Dare to Wander

I should apologize in advance for what's about to happen on this page because today's tech tip isn't really a tech tip at all. Although it is a plug and technology quite often requires a plug. If you haven't checked out a book from either of our media centers but especially our middle school media center, then you are truly missing out. I focus on our middle school media center because chances are if you are reading this, you are an adult. Our middle school media center has so much for everyone. I think of it as a hidden gem. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because each day when I wonder in there, I discover at least five more great books that I've yet to read but have heard about. No joke. To prove my point, here are the books that I came across today that I have since added to my "to read" list:








And then of course there are more:



















I list just a few above but there are so many more new books sitting in our middle school media center that have received recent accolades. Because of the amazing boutique collection that lives in the middle school, it is definitely worth wandering in there yourself. I dare you.

No Travel Budget? No Worries.

There is that saying that when we reach third grade, we have transformed from learning to read into reading to learn. This is immediately what I thought of when I came across Google's Cultural Institute. It is amazing. Everyday the Google Cultural Institute shares stories from around the world that focus on art and culture. Not only are they stories, but they are designed so that you become immersed in an experience. For example, included is a story about the famous artist Johannes Vermeer's painting entitled Little Street. There is a mystery surrounding where this little street is located. With Google's Cultural Institute, the viewer is immersed in a world that guides us to unlock this mystery. Check it out here. It's worth it. Using 3D street views, close ups of Vermeer's artwork, and interesting storytelling, we can't help but feel we are on our way to discovering our own little street. 

In addition to art, fashion, architecture, culture, and inventors, Google's Cultural Institute provides an opportunity to travel the world. What an amazing resource to integrate into a social studies lesson, a biography unit, a center activity, or simply create a virtual field trip experience amped up with a #TLAP style approach.  Did I mention that in addition to being accessible as a website, Google's Cultural Institute is also accessible through a free app? Care to walk the ruins of Machu Picchu? Your students can do so here and journey to many other places with the help of Google's Cultural Institute. Don't worry if your field trip budget is lacking, take your students around the world with this resource. 

Playing on the Math Playground

Let your students roam wild on this playground. Created for elementary and middle school students, Math Playground is filled with fun logic games, word problems and videos.The videos make for a great entree into a new lesson while the games help reinforce previously learned concepts. Looking for an enrichment tool or a strong center activity? Then I suggest checking out Math Playground. No recess duty required.

Election Season!

I like to use this forum to share a few of my favorite things. This morning, I was reminded that one of my favorite things is School Library Journal. While the title might sound old school, the publication itself is genius. It is where you will find nuggets of information about education trends, tech tools, and of course great blogs, books, DVDs, websites, and apps. This month's issue has a useful article about strong election resources. 

Looking for a FUN (let me emphasize FUN) way for your students to relate to and understand the complexities of a presidential election? If so, then iCivics.org is a winner. Students can play Win the White House and to ensure it is age appropriate, there is a different game for elementary, middle and high school students. It's one of those websites that students explore but don't realize that they are learning at the same time. 

Math teachers will find this next resource to be a great way to make cross curricular connections. The website called FiveThirtyEight  is filled with fun infographics with up to the minute updates about election predictions. School Library Journal suggests using this to have students create a current events math mash-up. Making this an activity in which no words are spoken aloud and students can only communicate through their visual creations would add an interesting dimension to this activity. 

An extremely powerful resource is LivingRoomCandidate.org. Going back to 1952, students can view commercials and videos highlighting the candidates various campaigns as well as their opponents. It makes for an awesome compare and contrast activity and a great way to analyze how these ads may or may not have impacted the outcomes. 

Finally, 270towin.com is an interactive electoral college map. Students can click on the different states and make their own election predictions. They can then share their own forecast too. 

There are a lot of options to teach students about the power of exercising one's right to vote. Integrating the election into your curriculum doesn't have to be controversial. Using some of these resources in creative ways can make for powerful and school appropriate learning opportunities.

Grateful for Gratisography

While scrolling through my PLN on Twitter, I came across this awesome website, Gratisography. If you haven't noticed by now, I like to have a presentation for just about everything. I am a Google Slides addict I suppose. As a result, I am always seeking high resolution creative commons licensed images. It is a reoccurring nightmare of mine to be presenting in front of a large audience on the topic of digital citizenship only to discover that I am not using "legal" images. As a result, I am on a routine mission to curate presentation-worthy images. Ever since the discovery of Gratisography, it has been a go-to resource for thought-provoking images to help illustrate a point. 

How I Must Look After Waking From My Nightmare, image courtesy of Gratisography

When looking for crisp, clear, creative images, check out Gratisography. Don't forget, however, that you still have to cite your source. 

Purify Your YouTube Videos

Feeling Embarrassed

Have you ever been embarrassed when you excitedly pull up a YouTube video to share with your students or parents and before you can stop it, an ad comes up? This has certainly happened to me before and in fact, it has probably happened to me in front of each of you. Well, never fear. Now you can purify your YouTube videos with View Pure. Simply copy and paste the YouTube video link into View Pure and it will take the advertisements right out of your video. A simple yet powerful tool to add to your toolbox. 

