QR Codes for Reading

I got to hang out at Lincoln Elementary with Mrs. Brown's 5th grade class today and during recess two girls stayed inside to do some Reading?  Huh?  Missing recess for Reading?  These girls were excited to show off their creations via QR codes that were proudly displayed in the hall for all to enjoy.

The bulletin board invites all comers to scan the QR codes with their own device or come into the classroom and borrow one to see what's going on.  This use of technology gives the students a real audience outside of just the teacher and student and more importantly, the product carries the process.  Students are excited about Reading because of what they get to do with it.

School Focus App

School Focus is a great, free app that allows you to take a picture or video of a students or group of students and tag it with their names.  Anything tagged automatically shows up in the Illuminate student & parent portal.  It's a great (and fast way) to share what's happening in your classes with those at home.

Short Tutorial Video

Information from Illuminate

Google Forms Add-ons

Add-ons are a great way to extend your use of Google applications but there haven't been any specific ones for Google Forms, as of yet.  Today Google has introduced add-ons that can be used within a Google Form, like the ability turn off a form when a certain number of responses has been reached or the ability to add graphs and math functions.

Shadow Puppet Edu App for Content Creation

My latest goal has been to find apps and websites that help teachers to "teach above the line", in reference to reaching the upper levels of the SAMR model of modification and redefinition.  Specifically, I'm looking apps that allow students to share their learning in a personal and creative way.  Shadow Puppet Edu fits that bill.  In a nutshell, students and teachers can create short presentations with videos and images, record a narration over the top, and then share.  During the creation process they can also draw on the images and add text where needed.  Here is a blurb from their iTunes page:

STUDENTS CAN:
∙ Present a project or describe an experience
∙ Search Library of Congress, NASA, Met Museum, Creative Commons, and more for images to explain an idea 
∙ Develop digital storytelling skills
∙ Demonstrate understanding of a concept for assessment 
∙ Improve speaking skills or practice reading aloud

TEACHERS CAN:
∙ Create mini-lessons for blended learning or flipped classroom 
∙ Develop more engaging prompts for assignments or discussions
∙ Provide examples of final projects


Here is a sample

There are also another competitor called SpeakingPhoto (iPad & Android)

Free iPad Presentation Tools

A new, free presentation tool came to the iPad party last week called Canva.  It does a pretty decent job of allowing you to create your own slides or use the installed templates.  Here is a blurb from their iTunes page:

Create beautiful designs with Canva. Choose from more than one million layouts, stock photographs and illustrations. Search for the best graphics, photos, and fonts (or upload your own) then use Canva’s simple drag and drop tool to create a design.

Another one that my students liked that made really clean looking presentations is Haiku Deck.

Haiku Deck makes it a snap to create beautiful presentations that will wow your audience – whether you’re pitching an idea, teaching a lesson, telling a story, or igniting a movement.

Word Clouds in Google Docs

Words clouds are great because they are a neat graphical representation of words and they also can show a teacher or student which words are coming up frequently in their writing or in others work, such as historical documents or speeches.  Now you can easily add word clouds or Tag Clouds, as they're often known, in a Google Doc if your document has more than 100 words.  Simply go to the 'Add ons' menu and search for Tag Cloud Generator.  Add it as an add-on.  I had to close the Google Doc I was working in and reopen it in order to get the option to show up.

Open your Google Doc, go to add-ons, and select Tag Cloud Generator > Create Tag Cloud and the newly created word cloud will appear in the margin on the right.  I've been searching for a way to insert this into a document, short of taking a screenshot of it and inserting it, but I can't find an easy way.

Record iOS Screen with Yosemite and iOS 8

The ability to record your iPhone or iPad's screen for instructional purposes is great.  It's also a useful tool for students to be able to share what they're learning or making tutorials by recording the steps.  The only way to do this in the past was to mirror your iOS device using AirServer and then recording it.  But with the releases of iOS 8 and Yosemite it's very easy with the additional use of Quick Time Player.  Here are the steps (borrowed from iOS Hacker):

1. Connect your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to your Mac via a Lightning Cable.
2. Open the QuickTime app.
3. Go to File and select ‘New Movie Recording’.
4. A recording window will appear. You will a see little arrow for drop down menu in front of the record button. Click that arrow and select your iPhone.
5. Select the Mic of your iPhone if you want to record music, app/game sounds.
6. Click the Record button. Now perform the tasks on your iOS device that you want to record.
7. Once done tap the stop button and save the video.