Deb Norton Tech

Pinterest is my newest obsession.  Here are some great finds from this week: Keep dice from rolling or dropping.  Source: sunnydaysinsecondgrade.blogspot.com via Rhonda on Pinterest You Tube video of the book Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving Source: youtube.com via Beth on Pinterest A poster with Non-fiction Text Features Source: pinterest.com via Arianne on Pinterest A poem about Inferring  Source: midlandisd.net via Kelly on Pinterest Interesting project idea with liter bottles and foam heads. Source: flickr.com via Angie on Pinterest

Have you heard of Pinterest ?  I've been viewing Pinterest for a while now, but recently I have really done a lot of pinning of ideas for the classroom.  What am I talking about you ask?  Pinterest is a visual bookmarking site that is chuck full of ideas for the classroom, but also for many other topics as well. According to the Pinterest site, "Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes,  and organize their favorite recipes." To better understand how Pinterest works, watch this short video. You need to have an invitation to participate in Pinterest , but that is easy to do.  If you would like me to send you an invite, just let me know in the comment box below. I am finding so many great ideas on Pinterest that I just have to share some of them with you: Halloween Luminaries   Huge Printable Maps Math Charts Make your own scratc...

Today I'm asking students or teachers to share their favorite web site.  Please enter your site in the Linky Party below!

ArtisanCam has a picture book maker that is so much fun to use.  It is easy for elementary students to use with its click and drag options.  The finished product is really nice.  Check out the pictures below! There is no account needed, no logins and no set up.  Now that's easy to use!

Sketchcast allows you to draw or type while you record yourself. This example is a student recording their Veteran's Day Poem while they draw.   Another idea could be to draw and explain a concept you have been taught such as a cross section of ground water, a math problem, a diagram, or images for vocabulary words.   Russell Stannard of Teachertrainingvideos.com has a series of tutorials that show how to use Sketchcast .  One idea I really like is the idea of channels.  And as Russell explains, if you have a classroom account, students can post their Sketchcast and the teacher can subscribe to the channel to see each of the students' Sketchcasts.  

Recently I came across a site called Woo Jr .  One of the sections in Woo Jr. is called Craft Jr .  After taking a look, I found the craft ideas for fall to be fun, simple and attractive.  I really like how there are specific directions for each craft.   Woo Jr. has 5 sections all together.  They are shown above.  If you are looking for printables or free resources and classroom ideas, I recommend checking out Woo Jr .   I found out about Woo Jr. from KB Konnected's awesome blog !

SlidemyPics is a really easy and quick slideshow maker that uses pictures from either your Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket or Smugmug account.  Here is a slideshow I made using some photos in one of my Facebook albums.  What I love is that you can choose the template and also add music.

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

This post is about taking a capture of something on your screen.  I decided to share this since recently I made a poster in Poster Maker and tried to email the poster to myself.  The email never came through (Quarantine Summary is my guess).   My co-teacher tried to have her students make Wordles and when they went to print, the computer would not load the Wordle as an image.  So I found another way to get my poster and the Wordles onto our computers for printing. HERE IS WHAT I DID: I used the Snipping Tool.  It is already installed on your computer if you have Windows.  I went to the start bar and typed in snipping tool. Then I clicked on Snipping Tool.  I drew a box around what I wanted to capture on my screen.  Next I saved the picture to my desktop.   I plan to show my students how to use the snipping tool this week and we will no longer have to worry about not being able to print our Wordles or get our posters...

Poster Maker is a new site for making posters.  Here are some examples of posters from the gallery: Aren't these great?  The Poster Maker allows a person to bring in their own pictures.  Add borders, text, titles, backgrounds, and shapes.  When you have finished making the poster you can have it emailed to you.  I am surprised to find that when I tried to email my poster I created to myself, it never came through.  I'm guessing it went right into Quarantine Summary.  :(  (I see a post coming about how to screen capture your poster tomorrow!) Here is the poster I created for National Bully Prevention Month (October) Another great thing about Poster Maker is that in the gallery there are posters to view for bulletin board ideas.  The more I played around with Poster Maker , the more impressed I was.  I foresee that our students will soon have an account to Poster Maker and will be using this tool for class projects....

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. 

Today I'm using this sticky note idea to help my students to Stop and Think and Jot while they read.  The idea if from this blog post .  I wanted to share in case anyone else wants to use this idea with sticky notes.

I love this kitchen timer for the classroom!  Check out this useful traffic light for managing the noise level of your classroom. Class Dojo is a website that helps with classroom management as well.  I played around with this a bit and was impressed with how easy it was to set it up for our class.  Watch this video to see how it works.

This weekend I downloaded a bunch of new fonts from www.dafont.com .  It is so much fun finding new fonts to use.  I learned about the website Dafont from This Blog Post .  This blog post also tells how to download the fonts, although I found that I needed to extract files before I could install. Here is a look at some of the fonts I downloaded at the recommendation of Nancy, the blogger: I highly recommend Dafont to anyone trying to find just the right font to use in your work.  And wouldn't students have fun with this as well!

This digital storytelling site looks like a great one for students.  I love that students can use their own art work or imported pictures to create the story.  The other neat feature is that students can record their own voice to go with the story. Watch the video to learn more:

Photovisi is a site for making photo collages.  It is as simple as three steps.   #1 choose a collage #2 add photos #3 download the collage to your computer This year our students are going to have ePortfolios and Photovisi will be a neat way to illustrate a project or event.

Communicating Ideas using Posters, Newspapers, and Comics   is a fabulous interactive resource for students. Each interactive teaches about its subject through a neat little animated cartoon and when finished students can use the site’s tools to create their own (poster, newspaper,or comic). I like how the interactive teaches students about the parts of a movie poster, newspaper or comic.  The final product can be printed.   Students cannot save their work. Thank you to KB Konnected for sharing this site.

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!

This site comes to me from my colleague, Jen Erickson.  Free Rice is a site where students can answer trivia questions in the areas of English vocabulary, foreign languages, humanities, geography, math and chemistry.   Here's the neat part; for every correct answer 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program.  If the student answers incorrectly, the question will be repeated for another chance.  Each time a question is answered correctly, you are shown how much rice you have donated.  The more answers you get correct, the more difficult the questions get.  If you get answers incorrect, the game gets easier.   Check out Free Rice and share it with your students. I would like to thank Jen for sharing this neat site!