Digital Posters with Google Apps

When I was in Indiana last year for their annual library conference, I often heard about this great little book called 101 Practical Ways to Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller, an Indianian himself. Librarians and tech specialists raved about this book from which I have gained some interesting pieces of information. One of which is how to create digital posters with Google Apps. In this case, students and teachers can ditch the glue sticks, the markers, and the mess. Here's how:
In Google drive, click on New, then click on More. From there, you will see the option for Google Drawings.

Once you click on Google Drawings, you will have a blank canvas awaiting your creative touch. Want to insert images? When you click on Insert, then Images, and Search, images that are licensed by creative commons can be used within your digital poster. In addition, you can embed links to make your poster interactive. Other uses include creating graphic organizers, visuals for book reports, flyers, and storyboards. I also love the idea of using this to crowdsource ideas. Because it's a Google app, it can be shared and edited by those of your choosing. Bring on the creativity!

Stunning Movies with Stupeflix

I received a great tech tip from @Jetteryderdad about an online movie maker. Upon further exploration, I realized that this was a gem of a tech tool. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the name is inspired by the fact that you can be less than tech savvy and still create a fabulous movie with Stupeflix. I threw this example together in less than a minute by using random images from my desktop computer (don't judge) to give you an idea as to how easy it is to create a semi-professional looking video. You can add text, images, video footage, audio recordings, and either use your own music or you can access their iTunes music. All of this is free. While this is great, what is so incredible about this tool is how easy it is to share your movies! I repeat: it is effortless to share your movies:

As for the duration, videos can be up to twenty minutes long. This tool is great for slideshows, commercials, poetry readings, QR code usage, foreign language videos, and more. If film and video students were to evaluate the numerous movie-making tools out there, I suspect this one would come out on top. If you create an education account, it will allow you to manage up to 100 student accounts too. Lights, camera, action!

Videos and Images with Google Forms

If you have had a chance to explore BreakoutEdu in digital format, then you know that creating a Google form is the backbone of the game. Through a Google form, gamers can attempt to input the correct codes to unlock the mystery. Google forms can be set up so that video and images are part of the questions that you create. The responses can be set up to include images. Why does this matter? Well, in the case of BreakoutEdu Digital, you can require that students watch a video to receive a clue to crack the code. If students are applying for a special privilege in your class with the help of Google forms, perhaps they have to sketch one of the answers to the questions as part of the interview process. To see how it can look, check it out here:

Google forms is useful for volunteer sign ups, creating digital BreakoutEdu games, allowing students to apply for "jobs", taking a poll or a survey, or giving an assessment. With the video and image options, it is a powerful tech tool!

Get Your Geek On!

While on our Thelma & Louise journey to ALA this summer in Orlando, we came across some incredible resources, as you might imagine. The exhibit hall at ALA is like no other conference. Admittedly, I am biased toward this conference but it is an exhibit lover's paradise. We were drawn to a particular exhibitor several times and came away with some amazing freebies that we hope you will take advantage of with your students. NASA! In fact, here's Lisa with astronaut Dr. Yvonne Cagle:

If you want to know why this was a highlight of Lisa's trip, click here.

The amount of educational opportunities available to our students through NASA is almost overwhelming because there is so much. However, I will attempt to highlight some key resources here:

Digital Learning Network- Adds a unique, authentic NASA experience to your class with interactive video. Examples include Flying with NASA (4th thru 12th grade), in which students will interact with a NASA Education Specialist and learn about the past and future efforts of flight and aircraft designs, as well as the principals of flight (lift, thrust, drag and weight), as well as a look at NASA aeronautics research and how it is helping to make life better here on Earth, Humans in Space (K thru 4th), which focuses on the living environment in space and allows participants of this event to learn what it is like to live and work in space, and Our Magnificent Sun (K thru 2nd), which is an interactive session that answers questions about the sun. 

Explore the Moon with a Free Moon Tour App- Interested in conducting detailed exploration of a lunar surface with a mobile device? Look no further!

Climate Kids NASA's Eyes on Earth- Amazing games and activities! I cannot get over this website! If you teach 2nd grade, especially, you do not want to miss this one. 

Explore Mars- Take an aerial look at Mars!

Explore the Astroid Vesta- Take a virtual tour and explore the terrain.

Rockets to Race Cars- Learn how research at NASA has contributed to the race car industry and the automobile industry, in general.

NASA Educators Online Network- This is incredible. This is an educators network to connect you with other teachers that you can partner with in STEM activities, as well as connect with NASA professionals, based on your areas of interest.

Virtual Institute for Solar System Research-  This really does exist. They have a person dedicated to community engagement. You can email him at brian.h.day@nasa.gov. Take advantage!

Last but certainly not least, did you know that there will be a total eclipse of the sun on August 21, 2017? Get your students ready and save the date! 

Free Books for Summer!

If I did not rely on this particular tech tool, well, I'd be bankrupt. Overdrive is an amazing resource that allows you to check out books from school and public libraries all for free! The only thing that you have to do is download the Overdrive app (also free!) or visit the Overdrive website. 

