PicLits - Poetry

PicLits

PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture.

Images

Choose any image to create your PicLit—a photo plus words—by clicking on it from the carousel at the top of the home page or using the image featured on the home page. You can speed up the carousel by holding your mouse over the arrows at either end. If you would like to see all the carousel images at once, you can click on the "SEE MORE" link on the right side of the carousel.

Drag-n-Drop

If you need some extra inspiration for creating your PicLit, you can use the Drag-n-Drop customized keywords underneath the photo, kind of like refrigerator magnets.

• To create your PicLit, hold your cursor over any keyword or universal word.
• Click and hold to select the word.
• Drag the word to where you want it to be on the photo.
• Unclick to place the word.
• Once a word is placed on the photo, you may select capitalization and conjugation options from the drop-down arrow.
• If you change your mind about a word, you can just drag-n-drop it back into the keyword list.
• A keyword may only be used once in a PicLit. Universal words and punctuation may be used multiple times.
• If you want to erase all the words and start over, simply click on “New PicLit” on the right-hand side.
• When you are satisfied with your PicLit, click on the “Save” icon to save it to your account and have it appear in the Gallery. You can also email your PicLit to a friend or post it to your Facebook profile. In order to save or post a PicLit, it must have words on it.

Freestyle

If you would like more freedom with the creation of your PicLit, you can click on the Freestyle button to access the same picture with a text box where you can type anything you choose.

• Use your space bar and Enter key to position the words in the text box where you want them to appear on the photo.
• If you want to erase all the words and start over, click on “New PicLit” on the right-hand side.
• When you are satisfied with your PicLit, click on the “Save” icon to save it to your account and have it appear in the Gallery. You can also email your PicLit to a friend or post it to your Facebook profile. In order to save or post a PicLit, it must have words on it.

Blogs That Will Make You a Better Teacher

General Teaching Blogs to Follow...

Life-Long Learners!  We are!  Teachers are the prime example of this philosophy.  Every day there are new and exciting ways to integrate lesson plans and create inviting atomosphere in the classroom.  With the social media explosion, we can subscribe to Blogs and learn new useable ideas.  The following are some recommended Blogs for General Teaching. Subscribe to their blog by clicking on an RSS feed button and read at your leisure. Also, most Blogs now have Twitter buttons so that you can tweet the Blog.

Check out these teaching blogs that offer invaluable tips for everything in the classroom.

1. Teacher Magazine Blog : This is a great resource for teachers and provides links to webinars for creative teaching methods

3. World of Learning : If the relationship between education and politics interests you, you’ll be glued to your seat with this amazing blog that strives for innovative teaching methods.

4. New Tech Network Blog : New Tech Network works with districts across the country to bring forth a new wave of teaching in public schools. Read about their endeavors and philosophy at this blog.

5. Classroots : Written by a teacher at a charter school, this blog shows the new face (and possible future) of teaching.

6. Strive Together : This site stems from an organization making changes in Ohio public education, but their tactics and workshops provide something all educators can learn from.
7. Joanne Jacobs : This fantastic education blog touches on all aspects of the industry and will get you thinking.
8. Politics K-12 : If you’re a primary school teacher, bookmark this site for updates and news on policies that effect you.
9. Great Schools Blog : This non-profit organization aims to bring parents and teachers together for a better education experience for students.
10. Edwize : We love this blog because it incorporates some education policy alongside smart teaching techniqes.
11. Change.org – Education : From analyzing the purpose of certain college courses to teaching grade school teachers how to utilize technology, this blog touches on many aspects of teaching.
12. The Future of Education is Here : This site aims to prep teachers for the digital age of teaching.
13. Brainstorm – The Chronicle of Higher Education : This blog discusses higher education for the most part, but also touches on teaching techniques that work across the board, no matter what age you’re educating.
14. Edutopia : A busy discussion board and thought provoking articles will keep teachers new and old locked to this blog.
15. The Education Optimists : From Race to the Top news and predictions to improving classroom conditions in low income areas.
16. Set Our Teachers Free : Education reform and what changes should be made to the public school system is what you’ll find at this site.
17. A Teacher’s Education : The scoop on teaching straight from the source, with tips to improve your methods in the classroom.
18. Education Week – Teacher Beat : This site examines policies from around the nation and also touches on what districts are doing to improve student performance and test scores.
19. Moore On the Page : This teacher isn’t afraid to tackle tough topics and discusses classroom teaching experiences that can inspire and enhance your own techniques.
20. What It’s Like on the Inside : A fantastic blog for teachers who will can identify with the classroom chaos this blogger writes about and the great rewards it brings.
21. National School Board Association – Board Buzz : How to help students succeed and achieve their goals is what this blog is all about.
22. The New York Times – Lesson Plans : This blog no longer updates, but the archived stories of teachers chronicling their first experiences on the job still offer a fresh perspective that shows how education can improve.
23. Democrats for Education Reform : This site examines education policies, specifically the Race to the Top plan.
24. Eduwonk : Education reform and commentary from those in the system is what you’ll find at this blog.
25. The ASCD Community Blog : This blog provided information on pushing the boundaries of conventional teaching and hosts podcasts that will enlighten even the most seasoned teacher.
26. The Teacher’s Toolbox : Quick exercises to enhance student’s language and writing abilities can be found at this thoughtful blog.
27. Speed of Creativity : For the teacher that loves to be on the forefront of new techniques and technology, this blog’s for you.

