Schoolwork on a Flexible Schedule: 3 tools for creating online assignments

One of the great things about technology in the classroom is that it can free you and your students up and give you more flexibility in how to deliver instruction as a teacher. As a student, there is the possibility of being to deal with your schoolwork when and how you want (as long as you complete it on tine).

For today's tech tip, I wan to introduce three tools teachers can use to deliver online lessons to students that also allow the teacher to customize, deliver and collect assignments through the web.

Mentormob is a relatively new website on the educational technology scene. The site allows you to create a learning playlist.A teacher (or student). For each step of the playlist, you add a site, file, YouTube video for the learner to view or read. You can also add a pop quiz for each step with multiple choice or true/false questions. I don't believe you can collect the results from learners (at least for free), but learners can get instant feedback on their progress. Once you create a playlist, you can also embed it on a blog or website for others to find and use it.

 Most WEGO  teachers who use Discovery Education Streaming use it to share video content with their own class. But you might not have known that you can also build assignments around specific video clips. You can add assignment directions and questions, quizzes and other content. Once you create the assignment, you can assign it to your a whole class or individual members. You generate a code that students can use to login to the site and complete the assignment. All the work is collected through the site and dropped into your account for grading.

We introduced My Big Campus this year as a tool for creating a virtual classroom for teachers to post announcements, post class materials, etc. But you can also the Schoolwork feature to  create an assignment or a quiz for students. There are a lot of features for customizing the assignment, such as attaching YouTube videos and other content to questions. If the questions are multiple choice, short answer or true/false, you can even have the the program grade the assignment for you. All results are collected and added to your teacher account.

Questions? Let us know.

Awesome Interactives for Your Class

Okay, you have to teach or reinforce that a concept. Or you want to find an engaging and fun way to use technology in the classroom. Interactives and other multimedia can help. An interactive is a web based activity that might be a game or a tool for helping your students explore or analyze an idea. Here are some sites that have some great interactives and other multimedia that you can adapt and use for lessons.

Annenberg Learner
Annenberg has a ton of educational videos that they sell for different grade levels. Their website has a ton of great supplemental tools, including interactives. The disciplines included are Arts, Foreign Language, Literature and Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies/History. Check out other parts of the site for more lesson plans and video clips.

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives
Most of the math interactives on this site are java applets. The selection is small than some of the other sites here, but there are some useful tools to explore here.

Thesis Builder
There are just a few tools on this page, but they are gold for writing and research. One tool helps you build a thesis for a persuasive essay. Another suggest topics for papers. A third helps students build a structure for a cause and effect essay.

Thinkfinity
Thinkfinity is online community created by the Verizon foundation. the site's content partners are a number of discipline specific portals that have lesson plans, interactives, multimedia and links to other resources. Direct links to the individual content partners are below.

ArtsEdge (Arts)
Econedlink (Economics and Personal Finance)
EDSITEment (Humanities)
Illuminations (Math)
National Geographic (Geograpjy)
Read Write Think (English)
ScienceNetLinks (Science)
Smithsonian's History Explorer (American History)

Utah Education Network
The Utah Education Network has a number of interactive activities for a range of grades and disciplines.

Glog-ternatives, Or Try These Alternatives to Glogster

If you had a chance to use Glogster in the past, you know how much fun it is to create web based posters with images, video, funky pictures (and what not). If you are a teacher, you probably thought it was the best thing since iPods. There were tons of free features for educators, but then the company started to scale back on the free stuff. You can still make Glogs, but it is not as easy to use in a classroom situation.

So, here are a few alternatives. Some of them offer features just for educators. Make sure to look for the educator information (if offered).

Biteslide
http://www.biteslide.com/
Biteslide looks a lot like Glogster. You can create what the site calls Slidebooks with images, video and text. Like the original education edition of Glogster, teachers can choose a free plan that allows them to have 30 student accounts and 1 project. The site promises that this option is free forever.

New Hive
http://newhive.com/
New Hive is also similar to Glogster in that it gives you a canvas to create a multimedia poster with embedded video, images and mp3 files. It doesn’t have the pizazz and cutesy backgrounds and graphics that Glogster had, but it does the trick. You have to request an invite to create an account, but when I did it, it was not big deal. It just sent the invite to my email account within a few minutes.

