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Earlier this week I had the opportunity to introduce a group of high school teachers to the free Socrative student response system. The response from the teachers was overwhelmingly positive to the point that one math teacher stayed with me for an extra twenty minutes just to brainstorm more ways to use Socrative in her classroom. Socrative is a free service that allows teachers to post questions to students during a class and gather feedback through responses submitted from cell phones, tablets, and laptops. Socrative gives teachers a virtual room in which they gather responses from students. Students sign into a teacher's virtual room by simply visiting the Socrative website and entering the room number distributed by the teacher. There are a variety of ways in which teachers can pose questions to students and gather their responses. The simplest way to pose a question is to simply ask verbally or post it on a whiteboard and then telling students to submit their answers. Teachers can also create quizzes ahead of time, store those quizzes in their Socrative accounts, and then make the quiz go "live" in the virtual room when they want students to take the quiz. Teachers can activate an instant feedback option so that students know when they have answered a question correctly or not. A fun way to use Socrative is to host a team "space race." A space race is a competitive format for quizzes. Space race can be played as a team or individual activity. Each correct answer moves a rocket ship across the screen. The first person or team to get their rocket across the screen wins. I've included below, a video of space race being used in a classroom.

"Reconsider the Use of the SAMR Model December 4, 2017 - Leave a comment The four-stage Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition (SAMR) model introduced by Rueben Puentedura back in mid-2000 has not only grown in popularity there are people building upon this its unsubstantiated foundation. The SAMR model was initially intended to help K-12 teachers move the up the ladder of technology use by using tech for the creation of new tasks, tech for a significant redesign, tech as a direct substitute with functional improvement, and tech as a direct substitute, with no functional change. SAMR not only looks like an innocuous model of using technology it also seems to appeal to the way many people tend to approach the use of technology. If we look closely at the fundamental presupposition of its use then we will see that there are serious issues in how the model can enhance learning. The first time I was introduced to the SAMR model was over a decade ago and I recall thinking that this model has a fundamental flaw that many people will tend to overlook. While using technology to simply make an activity or task more efficient or to explore ways to enhance or even redefine that activity or task may seem innocuous or even worthwhile the problem that we run into with this sort of thinking is that we are ignoring the validity of the original task that SAMR is being applied to. For example if you use SAMR to move your paper-based fill in the black worksheet to a digital model (substitution) and then add some branching questions in a google form (augmentation) and then add enabled voice responses (modification) and finally allow your class to create a video to answer the questions (redefinition) the problem is you are still asking your students to regurgitate content regardless how sophisticated the regurgitation becomes. I have also noticed in my time working with hundreds of teachers and faculty that there is a tendency for most people to NOT move beyond t

What is Dipity? Dipity is a free digital timeline website. Our mission is to organize the web's content by date and time. Users can create, share, embed and collaborate on interactive, visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links, social media, location and timestamps. Who is Dipity for? Dipity timelines are for anyone who uses the Internet. Newspapers, journalists, celebrities, government organizations, politicians, financial institutions, community managers, museums, universities, teachers, students, non-profits and bloggers all use Dipity to create timelines. Why use Dipity? Dipity allows users to create free timelines online. Digital timelines are a great way to increase traffic and user engagement on your website. Dipity is the fastest and easiest way to bring history to life with stunning multimedia timelines."

