Tips and Tricks!

Shortcuts provided by Google.

There's nothing more frustrating to me than when I am attempting to use Google for a quick and simple answer and I get a list of a several hundred answers and some of the results are not even relevant to what I Goggled.  Luckily, I learned that Google has a page of tips and tricks making searching easier and more time efficient! 

My favorite tip that I've learned that Google offers is allowing the user to filter results based on reading levels. This is a great tip to know especially for educators.  By modifying the reading level it is allowing the results to show up based on the reading level chosen by the user.   Hopefully by changing the reading level it will help with student comprehension on what is being searched or read. 

 

Just when I started to think Google was so much easier and useful to use with all of the tips and tricks, I was introduced to a new search engine called, Wolfram Alpha.  Wolfram Alpha, is a very quick and easy way to get answers and information.  This site is extremely user friendly.  I like how fast this site is at bringing up accurate information.  

This site would be great in a school setting for students to use because it gives factual, precise information.  After spending some time on Wolfram Alpha, I would prefer my students use this mainly because of the simplicity. 

In classrooms today it is extremely important that educators are teaching students the importance of copyright law in regards to the Internet.  Educators and students need to make sure they are obtaining permission to use other people's work, music and pictures.  An easy way to make sure educators and students are not breaking any copyright laws is to use a website that has been given permission to use the owners work, that site is called Creative Commons.  Students can also find Creative Common pictures by using Google.  

Educators and students today have so much information and resources from the Internet.  

It is important that educators are educating themselves

on the tips, tricks and copyright laws so that they are able 

educate their students on the every changing Internet!

Until next time my friends!

 

Living in a social media world

It seems like everywhere people go anymore from restaurants, to malls,  to professional events or even a gym there is something in the window or counter saying something along the lines of "like us on Facebook" or "tag us on Instagram."  Social media is everywhere!  Can we go anywhere anymore without checking in on Facebook or posting a selfie on Instgram?  Do people really know how much social media is impacting our lives?  Are we living in a world where all we do is use the Internet?

 Educators today use the Internet daily to find resources for the classroom, ideas for activities or even to collaborate with other teachers.   For example, Pinterest, a great social media tool that allows users to visually see and create boards based on interests.  Users are able to search for friends and follow other people. 

Here are some examples of boards users can create using Pinterest.

 







Due to the fact that social media is becoming increasingly more popular so have debates whether schools should be using social media in the classrooms.  Some schools have already started using it in the classrooms.  Some classrooms use sites such as Twitter and or Facebook for class discussions or use them to post assignments.  Should social media start being used daily in the classroom?


Until next time my friends!

Google Drive/ Docs Overload!

Just went I thought I was aware of everything Google had to offer, my professor through a curve ball at me...Google Drive.  If one is not familiar with it watch this video, it will help! 
 

Google docs have so much valuable information; you just need to know where to look and take the time to play around with it!
Goggle doc is a one stop-shop; it offers documents, presentation, spreadsheet, form and drawing.  For those that are use to Microsoft Office, I'm sure some are curious to what form is since draw is pretty self-explanatory.  Form is a tool that creates quizzes, questionnaires and surveys.  The person who creates the form can see the results in a spreadsheet and has the option to share the results with the people who completed the form.  Here is an example of a form that was intended for beginning of the school year activity!  Form would be a fantastic tool for educators to use for assessments, math lessons, exit tickets, etc.  Especially since there is a tool that can grade the forms that teachers created.  It is called Flubaroo and it is AMAZING!  The only thing I did not like about the form app is it does not have spell check, I know, that stinks!
Another feature that makes Google docs so great is that users can pick whom they share their work with; they can collaborate with one another on work without being together!
Google Docs has so much to offer especially for teachers and students!  Students can work on projects, assignments and even take tests from home if needed.  Who would of thought that Google has so much to offer?

Google Calendar, Diigo, oh my!

