Edgaged

Flippity.net  is a free and easy resource to use. It creates a set of virtual index cards for study notes using Google Spreadsheets. Index cards have been used for years to memorize terms. However, to insert a picture, it would require some old magazines, scissors, and some paste. :) What is also fun is the fact that Youtube videos can be inserted into the cards. So if you are looking for an easy way to distribute study notes to students, Flippity might be for you. Since Flippity works on any platform, I think it would be a great idea to copy the link to your deck of cards and create a QR code . Then students can quickly access the terms and practice as they enter or exit a classroom. The benefit of no account required allows you to distribute the deck to parents as well. This allows them to stay informed about the learning expectations in your classroom. Use a QR Code for Quick Student Access Also available on Flippity.net is a quiz show (much like jeopardy), ce...

First Grade Discussion on TodaysMeet One fun way to use TodaysMeet  is to have small groups of students discuss a text. This gives an opportunity for the kids to read and respond in a manner that will provide a challenge. It also provides practice of digital citizenship skills with how to speak on the Internet. This discussion didn't go to the extent of students chatting with each other as they were only responding to my questions. However, it is a start and a good one at that as this was the first that they had used TodaysMeet in this format. To set up the lesson, I made a scan of the text, created a TodaysMeet room, grabbed the QR code, and pieced it together with Pic Wall.  That way the students could get to my meeting as soon as they were finished reading just by scanning the code. ( More information on how to set up a TodaysMeet can be found here .) Directions, QR Code, and Article Made with Pic Wall The Transcript of the Discussion: With older grades or hi...

Recently, a teacher dropped me an email asking about graphing tools her daughter could use for science fair...other than Excel. Excel can feel a little cumbersome to elementary students. So I decided to go into my banks of resource and "plot" around for some good web-based graphing tools that span across computing platforms.  The graphing tool of choice for elementary students is from NCES . It doesn't require an account, it is free to use, the tools are well organized and easy to read, students can preview their graph before to tweak it to their liking, and it works on a variety of different platforms. Students can save it as an image to their camera roll by long-pressing on the image. If students download it as a PDF, they can import it into Google Drive or OneNote.  The NCES graphs would be great for any presentation tool, infographics, or even videos. A little non-traditional use would be with Chatterpix . Imagine the fun students would have if they coul...

Parents and community members are on various forms of social media. Whether it be Facebook , Twitter  or Instagram , most individuals utilize some form of social media outlet. These social media outlets provide an opportunity for teachers/student to share and communicate in ways that in a few short years ago seemed inconceivable. This post is more of a continuation from two previous posts. One I gave a few practical tips and an overview of how to use Instagram.  The second post shows how to insert and "Instagram Badge" on your website/blog.  Here I am featuring how to embed individual images from Instagram on your blog/website. Why should you want to embed individual Instagram posts? It will draw your audience to more social media outlets than just your website. Family and community members need to know when you update your blog/website so that they can continually stay informed. A connection between your social media outlets will help keep those reminders flow...

Teachers are frequently asking for easy ways to manage their classroom images. They want a quick and convenient way to communicate information to parents and the community. Teachers have utilized Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and other social media outlets. Instagram  is a great platform because you can post to all three and embed the images on your class blog/website. Last week I "put the cart before the horse" and posted about how to put an "Instagram Badge" on your class blog . It seemed somewhat important to provide a little information about using an Instagram account. So here is a quick overview of how to use Instagram on your mobile device: Before you jump into Instagram and other forms of social media for your classroom, here are some tips:   Keep students' names (especially students under 13) out of your posts. If you accidentally get a name tag in your image, you can easily blur it out with Skitch . It is important to respect their pri...

Mrs. McKibben's fourth grade on Big Universe Three years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Anil Hemrajani, CEO of Big Universe . After being one year into East Noble School Corporation's digital conversion, Anil came to visit due to the high volume of activity coming from our schools ( Rome City Elementary, in particular. ) It was quite an experience for our students to meet him and share their love for reading. Every teacher knows that the greatest impact on a student improving as a reader is to give the students a lot of practice reading. Big Universe even provides research that their product alone will help to make students do just that.  As a former fourth-grade teacher, it was always my goal to turn students into lifelong readers. Providing the material in a format that suits the interest and need of a student is an essential part of creating lifelong readers. If a student prefers reading in a digital format, Big Universe is a great place to look. Recently I had...

QR codes are nothing new, but kids sure do love to scan them. It is fun for them whether it takes them to a website or has a "secret" message. What is really fun is when you allow the kids to make their own QR Codes. Vocabulary Words These #waynecenterelem 3rd graders are making their own #QRcodes with vocabulary words. #edchat #edtech A photo posted by Lance Yoder (@edgaged) on Mar 12, 2015 at 10:12am PDT With Mrs. Jackson's third grade, I had students dig through their books for what I like to call "juicy words". These are words that stand out; words that are not common to their everyday conversations. Next, they used the context clues to determine the meaning, and double-checked the definition using the dictionary on their iPad. After that, they went to QRStuff.com and selected the "plain text" option. They then wrote the definition of the word and saved the QR code to the camera roll. To label the QR code with the vocabulary word,...

