Deb Norton Tech

After studying maps and globes in social studies, our students wrote new blog posts telling about places they have visited in Wisconsin and the U.S.  We also used the site Thinglink to create an interactive map to showcase those places.  I just wrote about Thinglink earlier this week .  Also, I added our project to this Google Presentation.  Check out all of the ways to use Thinglink. If you have a minute please comment on a student blog post .  It means so much to our students to get comments. If you would like to have your students write comments that would be really special. Thanks for supporting our student blogs!  Here is the URL:   www.kidblog.org/nortonmpes

Wow, supply lists sure have changed over the years.  I've noticed that we have been asking for fewer and fewer school supplies since receiving our 1:1 laptops.  All we ask for are a few folders, some looseleaf paper, some pencils and a few odds and ends.  Don't worry, we still glue, color, cut and create every day.  Today our goal is to fill our students' desks with digital tools that promote creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and problem solving skills. Here are the digital tools our students will need to start the school year: Google Apps for Education including:   Gmail, Google Drive (no more Dropbox for us), Google Sites, Google Presentations and Google Forms                         SMART Notebook 11  this is usually one of our students favorite places for creating projects. Kidblog  most of our students have never blogged before 5th grade.  They lov...

I love change and and rarely do the same thing over and over.  So a blog makeover was  inevitable .  It takes quite a bit to make a blog look completely different, but I have found ways to make it easier on myself. Here are the resources I used to complete my blog makeover.   I found the background at the Dotty Dot Dot blog.  I chose Summer Sunset and simply had to copy the code and insert it.  I found directions on how to do this here .  I could have use the header (the title at the top of a blog) from this site as well, but I decided it was too plain, so I searched for a different header. Shabby Blogs provided me with a header that fit my background perfectly.  I found directions to change my header here . I wanted to add my blog title to the header, so I used a photo editing site called Fotoflexer .  This was the first time I had used this site and I loved it!  I have since used Fotoflexer for some other projec...

During our in-service last Friday, I presented on how I use Blogger both professionally and with my students.  Below is the Google Presentation I used.  Since this presentation was created, Blogger has updated their interface, therefore, my screenshots are now out-of-date.  However, you can still see the basics of how I set up and use the blogs.   Throughout my presentation I did live demonstrations of setting up a blog and creating posts.  In the second part of my presentation I demonstrated how my students use several tools to post video, audio, text, etc. on their blogs. For the privacy of my students, you are not able to view their eportfolios. Thank you to everyone who attended my session.