational opportunities to schools in the area.  They came to the technology club activity I mentioned earlier and taught the students.  I'm not a computer programmer, but I know where to find the tools to help kids get started and that is really empowering!