I love Google Calendar!  I have wanted to learn about Google calendar for the longest time but never took the time to learn it until now!  Once again YouTube played a role in my learning of Google Calendar.  This video goes through Google calendar step by step making it easy to follow!  I love that Google Calendar allows the user to pick if they want to make the calendar a public web page or send it to specific people.




Another feature that Google Calendar offers the users is they can create multiple calendars.  This feature would be great for us educators.  Educators can create a calendar for each subject/ class; by generating a Google Calendar and sharing it with students, students are able to stay up to date on upcoming events, tests, assignments and announcements. Teacher can post the calendar to the school website so parents know what is going on in classroom at all times!

This week I also discovered social bookmarking.  I always thought by adding a website to my "favorites" was the only way to save that page.  Of course it is not the most efficient way because when you get on a different computer and want to access that page under the favorites and it is not there... how frustrating!  Have no fear Diigo is here!  Diigo is a lifesaver for those who like to add sites to their favorites but Diigo can be accessed from any computer as long as the user is signed in!  Diigo is another great organizational tool for educators as well as for students; Diigo users can add sticky notes, highlight or tag specific information needed.  Using Diigo in a school setting would be beneficial for students especially for those times when students are working on projects at school and need to complete it at home, students can just log into Diigo and vuala they are able to continue where they left off! Diigo is a great resource for educators because they are able to join groups, share websites and collaborate with other teachers!  Diijo is another fabulous way for educators to stay organized!
So many great learnings this week!  Until next time my friends!

Sunday Sunday

Here I go again updating my blog on a Sunday night….grrr!!!  All week I had the mindset that I was going to have my homework completed before the weekend so I could spend some time with my husband, but obviously that did not happen!!   Like I’ve said before I thought I was pretty familiar with technology and social media until this week!  This is what I felt like majority of the week!

The assignment that brought me so much confusion and frustration was to join a Professional Learning Network, sounds easy but let me tell you it was anything but easy! Edmodo is similar to Facebook, I wish I found these two comparable because it took me until today to understand the basics.  After several emails back and forth with my professor and several calls to my teacher friends asking them for help,  I went back and reread the directions and then it finally made sense to me!  I had to be verified by Edmodo  that I was a teacher and that took several day!

 Once I was a verified I could do anything!  I could join groups, joining a public group was easy.  Joining a group created by teachers was a little more challenging until I found this list!  I was surprised when requesting to join a teacher created group it took a while for them to accept the request.  I sent some requests a couple days ago and I'm still waiting to be accepted.  Of the teacher created groups that I've been accepted to so far they've been a great resources, definitely things I will use in the classroom!  Once I learned how to join groups; somehow I managed to create my own group, which was easier to do than joining groups! This video made it so easy to make a group, it was probably the easiest part of the assignment for me.

Now that I have some basic understanding of Edmodo, I can see why teachers love it!  There is so much information and resources for teachers and students.  I like the fact that Edmodo can be used to interact with students and with other teachers.  The more I learn about the different PLNs for teachers the more I'm blown away on how much information teachers have available to them as long as they are informed on it!

Stay organized!

Busy Busy

Talk about a busy week!  I had to finish my last week’s homework in Las Vegas, not fun!  Let me tell you what, that was hard!  My husband and I went there with his entire family for my father in laws birthday!  I woke up one morning extra early so I could try and finish my homework.  This was my view at 5AM from the coffee shop at the hotel! 

Yes, that is the casino!

  After our trip to Las Vegas it was game 6 and 7 of the World Series in Kansas City so that added to the late nights and lack of sleep! Then finally ended this weekend with celebrating the Centennial Celebration at Union Station.  I have been working on this event for over the past year and it has been exhausting!  I feel like I need a vacation from the month of October!  Not only was this an extremely busy week it was another week of firsts for me!

            This past week I substituted at the school I use to teach at which brought a wide range of emotions!  The best part was seeing all my former students!  I also tweeted for the first time!  Of course, my first tweet was not that exciting!  I have had a twitter account for over a year now and I never actively used it until this week!   

