Deb Norton Tech

  Happy Friday! Just like that, we are back in the swing of things for the 2022 - 2023 school year. Life is good and things feel more normal and less stressful than they have the past few years. I've been enjoying the warm temperatures in Wisconsin and I'm looking forward to fall and the change of seasons.  It's Friday night football and NFL football season and I'm loving every minute of it. My son also is entering into fall baseball season and I'm thankful to have another year of college baseball to enjoy.   I hope your school year is starting strong and that you are finding time to enjoy the weather, sports and moments that make your days better.   🙌 It's great to be back! 🙌 Click here to view the Links and Loves larger in your browser

Happy Friday everyone. I hope you had an amazing week of teaching, lessons, inspiration and learning. If you are stuck in the days of reading text from a slideshow and having students write down everything on the slide to take notes, consider this instead, use these sites when presenting a PowerPoint or Slideshow to your class to add engagement and interactivity.  Using one of these sites, a teacher can incorporate time for students to reflect, class discussions, time to check for understanding and a place to add additional content to help students make critical connections. The time you put into preparing a lesson with one of these sites will pay off when you see students showing interest and a genuine enjoyment of taking part in the learning. 1. Blendspace 2. PearDeck 3. EdPuzzle 4. Nearpod YouTube is a place I turn to every day to learn and grow in my knowledge of all things technology, education and self care. This week’s Links and Loves is co...

Play YouTube Videos in a Google Doc With the DocuTube Add-on Most Google Doc users who want to include a YouTube video in their doc, will simply hyperlink the video or just paste the link in their Google Doc. If a person wants to watch the YouTube video they will click on the link and a new tab will open to the video. But wait. . . there is a more seamless option! With the DocuTube add-on, viewers can see the YouTube videos directly in the Google Doc! Simply open a Google Doc and click on add-ons and then get add-ons. Next search for Docutube.  Once you and your students have the DocuTube add-on, theYouTube videos that are hyperlinked or linked in your Google Doc will be viewable. I first heard about this from Lance Yoder in this video: Anyone creating Hyperdocs will find this add-on particularly useful and a game changer.  Remember:  The DocuTube add-on will need to be added in Google Docs before viewing the YouTube videos in yo...

There's a new tool in town and it is called eduCanon .   eduCanon is used to build interactive video lessons.  It looks like an awesome tool for the flipped classroom or for adding questions to a video.  eduCanon is similar to Teachem . Here are some of the features: 1.   Choose a video from YouTube , Vimeo or Teacher Tube . 2.  Add multiple choice questions during the video and then choose which answer is correct. 3.  Get accounts for your students .  (eduCanon can help set up accounts if you don't want to have to do it or have students to it) 4.   Assign the video to your classes. 5.  Students get instant feedback when they answer a question. 6.  eduCanon won't let students fast forward during a video to ensure that they watch the whole thing. 7.  Teachers can see student performance. Here is a short introductory video: And here is a video I made questions for using eduCanon about Martin Luther King Jr. ...

Today I am sharing with our staff YouTube Editor and YouTube Slideshow Maker. If you need a quick way to make a slideshow or if you need to edit one of your videos, these are great tools! Naomi Harm is the inspiration behind sharing this blog post with all of you.  To access both of these tools, first sign into your YouTube account and then click on the UPLOAD tab. First, lets look at YouTube slideshow maker. Here is a slideshow that I made.  I used pictures from Pixabay, which is a site that provides copyright free images.  Thanks to Naomi Harm for tweeting about this site. Watch this short video to see how I made this slideshow. Now let's look at YouTube Editor. I highly recommend giving YouTube Slideshow Maker and YouTube Editor a try.

ISTE13 brought a wealth of tips, tricks and tools to my digital toolbox.  Here is one that is useful and quick. Did you know that you can make a playlist in your YouTube account? Here is a playlist I just made.  It has videos that show Rube Goldberg examples.   Notice how it is labeled "Playlist" and says how many videos in parenthesis. Making playlists is useful so that you can easily find the videos you wish to share with your students and have them organized neatly into groups. Here is how you make a playlist. 1.) Make sure you have a YouTube account.  If you do not, simply create one.  If you have a Gmail account, you already have YouTube connected to your account.  Just click on the More tab. 2.) In your YouTube account click on the down arrow next to the Upload button.  Then click on Video Manager. 3.)  In your video manager you will first see any video uploads.  These are videos you have created and uploaded t...

Teachem is a new site that allows a person to capture YouTube videos, organize them and add discussion questions to the videos.   YouTube is blocked to our students at the elementary level, but this would be a wonderful digital tool for any Middle or High School teacher whose students have access to You Tube. Check out this video explaining Teachem : As I browsed through Teachem classes that have been made, I found a good one on how to make better looking Google Documents.  Perhaps I will find a purpose for Teachem in a future blog post or for sharing with others.  We'll see.

  I love my You Tube Subscriptions.  I have an email sent to me weekly to notify me of the newest uploaded videos in my subscriptions. Here are my favorites: Teacher Tipster.com This guy is so animated and funny.  Mr. R's Math Songs   Charity Preston from The Organized Classroom Blog Khan Acedemy Do you have a You Tube Channel that you subscribe to?  If you do, please share it with us .