First grade @romecityschool practicing social media w/ #todaysmeet. Discussing responsibility and friendship. #primaryrocks! A video posted by Lance Yoder (@edgaged) on Mar 10, 2015 at 9:07am PDT Social media is a part of our world. Like everything online, we need to "take the bad with the good." This was the discussion I had with FIRST GRADERS today. I say this with hope that the future of the Internet will be a friendlier place. I say this with the hope that they will understand that their online choices WILL effect their future. Teaching students how to speak online and the concept of a "digital footprint" is essential...even with first graders. I started with a discussion about my own digital footprint. I showed them my Twitter feed . I showed them the types of things I post. I showed them how other teachers help me because they post good ideas and ways to become a better teacher/tech-nerd. I'm not saying that my digital footprint has alwa...

Can You Guess the Shape? My wife, Michelle Yoder , is the real genius behind this activity. She started this project a couple years ago when East Noble was in the second year of its digital transition. Because of her innovative ideas for utilizing technology with first grade students, she was awarded the Jacob's Educator award from Indiana University. It was a proud moment for me.  Using Chatterpix (Michelle used Puppet Pals ), I worked with Mrs. McDonald and Mrs. O'Neill's classes to create the same magic. Plus I expanded upon it a little now that our district has access to GAFE accounts (Google Apps for Education). Because of our Google Accounts, the students were able to easily upload their videos into a Google Drive folder for me. I then uploaded them into Youtube,  and from there I was able to import them into a Google Form and Kahoot game.  The Lesson: 1. Students went on a photo scavenger hunt. They looked for 3D shapes throughout the classroom ...

I recently started utilizing Instagram  for the purpose of collecting photos and short videos pertaining to my work as a technology integration specialist. It is by no means a perfect solution, but it helps to separate my work world from my home life.  Much to my surprise, one of my teachers started following me on Instagram. The account was clearly intended to be a class account as the username had the teacher's name the word "class" after it. When I asked the teacher about using Instagram, she was looking for an easy way to send photos out to parents. Instagram certainly does the job as you have one location for all your class photos to appear.  Instagram can also be easily added to your teacher website. By visiting http://www.instagram.com/accounts/badges , you can copy an embed code to paste into an HTML enabled box on your website. My teachers utilize Blogger. Here are directions on how to place an Instagram Badge on your Blogger blog :

Kindergarten students absolutely love to express their learning using an iPad. Touch enabled devices, whether Android or iOS, give them the opportunity to utilize digital tools at a very efficient rate. Combine it with the ability to share through Google Drive, and you have a powerful learning experience as students can view their classmate's work in a shared folder.  In the video below, I recorded myself teaching Mrs. Kuehnert's kindergarten at Wayne Center Elementary. (I apologize for the poor sound quality.) Mrs. Kuehnert wanted to integrate more technology tools into her independent word work time. One portion of their word work time is to use dry erase boards. I also have been working quite a bit with them on using Chatterpix . So I decided to combine the two and show them the photo-edit and typing features in Chatterpix to add onto their prior experiences. Here you will see students write their word wall words on a dry erase board, take a picture with Chatterpix ...

Chatterpix has been my go-to app as of late. 30 seconds of a student recording their thinking can give you a plethora of information about them . That and the fun-factor makes it a winner for every class with iOS devices. In Mrs. Friend's first grade, we had students write a sentence on a dry erase board, record the sentence read aloud, and used a stamp to cover the punctuation. Thus making it a mystery as to which type of sentence was recorded. (Declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory.) Of course, I had the students upload it to a Google Drive folder for all students to view . In the video above, you can see Mrs. Friend showing the entire class a few samples and discussing which type of sentence the student created. Next, I had the idea to take some samples of student Chatterpix sentence videos and put them into a Google Form. In a sense, the students created quite a bit of assessment for the teacher as I created a rubric for the video as well as the Google F...

  Last year, I launched the initiative to move elementary teachers to Blogger for their website . It is an effective communication tool for teachers to share learning, projects or any event happening in the classroom. Ms. Abbee, Wayne Center Elementary, particularly likes the opportunity to share classroom happenings. I get frequent emails asking how she can continue to reach out to the families of her classroom. Click here to get a little taste of what Blogger can provide for a teacher website.  If you talk to Ms. Abbee, she will tell you that the most effective way to get a family involved with your blog is to post images. Parents love to see what is happening. If you blog frequently and include images, they will visit your site. Animoto  allows users to create 30-second slideshows for free. (There is an option to have longer videos at a cost.) This video features how to create a video using the website from your web-browser: Animoto does support e...

Mrs. Jackson's third graders at Wayne Center started ISTEP today. (Indiana's Standardized Test is the ISTEP.) She recently contacted me asking what we could do to encourage students to be confident when taking it. I suggested we have students use Crayola Mix-N-Mash to create some pride posters as an encouragement to their classmates as well as the rest of the school. The students certainly had fun making it. Here is a quick Animoto video I put together so that you can see a few samples: After the students made their posters, they uploaded them to their class Kidblog . There the students can view and comment on each other's posts. Students having the opportunity to post on Kidblog provides a safe place for students to practice social media skills. It also provides a great opportunity to work on those essential read and respond skills. Students have to carefully consider what a classmate is attempting to communicate before responding.  Kidblog can be used in a ...