Every year as my class begin to create their online blogs they always want some type of unique avatar to represent themselves. After a long talk about he dangers of an online presence and why not to use their real name, birthday and image of themselves, I point them to the following safe list of avatar creators. These sites are all free avatar creators. This list also represents the most popular avatar creators among my students. If you have another that is popular with your students and is free please drop me a line and let me know.
Voki Home This site allows you to create animated and speaking avatars. You can post a link to these speaking avatars on to your website. They can not however be downloaded.
Well it is that time of year again and I can already hear the school bell ringing. Like many teachers I am hitting the web and my classroom resource creating and organizing lessons. As I peruse the web looking for ideas and resources I can feel my stress level rise as I see hundreds of ideas and resources to use in my classroom.
The problem is the web has so many great ideas that it can be overwhelming. Just today I came across two great posts one from edudemic.com titled “50 Educational Technology Tools Every Teacher Should Know About” and Getting Smarts “50 Essential Edtech Tools By Category” each had 50 different tools or resources. This just added to my stress and frustration about what to do in my classroom. I quickly realized that I need to have a specific goal in mind so that I can focus on one or two aspects of Edtech in my classroom. So over the next two weeks I will be posting about 4 or 5 really good tested Edtech tools to use in the classroom. Each post will focus on a specific content area with Common Core in mind. My hope is to help myself get organized and maybe help someone else out in the process.
picture of an e-learning classroom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As my regular readers know I am always looking for new technologies to try out in my classroom. But the task of finding new technologies can at times be overwhelming. The amount of apps and programs out there is daunting at best. Often times it takes hours to find something that I think will work and feel is worth giving a try in my classroom. This past weekend however, I was catching up on some of my educational blogs that I read and I came across a post by Audrey Watters who might have found a great starting point.
Audrey Watters writes a blog called “Hack Education” and she wrote about a site called “EdShelf“. This is a site that lists hundreds of educational tools to use in the classroom. The best description is the one they use on their website that describes their website as,
“… a directory of websites, mobile apps, and desktop software that are rated & reviewed by educators, for educators. We decrease the friction of using and procuring effective technology into the classroom.”
As I reviewed the site I found it to exactly that. This is a great starting point for anyone looking to add some technology to their classroom. The reviews and ideas that can be found on this site are quite valuable and will significantly reduce the amount of time teachers spend searching for new tools and ideas. I highly recommend this site to educators looking to add something new to their class.
Over the course of the the last few days my students have begun to use instaGrok as a search engine in class. This site conducts searches in a very visual way that invokes students to explore and learn. Often times I see them digging deeper into a search due to the visual nature of the the search engine. The visual nature also seems to spark the curiosity in students to explore and look deeper into a topic. Another great thing about this search engine is the layout which provides students immediately with key facts, videos, images and other resources. Saving students time in looking for these resources next which they often need to do for many assignments. I was very happy with how engaged my students were and how they seemed to really like to use this search engine.
So, if you like many teachers in the country received a new Whiteboard in your classroom this summer you are probably wondering how you can use it. I was in this position a few years ago. The whiteboard I received came with no training or help just the expectation that I would incorporate this tool into my classroom. Well like most technologies there are some things you need to know to effectively incorporate this technology into your classroom. Often there are help files and manuals that come with these new whiteboards but they are not enough to really allow you to truly integrate this tool into you classroom. Some of these boards like the Promethean boards have a great website to assist you. Promethean Planet “http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-us/”, this is a great website that provides example lessons and tutorials on almost all areas of their whiteboards. There are also some third party websites that have been truly helpful in learning how to incorporate whiteboards in the classroom.To help you get started here are a few resources I have used over the last few years to assist me in using my Whiteboard.
I am currently taking part in the North IdahoSustainable Forestry Tour. Check out their Facebook page by clicking here. As we toured the Chilco Lumber Mill and the Inland Empire Paper Mill today I was struck by the amount of technology used now in these industries. At both mills most of what we saw was automated machines running things with just a few workers monitoring the computers. In both cases less than 15 people were running the entire facility.
In the image below the people you see in the lower left hand corner are those of us on the tour. In this particular area of the mill there were only two to three workers running the entire cutting portion of the mill. There was enough lumber cut at this location to frame 4 to 5 houses an hour. The technology employed here not only cut the logs but also computed the best way to cut each individual log. Every log run through this portion of the mill was scanned by computers at least three times to ensure the best cut and optimal amount of lumber generated. This was all done with three workers. Every portion of the log is used to generate their lumber or sold to other companies to create other products. The efficiency was extremely efficient and very impressive. This has been a very enlightening tour so far and am interested to see the actual logging tomorrow.
The video below was a project asking students to show the world as they see it. This is a very interesting video that poses some serious questions for educators. We all know that every generation is different and to be a successful teacher we have to adapt to meet the needs of the current generation. The integration of technology for the current generation is not a gimmick or fad it is how they interact, learn and live their lives. To be a successful teacher and reach the current generation technology is now a key component. Watch the video below.
I was watching Helen Papagiannis on TEDxYorkU this past week and was struck by her supposition, ” make the ordinary seem extraordinary”. This really is the key, I believe in education today. Students are bombarded with technology and are constantly entertained. If their is no element of entertainment in our classrooms we will inevitably lose the attention of many students. Like it or not this is a conditioned response of the current generation. Educators need to acknowledge this fundamental component of their clientele and address it in their classrooms. I am not saying to become full fledged entertainer and I do realize that students need to learn how to interact in a traditional educational setting. However educators must acknowledge they need to make the ordinary seem extraordinary to create a true learning environment.
If you have not seen Helen Papagiannis’s “How Does Wonderment Guide the Creative Process” check it out below.
I was reading Charlie Barrow’s Blog the on Sunday and came across a great video that I have not seen before. It was created and produced by Microsoft and displays possible future technologies and communication tools. Check out the embedded video below.
This really captivated my students attention and got them thinking about other technologies that we might see in the future. As they pondered the possibilities I asked them if they would like to be part of creating these type of new technologies. The overwhelming answer was yes. As an educator I saw my opportunity to discuss the importance of a college education and took it. The great thing was they were more responsive and seemed to make the connection that if you really want to create these types of technologies and enter this field you must go on to college. Either way this video opened up some great discussion. Try it out with your classes and let me know what they thought.
This past month I received a set of netbooks for my classroom. I feel very fortunate to have received these and wanted to incorporate them into my class as much as possible. So I decided to make my class a paperless classroom. As my classes have begun working in this new digital learning environment I have found that many students really do to know how to use technology and really need to be shown how to correctly use a computer.
So often I hear teachers say things like, “I don’t want to teach kids technology because they already know it all and I don’t.” Or that “the kids know more about this stuff than I do.” To put it bluntly, NO THEY DON’T! This is a myth and in fact I believe that you will find that things like file management, proper email, and using many online tools will be foreign to them. Although many students will pick up how to use these digital tools quickly we must remember as teachers, students need to be taught how to use many of these tools. Assuming that students can use technology is a pitfall that many educators and schools fall into. Any technology to used in the classroom must be taught to the students before its use to ensure the best possible application of that learning tool. This is a lesson that even though I knew, really has been pointed out to me in the past few weeks.
My name is Mike Alfred I currently teach history and video communications at Lincoln Middle School in Clarkston Washington. I have a Masters in Educational Technology from Boise State University and I am always looking to discover new and innovative ways to incorporate technology in the classroom.
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