"Top 10 Apps for Digital Storytelling Feb 15 Written by: 2/15/2012 8:47 PM A while back I did a post on top sites for Digital Storytelling. This has been a skill that is being taught in school districts all around the world, and is a key for developing technology literacy. With the recent wave of mobile devices and technologies, a giant step has been taken in how students develop these skills (via touch screen) in a brand new way . Toontastic - A wonderful free iPad that allows children to create animated cartoon stories. They can choose from stock characters or draw their own while animating them and recording their voice for narration. Also, Toontastic's built-in story arc takes students step-by-step on how to create a story. i Tell a Story - A excellent free iPad that works very similarly to how Garageband creates a podcast. A user uploads a photo and then can record their voice for narration while adding stock sound effects. Voice Thread App - A great free iPad/iPhone app that compliments the Voice Thread very nicely for storytelling. A user can manage their Voice Thread account as well as make digital stories by uploading photos and drawing/recording their voice. Story Patch - An iPad app ($2.99) that is ideal for digital storytelling. A person can create a story from scratch or use one of their well-designed templates to complete all the parts of a story. Sock Puppets - A free iPad/iPhone app that is a lot of fun for kids to create animated stories. This is done by selecting your sock, background, and props and then recording your voice as the socks talk. Art Maker - A wonderful free iPad app that allows children to create a digital story from scratch. A user selects their background, characters, and props and then moves them around the screen while recording. Puppet Pals - A excellent free iPad app that lets users create a

"Most financial education in schools - when there is any - just teaches kids how to be consumers. You can take your students' financial education to the next level by teaching them what the rich know about money - that that the way to wealth is through cash flowing assets. We've provided lesson resources below to help you do just that. "

"All Virginia Studies Standards The following are resources for all Virginia Studies Standards. LITERATURE RESOURCES Literature Resources for all Standards of Learning TEACHER BACKGROUND RESOURCES WEB SITES * http://www.myvirginia.org/ The official Commonwealth of Virginia home page is your gateway to Virginia . . . from the mountains of southwest to the waterways of Hampton Roads, state government to Virginia facts and figures. Use the buttons to explore Virginia. This site contains many informational resources. * http://www.Virginia.org The Virginia Travel Corporation Web site contains an extensive list of places in Virginia. You can search for a site alphabetically, by time period, by location, and by other categories (such as historic buildings). In addition, you may search for historic sites by city. Contact information, hours of operation, and other details are provided for these historic sites. Click your way around Virginia. * http://www.vahistorical.org/ The Virginia Historical Society founded in 1831 has provided visitors the opportunity to view, research, and learn about the ordinary and everyday artifacts of Virginia. These artifacts provide visitors with a comprehensive history of the Commonwealth. Online resources are also available. * http://www.virginiaplaces.org This comprehensive Web site contains a wealth of information about Virginia geography, places, and people. Teachers will find this to be a helpful resource about many topics, from the rocks and ridges of Virginia to "Virginia and the Internet." The Web site was created to support the Geography of Virginia class taught each fall at George Mason University. * http://marg.mhost.com/vahistory.html This site, developed by Tabb Elementary School in York County, has links to Web sites divided according to Colonial period, Civil War years, and miscellaneous. * http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/education/projects This Web s

Lifelong learning is essential for effective educators and should be modeled for our students. With so many changes occurring in the fields of educational technology, curriculum, pedagogy, and law, it is imperative that educators receive opportunities for growth in their school and beyond. One powerful way to grow is through developing a personal learning network (PLN). PLNs enable educators to learn in accordance with their diverse interests and passions. During a conversation with teacher leaders last year about improving how meaningful professional development is offered, a model from the business world was suggested;Training and other professional growth activities would be embedded within the school day. the light bulb went on for me. I quickly realized that the current school schedule presented the perfect solution to offering meaningful professional development during the day in the form of noninstructional duties, which are otherwise often a waste of time. The plan that my administrative team and I have developed drastically reduces the amount of noninstructional duties the teachers have, such as lunch, hall, or in-school suspension duty. It also reduces the pe

Categories:  Teacher Use, Student Use Brief Description:  Veezzle is a free stock photo search engine, we are indexing free photos from big communities such as SXC, RGBStock, StockVault ... This way, you can quickly and easily find high quality free stock photos from other websites. You can also register and be part of the community, share your photos, create collections etc. "Our" photos are made to be distributed over the Internet so you have the RIGHT to use them online or in your work.

Wordnik is a new way to discover meaning.