Once signed it, you will have the option to search for the libraries that you want to connect with through Overdrive. You will want to add The Davis Academy and you will want to also add your public library. This will give you access to free books from two separate libraries throughout the summer and beyond.

Once you have your libraries set for your account, you can search for the books that you are interested in checking out. If they are available to check out, they will have a little image of a book cover that is in black:

If the book is checked out, it will have an image of a book cover that is grayed out but you can place it on hold and you will receive an email notification when it is available for you to check out and read.

The best thing about the ability to check out free ebooks over the summer, is that you can do so from anywhere! In addition to checking them out through the Overdrive website, please don't forget that you can also download the Overdrive app. Happy reading!

Creating Genius with Google Forms

For a fast, easy way to create collaboration (albeit sometimes silent collaboration) in your classroom, look no further than Google forms. Google forms allows the teacher (or the student) to create quick surveys or quizzes that support text, images, and videos. The form creator can also add helpful hints within each question. The questions can be in the form of short text, long paragraphs, multiple choice, and more. You may recall the poll I sent out for our Lego Robotics competition. Notice that I was able to embed video, links and text as part of my multiple choice questions. It took me all of two minutes to create: 

The great thing about Google forms is that once the masterpiece is created, it can so easily be shared. Simply hit the send button in the top right hand corner and there is an option to embed the link to your form onto another website, such as a blog, email the form, or copy and paste the link to the form. The settings can be established so that only one response per person can be submitted. The owner of the form can see the responses in percentage format or as individual responses. Google forms is simple but powerful and well worth giving a try. 

Decisions, Decisions

I came across this amazing website through the blog of someone I admire. It's super. The website is called Decide Already and here's how it works:

*Input an issue that you are having a hard time resolving on your own (for example, should my class be able to retake their test)

*Input the potential responses (for example, yes because 40% got below an 80 or no because they had three weeks to study)

*Input the criteria for each argument (for example, a poor grade will really reflect negatively on their report cards or they need to learn how to be responsible and study well in advance)

*Input email addresses for recipients to be able to vote

*Set the date and time by which voting should end

*Voila, your decision has been made for you!

There's nothing like being able to crowd source the decision-making process. It would be great if you could share a link and have the students respond through a link (as opposed to an email address). I have sent them a note inquiring as to whether or not this can be done as there are so many great uses for this in the classroom. Here are just a few uses: learning debate tactics, creating persuasive arguments, and teaching about democracy. Leaders can use this tech tool to get the pulse on a decision that impacts their team or their organization, which can be beneficial. As the creators of Decide Already have said, "Decisions are hard. Make them anyway".

Learn A New Computer Language

Written by Guest Blogger, Alex, a 6th Grader at The Davis Academy

https://pixabay.com/en/programming-developing-startup-593312/

As you may recall from recent news, President Obama has 
decided to spend 5 million dollars so that students throughout America may learn to program. Students can learn programming languages of many types. It may also include learning a markup language, such as html. Html is the language used in order make websites from scratch. Many of us have experience creating websites using tools that do the coding for you. Examples of these sites include Weebly, Wix, and Blogger. CodeAcademy.org is a free website that allows people to simulate the creation of a website without the need for a preexisting website template. Code Academy takes the user through each level of the HTML process so that the user builds upon a foundation for coding as their skills improve. After completing the Code Academy course, it is possible to create a website from scratch using HTML.

This is an important skill to have because, for one, as one ages, learning computer languages could be a possible job opportunity. Also, knowing how to speak computer is just a useful and intelligent thing to know. Third, programming allows individuals who wish to create websites to no longer need a template's help and to fully customize their own website. Without having to rely on a third party, html creators are in complete control of their online presence. Using Code Academy to learn html, as well as programming languages, is an excellent idea.           

Evernote Makes Life Easier

Written by guest blogger, Harrison, a 6th grader at The Davis Academy.

Hi, my name is Harrison. I have been using a website called Evernote. Evernote is a tool that allows you to take notes with ease. I’ve been using Evernote since the beginning of the school year. I mainly use the tool for Math due to the fact that we have to take notes everyday. Personally, I dislike writing notes with a pencil and a sheet of paper. Students should use Evernote because it’s free and takes up less of the class time causing the class time to be more productive. Would you rather have your students write notes with a pen and paper which takes longer or would you rather have students type their notes so that it takes less time and gives you more time to teach? If you answered yes, then it may be worthwhile to give students access to this free website or app. Seriously, think about the benefits.

Let’s consider what you get when you give Evernote a try to see how it works. First, Evernote is available as a website and as an app. You can use it on the iPads or on the computers and you don’t even have to stick with the same device since notes created on Evernote save to the cloud. The process for signing up is simple. Students only need to put in their school email address and their full name. It's that easy to get started. The tool itself is easy to use as well.  With the personalization feature, the user can add notebooks and name them. For my personal organization system, I created seven notebooks and I have named them for every class. Then, the user can click on the notebooks, add a new note, and then just start typing. In conclusion, Evernote is a great tool that can be used on many different devices and I encourage all teachers (and their students) to use this tool for their classes.