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Great link, Marivel. I really liked that the website is divided by grade level and different objectives. I tried several links and find many of the links to be useful in keeping our students engaged. This website would definitely help in helping us create 21st century classrooms.

Marivel Garcia, the list of technology tutorials available for students is awesome! I really liked the one titled, "Using Powerpoint-Animating text" and "Keyboard shortcuts". The students will really like how these tutorials are presented and how easy it is to follow the instructions. Overall, this can be a great instructional unit that students who don't know how to use powerpoint can be trained on following the links at their own pace. This is also a great resource for parents who want to learn how to use powerpoint but never had the chance to learn it before. This is a Great Resource to have,. Thanks for sharing!

Using this website is a great tool for newbies! I believe introducing this to students early on would help provide the "help" when struggling inserting a new slide, setting transitions, or keyboard shortcuts. It may even help digital immigrants transition into using technology. This may provide the confidence they need before creating or incorporating another technology. =-)

Wow I am vrey amazed from looking at the website, great article and yes I do agree for technology newbies this is a great resource website to use. Technology is growing everyday and it's hard to keep up with technology and by using a resource website like this one, I'll really take advantage of this resource for following teachers who are not technology savy.

This is a great place for getting students to create a PowerPoint. I have taught elementary students how to create a PowerPoint the past three summers. I will be using this website with my students in the future because it is easy to follow.

Thank you for the link. This is a great tool for students and teachers to use to get familiarize with the Powerpoint software and other Microsoft tools. There are many teachers in my campus that did get the training to use Powerpoint or Excel or Word when they started teaching, so I believe this website will help learn a few trick in using the software. Thanks again. Blanca

Awesome website.....step by step instructions for students. Good way of learning how to teach the students and students how to follow the online training.

The website provides very good tips and points to consider when creating a PowerPoint. There are times when we want to add so many things to make our presentation, according to us, presentable. In the end we just end up with too many things that distract our viewers.

Greaty website! I especially like the step by step instructions that it gives for the audience to view.

Thanks Marivel! This is a great way to layout the most important aspects of powerpoint. It's a great resources to bookmark in my favorites. Thanks for sharing.

This is a great study on the positive effects of technology. I can see how it could have been so successful, like any other type of program or project, consistency is the key aspect. Any type of technology that is going to be introduced into the learning setting will be effective if the accountability and full cooperation is clearly stated prior to making the commitment. This is something I have seen as an educator that becomes an issue because as Title 1 districts I am sure funds are available for Ipads or any other tablet that might be more affordable but the way things are implemented is a big aspect of how productive you will be. Many times we begin something and not follow through, I think that implementing any time of tablet into the learning process in our school is a great way to enhance learning as long as we set goals to meet and accomplish. Great information thank you for sharing.

Marivel, I agree that districts and campuses have to be committed when introducing and executing the use of technology in the classroom. I believe errors in success occur when there's no consistency in using a technology in the classroom. Students are always more engaged. For example, this week, I did the story plot with my students in class and we retold the story of Prometheus using Toontastic ( I believe that's the name of the app) and my students were glued to the screen. It's a FREE app I encourage teachers to use. It provides the visual in the story students need so they can recall events in the story.

Learned alot from this study!! It's amazing how much influence technology has on students. When I read that 90% of the students who were using technology went to college compared to only 15% of the non-tech students, I was shocked. It puzzles me how many school districts are not willing to make the necessary expenses to attain this same achievement. The school drop-out rate is sky rocketing here in the valley. I posted a link to a Texas drop out report. Check it out! http://www.idra.org/Research/Attrition/

Thank you for sharing the FREE app on recalling events in a story. I will try it tomorrow and hope to have great results just like you. Thank you.

I have added 3 stickies in the site: http://edudemic.com/2012/08/50-education-technology-tools-every-teacher-should-know-about/ I would like your feedback on what tools have been useful to you in your classroom? How have they worked for you? Or have not worked for you? Have fun navigating through the 50 Education Technology Tools!!!!!!

Watch this you tube video on how the Secretary of State announces the Education Technology Plan and back in 2010 invited educators to post how technology has impacted their classroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR_lBt4jjow ENJOY!!!! Technology is evolving in this world at a fast pace, we just have to keep up with it. Have an AWESOME week!

