Snowman Keynote presentation...

I saved it as a Power point so everyone could see the final product.  This lesson was intended to show the students how to add shapes, lines, and, color to a keynote slide. The students really enjoyed making their snowman appear!
Snowman lesson

Ideas for before and during Christmas Break

As Christmas break looms upon us I have a few suggestions for quick lessons to do with your students.

1. QR generators - I have found that the easiest way to ensure your students are going to the correct website is the create a QR code and have them scan it.  This works especially well with younger students or students who have difficulty typing.  I did a "webquest" using FactMonster.com recently.  These are easy to create.  My topic was Winter Holidays.  First I went to Fact Monster and looked up facts about winter holidays.  Then I wrote questions to go along with the facts.  I had the students scan my FactMonster QR code and then search for the answers to the questions.
2. Anytime is a good time for some Toontastic!!! And with all the new updates this app never gets old. If you do not have Toontastic on your classroom ipad you need to get it now.  The entire tool box is a steal at $9.99.  With this purchase you get all characters past, present and future! Best 10 bucks you will ever spend. Around the holidays you can assign a historical Toontastic or make them work in pairs or small groups to create cartoons. It is important to explain what you want the end product to resemble..length, number of characters, amount of dialog.  
3. Yesterday my students and I created animated Snowmen using Keynote. I started by adding one slide with a simple circle on it.  Then I copied the slide and added another circle, as so on until I had created a snowman.  I then added a Christmas tree. The students loved it and  enjoyed making their own snowmen.  It was a great way to show the students some of the features of keynote and then have them practice using them.  
4.  Free Tech 4 Teachers  - this site has so many great resources I don't know where to start. Check it out!

Stopping the Summer Slump..

         
Summer is almost here and while everyone enjoys some down time it is important to not shut down all the way.  Our students need to continue to exercise their brains as well as their bodies.  The below link has some great ideas on how we can help our kids to stay mentally active this summer.

Technology Activities for Summer Vacation


As teachers we too need to stay mentally active this summer.  I know that I will be looking for new ways to engage my students in the Technology Lab as well as in the gym.  A great way to find new apps is to check out AppsGoneFree everyday.  This app lists paid apps that are being offered free of charge for a limited time.  I have found tons of educational and organizational apps using this site.

AppsGoneFree




I also suggest reading AppAdvice...These are the smarty pants behind AppsGoneFree.  You can subscribe to the daily feed. Check it out, they have great info about new apps.  

Here is a great article from Oklahoma about stopping the summer slump..Stop the Summer slump
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 And finally here is a link to an educational blog that has a great article on..Reducing the Summer slump

I hope you find these links helpful in stopping the slump! Have a great Summer and remember don't shut off all the way!

Happy Apping,
Ms. Adderley

Testing Week....

Yup...it is testing week.... Need I say more...  :)

Italian Vacation

Here is one of my Animoto Videos...enjoy

Italian Vacation

My new obsession...Animoto

I have rediscovered a movie making program that is now available as an app..Animoto. It is an iPhone app, but works beautifully on the iPad as well. With a couple pushes of a button you can create professional looking movies/slide shows with your own images and music! The free version allows you to us 12 images to create a 30 sec. video. For a mere $4.99 you can create videos with up to 300 images and save them onto your iPad or home computer. Theses videos can also be shared on Facebook. Try it out! I know you will be amazed at your results. I know I am.

Thank you to everyone...

Who sat through our presentation. I hope you learned something or at least enjoyed listening. Please contact me with questions or comments!

Before our presentation

The room was huge and people where already starting to sit down 30min before the presentation. Praying it goes well!

Slides from NCEA presentation

 iPads in Education presentation slides


Link to the slides from NCEA presentation

Keynote Lesson Plan

This lesson uses the Keynote app. It integrates Social Studies and technology.

Keynote Lesson Plan

Cheesecake Thief Lesson

The Case of the Cheesecake Thief?This lesson uses several online sites.  It is a multi-class period lesson. It is a very creative way to teach photo editing skills, comparison of images, placing and retrieving documents in DropBox (we chose to use DropBox as a central location for all the students to compare the fingerprints).
Cheesecake Thief Lesson Plan link

Skittles Math lesson plan

This lesson uses the Numbers app and skittles...Yummy!

Skittles Math Lesson

Sock Puppet Lesson Plan

 The below link will bring you to the Sock Puppet lesson plan. A fun and informative lesson that integrates technology and social studies.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1tz1AGdIOKpcjJWdFI0cDJweVU/edit?usp=sharing

Great iPad lesson plans!

This teacher has a wealth of iPad lessons at his website. Enjoy!
http://oakdome.com/k5/

QR codes....the who, what, and how....

Today's topic is QR codes, QR readers, and QR generators. 
 These crafty fellows can be used for a multitude of purposes.  The first one that I can think of right off hand, and probably the most common use, is as a link to a website.  In fact that is how you got here today!
But what are they and how do they work? 
Well in a nut shell.. They are Quick Response Codes that can be scanned without the beam of light used to scan barcodes. While they were originally designed for industrial uses, QR codes have become common in consumer advertising. Smartphone users can install an app with a QR-code scanner that can read a displayed code and convert it to a URL directing the smartphone's browser to the website of a company, store, or product associated with that code providing specific information.  Cool, huh?
So, you may be asking yourself, "How does this translate to an educational tool?"  Well, that is a good question... here are several examples that I have found or come up with:

•  they eliminate the frustration of long web addresses.  Just create a code for a site you need your students to go to and have them scan it!
• It takes students directly to a designated website.  No more search engine issues (you know those not very kid-friendly images that sometimes pop up)
• It definitely saves time! Especially with the younger students who may not have the fastest or most accurate typing skills.
• they can be placed around the room and be linked to images of specific classroom items
• they can be linked to clues in a sort of classroom scavenger hunt for the start of the school year to help students learn where the pencil sharpener, trash can, and cubbies are located. Or even to share facts about their new teacher
• they can be linked to your class website. You can create a QR code that can be laminated and linked to your classroom website. This QR code can be placed in the ipad station and the students can scan it to go directly to the class site
• Anytime you want to make sure your students go to a specific site, photo, link, you can create a QR code and have them scan it.
• you can link it to permission slips and send home just the QR code and have parents scan it and print out the permission slip them selves.
• as with the link to my blog...I can attach questions to the QR code and the students will have to scan the code to find the answers. This can be done with online text books, class website, webpages.
• And last but not least the best is the creation of a QR code that is actual text. The student scans it and it shows whatever you typed.  This can be a way to have the answers to quizzes on the quiz. The students can check their answers when they are finished by scanning the QR code. 

 Creating and reading QR codes is easy. You can find several free QR code creators and readers that are compatible for the iPad, iPhone, and Android devises. The QR code generator that I used to create the code that brought us here today is called Kaywa QR code. The web address is http://qrcode.kaywa.com It is a free site for creating QR codes.  The QR reader that I have on my iPad is called QR reader for iPad.  I also have the iPhone version on my iPhone. I have other QR readers and generator that I have used and they all work well.  I also have an app called Qrafter than creates and reads QR codes.  This app cost $2.99, but I 
am able to link QR codes to documents, contacts, and any text that I write. Well worth the $2.99.  I will demonstrate this during our meeting. Prepare to be amazed!
Yours truly.... Ms. Adderley...tech nerd 

 Scan the code for more ways to use QR codes in your classroom!