Uturn
http://www.uturn.com
The cool kid on the block is clearly Uturn. The site allows to add pictures, video, text, etc. to simple “expressions” that you can embed on social media sites, blogs, other websites, etc. This tool doesn’t allow you to do the anything as complicated or extensive as Glogster or the first two tools, but it’s kind of addictive nonetheless.

Smore
http://www.smore.com/
Smore allows you to create simple web based flyers. In other words, you can create a simple web page that has as much information as a printed flyer you post on the wall at school would have. You can add videos, text, images, etc. There are few basic flyer templates you can use and the drag and drop interface is pretty darn easy to use.

Big Huge Labs
http://bighugelabs.com/
Big Huge Labs is a little bit different than the other tools. You can pick a particular photo editing tool, add a photo and then do some cool stuff with it. Create a jigsaw puzzle, a movie poster or magazine cover. You can even create one of those infamous motivational posters that have a picture with an inspirational saying underneath. I would blame you if you put something funny there instead. Check out the Education link to find out how to create an educator account.

Tech Tip: Microsoft Outlook: Rules For Your Inbox

This week's tech tip explains how to use the Rules feature in Microsoft Outlook 2010 to automatically organize messages as they come into your inbox. Create a rule to automatically delete, categorize, flag or put message sin a folder.

Tech Tip: Pinterest

What is it?

Pinterest is a website that allows you to collect, organize and save images and videos you find on the web. The things you collect are "pinned" to a pinboard, an online bulletin board (or scrapbook or whatever metaphor you prefer).

I made an example for the Abraham Lincoln Awards for this year. It includes book covers (images) and book trailers (videos).

How do I use it?

You can give each of your pinboard some sort of theme.  You can also see the pinboard others have created and "reppin" the items that you like to your own boards. You can also "like", follow, or comment on their boards as well. Create board of possible wedding dresses, Instagram photos you like, cars you want to buy or funny videos--whatever you want. Just make sure to follow Pinterest's Pin Etiquette  when using the site.

You will want to put a Pinterest bookmarklet in your Favorites Bar to be able to pin items to your boards quickly.

How do I use it for school?

Pinterest asks you to put your pinboard in one of several categories when you create it. You can browse or search for content. There are categories for Education, Film/Music/Books, Science and Nature and others. So you might just dive in and explore.

Disclaimer: this is not a site that was built specifically for schools, so there may be some occasional inappropriate content—just like any general web search you might perform on Google.

Here is some advice from others about how educators can use Pinterest in their classroom:

• Stephen's Lighthouse: Pinterest and Education 
• Edutopia: Pinterest for Educators?
• iGeneration: Pinterest as a learning tool: Do the two copute?
• Edudemic: The Teacher's Quick Guide to Pinterest
• Mashable: 16 Ways Educators Use Pinterest

Pin a Quote
http://pinaquote.com/
If you want to pin words, or more specifically a cool quote, you can use Pin a Quote.

How do I sign up?

At the moment, a Pinterest account is available by invitation only. You can request an invite from Pinterest or you can ask someone who has an account to send you one.

If you register using your Twitter or Facebook account, the site will pull your profile picture and other basic information and add it to your Pinterest Profile.

http://pinterest.com/

Huge NoodleTools Upgrade

NoodleTools is getting a huge makeover this summer. Check out their video preview of the new features.

Read to Lead: Featuring Understanding by Design (UbD)

During the next few months Read to Lead posts will feature professional development resources available to supplement “late start” workshops.

Today’s “Read to Lead” post features UbD instructional planning resources that will help you plan effective instruction.

Two ebooks are available through the Digital Card Catalog and the others are available for checkout.
Click here for UbD Resources

Writing Better Emails: #5 And the Rest...

#5 And the Rest..

Try to match the tone and style of the person you are corresponding with—especially if the person is a superior or someone you are trying to impress. If they reply to your 4 paragraph e-mail with a single line, pay attention to this and write shorter e-mails when corresponding with them.

Don’t forward an unanswered email to the person with a note asking them to address it. This could be perceived as rude. It is better to say, “I know you are busy, but did you get my last e-mail that I wrote about …”

Try to respond in a reasonable amount of time; in most cases, this means you should reply within in 24-48 hours, but that may depend on the context of the situation. You might indicate an estimated time that you will reply to the person if it is longer than a day or two.

