Tech Tuesday Archive 3

I have to cancel today's tech Tuesday due to a doctors appointment.  I will plan one for next week as we inch closer to the distribution of the Chromebooks.  I was informed last week that for any tech Tuesday you attend you will receive Panther college credits, so if coming down to my biology room full of cool animals to talk all things Twitter and Google hasn't been enough motivation, now you have some more.  

Instead of our after school meeting, here are some "tech tips" that you might find useful:

1.  Kahoot - I've used this a couple times and the kids love it.  Basically, you make a quiz online (or find a pre-made one, there are a bunch) and project the questions. The kids can join using their phones, and their phone acts as a buzzer.  It's not without some glitches and the wifi has to cooperate as everybody is using it, but for the most part it worked well and the kids seemed to get something out of the experience.  I've attached a very short video of my class completing a question during our first Kahoot quiz.  Which brings me to tech tip #2...

2.  When shooting video on a cell phone, if you intend to upload them at some point to a computer, it is preferable to shoot while holding the phone horizontally.  Think about the difference between movies on VHS in the 80's and movies now in widescreen (God help me if some teachers out there are too young for that reference).

3.  Lastly, as we move toward working more and more digitally, our students will (hopefully) be communicating with us via email more often. I'm sure many of you have received emails from students that leave a lot to be desired.  I know I have.  I adapted a list I found online that was posted as a guide for writing to your professors.  Share this with your students the next time you get an email that starts with "Hey" and includes a winky face.  All kidding aside, we need to prepare them for writing more professional emails.  

You'll have to be logged into a school account to view:

https://docs.google.com/a/collsk12.org/document/d/1On7xVC8RPkcZfTAs1hsiK1JtMUT3Rxar_XC8KxCyhTY/edit?usp=sharing

Along the same lines, you may have recently seen this YouTube video blow up online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSNc8F9tqzY

Don't forget, if you have any questions or concerns regarding using tech with the students let me know and I'll try to help you out.  

Tech Tuesday Archive 2

Combination email today.  I just wanted to thank everybody who has responded so well to this glass half full initiative I put out there.  I was telling somebody last week how I already am starting to feel overwhelmed with all of the stuff we have to get done right now.  That feeling is inevitable, but honestly, checking out everybody's "one good thing" has helped kick off the year on the right note for me.  For anybody who is curious, here is a link to all the posts for #CHSonegoodthing:

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23CHSonegoodthing&src=typd

Check it out, and if you've hesitated to join in, there's no better time.  If anybody has any more ideas on how to look at the glass half full, hit me up and lets talk.  If you are one of the many who are dying to Tweet but haven't been able to get help from me yet, I've created a simple (I hope) document to help you through the process of signing up and tweeting. No bells and whistles.  Make sure you are logged into your school Google account to view it:

https://docs.google.com/a/collsk12.org/document/d/1SYComNwJS3owahFP2wrqkq0rr4YFxoesV7iWmWNEuBE/edit?usp=sharing

Any questions, let me know.

Which brings me to our next Tech Tuesday, tomorrow, September 16th.  I'm planning on going over Google drive.  Whether it was just too fast over the summer or you came to the hyperspeed version during the first week of school, I hope to be able to go over the ins and outs of sharing, organizing, uploading and best utilizing Google Docs and Drive.  Just drop in tomorrow after school - if you can give me a heads up that'd be great.  Again, this is meant to be as informal as possible.  If you have questions about the Chromebooks (which kids will have in about a month!) or how to do something with your class, a certain app, whatever, I'll do my best to get you the right answer.  

Hope to see some new twitter users later today, have a great one everybody

Tech Tuesday Archive 1

In the spirit of continuing our journey into Google land, I thought it might be useful to offer some more training in a less overwhelming-end-of-summer-can't-believe-how-much-there-is-to-do-right-now way.  Instead of going into a litany of different apps, we can focus on one topic, I can try to give you some one on one help and then we can meet again the next week and see how it went.  This is super informal, depending on interest just come after school to my room, 121 and we'll see where it takes us.  

So for this week, I thought I'd focus on Twitter, whether you want to be part of our "glass half full" movement or you've just never understood why people keep putting the # symbol in front of things, come in and set up an account for yourself, or your class or both.  Maybe you're like I was, you joined Twitter but just never "got it".  I'll try to help you out to.  Twitter is an insanely powerful social networking site that has so many different applications.  So, if you want to start tweetin, come on down to the first Tech Tuesday after school in room 121.