28. Around the Corner : This blog focuses on the future of education through technology, but also discusses how to improve conventional teaching methods.
29. National Journal Online : Take a hard-hitting look at education reform and policies at this blog.
30. This Week In Education Penned by a former Senate education member, this site focuses on national education policy.

Spicy Nodes - Concept Map Presentation Tool

Spicy Nodes

Spicy Nodes is a concept map presentation tool that allows the users to link and embed pictures, websites, and more into the overall presentation. Easy to use and fun to show, Spicy Nodes is whole new way to present your information.
SpicyNodes provides an innovative means to add excitement to almost any area of study. As students become enamored with the presentation of their ideas, they increasingly focus on the quality of their work and develop the critical thinking skills necessary for the digital age.

Teaching Guide: http://www.spicynodes.org/what_are_they-teaching_guide.html

Here is a Spicy Node ABOUT Spicy Nodes - This will give you a sense of how it works:
http://www.spicynodes.org/nodes.html

Edmodo

Edmodo

Edmodo is a secure social learning network for teachers and students. Edmodo gives libraries and classrooms a safe and easy place online to connect and collaborate, offering a location to share ideas and content, as well as access homework, grades and school notices.

Edmodo gives teachers a safe and easy place online to connect and collaborate, offering a location to share ideas and content.   It is the perfect forum for developing a relationship between  two schools or just within your classroom.

Some Suggested Ideas on using Edmodo:

• Have students introduce themselves and post a short biography. From the biography, discuss internet safety and digital citizenship by talking about the items that we should and should not put online about ourselves. Focus on being responsible and safe on the internet in practice in the closed and safe environment that Edmodo provides.

• Teach book reviews and have students write their own reviews. Students also suggest books to read as well.

• Students create top ten lists. Top ten books, top ten video games, top ten authors. Host a book club. Once a month the book club can take place in person and then for the rest of the month discussions can take place on Edmodo. This creates an intimate reading community. Even if a student moves they can still take part in the reading group from wherever their new location is based.

• Connect with students over the summer. Have a summer online book club. Students can sign up. Post a new book every three weeks, have new questions and new discussions.

• Edmodo now has badges where users can create a special badge for their team or grade. Use the ones that Edmodo has in their selection or create your own. Educators do have the option to turn student comments on and off if there are any inappropriate comments. This is another way to reinforce online responsibility and good digital citizenship. Edmodo does have a gradebook for educators to use. It has a poll feature, and other assessment tools that can be used to the educator’s advantage. There are iPad and iPhone apps to make this site even more versatile for users.

Flickr -

http://www.flickr.com/

What is Flickr?

Flickr is the best way to store, sort, search and share your photos online. Flickr helps you organize that huge mass of photos you have and offers a way for you and your friends and family to tell stories about them.

Take the Flickr Tour:

http://www.flickr.com/tour/

How many photos and videos can I upload for free?

When you have a free Flickr account, you can upload 2 videos and 300MB worth of photos each calendar month. If you need or want more each month, you may purchase a Pro Account for about $25/year.

Flickr is probably known to most of us...

 Give it a try or re-visit!

Learn the Periodic Table - 5 Resources for Students

And here are five resources for helping students
learn the Periodic Table.

