SlideShark

An app I recently became aware of and started using is SlideShark. This is a fantastic app if you are looking for a way to present from your iPad using a PowerPoint. This powerful app has lots of features including presenter view with notes, live slide annotation, broadcast and sharing capability, and a remote option.

Teachers at Butler Middle School just started using this app in conjunction with their iPads and AppleTV. Teachers create a free account online and upload their Powerpoint presentations, or save them in cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc). Then, you connect to your AppleTV and iPad via Airplay, and open the app. Your presentations appear in the app ready for use! The teachers at Butler love the mobility and flexibility the app offers

This video walks you through how to use the app and how to upload your PowerPoint Presentations. Best of all...it's free! Check it out!

Instragram for Education

Instagram for Education

Parents love to know what their children are doing in the classroom and what better way to let them know than by showing them?

Instagram is a great way to do just that!  At Sunrise Elementary, Mrs. Lightel created a class Instagram profile.  By adjusting her privacy settings, she is able to post her class photos on a regular basis. Parents can request to follow the private feed to be able to stay up to date with the classroom activities. Mrs. Lightel has the ability to accept or deny any requests, allowing her to keep control of who views the photos at all times.

She posts new pictures frequently and the parents are always excited to see what their students are doing and learning in class.  Instagram gives parents the ability to comment on the pictures Mrs. Lightel posts, in turn making parents to feel like they are a part of the learning environment.  Many parents don't have an opportunity to volunteer in the class, but by posting the photos, the parents can still feel in tune with the class. All in all, it is just a fun way to keep parents engaged in the learning process of their student.

Infuse Learning: BYOD

View this PDF, Infuse-Learning PDF.pdf, for a brief introduction to Infuse Learning

Infuse Learning is a student response system, that allows students to respond in a variety of ways on any device that has active Internet connection.  

The teacher simply creates an account and receives a room number at Infuse Learning.  They share the room ID with their students, who then log in at Infuse Learning.  The teacher is then ready to use the Quick Assessment feature to ask and get response in a variety of ways including Draw Response, True/False, Multiple Choice, Sort and Order, Open Ended, Numeric and Likert Scale.

Other option offered through Infuse Learning is the chance for teachers to create quizzes ahead of time and have students complete quiz at their own pace.  One the home page of your Infuse Learning Account, click on My Quizzes under the Quiz Management Section.  Click the 'plus' sign to create a new quiz choosing response options offered in the quick response section. Once you have created a quiz, you may Edit, Run, Share or Delete the quiz. Running the quiz will make the quiz show up on the device of any student who is logged in.

Pic Collage in the Classroom

Pic Collage is a free app that allows you to import photos from your photo library, Instagram, Facebook and even web image searches.  Pic Collage lets you create collages of your pictures.  You can arrange your photos into frames, add cutouts, filters, borders, stickers and text to your collage.  

Heather Weiler, an extended core teacher at Jordan High School, has been using Pic Collage with her students.  Many of her students can’t write or talk, but are producing great things with this app.  This year Heather’s class had four container gardens.  They grew sunflowers, geraniums, pumpkins, watermelons, and herbs.  Each day, a group would go out and collect data about the garden.  They used scientific instruments such as thermometers and rulers to check sky and soil temperatures and growth of plants. Each student would document their findings in a journal.  Students whose written skills are limited, took pictures and used Pic Collage to describe their journal entry.  Below are pictures of some of the collages/journal entires that were created.

                      

              

Visit Heather’s website, extendedcoreprogram.weebly.com, to see what other great things she is doing with her students.

Haiku Deck for Vocabulary

This app is becoming a real favorite for teacher and student presentations because it is so easy to use. Haiku Deck is similar to what our beloved PowerPoint can do, but faster and more intuitive. Once you begin to type information in, pictures can be suggested for you based on the words you type and presentations are very fast to put together for student presentations. 

There are many programs that do similar things, but Haiku Deck is great for when you need an outline to speak from but not pages and pages of text. This is a more image-based presentation tool. *Great for speeches, outlines and group projects. 

An example of a practical classroom use is found at Albion Middle School where some teachers are using Haiku Deck to make presentations to help students learn subject-specific vocabulary terms. Teachers have been able to create presentations rather quickly with their students in class to include words, definitions and images to aid in faster understanding. 

6 Compelling Reasons to Use Technology

Have you ever asked yourself, "Why use technology?  How is technology going to benefit the learning in my classroom?" If so, you are not alone.  Finding useful or relevant reasons to use technology can sometimes seem like a stretch and only possible for those with an incredible imaginations or lots of time on their hands to create technology rich lesson plans.

UEN (Utah Education Network), however, has created a list of 6 Compelling Reason to Use Technology with links to a variety of resources within each topic, making it easier for teachers to begin using technology today!

One of my favorite reasons to use technology?  Real Time Data!  Real time data is data generated at the time the request was made.  Real time data can take the form of recent earthquakes locations (to the minute), video cam pictures from around the word, weather patterns and stock rates, to name a few. Nearly every topic has some form of data that is collected.  Using real time data is one way to add meaning (real world examples) to your curriculum.

Investigate where earthquakes occur and why?

 Earthquakes @USGS.gov

Examine animals behaviors in their natural habit.
(A herd of Zebras came into sight just after taking this photo-Amazing!)
Wild Earth Cams

Predict weather based on satellite images.

NASA - GOES Project Science

Analyze world statistics.

World-o-Meter

Additional resources to start your journey with "Real Time Data."  ENJOY!

• Earth system resources from Oregon State
• Ocean Observing in K12 Education
• Data Resources for Classroom Use
• Data Resources Online
• 30 Cool Educational Webcams

Report Card Support-Numbers for the iPad

I have certainly learned a lot about how important it is to download your files to your iPad.  That way, you have everything you need for the new elementary report card.  A great idea is to use Numbers for the iPad to download the checklists that are published in Canvas.  These checklists can easily be changed to suit your individual students and your needs.

I have captured a screen shot of just how slick this is.  Janae Hunt has done this for all of her schools as well, and so far, my teachers are loving it.  As you can see, a teacher can just tap on any square to show mastery for that skill.  The tabs along to the top allow you to go from one standard to the other.  It's simple to add more rows and columns, too.