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1. Google Forms + ABCya Word Cloud = a great mash-up learning task! Create a Google Form with one short answer question. An example may be, Describe the volcano in one word. Export all of the students' answers into a spreadsheet. Drag down to highlight and copy all of the words. Paste these into a word cloud generator. There are several but my new favorite is ABCya's Generator. A list of word cloud generators is below. Wordle Word Cloud ABCya Tagul Jason Davies Tagxedo (This is Gail's favorite!)
 2. Google Forms makes anecdotal records even easier! This is a tip I picked up from VSTE last weekend. The presenter created a Google Form, emailed it to herself, then opened it on her iPad. She then saved the link to the form on her iPad home screen so that she could access the form at a touch. She allowed me to copy her form. If you want a copy, please see me. You are welcome to adjust it after you have copied it. Another great feature about using the Google Form is that you can click on Form, then choose Show Summary of Responses, and there are great graphs which summarize your data!  3. Google has themes! Are you tired of how your browser looks? You can dress it up seasonally. Go to the Chrome Web Store. Click on the left where you see "themes" Click the one you want and then add to Chrome! Enjoy!  4. Interactive white board without the board! At VSTE I signed up to receive an IPEVO interactive wand. This should be delivered after Christmas. Remember when I told you that in the future we may have to look into a replacement for the SmartBoard? This wand turns any wall into an interactive board. If you would like me to demonstrate for you, please let me know. The wand is $170 versus a $2000 SmartBoard! 5. Friday at the Movies - Pay attention to the little things
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 1. Chromebooks can read QR codes! Across the division Chromebooks are being introduced. We have pockets of them everywhere it seems and more are coming! You can find lots of pre-made task cards for both cost and FREE on Teachers Pay Teachers. You can print these off and use your Chromebook's web cam by installing the QR Chrome extension. This extension both creates and reads QR codes! By the way, the QR code in this post has a special message for you!  2. Amazing learning apps for IPads and Android tablets can be found at Duck, Duck, Moose! They not only have great apps but many of them (not all) have worksheets to accompany the apps! During your Christmas break, try some of them out with your own kids.  3. Many of the sessions I attended this weekend at VSTE were focused on Google and how the apps could be used in the classroom. I wanted to share a couple of resources and just remind you that I am a Google Certified teacher. I would LOVE to come in and help you create activities and learning tasks that you could use in your classroom. To Regroup or Not Regroup? One More Snowman  4. Symbaloo is a tool that Gail and I have shown folks before but recenlty they have added a new feauture. You can create a lesson plan using Sumbaloo Lesson Planner. In the same manner that you add tiles to a Symbaloo for students to access, in the lesson plan maker you add videos, books, pictures, links. Then you can add questions to accompany the video or link. You assgin the lesson plan and the students get a "code" to log into the plan. Once they log in and type thier name the plan begins. They will see the plan as if it is a game board. They move through each tile and cannot proceed to the next tile until they have answered the questions about the one they are on. If you are interested in learning how to use this to guide research project, see me. 5. Friday at the Movies--It's time for all of us to start our snow dancing! Sharing from Mike:
If you are at Monelison you have already seen this but I wanted to share with my folks and to remind MMS of these great resources. There are some new web resources that I learned about from one of today's session that I think you may like (or LOVE) and use for your classroom instruction...presented by Teachers First Edge - http://goo.gl/zyE5Kb TeachersFirst is a rich collection of lessons, units, and web resources designed to save teachers time by delivering just what they need in a practical, user-friendly, and ad-free format. Busy teachers, parents, and students can find resources using our robust search tools. Sign Up (Free) Session I attended "Chart Your Course with Cutting Edge Tech Tools" Check out the Wakelet >> http://goo.gl/zyE5Kb I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas Break is just around the corner. I don't know about you but I am looking forward to this much needed vacation. Before break though, the ITRTs are heading up to Virginia Beach this weekend for the annual VSTE conference. I hope to share lots of new ideas in next week's Five on Friday. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this week's.  1. New Webquest with a TWIST can be done with Google Sites. Have you heard of the new faze of Escape Rooms? If not, what happens is that you are locked in a room and you have to find clues to help you locate the key which will unlock the door and you have a small time frame to do so. Well, this has now gone digital! By combining other Google Apps with Google Sites you can create your own Breakouts-digitized! Here is a link to one I created on Christmas trivia. Stay tuned as another will be released on Monday that is meant to keep up the spirits as we count down to Christmas.  2. ABCya’s Word Clouds iPad app makes it easy to quickly create word clouds on your iPad. To create a word cloud with Word Clouds by ABCya just type or paste text into the text field. After entering your text Word Clouds by ABCya will generate a visual representation of the most common words in your passage of text. You can customize the generated word cloud by choosing different fonts, different color schemes, and by excluding words from the word cloud. Your word clouds can be saved directly to your iPad’s camera roll. This is also great on a desktop or laptop as well!  3. Classtools.net is one of my favorite "go-to" sites. It was created by the man on the left, Russel Tarr. Here you can create a random name picker, games, see 3D images, and much more.. There is an SMS generator on the site. I thiink it would be a really cool idea to create a simulated text conversation between George Washington and Benedict Arnold!  4. Flippity.net is another of my favorite place to find templates for creating really cool things using Google Sheets. I recently noticed a MadLibs story generator. Flippity's MadLibs template lets you create a series of MadLibs-style stories for your students to complete online. Each template is accompanied by a video which walks you through how to use the template. This would be a great site for teachers of 4th grade and up to check out for those one day mini project ideas! 5. Friday at the Movies- I have an ulterior motive for sharing this. Stay tuned to Monday to find out why.   I wanted to remind you all of the items Gail sent out at the beginning of the week.
First of all, You can now play tic-tac-toe and solitaire just by doing a Google search. Also, if you've ever wanted to hear what a raccoon or zebra sounded like, Google will tell you. Just type in what you want to know. Secondly, you can access the power of Wolfram Alpha’s computational knowledge in Google Sheets and get instant facts, data, and calculations, all without leaving the window. Let me know if you need help with anything posted on this blog! |
Melanie LewisHi, my name is Melanie Lewis. I am an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher for Amherst County Public Schools, located in the beautiful state of Virginia. I LOVE my job! I get to work on my hobby, anything that has to do with computers. I get to work with teachers and students, and I am definitely a people person. Plus, I DO NOT have to give grades. Wonderful, huh? Let me know how I can help you better integrate technology into your classroom. Archives
July 2020
ACPS' 1st computers
I know only one thing about the technology that awaits us in the future: We will find ways to tell stories with it. ~Jason Ohler
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