Sara, I liked the organization of this page! These 50 educational tools are essential. I must say that I really liked the "Social Learning tools" and the "Useful Tools" because I have used many of them before and they work very well. It's great to have a page like this as a resource when deciding on what tools use. Thank you for sharing!

Sara, I have used several of these educational tools to present new materials to my studends and to compliment my lessons. However, since my students are kindergarteners, they are not able to fully manipulate these tools to create their own work. I feel that by exposing my students to these tools that I am doing my part to educate them and be computer literate. This composite of websites is a great list for teachers to explore. Thank you for sharing this website.

Hi Sara, I use Prezi to engage the students in a new form of presenting information to the classroom. It's fun to use and it offers so many different elements that Powerpoint does not. I also did a prentation for the campus teachers on how to use Prezi in their classroom and the results of the training were very sucessful and eye-opening. The teacher were happy to learn a new tool they can implement into their classroom curriculum to help keep student learning fun and engaging. I think it's a great tool to use in any classroom. Blanca

I have used several of the tools that are listed on this website and it is great to have them on one major site. I have used Prezi and Edmodo. These tools have been great to use for my students. They benefited and enjoyed the interaction that they experienced from both of these web 2.0 tools.

This is a great way to organize all these tools, through our program I have had the opportunity to utilize most of them but I have not yet exposed my students to all of them and I am really looking forward to being able to enhance their learning. Thanks for Sharing....

This is a great site! I've bookmarked it and already started going through my mental checklist of what I have used and what I'd like to use. It's a great way to see what's out there and how I can better use those tools in the classroom.

I liked the video a lot. The way the teacher planned the lesson allows students not only to choose the project they like the most, but also to choose the tools they feel are the best to complete the project. The students seemed to be on task all the time and collaborating so they all finish their project. It is truly inspiring.

Great video, Heather. It is an eye opener to all educators to what little children are capable of doing with the technology that is offered to them and the variety of technologies they can choose from.

That was a great video. I was really impressed how advanced the students were with the use of technology. I am a high school teacher so it is great to see how elementary teachers are getting the students engaged through the use of technology in the early years.

Cristina, you are correct. These type of lessons require a lot of preperation, but the outcome is fantastic. The students are engaged and collaborating, furthering the depth of knowledge for all.

Isabel, I am always amazed by how quickly young students learn to manipulate technology. Many times, I go in with only the basics and allow the students to teach me the "good stuff". They are so excited and can't wait to show off their final product.

Jessica, I am glad you were able to see first hand what children can accomplish in their elementary years. In my opinion, elementary is the best time to integrate technology, because the students are like little sponges. They learn so quickly and more importantly, they are motivated and engaged! As a high-school teacher, what would you like to see in term of technology knowledge from your entering students - Web 2.0 tools; Word; PowerPoint; etc.?

Thank you for sharing such an interesting video. I like how the teacher gives the students a variety of options for assignments. The students have more freedom when deciding what projects they want to do and with what resources they like. It seems like the learners would be more motivated to succeed when they have these choices. I also like how the teacher is able to integrate multiple subjects within a single project. The students aren't just learning technology, they're learning how to work with each other and develop collaboration skills that will be needed throughout their lives.

The Roman philosopher Senneca said that "While we teach, we learn." When students are able to create presentations and even games to explain a lesson or information to others, the creator in turn learns as well. To be able to properly teach a subject, we must first fully understand it. Using technology for this purpose ensures that the students properly understand the concept being taught to them.

Isabel, the Edutopia video was evident that teachers have to find innovative resources when resources are scarce. The students were engaged and enjoing the activity. The students were able to work and explain the steps of the projects to their teacher. They had some great ideas to use for future projects.

Christine, This brings you and what you are doing in your classroom with your students. Although they are in first grade, you have introduced different apps and programs for them to use. I wish all this was available when I taught, but even then I made use of all the actual software we had. Kid Pix, iMovie, MacDraw.... it is much easier now, with all the free software and apps out there. Teachers need to get excited about teaching, and incorporate one program or app at a time.

Loved the video. It shows that learning can be fun and that students are not just using the computer for games. I loved watching the students collaborating and helping each other out. They were even using technology terms to explain themselves. I would have loved to see their final product.

