Tech Thursday

Tech Thursday:

This week I wanted to highlight some ways I came up with to use the doc cams that some of you have in your classrooms.  I came up with a few ideas, but I invite you to please share some ways you use this tool for instruction in your classroom in the comments section below.

Ideas: 

1. Use the doc cam to snap a photo of a shared reading text (Comprehension toolkit, picture book, etc) and interact with it using the SMART Board 

2. Take pictures of student work to share with the entire class for discussion.  Then save these in your SMART Notebook lessons for next year so you have student samples to show.

3. Have students take pictures of their work when they finish.  This can be used a formative check to help guide your instruction for the next day.

4. Take a picture of an object with the vocabulary word written underneath of it.  This will allow students to see pictures of the object and the word simultaneously.

5. Snap photos of students work and use it to create rubrics as a whole class. (ex. quality journal entries, showing your work in math, writing samples)

Timeline Creator:

Timeglider is a free resource that allows users to create their own timeline.  According their website it is described as "Web-based timeline software for creating and sharing history.  It's like Google Maps, but for time.  This could be a great tool to make history come to life through images and links to videos or websites.  Another similar tool is Tiki-Toki which I was directed to by a student in the Options program.  This tool allows you to create a timeline, but you can include video, audio, and images.  If you are interested in either of these tools please let me know and we can plan how we could incorporate them into your classroom.

Tiki-Toki Screenshot:

2 Tools to Integrate in 5 Minutes or Less

Wonderopolis

Wonderopolis is a great tool to engage students with high interest nonfiction text.  Each day a new "wonder" is added.  Each post will include a video, 3 questions, and information to answer each of the questions.  I know this tool may not be a new one, but I wanted to include some ideas for integration.

Integration ideas:

• This site provides a great way to practice reading with the question in mind.  This is a great tool to use as a shared reading piece where you model/practice using the 3 questions to focus your reading.  Some of the "wonders" can be at a high reading level so keep that in mind as you integrate it.  
• Use it as a station where students can read about the different wonders answering the questions they provide. 
• This site provides high interest reading material and will encourage your students to read nonfiction.  Now this list is not be exhaustive, so please leave a comment sharing a way you are using this tool in your classroom.  

Primary Wall

Primary wall provides a space to collaborate, share, and work together in real time using sticky notes.  This is an easy program to use and students can all be engaged in the discussion and you can view their ideas on your SMART Board.  You can also lock this site and students can access it from home.  Each wall comes with an embed code which allows you to post on your blogs or websites.

Integration ideas:

• Exit slip-students can reflect on class and post it to the wall.  This can be used the following day for discussion or reteaching. One technique is the 3-2-1 summarizing technique.  This technique was designed by Rick Wormeli.
• Brainstorming-students can post questions, things they have learned, research around a topic.  The cool paret is then you can sort their thinking on the SMART Board after you have collected it.

Harmony-Online Drawing Site

I came across this tool via Teachers love SMART Boards.  James Hollis provides many resources for all disciplines that can be used with the SMART Board.  Harmony is a website that allows you to draw on a blank template using various colors and brushes.  This was easy for me to use and I am far from artistic. 

Classroom integration:
I see this site as something that could be used to model techniques within an art classroom.  Teachers or students could create an example and then use the screen capture toolbar within SMART Notebook to save their work.  This tool could also provide a great tool for students to share visualizations of their reading, science inquiries, and more.

This tool is very simple, but has many integration possibilities.

6 Traits Writing Lessons

In our classrooms we use 6 Traits Writing.  This is a good resource which uses mentor texts to teach various aspects of the writing process.  One website that has many good ideas is Writing Fix.  This site has many lessons, interactive writing prompts, and much more.  As I was browsing this site I came across a NING network dedicated to the sharing of these lessons.  There are almost 20,000 educators signed up for this network.  When you sign up for this NING you will have access to all of these resources.  You will also receive an email with the "Writing lesson of the month."  Please sign up  to access all these great resources.

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