Deb Norton Tech

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 . 

Here are three sites that make writing stories fun for students.  I found these on Scoop.it   They are from Steph Westwood's Writing for Kids  which I highly recommend following. #1 Wicked The Zoo #2   Reading Planet Story Maker #3   A Timely Tale

Recently, we had a Video Conferencing session at our school put on by our tech assistant, Matt Storz.  I was unable to attend, but Matt filled me in on what he knew about using Skype.  Very useful information. Yesterday my kids, Ryan and Robert, had off of school due to a teacher in-service.  So I decided to take advantage of the situation and Skype with them from our classroom.  I also decided to use FaceTime and found out only a few of the students in our class knew what it was or how to use it. Here are some pictures of us using Skype and Facetime. To give us a purpose, and as an educational activity, our students at school, and my kids at home, had to search and find 4-5 objects that had some quality in common.  Perhaps the objects were all the same shape or color, or they may have all been made of the same material.  The kids then shared with each other the objects they chose and everyone tried to guess what the obj...

Most people use Google or Wikipedia to search a topic.  Recently Google changed how its search engine works integrating Google + ahead of Facebook and Twitter.   Click here and here to read more about that. So, if you wanted to do a Google Search for, let's say, digital story telling, here is what it would look like: It doesn't look like much has changed to me.   Did you know there are many different search engines to use besides Google or Wikipedia?  Let me share a few that I found more appealing and kind of fun. #1 - RTBot  - I find the search results for RTBot to be visually appealing. Here is what a search for digital storytelling would look like on RTBot. I like the small picture and short description. #2 Oolone  - This search engine gives results in a unique way. This is what Oolone looks like.  The search has boxes in the shape of a figure eight. Here is what Oolone looks like when you do a search for digital stor...

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...

  I hope you can use some of these resources today for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Click here  for last year's post. Click here for my stack of resources on Delicious. Click here for In Tech In Sights recent blog post of resources. And here are a few finds on Pinterest. Source: educationworld.com via Jenna on Pinterest Source: thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com via Stephen on Pinterest Source: classroomfreebies.com via Rose on Pinterest