Deb Norton Tech

Are you looking to make money? Yes? Then I have a deal for you! Let me explain. Festisite is a site that lets you do all sorts of fun and unique things including making money with your picture on it. When you go to the site, click on Instant Creativity.   From there you will have many choices of what to create. Money, money, money Uncle Sam Queen of Hearts Wordle Minecraft GIFS Festisite  has been so much fun to explore and create with.  I highly recommend using  Festisite   to promote digital content creation.  Share this site with your students and colleagues. Enjoy!

Today I share a post about something that is fun and creative. I believe it's important for us to remember to bring some fun, enjoyment and love of creativity into our students lives.  School, teaching and learning should be enjoyable! I've always enjoyed drawing and sketching and I think it is partly because I grew up with a Spirograph when I was younger. So you can imagine my excitement when I came across this digital version of Spirograph. Inspirograph  has the exact same tools as the Spirograph kit used to have. Change the gears (wheels) and select a pen color. Choose your paper and start creating.  To save yourself from overuse of the mouse or trackpad, check out the keyboard shortcuts and use the arrow keys to move the gears. If you need a reason to justify the use of this site, it's good to remember that mathematics can play a part in this type of artwork whether it is patterns, scales, gears or ratios. There are also artist...

eQuiz Show lets a person make a Jeopardy style game. There is no account needed and a game is retrieved through saving the URL. I created a game in just a few minutes. Just enter a category and then 5 questions and answers. There is room for up to 5 categories.  When launching the game, you decide how many teams are playing and eQuiz Show will keep track of the points for each team. Editing the game is simple and quick.  All that is needed is the URL that you save and a password that you set.  Here is a video tutorial: Check out my Ed Tech game by clicking here .  Use the game with your class if you would like. I highly recommend using eQuiz Show for reviewing content and engaging your students.  It is also a great tool to use gamification in your lessons or units.

Our classroom Wiki is loved by our students.  Often we will tie the activities on our wiki into our content areas, seasonal themes or current events.   We use our wiki as a place for students to go at the start of our day before we dive into our morning meeting.  This gives us as teachers a bit of time to do our attendance, lunch count, check in with students who have behavior charts and also to read messages from parents. This week I will be posting educational sites for students on our classroom wiki.  W e will analyze the sites and discuss what we experienced.    Here are the sites  on our wiki that  the students will be visiting : #1 - Learning Games for Kids #2 - Arcademic Skills #3 - Springo Kids #4 - Count on  #5 - The Kidz Page I hope your students get a change to try out some of these sites as well.  They help to build skills and give students choices as to what they want to learn ab...

Here's a little Friday humor to end your week.  Teachers are dancing behind students without the students knowing.  I found this video through Richard Byrne and his Free Technology for Teachers Blog.

Our students love it when they can use their computers to explore art.  Recently I came across a neat site that allows you to make a recursive drawing. Watch this video to learn about recursive drawing: Click here to visit the site or click here to make a recursive drawing of your own.  We shared this with our students yesterday, and it was a huge hit.  It will benefit students to see the video or get a demonstration before trying to make a recursive drawing of their own. Want more art sites?   Click here for my collection of art sites on Delicious.

Here are some sites I'm going to share with my students this week: #1 I've been exploring a new site called Weather Channel Kids .   This site if full of fun facts, videos and information about weather.  There are lesson plans for teachers, a parent section and interactive activities for students.   Weather Channel for Kids is sponsored by The Weather Channel and it looks like a great site to share with your class. #2 Brain Pop has a new section called Brain Pop Games.  Students can play games in science, social studies, math and health that are linked to Common Core and State Standards. #3   Comic Builder Lego City looks like a great site to demonstrate some creativity. Students can create their own comic and add their own dialogue.   #4 National Geographic for Kids    This site is so full of interesting, educational pieces of information.  My own son at home spends a lot of time on thi...

Last week I shared this neat site with my students.  It is called Crazy Images .  Below the images there are links for students to click on to view more images.   We explored for a bit and then shared our favorites.  Students enjoyed these fun images.  Many are similar to optical illusions.  Some will change depending on the movement of your mouse.   Now and then we have to take time to enjoy some art and visual images.  I hope your students also enjoy this fun site . 

It's been a while since I have shared some Friday Fun sites, so here you go: Design Your Own Animated Card City Creator   Collage Machine   Solid Edge Garage   Lite Brite Please share these with your students. 

Each Friday we take 30 minutes to teach our students some computer skills.  Our students look forward to this all week.  Last week we embedded Vokis onto our eportfolios in Blogger.  It was a huge success. The biggest request from our students lately has been to change their desktop backgrounds.   So, this week our students will be creating a desktop background for their computer.  The students just need to decide which of the sites listed below they will be using for their backgrounds.   The important thing here is that we limit the choices the students have and make sure that the backgrounds are appropriate for school.  Each of these sites help to make an artistic colorful background that will look nice and also be appropriate.  Bomomo Flame Scribbler Sumo Paint Flower Power

My kids love to play Brain Quest trivia when we  travel in the car or when we are sitting around the campfire.  I recently discovered that Brain Quest has a website where kids can experience trivia questions online.   The kids can choose a level according to their age and then answer the trivia questions.  There is a section for educators which includes a Question of the Day.  I suggest checking out BrainQuest.com to see all that it has to offer.  This will be another great site for our students to explore this week for bellwork. 

Remember the magazine Highlights for Kids?     Well, they now have a website.  HighlightsKids.com is a great place for kids to learn, play and explore.  The online version is really fun.  There are Hidden Pictures, Fun Finder, Games and Giggles, Express Yourself, and much more.  I have always been a fan of the Hidden Pictures section.  We plan to use this website this week with our students for bell work.  Check out HighlightsKids.com!