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Showing posts from February, 2014

Flippity - Make your own set of attractive flashcards!

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Flippity is a new site that allows you to create your own flashcards and then share those flashcards with others.   To get started go to this website:  http://www.flippity.net/ Follow the directions on the site: Sharing can be as easy as sharing the link, printing off the flashcards or use the handy QR code for students to scan. I created a set of flashcards in just minutes for our students on the vocabulary that we are studying with our literature story this week.  Click here to view my flashcards. Flippity does have a FAQ page that I found very helpful. One of the nice features of Flippity is the ability to enter a YouTube video.  You can also enter the URL of a picture to put an image on your flashcards.   My plan is to have my students use Flippity to practice learning French words before our French Adventure students come to visit from Paris.  I would like the students to create the flashcards and then we can share them out with our school.  

A Neat Little Timer

When you find yourself in need of a timer for your classroom, give this little trick a try! In the Chrome Browser, open a new tab and do a search for "set timer" A timer will appear that you can then reset to your needs. Watch this quick video to see how to set the timer and put it into action. This easy access timer is easy to set can be projected full screen has a blue progress bar beeps with the time is up can be reset over and over again I hope you give this a try and find the timer a helpful tool to keep your students engaged and on task.

Chat with Deb - Coding with Scratch

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Let me introduce you to a programming site called Scratch . Intuitive and Creative Students will Thrive With Scratch Resources shared in this video: scratch.mit.edu http://scratch.mit.edu/educators/ Here are a few more things to know about Scratch : There are guidelines that students must follow when in the community: When exploring, a person can choose what type of Scratch they are searching for: The Scratched Community has free lesson plans for teachers to use: Thank you to Intel's Teachers Engage for sponsoring this video! Bonus: A Scary Story About Coding: When I was in college, I had to take a computer programming class. In this class, collaborating and sharing code was looked at as cheating.  We were expected to do all of the coding on our own.  I remember going into the basement of our business education building where there was a lab of about 15 computers (the kind with the green screen!)  and a dot printer.  In order t

A Tutorial - Wireless Transfer App

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Sometimes I wish to have a photo or video from my iPad on my PC or on another iPad.  I was sad to see the Bump App go away since it was an app I used all of the time to transfer photos and videos from my iPad, but I believe I have found one even better! Not too long ago, I demonstrated a new app for our staff called the Wireless Transfer App .  This app works simply and beautifully!  Surprisingly I like it even better than Bump. For one thing, there is no bumping involved!   Watch this short video tutorial to see the Wireless Transfer App in action:

Award Badges and Motivate Your Students

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This past week we started using Badges with our students.  Perhaps you were a scout and remember earning badges for your accomplishments? This reward system has become popular online.  There are several sites for creating and rewarding badges. Currently I am teaching a blended class using Schoology .  I've written about Schoology before here .  The class I am teaching involves teaching the students to write main idea topic sentences and detail sentences, as well as, editing and presenting skills. In Schoology , there is a built in feature to create and award badges.  A person can also use the badges already available in Schoology.  So, last week I made some badges: Our students are quite motivated to work hard to earn badges. One modification I will make in this course is to allow students to have several chances to earn a badge. Here are a few other sites for creating badges for your students: Credly Class Badges Passport In our case we awarded badges