Deb Norton Tech

Happy Fall Break friends! I'm sending this out a day early since we have Friday off this week. This is a much needed break to be able to rejuvenate and take a breath. Here is where I plan to spend my day off . Links and Loves: If you are a Canvas user, you might be interested in checking out the new content editor . New features include a more condensed intuitive look and drag and drop images. You can turn on the new editor in the setting of your course. It's been a full week of innovation and fun in our Innovation Lab. Follow me on Instagram to check out our Innovation Lab Highlights .  Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers is planning a FREE online conference for educators in December . I just registered to present and/or attend. I love these types of learning opportunities! I always get inspired. As we approach our first self-care day of the year, I found this article on, 5 Ways Teachers Can Manage Stress and Overwhelm .  Remember to ta...

What's new for you this week? I've been enjoying homecoming week and all the school spirit from students and staff. #GoSpartans! This week's Links and Loves: I found this post to help a colleague with sharing a Canvas calendar through a Google calendar to help with easy access for parents and students.  I'm inspired by all of these Fall Cricut projects. I'm hoping to find some time to explore these further and do a little decorating in the Innovation Lab.  Did you know that there is now an Amazon Alexa for your car ? Perhaps I will put this on my wish list for the holidays! Here are a few extensions that I have been using on a regular basis: Extensity , Wakelet , Eyedropper and Screencastify . Do you have a favorite extension that you use daily? I'd love to hear about it. Quick Tip: Did you know that when in present mode in Google Slides, you can tap on the B key to turn your slide black? Or you can tap on the W key to turn the slide w...

I hope your week went well. The weather in Wisconsin has been incredible this week!  Here are this week's Links and Loves WriteReader looks like a great way to create ebooks online. This app is free and ha s a useful start-up guide .  I grew up reading Ripley's Believe it or Not books, so I was excited to find this website ! Here is a video I created on how to make a copy of a Google Doc for every student in Canvas. You will create the document first and then create a copy for every student in Canvas. The students can work on the document right in Canvas and they will have a submit button available to turn in the document.  I recently received a Phiro Pro from a participant in the AI course that I teach . The participant is the CEO of the Robotix company , which is based out of India.  This product has so much potential for middle and high school students. And it is LEGO compatible and works with the Scratch programming site. They ...

LINKS AND LOVES And just like that, it's October! Happy Fall Y'all.  Here are some free technology backgrounds for your devices . Did you know that there is a meditation breathing exercise on the Google Chrome Browser ? Sometimes, when things get a bit crazy, this would be helpful. If only we could teach our dog, Wrigley to meditate so that he isn't so anxious during a thunderstorm. 🐶 canvas.apps.chrome is a wonderful whiteboard drawing app for creating sketches and creative art pieces. There are various drawing tools, colors, line thicknesses and the ability to add an image background as well as download your image to share it with others.  Google announces an update for Google Docs and Presentations for custom line spacing . This will be helpful to have better control over the look of my presentations and the fonts I use. It will also help with creating visually appealing documents. QUICK TIP In Google Slides, click on Insert and then Diagr...

Here's to the last full week of September. Time to start thinking Fall! LINKS AND LOVES We've been busy in the Innovation Lab with creative projects. Our Sources of Strength group created this display with the Cricut cutting machine and one of our students created this 3D printed terrarium with our 3D pens.  Have you heard about or downloaded the newest IOS 13 update? I did, and I'm loving all of the new features. Check out the latest features on the Verge website. The dark mode, photos app revamp and keyboard swipe are really nice! One cute update is the ability to add a Memoji (this is creating an emoji of yourself) in Messenger. Here's my Memoji! Canvas LMS Tip:  you can add announcements to your homepage! I discovered this tip while working with a colleague, Keith, who wants to add the daily learning objective and tasks for students to view each day. Click here for the step-by-step directions.  I'm looking for a new novel to read for en...

This week has flown by so fast! Here are a few things that have happened or caught my eye: LINKS AND LOVES: I've started an Instagram account for sharing all things instructional technology. I would love to have more followers and people to follow! My username is deb.norton.tech Speaking of Instagram, earlier this week I shared that CommonLit.org has 9 articles to share for National Hispanic Heritage Month .  Speaking of National Celebrations, check out this website where you can search national days, weeks, months and more! This week was National IT Professionals Day. Who knew? Speaking of Celebrations, check out this awesome display that a colleague of mine created using these free PDF posters to celebrate Women Innovators as Illustrated by Women Artists. Nice job Kristen! Speaking of free, SimpleK12 offers free webinars on most Saturdays throughout the school year. These are a great way to learn about technology uses in the classroom. QUICK TIP: ...

Common Lit is celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month with these 9 texts . Here is a little bit of information about Commonlit.org . Follow me on Instagram to see more tech tips and tools.

Welcome back everyone! I hope your first weeks of school have been enjoyable and impactful. I look forward to learning along side all of you again this year. (I won't mention the full moon or the fact that it is Friday the 13th)   Here's to a great 2019-2020 school year! Links and Loves: I love how this school welcomes all Freshman on the first day of school. Way to set an excellent example of #KindnessMatters Appleton East! WheelofNames.com looks like a simple way to make a spinner for choosing names or anything else you might need. Turn up the volume for the sound effects. Wakelet.com has become my new favorite way to curate a collection of links.  It's simple to share your list with others and the Wakelet extension makes saving links quick and easy. Check out my Instagram post and stories by clicking here . Did you know this week in September, 2019 is special? Have you seen this funny take on the missing snake at Fond du Lac High School? The...