If you are forwarding or responding to a message, don’t change the wording of the original message.  If you want to repost a message to a group was sent to you individually, ask the writer permission to do so and make sure to give proper attribution to the information.

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That is the end of our discussion on writing better emails. Please make sure to send us your feeback by email or through comments on the posts.
Sources for this series of posts:
Forbes.com , OWL Perdue , Emilypost.com , Inc.com , Microsoft.com

Wrting Better Emails: #4 Attachments, Forwards and Other Extras

#4 Attachments, Forwards and Other Extras

Outlook and other desktop e-mail programs come with the ability to add borders, backgrounds, and other enhancements to e-mails. These don’t always show up correctly in other e-mail programs or may be added on as an attached file. Use them sparingly, if at all.

You can add a signature file to an e-mail. This is usually some text that you have selected that is part of e-mail you send. It usually includes your contact information or a pithy quote. These are helpful for letting the person know how to contact you. Sometimes quotes and information included in signature files can unintentionally offend the recipient. Make sure to consider this before including the signature file in your email.

Never send an attachment to someone you don’t know the first time you send a message unless it is required, like for a job posting. They might think it is a virus or spam and delete your message.

Avoid sending unnecessarily large files. Learn how to resize photos or documents before you send them or send them a link to where the files are posted. For example, if you have an online storage account that allows you to share files with others (e.g. Flickr for photos or Google Docs for documents), send them a link so they can choose if they wish to download the file.

If you have to send large files, make sure to send a note first saying what you are sending and why. Make sure you have up to date anti-virus software installed that scans ingoing / outgoing messages.

Don’t send virus warnings, chain letters to others without checking out if they contain reliable information first. A simple web search or sites like snopes.com will help you figure which are useful and which are junk.
If you forward e-mails, most e-mail programs will put a symbol (>>>>) in the text to indicate the content from the previous e-mail.  Use the find and replace feature to get rid of these symbols.

Send no more than two attachments at a time and give the file a name that makes sense. In other words, don’t use PN345.jpg to send a picture from your camera. Change the file name to something descriptive—Basketballgame1.jpg for instance.

Next: #5 And the rest...

Writing Better Emails: #3 Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 2

Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 2

Email Content
 

People tend to scan and skim e-mails and web documents more than they would a paper document, so be deliberate about how you organize longer e-mails. Break the e-mail into short paragraphs. If you have lists of information, use bullet points or numbers to organize the content.

If you are replying to a long e-mail with many questions or points to address, it is okay to embed your answers within the sender’s original message. Leave enough space between their message and your reply so it is clear which part is their message and which is your reply.  If you do this, make sure to let them know you have done this in the beginning of the message.

If the topic is complicated or has a lot of parts to it, or if you have multiple questions, pick up the phone or visit them in person.

Open your e-mail with a greeting, as you would in a traditional letter: 

• Dear Mildred:
• Mr. Smith—

After you have exchanged at least e-mail in the conversation, it is okay to drop the greeting. If you are only acquaintances or you have never met, make sure to include a simple reminder of who you are and, if applicable, how you met.

If you are dealing with a long of list of back and forth replies, summarize the conversation for the recipient. You can highlight or quote relevant passages. Trimming back the irrelevant parts of the previous emails can also reduce the size of the message in their inbox and provide more clarity.

Refrain from sending one liners in your reply. A simple “thanks” or “ok” don’t advance the conversation. It is okay to put “no reply necessary” in the beginning of the e-mail, if needed.

Style

Quickly get to the point and be as brief and clear as possible. Write short, clear paragraphs that are direct and to the point. Concentrate on only one subject per message, if possible.

If you need to emphasize a point, use bold type or asterisks(*)  to set the text apart, but don’t use all capital letters.

Humor can be easily misunderstood in an e-mail. Use it very, very carefully.  Avoid the use of abbreviations that are often used in texting or other social networking sites. Not everyone knows what LOL means.

Always make sure to check that the email is clearly organized and that there are no grammar or spelling mistakes before sending it.

Next: #4 Attachments, forwards and other Extras

Writing Better Emails: #2 Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 1

Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 1

Address Line

If you are sending an e-mail to up to three people, make sure to include all of their names in the greeting. If there are more than three, use an inclusive greeting to address the group as a whole.

