Deb Norton Tech

One of the sessions I had the pleasure of teaching at the Ripon Summer Tech Academy was a session on Google Apps and the Common Core. One of the main parts of this session was too look at actual examples of how teachers are using Google Apps (docs, forms, drawing, presentations, and spreadsheets) to meet the CCSS.   Feel free to take these examples and adapt them to your grade level and content area.  These examples promote collaboration, require higher level thinking and many use the new research tool. Group Research Form Students work collaboratively to decide on an essential research question.  They then use the research tool to find web sites that help them to collect information. And finally the students present their conclusions. Tree Chart Students edit this drawing to insert the topic, main idea and supporting details for a literary piece. Supporting Evidence Chart Students read a literary piece and then answer questions using supp...

Last year we had the opportunity to begin using iPads with our students through our Media Center.  We had 12 iPads available. This made creating online content and utilizing educational apps very doable. This year we are supposed to be getting 12 more ipads in the Media Center which should make the possibilities even greater for student creation!  :) I plan to make the best use of these iPads and to help me out I can refer to the generous amount of iPad apps shared by various presenters at the Ripon Summer Tech Academy . Dan King shared multimedia apps in this presentation .  Consider using the  iTalk app and the VidEditor app. Dan also shared a nice collection of apps for creating ebooks.  Click here to see this presentation.  Last year we used the Book Creator app as well as Story Kit and I was very impressed with both of these apps. Tim Nielsen also shared wonderful lists of apps.  Click here to view the list of...

Greetings! I've been gone for a week, but with good reason.  We have just wrapped up our second Ripon Summer Tech Academy facilitated by Naomi Harm of Innovative Educator Consulting .  And what a great academy it was.  Naomi's team of presenters delivered amazing presentations and were inspiring as always. The next series of posts will highlight several of the resources shared in various sessions.   All of the session resources and presentations can be found in this shared folder . Today I would like to share with you some very useful video tutorials from Naomi's session on using 1:1 Chromebooks.   Many teachers today are using Google Drive and the Google Suite of Apps to have students create assignments and turn them in. These video tutorials show how to manage this process in an organized and efficient way.  Each video is approximately 5 minutes in length, so in just about 20 minutes, you will have a good understanding of what to do. Vi...

Are you tired of the dog days of summer?  Then it's time to head over to the Ripon Summer Tech Academy happening August 6th, 7th and 8th in Ripon, WI.  Here is what you can expect. This conference is being organized by Naomi Harm and members of her consulting team as well a few of our own Ripon Educators.   There are so many great sessions to attend with varying levels of technology integration.   Click here to view the brochure for this conference and get the details on each of the sessions being offered. There is still time to register .   This is a fantastic opportunity for Ripon educators as well as educators from surrounding communities. In today's educational world, it is our professional responsibility to keep up with pedagogy and technology integration.  Come and gain some knowledge that will benefit the students in your classroom this year.  Make a difference in the education of today's 21st century learners.  I...

Well, the Ripon Tech Academy sure was a great experience and I came away with so many new tools to implement this year in our classroom. Here are a few of the best take-aways. Naomi Harm is a phenomenal presenter.  She is a wealth of knowledge and I found her to be such a positive  inspirational  speaker.  I  truly  appreciated the fact that Naomi openly shared her digital tool box of resources with all of us to download and use in our profession.   If you don't currently follow Naomi on Twitter , you should start.  Course Director is my new choice for hosting online classes.  It is integrated with a Google account and I am quickly seeing all of the potential of this LMS.  Check out the online lesson I created for science.  I consider this a simple version of a course.  I can't wait to delve into Google Groups for discussions and give the grade book a try as well. Explain Everything might just be m...