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Media Monday

eyates — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:11:55 +0000

What qualifies as new media for Media Monday? Certainly photos, video, web 2.0 applications come to mind, but would you consider the blog a part of new media? Of course!

How can you harness the interesting educational possibilities of the blog? Your Schoolwires Centricity teacher website is the perfect starting point, and the latest Tech Talk instructional video is a hilarious romp through the steps required to use this simple, yet powerful, tool. Episode 8 is posted now, and you can browse all our episodes at Tech Talk’s blog.

Website Wednesday

eyates — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:57:52 +0000

I know I’ve mentioned this site before, but it bears repeating: Thinkfinity is probably your best one-stop website for academic content. Regular users will be familiar with the many lesson plans, activities, games, and content available for FREE, but new users may be interested in the Thinkfinity Tour.

One of the many teacher helpers is something called “Dynamic Paper.” Dynamic paper allows you to create resource or activity sheets for use in your classroom, BUT the best part of this tool is the ability to save or export what you create as a JPEG (digital image) or PDF (document anyone can see) on the fly! That means you can add the sheet to your teacher website or include it in a presentation, document, or blog.

Watch Know Now

eyates — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:09:12 +0000

In a previous post about online video sources, I mentioned the Watch Know site, but it wasn’t ready for prime time at that point. Well, even though we use Discovery Education’s Streaming Video service, you may find some interesting content at Watch Know. Let me know if you find something worth sharing!

Tech Tip Tuesday

eyates — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:00:43 +0000

How do you get to your frequently-used websites–especially your teacher web page? You may use netTrekker, First Class bookmarks, Diigo, or Delicious to store all of your bookmarks, but for the handful of websites you visit every day, you will love having one-click access to them every time you open your browser. The text directions are below–check back for a video too! While the directions apply to Internet Explorer, this basic idea also works in Firefox, Chrome, and Opera browsers.

1. Open Internet Explorer

2. Go to a website you use all the time.

3. Look for the menu items “File/Edit/View/Favorites/Tools/Help”

4. Look below that row for a row that begins on the left with a yellow star and the word “Favorites.” We’ll call that the Favorites Bar.

5. Left-click the small icon to the immediate left of the website address. HOLD the button down and drag the icon/web address to the Favorites Bar area to the right of the bar where there is just gray space.

6. Let go of the mouse button!

Great! Now you have a one-click button on your web browser. You can easily do this at any computer you are using.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Teacher Triumph

eyates — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

We’ve seen Animoto here, and we’ve seen how to add video to your teacher web pages here, so how do you put those two together? Kay Grusenski in second grade at WAS did just that! Have a look at her website or go directly to her Animoto page. Fellow second grade teacher Sarah Gutierrez was impressed, and she’s put her own Animoto show up on her page here.

If you’re looking for ways to add neat features like this to your teacher web pages, let me know, and we’ll work on it together. The video below shows how to embed an Animoto clip on a teacher web page.

Click here to view the embedded video.