Nice, I really enjoyed this video..it gave me so many ideas to use with my students. Very dynamic and creative teacher, she's a great example in motivating students to learn by using interactive technology tools! After I watched this video I had to explore her website and visit some of her students' final products. She is very organized and uses web tools to the max! Thanks for sharing this with us

This was a very nice video. You can tell the students were engaged, and they were familiar with what they were doing. It shows very good examples of how students can collaborate and integrate technology in learning.

Hi Gayle, I am glad you where able to post. I know you have been having trouble. In regards to your response, I agree that PBL are an excellent way to build depth-of-knowledge. Thinking is a skill that I believe needs to be modeled and taught. Students do not come into my classroom knowing how to think. Often times, they want me to think for them. If I continue to do this, I am doing a disservice to my students. I have to step back, release control, and allow them to take charge of their learning and PBLs are a great way to do this!

I was fortunate to be able to visit the Metro School of Design, where they teach 100% PBL, and it was very impressive to walk into the classrooms to be met with an child "ambassador" who welcomed us, and asked us what we would like to know about PBL, and then took us to each group where the "project manager" explained all the protocols and what stage they were in, etc. What is impressive is that these children were so confident, and knew the process as well as the content of what they were working on. I have worked with PBL with my students, and it is frustrating when they stumble, or make mistakes as they are going through the research and establishing their "need to knows" and "workshops". Lots of progress monitoring comes into play, and although the misconception is that the teacher does nothing, the teacher has to have a solid plan to be able to have a successful PBL. We interviewed a panel of students, and one mentioned that they "once had a PBL that was not fun because we did not get to present to anyone, just us" so having them solve a real problem or present to a live audience is very important to them. I do believe PBLs are effective, but will take time to implement successfully. We should start with mini PBLs and work our way up.

In response to Gayle: I too, have stumbled when implementing PBLs. I gave students the option of using technology, and at least two groups in each class chose a video. Because our children do not have any foundation in technology, they had many "need to knows" which in turn called for "workshops". It is difficult to teach everything at once in a 45 minute session once a week. I know that in the classroom, it would be different. I suggest we limit the options to two manageable products, and if technology is involved, get another adult to help with "workshops", such as a technology teacher or the librarian. We used iPads, and created a simple video which we are going to share with Apple TV. I will bring this back and create the videos after the STAAR testing, and use them to present to students next year. Subject was "Bullying and Cyberbullying"

I agree with Juan on this one. It would be hard to try PBL during the school year with STAAR looming over our heads. As much fun as it could be, it would be hard to convince administrators that PBL can solve our problems. With that being said, I would like to try PBL once we get through with STAAR.

I believe in PBL, but I also strongly believe in buy in. It's hard to have students follow this model in a non-self contained classroom, because PBL requires giving students more independence and ownership of their learning. In most classrooms students have learned to be spoon fed, because we think it's more effective and PBL feels almost unorthodox to many teachers including the students.

PBL's is a good experience for kids to go through. At first when we started doing PBL's for our MTT classes I hated them and didn't understand them. Luckily I had a great partner,Heather Luna, to guide me through them and see how they would benifit the students in our classroom. PBL's help the students see what is really happening in the real world and that there is more to life than video games.

Problem-based learning takes a lot of teacher planning. I really enjoyed the PBL lessons we created in Dr. Butler's database. We were able to see other PBLs created by other students and take some ideas from there into the classroom. PBL is becoming more popular and more school districts are buying into it. Students can collaborate and learn from each other. Students can take responsibility for their own learning while researching and coming up with a final product/project.

Project based learning plays such a pivotal role in helping the students truly understand new concepts. When technology becomes integrated as well, even more becomes possible. I recently came across the Museum of Math in NYC and am hoping to visit it this summer. There they have all kinds of projects integrating technology to teach Mathematics in a concrete instead of just abstract manner.