When sending a message to a large list of recipients, you might not want to put all of their addresses in the TO: line. They may not want their e-mail address shared. Instead, include the addresses in the blind copy, or BCC, line. This will hide the list of e-mails from those who receive the e-mail. Avoid using this tactic to privately share a message with a third party, since this can be impolite and deceptive.

Do all of the recipients actually need the information? If not, don’t copy them (CC:) or hit Reply All or forward them the message

Subject Line

Always include a subject line in the e-mail and make sure it is as meaningful as possible. Your subject line should give a reader a quick summary or preview of the e-mail. This will help clarify the topic and allow them to prioritize their time.

Make sure you use normal capitalization in the subject line as well. All upper case or lower case subject lines are common in spam messages.
Most e-mail programs come with the ability to indicate that an e-mail is important, usually with a icon that you can add to the message. Try to avoid overusing this feature. Convey the priority through the text of the subject line instead.

Next: #2 Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 2

Writting Better Emails: #1 All Email is Public

#1 All Email is Public

All e-mail is public; so, you should not write anything that you wouldn’t want anyone else in the world to read—literally. Since e-mails can be forwarded, copied, hacked, posted on Facebook, seen by prying eyes at unattended computers or printed e-mails left on public printers, please write them with that assumption in mind.

Make sure to avoid sending sensitive username and passwords and financial or other account information. Also, think twice about information that might be career or reputation damaging in the text of your e-mail.

It is always a good to look over an e-mail once before you send it with a critical eye for information that might be better handled in person. If the e-mail was written with a great deal of emotion (e.g. anger, hurt, etc.), save a draft or scrap the whole thing and return to it later.

Next: #2 Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 1

Tech Tip: Writing Better Emails

Introduction

The etiquette and art of writing a good email is a lot more complicated than writng a letter was in the pre-Internet days. There are etiquette concerns (or netiquette), as well as technical considerations.

The skills needed to write an effective email  are vitally important for career success, yet we all make some of the mistakes that we will write about here.

This tech tip that will posted in a series of 5 posts over the next few days.
#1 All email is public
#2 Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 1
#3 Keep it short, clear and to the point, pt. 2
#4 Attachments, forwards and other Extras
#5 And the rest...

Please offer your feedback in the comments section.

Presenting "Read to Lead" CHS 5 Year Renewal Plan

Every Thursday Eric or I will post information about books available in the LRC for staff and students. The Read to Lead posts presented over the next few months will provide staff with resources available in the LRC or online to supplement our "late start" workshops.

Most of the resources featured on Read to Lead have been recently acquired to provide additional information on Assessment, CRISS, DI, SIOP, Tech and Ubd.

Today's "Read to Lead" featured topic is Differentiated Instruction.

Find more resources link for videos and books
We also have two great ebooks both written by Carol Ann Tomlinson linked below:
Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design

How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms

Tech Tuesday: Getting Organized

Want to share your web resources with your students? Now you can with LiveBinders.com You can create a new binder for each student project and organize your professional resource links too. It's virtual so you can access it wherever you have internet service. Did I mention costs? ~ It's Free!

Check out LiveBinders for Teachers developed by teachers for teachers with binders full of resources organized by subjects and grade levels.

Missing Harry: More Series to Read if You Liked Harry Potter

So, the last Harry Potter books and movies have been realeased and you have read them all too many times to count. Here are some other series that you might want to read next.

Series: Bartimaeus Triology
Author: Stroud, Jonathan.
First Book: F Stroud, J  The Amulet of Samarkand.
About the Series: In London, where Parliament is controlled by magicians, the rise of apprentice Nathaniel is told through his eyes and those of Bartimaeus, the powerful and irreverent djinn he summons to help him seek revenge and gain influence.

Series: His Dark Materials
Author: Pullman, Philip
First Book: F Pullman, P The Golden Compass.
About the Series: The His Dark Materials trilogy follows Lyra and Will, two kids living in Oxford, England.  Their England is in a parallel world, one with armored polar bears, winged demons, other fantastic creatures and dangerous magical objects. Mixing science, theology and magic, the three books take the kids on epic adventures saving kids in danger to saving the world.