            One of my assignments for a class was to tweet using a specific hashtag! First off, I was blown away by how many people use hashtags on twitter.  I knew people used hashtags on Instagram but I did not know you can follow an entire conversation using them #awesome!  I decided to follow a couple conversations using hashtags, the amount of information that was available was incredible.  My favorite hashtag conversation to follow on twitter is #edtech! Holy moly there is so much information for teachers of all levels to learn!   Just think of the conversations that can be had with students and interactions that can be had using hashtags.   I never understood the point of twitter until this assignment.  Twitter is such a good recourse for teachers.  There are so many great people and groups to follow.  My favorite group that I follow right now is @WeAreTeachers.  This is a great group for teachers to follow because all of the amount of support and material they provide!  They also have a sense of humor!

The internet has seemed like a playground for kids to me until the past two weeks.  I am now learning about the incredible amount of resources and networks that exist for teachers!  Another assignment this week was to look at different networks and starting building your own PLN (Personal Learning Networks).  I mean come on, look at all these networks; so far I prefer Classroom 2.0 but there are so many other that I still need to dive into!  While browsing on the internet I found a great website to break down the importance of PLNs.  Personal Learning Networks are so beneficial for teachers especially with all the technology being used in classrooms today!  I think it is so cool educators can collaborate with other educators from around the world and bounce ideas off each other. 
After discovering so many networks for teachers I feel more united than ever before!  #teachersunite

So I am now a blogger...

I would of never of thought that I would have become a blogger until now!  I just started my first week of Master's classes and I was like a kid on the first day of school.  I was nervous about meeting the teacher, (even though my classes are online) I was anxious to see what the workload was like; I had butterflies in my stomach!  I finished the majority of one of my classes’ assignments in one day because I found them interesting and I told myself that I was going to be proactive about my assignments.  I didn't think it would be a problem because we were learning about technology and I thought I knew a fair amount!

My favorite assignment thus far was to take a screen of my computer screen, I didn't think that was possible!  I only thought you could take a screen shot on an iPhone, people really do learn something new everyday!  Taking a screen shot of the computer could be a good way to progress monitor students work on computers when they take reading tests or quizzes online.  There are endless ways taking a screenshot of the computer can help students and the environment.... less paper to use!  The first video is how to take a screen shot on Microsoft and the other is for a MAC computer! 

 I was sailing through the assignments until I saw the very last one; create a professional blog.  That is when my heart sank.  How in the world do I create a blog?  The only blogs I was familiar with were shopping blogs.  I definitely had that look you get when you don’t know how to do something or when you are unfamiliar with something.  I was so relieved to see that my professor posted some YouTube videos on how to create a blog.  This video without a doubt saved me!   

          As I was looking through different blogs yesterday I was amazed how many education blogs existed. As the wheels were turning in my head I got to thinking how blogs could be used in the classrooms. Students are already familiar with computers and the Internet, why not have students create their own blog?  If students did not know how to blog they could very easily learn, just like what I'm doing!  Students could blog about their day at school or even students blog about what they learned as an exit activity before leaving the classroom.   Why not have students working on the computer and working on their writing skills at the same time!   By having students create a blog teachers are able to communicate with students about their learning’s or help find where student is having the confusion.  Blogs can be a safe place where students can effectively communicate to the teacher.  I would love to be in a school where students and teachers can interact on a blog like this one! 

Blogging can not only be a good thing for students it could also be an educational tool for teachers as well.  I have found some terrific blogs that give ideas and examples on how to teach certain topics.  My absolutely favorite blog that I have discovered thus far is

Teaching Happily Ever After Creative Teaching With a Technology Twist 

 

                                             

                                                                                                             

I love how she incorporates so much whole class teaching!  I love how all of the students are engaged in the teacher!  The students know what is happening and they know what's coming next!  Watching her videos makes me think of how much training she did with her students at the beginning of the school year to get them at the point where they are!
I am surprised by how much I learned about blogging during my first week of class! I am so happy that I found the world of blogging!  Until next time my friends!