Juan, unfortunately, the end of the year after testing seems like the more realistic place for PBLs. In Port Isabel we are required to use CScope and it leaves very, very little time for anything else. I do have students browse through the PBLs I created for another class even though they aren't actually doing the projects. I am looking forward to being able to actualy implement them. Edna, I think PBLs would be more effective at the beginning of the year. As you said, Students would become used to the technique; however, the problem I have is a curriculum that doesn't allow time for PBLs. Adam, I have had the same issues with misconceptions. It's a quite unnerving to let them lose, so to speak, and be in charge of their own learning when I know what I am responsible for them to know and have seen the misconceptions. I think PBLs are wonderful, but not when time is so limited and I must see to it that they learn a particular concept in a given amount of time. April, My PIISD uses CScope too and I completey understand the time constraints and limitations. I do like SCope, but it leaves NO extra time. Lupita, You're not alone. I sounds like most of us have had a hard time fitting PBLs in for one reason or another. Jessica, Presenting in different formats is one of the many positives of PBLs. I agree with you that this is an important point when considering learning styles. Isabel, I've not been able to implement the PBLs we created, but I've been able to share the content of them with my students. You're right in that they do take planning - as well as the ability to let go which I have not mastered yet! :) Brian, The Museum of Math sounds amazing. What a great opportunity. The ability to teach math concepts in a more concrete way instead of such an abstract manner is key.

Albert, this is an awesome resource we can share with others so that we can help students or parents that are having difficulty or don't have basic computer skills. This website is very well organized and will be very helpful for them. Thank you for sharing!

Wow! This is an excellent website for students and parents. Students can practice their basic skills and parents can learn and practice their skills as well. This is definitely a website that I am going to share with students and parents.

I loved this website! I am the technology teacher for my grade level and I have used this website to teach my students the fundamentals of computers. Great website!

Great website! I will diffently add it to the teacher resource link on our campus website. Teachers and student can benefit from a large variety of lessons available on the website. This is a great tool! Thank you for sharing.

Good website! I tried one of the lessons and truly learned something new. I thought it was a scam website that says it is free and ends up charging something, but it is not! I liked the tools and resources that it provides. Thanks for sharing.

No Problem everyone. I've used this website for about a year already and it makes planning so much easier :) glad i was able to help out and good luck to all =D

Great! I went through some of the lessons and they are great opportunities for the students to practice different skills. Try this website: http://sheppardsoftware.com/. Hope you can use it. Thanks for sharing that excellent website.

Great resourceful website. I can use this to help teach my students more about computers. I can also use this resource for having students practice concepts.

One thing I really liked was the different levels of instruction. Being able to pick the level of complexity is a great tool for effective learning. Great Information!

Great website. I have shared this website with my technology 21st Century Teacher so she can do some excel activities with the students.

Yadira this is a great website I am looking forward to utilizing the Drop.io in my classroom especially for the end of day reflection this helps with the 3-2-1 where my students can reflect on what they liked, what they learned and what they want to learn on a daily lesson. Thanks for sharing.

Yadira, thank you for sharing this website with all of these interesting Web 2.0 tools. I enjoyed learning about the presentation, mobile, and video tools that were discussed in each video. I would use Animoto for Education and Picviewr in my classroom. There were quite a few Web 2.0 tools that I was not aware of and plan on visiting the websites. Thanks again for sharing this website.

Yadira, great website and videos. I am going to use web 2.0 tool (picsviewr)for my student's and parent's presentations. I have never used this web 2,0 tool but I like how I can shared a powerpoint or information in differents ways by using pickviewr. I also enjoyed the community tools. It was very informative and I'm going to use different web 2.0 tools that were mentioned on these videos.

Great that you liked the website. I bumped into it while completing an assignment fro 6340 and have found it very useful especially in getting creative in the classroom.

Yadira, this website is awesome because it organizes different web 2.0 tools into separate categories. For example, Presentation tools, video tools, mobile tools, community tools, and related links. Two tools that would be very useful in classroom would be found in the "Presentation and Video Tools" links. I liked the "Picsviewer" found in the presentation tools link because this will to turn Flickr pictures into presentations. The other that I liked was the "photopeach" in the video tools tab. Photopeach will allow for pictures to be uploaded and then create slide shows out of them. I think those two were awesome but there are other great tools to use from this website. Thank you for sharing Yadira!

Thanks for sharing this website, just like Romel mentioned I also like that fact that it organizes web 2.0 tools in a very unique format that allows you to better understand the use of each tool. Two tools that would be very helpful in my classroom is the use of prezi for multimedia presentations and the use of wikis that allow you to collaborate with teachers and students to provide each other with feedback.