Deb Norton Tech

I'm winding down from a busy few weeks and feeling very grateful for a holiday break that is right around the corner. I'm looking forward to more time with family, looser schedules and lots of down time. Here are a few links and loves from this past week. I discovered a new feature in Google Chat called "Add a status" By default, Gmail sets your status as "automatic based on activity". So most people see you as active throughout the day when you are logged into your computer. If you click on arrow next to the active tab, you will see an option to add a status. This is great to personalize your status to let others know if you are in a meeting, out sick or busy teaching.  You can customize how long the status is visible for and even customize the emoticon that goes with your status. Tab Manager Plus for Chrome is a new (to me) extension that I am finding useful. This extension lets you easily see all of the tabs you have opened in one place.  You can see mul...

Greetings friends, I've missed you! With taking on several new adventures in November and December, I have not had the chance to blog lately. I taught a technology course for our local cohort and also became a technology online coach for ISTE and the VMLA (Verizon Mobile Learning Academy). Along with these two weekly commitments I also attended and presented at a local conference (SLATE) and kept up with the daily tasks of being a technology integration specialist which includes managing Chromebook issues, creating and maintaining a high school Makerspace and often teaching in classrooms. Thanks for understanding my absence from blogging lately. The holidays are over and they sure were good to me. I received many fabulous technology related gifts that I would like to share with you. First off, I am now the owner of the Amazon Echo Dot. Thank you Santa! Echo is a hands-free, voice controlled device that uses voice recognition to perform commands. I ask my Echo Dot to play m...

Take some time to have some holiday fun with these sites. Holiday cards, snow line and decorating cookies are on the agenda. Watch this Chat with Deb to see some great sites to share with your students for a little holiday fun. Sites shared in this video: Free printable cards Snowline Cookie Decorating Build a Snowman Another Build a Snowman Thank you to Intel's Teachers Engage for sponsoring this Chat with Deb post. 

Happy Holidays! Here is our annual holiday Sing-a-Long as captured through Google Glass.  Enjoy! And here is an encore JibJab video from the wonderful staff that I work with each day.   I look forward to blogging in 2013 and all that the new year will bring.  May each of you have a wonderful break.  I'll see in 2014.

This year my Christmas wish list isn't very big.  I had told my students back in November that all I wanted for Christmas was Google Glass.  Well, that wish came true just a few weeks ago and I'm as happy as can be.  Glass is truly an amazing technology. But. . . .  Let's take a look at a few other great gadgets that could have made my list this year: #1 Pencil - Read this blog post or watch the video below. #2 X-Mini II Portable Speaker - My speakers are ancient and have very poor quality. #3 Scratch #2, I'd rather have this one ! #4 HP Chromebook 14 - My son has one for High School and I'm really liking what I see!   #5 Fitbit Aria Fitness Band  - this neat wrist band can track my fitness exercise, sleep and weight loss goal.  And it can pair with my iPhone and the Fitbit app. Here is a short video suggesting some helpful apps for Christmas Shopping: Even though these gadgets are on my wish list, I'm...

Creating slide shows is a great way to show what is happening in our classroom.  It is also a really neat way for students to show what they have learned. Today I am sharing two sites for creating a slideshow that you may not have heard of.  The first is called One True Media .  This site offers a free version for slideshows that are 30 seconds or less in length.  This was a bit frustrating for me since I could only include half of the pictures that I wanted to and I had to change the duration of the pictures to fit within the 30 second time frame.  Otherwise this site was simple to use and I let the site do all of the work.  Many of the features needed a premium account to work, such as using a theme. Here is my video of our Christmas party using One True Media. Make a video - it's fun, easy and free! www.onetruemedia.com The other slideshow creator is called Vuvox .  This was extremely simple to use and I like the way that the picture...

E-cards!! Today I will share with you some E-card Creation Sites from Sam's Cool Tools for the Classroom , a blog that I follow.   Click here to see the blog post or click here to view the links shared on this site with a Stich.it . Man I love sharing sites with Stich.it !    Take a look at some e-cards I created using a few of these sites: I must really love sharing on this blog since I created a holiday sweater and included a photo of myself with this card.  You can thank me later! Have fun sharing these sites with your students. Bonus:  A collegue asked if I would share some sites other than just Christmas sites.  So here is one that came my way. A collection from  InTec InSights: Technology Integration Ideas for the Classroom

It's that time of year!  Do you need some fun Christmas sites for your students that are still educational? Well here is one of the best collections I've found from the wonderful KB Konnected .  Karen Bolotin is the creator of this site made in Jog the Web.   I've written about Jog the Web in the past.  Click here to learn more about Jog the Web. Our students are enjoying exploring these sites.  Did I mention that there are currently 151 sites to visit?  (Now that's a collection!) One thing we taught our students is how to go from Jog the Web directly to the site being shown since it is often difficult to view the entire site on Jog the Web.  Here is a screen capture showing how to do this. Last week we used a site  on the Jog which allows you to create your own gingerbread cookie .  Students designed their cookie and then used the snipping tool ( read about the snipping tool here ) to take a screen capture....

Have you heard of Teachers Pay Teachers?   This is a site that allows teachers to share digital resources with others.  An account is needed to participate in Teachers pay Teachers (TpT).  You can browse and find resources shared by other teachers, create and sell your resources, or do both. Personally, I'm not interested in buying resources from others, I've always shared everything I've found or created for free.   The nice thing is that many people on TpT feel the same and share their resources for free as well. Here are some nice resources shared for free right now on TpT. Click here for a Christmas making words and graphing activity.  Click here for a Christmas word puzzles. Click here for a Free Winter Holidays Tips and Freebies Ebook from 50 TpT Contributors! I find most of the freebies on TpT through Pinterest.  Read about Pinterest here.