Series: Inheritance Cycle
Author: Paolini, Christopher.
First Book: F Paolini,C Eragon.
About the Series: In the land of Alagaesia, the Dragon Riders kept peace among all of the countries.  One of them, Galbatorix, ends up going mad when his dragon is slain.  He is refused another dragon and starts a war to seek revenge and gain control of Alagaesia. Against him is Eragon, a boy whose family is killed and village terrorized when he finds a dragon egg and becomes a Dragon Rider.

Series: Keys to the Kingdom
Author: Nix, Garth
First Book: F Nix,G Mister Monday.
About the Series: Arthur Penhaligon was supposed to die at a young age from a deadly asthma attack but instead is saved by a magical key. This key opens the door to a mysterious house transporting him to the real world of Second Realms. With the keys help,  Arthur fights his way out but the Fetchers, dog faced creatures are never far behind.

Series: Pendragon
Author: MacHale, D. J
First Book: F MacHale,D  The Merchant of Death.
About the Series: Good verses evil struggles to win in this extensive series. Bobby Pendragon is a 14 year old boy that is transported through time and space by a gateway worm hole with his uncle. He writes to his closest friends Mark and Courtney on earth. As his friends read the letters Bobby’s incredible adventures unfold..

Tech Tip: Google Apps for Students

Great news! Starting this year, students have access to their own Google Apps accounts through our school.  Here are some tools that you might be able to put to good use in your classroom.

Getting Started

From the school homepage, student can click on  Students > Google Student Login.  The first time students login, they will have to accept the terms of use before they can proceed. This message will only appear the first time they login.

The Basics

Use Google Docs to have students  write and share papers, spreadsheets and presentation files (think PowerPoint) with each other and you over the Internet. 

Students also have access to  Google’s e-mail program, Gmail.  They can only send or receive e-mail from other WEGO students or staff members, so it is perfect for sending messages to your class or having them send you documents by e-mail. 

Google Calendar can help students stay organized. They can also subscribe to other calendars. This is useful if you want to set up an easily updatable class calendar with  them.  The calendar comes with a to do list program called Tasks that you can access in Gmail too.

For the Adventurous

If you want to go beyond the basic features, you might want to try using Google Sites, Groups or Blogger. Sites is an easy to use web page builder. Groups allows you to create a e-mail listserv for your class.  Blogger is a great tool for creating blogs.

Got Questions?

These are just a few of the ways you can have students use their Google Apps accounts. If you have questions about student logins, setting up blogger or using the other Google programs, contact the LRC or technology staff. We would be glad to help.

Two Teachers on the Tube

Two guys with way too much time on their hands who have made videos to save you time.

Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a non-profit run by one man, Salman Khan. There are tons of videos on topics in math, science, economics and other areas. All the videos are posted on YouTube, but you can also download the videos and other materials from Curriki.


WOWmath
Brad Robb has posted over 555  (as of this writing) on Youtube. He is a math teacher in California and records most of his videos while he is teaching the lessons. On his website WOWmath he has organized the videos and other materials.

Some interactive websites for Social Studies

Mission US
http://www.mission-us.org/
A site that features game simulations based on events in US history. Here is a description of the first game from the website:

"The first game, Mission 1: "For Crown or Colony?," puts the player in the shoes of Nat Wheeler, a 14-year-old printer's apprentice in 1770 Boston. As Nat navigates the city and completes tasks, he encounters a spectrum of people living and working there when tensions mount before the Boston Massacre. Ultimately, the player determines Nat's fate by deciding where his loyalties lie."

BBC - Dimensions
http://howbigreally.com/
Compare the size of historic places and events to your hometown (or any town). It uses Google Maps to show the comparison between, the size of West Chicago to the Great Wall of China.

DocsTeach
http://docsteach.org/
A site from the National Archives where you can have students examine primary documents with a series of interactive activiites.

Gapminder
http://www.gapminder.org/
Find interactive graphs based on social and economic data from around the world on this site.

Blog, Wiki or Doc?

The difference between blogs, wikis or online word processors can be confusing for teachers who are trying to decide which is the best format to for a project. Here is a great chart that explains the differences between the three formats:

Blogs, Wikis, or Docs: Which is right for your lesson? (Dr. Mark Wagner)

(via Free Technology for Teachers)