Glaxo Smith Kline's Active Science offers fifteen interactive games covering a range of science topics. The Interactive Periodic Table is a game designed to help chemistry students practice identification of the elements. To play the game students are given some clues about an element's properties. Using those clues the student has to place the element in the correct place on the table.

The Elements is an interactive periodic table on which students can click an element and learn about that element. Clicking on an element describes all of the element's properties and the common uses of that element. If students just need a snap shot of information, simply placing their cursor on an element reveals a snap shot of information at the top of the page.

The Periodic Table of Videos is produced by The University of Nottingham. The table features a video demonstration of the characteristics of each element in the table. Each element in the Periodic Table displayed on the home page is linked to a video. The videos are hosted on YouTube, but don't worry The University of Nottingham provides an alternative server through which you should be able to view the videos.

The Periodic Table of Comic Books is a project of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. The idea is that for every element in the Periodic Table of Elements there is a comic book reference. Clicking on an element in the periodic table displayed on the homepage will take visitors to a list and images of comic book references to that particular element. After looking at the comic book reference if visitors want more information about a particular element they can find it by using the provided link to Web Elements.

The Dynamic Periodic Table is a good resource for science teachers and their students. The Dynamic Periodic Table works like this, click on an element and a window will pop up to tell you more detailed information about that element. The pop up windows cover properties, orbitals, isotopes and more. There are even links to more information, like the history of each element, for each element.

JeopardyLABS





JeopardyLabs allows you to create a customized jeopardy template without PowerPoint. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world. Building your own jeopardy template is a piece of cake. Just use the simple editor to get your game up and running.  Not interested in building your own jeopardy templates? Well that's cool too. You can browse other jeopardy templates created by other people. It doesn't get any better than this!

I tried Cosmetology, Dental, Surgical and found jeopardy games already created!  Try your Lab or area of study first and see if there is a jeopardyLab already created. 

Everyone may use this website for free.  Browse the jeopardyLabs already created or create your own.  One drawback...If you want to be a member, you have to pay at least $1.00 to sign up to use JeopardyLabs through PayPal.  When signing up for an account, they automatically put in a $20 amount, but you can change this to $1 - I did try $0 - did not work, must be at least a $1.

BUT think of all the jeopardy games you may create or use some of those that are already created for your SMART Board!!!

No fees

No registration

No PowerPoint

Pasted from <http://jeopardylabs.com/>

Comic Strip Builders - Bitstrips & Comic Life

Bitstrips
Create your own cartoon characters and comic strips using the items included in the drag-and-drop builders, with quite a bit of flexibility in what you can make, i.e. scenes, facial expressions, body langauge, cartoon panels, etc.
And it is FREE....

_____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

Comic Life http://comiclife.com/education

Making comics is fun for everyone, and Comic Life makes it easy. Teachers and students will find Comic Life a very useful software tool, and now it's available for both Mac and Windows platforms.

Technology not only changes how we write, but it also changes what writing is. Education will need to re-evaluate which writing skills teachers should pass to their students. Digital graphic writing is one genre students need to be fluent. Comic Life is the "word processor" of digital graphic writing.

Inexpensive

Schools often don't have money to buy expensive software. At $19.95 for a single license, however, any teacher will find Comic Life a bargain, and administrators will find the cost of licensing Comic Life for labs affordable.

Comics in the Classroom:
100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers:   This link is to a page on TeachingDegree.com where Using Comics in the Classroom is discussed with many other links!
http://www.teachingdegree.org/2009/07/05/comics-in-the-classroom-100-tips-tools-and-resources-for-teachers/

Welcome Back!!

New School Year...exciting!

Next week, Tuesday, September 20, I will start posting to this blog every Tuesday.

We will explore more Web 2.0 tools that will engage our students.

This summer, I did expand the Labels to include English, Social Studies, Math, Science and Career & Tech Labs.  When you click on one of these labels, you will see which of the Web 2.0 sites I recommend for each group.

Hope your school year is the Best!
See you next week.

Have a Fantastic Summer!!!

This summer I hope to put more tags on the Web 2.0 sites we already have . . . mainly academic tags, such as Science, Math, Social Studies, and English.  Then you will be able to click on your subject area and find only those Web 2.0 tools I recommend for your discipline.

Tech*Knowledge*Y Tips will return in September 2011 with a new Blog each week.  Thank you for your suggestions and comments!