Deb Norton Tech

Today's  post is about updates, tools or sites that I found interesting as I was searching the web.  Perhaps you will find something of interest to you or your students.  Check these out. #1 Google Forms is getting an update and it looks pretty sweet! The new icon is purple . Read all about it here . #2 Salaries in Real Time How many hours do you need to work in order to buy a burger? Check out this interesting site : 11 minutes and 5 seconds until my next burger. :) #3 Biteable - a simple video animation maker This looks like a very useful tool for creating a tutorial or a visually animated infographic.  #4 2048 Game -  I often spend time in study hall or in the lunch room to see what students are choosing to do on their Chromebooks during their free time.  This tile  game has become quite popular among our high school students. The game is simple, move like numbers together to add the tiles up from 2 - 4 - 8 -16 -32 -64 -128 - 256 - 512 - 1024 -

Old Change is good and this blog was due for updates and change. The name of the blog changed from "Sharing Technology" to "DN Tech & Integration".   New The url changed from www.sharingtechnology.blogspot.com to www.debnortontech.blogspot.com And the entire look and color scheme of the blog has been updated. If you are a follower of my blog please change your RSS feed or bookmark. Thank you to all of my followers and to those who read my blog regularly.  I truly appreciate your friendship and follow.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin How do you promote creativity in your classroom? This Chat with Deb will show you several digital creativity exercises that you can do with your students. Here is the presentation from this video with all of the digital resources. Do you have an idea to share for promoting creativity with your students? If you do, please share.  Thank you to Intel's Teachers Engage for sponsoring this post.

If you are looking for a fun way for your students to express their creative side, give this Magnetic Fridge Poetry activity a try. I created this using Google Drawings. Students can drag words from the side onto the fridge to create short expressions.  Or better yet, give your students the opportunity to create their own Magnetic Fridge Poetry. Allow students to find a fridge picture, create words to put along the side that go with a topic of their choice and then share out their creations.  The students could use a much larger vocabulary than my example. You could go completely crazy and even allow them to use something other than a refrigerator. Oh my, imagine the possibilities.   The important thing is to give students a platform to express themselves, use meaningful vocabulary and at the same time they can individualize their Google Drawing. If you decide to give Magnetic Fridge Poetry a try, let me know how it goes.

I just recently learned that the funny pictures with a clever little saying or thought on them are called memes (rhymes with themes). These smart little images can convey a clever strong message. The definition of meme is  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meme?s=t So after coming across numerous memes related to education such as these: I thought, why not give these a try in the classroom.   Imagine if students created memes to help them remember important concepts in math, science, literacy etc.  The image is just as important and powerful as the words and having students create memes would require critical thinking and creativity. And since memes are spread via the Internet, it would be neat to hold a voting poll to see which memes get the most likes or shares.  I like this math meme: And check out this science meme: And recently I shared this meme on social media: Click here for a free download of memes for Clas

Recently I was asked to suggest a tool or site for holding an online discussion with students.  Google Classroom offers a discussion option that works really well. However, some teachers may not be using Google Classroom or are looking for an alternative. TitanPad is a nice alternative. It allows the teacher to save the discussion and also has a cool replay feature. Watch this Chat with Deb and see it in action. Do you have a favorite tool or site for holding an online discussion? I would love to hear about it! Thank you to Intel's Teachers Engage for sponsoring this Chat with Deb. 

People have been telling visual stories for a very long time. When I grew up it was all about using a camera (with film!) or drawing with colored pencils.  Times sure have changed and it's no wonder that today's visual stories are much more interesting and flashy.  Gone are the days of a simple image growing the interest and success of marketing an idea. New trends in visual storytelling today include GIFs, real-time broadcasts, and infographics.   GIFs are really starting to take off in popularity even though they have been around for quite a while. http://www.gifsmile.com/sound-waves-gif-animation A series of still images looping one after another creates an animation that can visually explain a concept.   If you would like to create your own GIF I recommend a site called Picasion .  Simply upload a series of images to create your GIF.   Makeagif.com is a site that will create a GIF from images, a YouTube video, an uploaded video or a webcam.    Students c