"The best way to study languages, vocabulary, or almost anything P.S. It's fun, it's free, and you can share with friends!"

Veengle could be a good way for students to create mini documentary film. My initial thought is that students in a history class to could create a "video timeline" of sorts by creating a compilation video that includes segments about important events within a particular era. For example, I might ask US History students to create a chronological compilation of videos about Civil War battles.This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers.

"Here you will find your way to well over 30,000 lesson plans. You may want to consider signing up for our FREE newsletter which highlights this weekly feature, along with other great teacher specific content. You can also find teacher submitted units here. We also have over 8,000+ free printable worksheets in our worksheet area. We offer a wide variety of worksheets you can find tons of math worksheets and teacher timesavers. Make sure to check our teacher program for access to an unbelievable amount of teacher resources. Need help creating the perfect plan? Ask our experts in our message board area. "

"Welcome to BookCrossing, where 857,675 people in over 130 countries come to share their passion for books with the world. Where books take on a life of their own. How? It's easy. Simply click on the link below and sign up for free in less than 1 minute-- that's it! BookCrossing is earth-friendly, and gives you a way to share your books, clear your shelves, and conserve precious resources at the same time. Through our own unique method of recycling reads, BookCrossers give life to books. A book registered on BookCrossing is ready for adventure. Leave it on a park bench, a coffee shop, at a hotel on vacation. Share it with a friend or tuck it onto a bookshelf at the gym -- anywhere it might find a new reader! What happens next is up to fate, and we never know where our books might travel. Track the book's journey around the world as it is passed on from person to person. Join hundreds of thousands of active BookCrossers daily in our many forums to discuss your favorite authors, characters and books in every genre throughout history right up through current releases."

"In an attempt to increase book sales, HarperCollins Publishers will begin offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site, including a novel by Paulo Coelho and a cookbook by the Food Network star Robert Irvine. The idea is to give readers the opportunity to sample the books online in the same way that prospective buyers can flip through books in a bookstore. "

"Here's a handy tutorial for using Microsoft's free Photo Story 3 to create "Book Trailers" - and other projects using photos to tell a story, with. Photos are a great tool for teaching in the classroom, but with moving pictures, narration and music, they are even better! Photo Story 3 is a free download from Microsoft that lets you easily create narrated "mini-movies" using photographs. It also has a built in music generator that allows you to put your story to music, copyright free! Think of Ken Burns's many wonderful documentaries. This program will allow anyone with a computer running Windows XP to do something similar. 1 The program gives students the ability to make their own 'Book Trailers' to help other students get interested in books they have read. Students can scan, draw or take pictures related to the book, import the pictures into Photo Story 3, arrange the pictures, add narration to the pictures, and choose the type of music used when the trailer plays. Photo Story 3 then generates a stand-alone movie based on all of the above. One of the ways I have used Photo Story 3 is with my "Integrating Technology into the Classroom" course at Dakota State University is by inviting a local fifth-grade class to visit our lab, then helping students build their own book trailer. Over the course of the hour, we help students scan or take digital pictures, import their pictures to Photo Story 3, add narration, motion and music. They take their movies back to show on morning announcements, to their friends, and to their parents. For example, one student, Brian, made a Photo Story of Sammy the Seal. It shows enough information to get other students interested in the book, but not so much that the ending is given away. Another example is "Zack's Alligator goes to School", a story of the (mis)adventures of a pet alligator named Bridgett. Making a Book Trailer is fairly simple. Just follow these steps: Quick Start Guide"

3 lists of 341 ways to do a book report

"What is Scrapo? Scrapo is a community based digital online scrapbooking website. With our fully customizable drag-and-drop scrapbook builder you can be completely creative in your designs in every way. With all of our member interaction features you can share your designs and photos with ease. Friends lists, Shared Libraries, Journals, and the ability to leave comments on just about anything - are the key to Scrapo's mission in sharing creative online scrapbooks. "