Flipboard...an IPad App I'm Adding....for Fun and for Teaching and Counseling!

   If you have an Ipad and you are browsing around the internet and just wasting time, you could actually do a little work too. By "work", I mean you could build a magazine of materials to read or review later. And you can make these by category and it could even be a category of articles or videos that you would later like to use for your teaching. Pair it with the IPad to projector app and  you can have the kids read and view your "magazine" as a classtime activity! You can do all of this with the app called "Flipboard".  I have embedded a video below that shows how to use Flipboard. I plan on putting this on my IPad today and starting a couple magazines on counseling topics. I may even make one of short "|Bell ringer" type videos so I can use those in class too. Watch the video and download the app if you think it could be good for your either professionally or personally.

Oh, and it is a FREE app. :)

Flipboard website click here!

Emaze....Another Interesting "Powerpoint" Online tool

  If you have students looking to do a presentation and want to do something a little more lively than powerpoint, you might want to try Emaze or have the students try it. It looks pretty simple to use and it does make nice presentations. The few that I viewed took awhile to load, so I am not sure if that is typical or was just slow internet on my end. Either way, it looks promising. Give it a try!

Emaze click here!

Geography Games Galore!

Thank you to Larry Ferlazzo and his blog site Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day, here is a list of great Geography games. I have tried some of these and others look fun to try as well. Over the summer, give these a try if you teach social studies or geography.

Geography Games list by Larry Ferlazzo

TED Education Video Site

 As many of you know, I LOVE TED.com videos. Now, TED has and educational video site where teachers can share their lessons and get them animated. The site is still fairly new and is still growing, but there are now enough videos on the site to really keep you busy this summer. You might find some good videos for your own class. And as always, the videos are short enough to use in class and keep your students interested. Start searching them today!

TED-Ed Lessons click here!

EduClipper....the Pinterest for Educators and Students

Educlipper is something I plan to sign up for this summer and start using. It has some similarity to Pinterest, but is likely able to be accessed in most schools unlike Pinterest. I like some of the options you could do such as making a clipboard of links and information for students and then sharing it with them. Or making clipboards of lessons and information and sharing it with your team or your content team. Or maybe you simply use it to keep track of your own units and concepts. Any way you use it, it could be pretty valuable. Good luck!

Educlipper website click here!

Good video about how Educlipper works via Ed Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day blog click here!

Make Your Own Motivational Posters!

Automotivator has to be one of the coolest little tools/sites I have come across in awhile. I have to admit, I love motivational posters (and the demotivational ones too!). And now I have a site where I can quickly make and share my own. I could even print them. Or if I made a really nice, school-specific poster, I could get it printed on a large poster format. I might try some of those this summer as well. In the meantime, I quickly made some fun ones and some serious ones for my counseling office while I tested out the site today. I also have some ideas of quick posters I could make and email to students as ways to energize them or simply remind them about assignments that are due. Either way, the website is very easy to use to design your own poster. Have some fun!

Automotivator website click here!

Engineering/STEM Games

If you teach science, technology, physics, or any sort of STEM type learning, these games might be some fun or interesting ones to try. I have not tested them out, but there are many to choose from and they all will get kids using their STEM knowledge and hopefully get them more interested in these subjects. Everything from building a bridge to making solar cars race virtually, this game site has lots of options. Test some out or better yet, have some students test them out. Good luck.

Engineering Games click here (from the game site, you can go to the home site for more engineering information)

Spelling Games/Sites for Students

For teachers looking for some good spelling games and sites, Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers has a great list of 5 sites for you. I use Spelling City with my own children and would highly recommend it to anyone. I have not used the other sites he lists, but I am sure they are good. I plan to have my own children test some of them this summer. My daughter really likes to spell things and play spelling games, so we will see which one she likes best. Currently, she loves Spelling City. Give some of the sites listed a look and test them out and see which one might work for your own students.

Richard Byrne's blog post on Spelling sites for students click here!

Slow Motion Youtube Videos

Thank you to Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers for alerting me to the idea of slow motion videos on Youtube. As a former science teacher, how awesome is it to be able to film some of your science experiments on the weekend or even in class and then upload them to Youtube AND put them in slow motion so you can explain what is going on and students can see what is going on!! Lots of applications for coaches, but I think teachers could really use this slow motion option too, especially science teachers. Very cool!

Here is Richard Byrne's blog post about this slow motion option.

Nice Basic To-Do List that Can Be Shared with Others

There are a lot of To-Do or Task list sites out there, but I came across this one, Flask, today that I think is nice and easy....and can be emailed or shared with others. Would be great for teams of teachers or teams of students. Or maybe a way to share assignment/project requirements with students. Flask is definitely worth a try to see how you can put it to use.

Flask task list site....click here!

Room Recess: Good for Quick Skill Review and Interactive Whiteboards

Room Recess is a great game site to bookmark for teachers who want some basic math and word games for kids to play at the end of class or at the end of some computer lab time. I  tested out the snowball game and thought kids would love it. The math problems are basic math facts, but middle school students can still benefit from that type of skill practice. There was also a competitive flashcard game that can pit two teams against each other using an interactive whiteboard. I am not sure if you would need two Mimio pens or not, but still pretty fun for students. Give it a try!

Room Recess click here!

Larry Ferlazzo's Best of 2012 Blog Post Has Arrived!

Many educators and online blog readers anxiously await Larry's Best of 2012 blog post at the end of the year so they can bookmark it and take advantage of the many resources he has posted in one place. Well, the blog post is out and I have linked it to this blog post. I would suggest clicking on it and bookmarking it on your computer as you will find yourself looking at it throughout 2013 even as Larry starts his 2013 lists. Thank you Larry for this great list of resources, I know it helps many!

Best of 2012 resource list from Larry Ferlazzo click here!

Got an IPad? Have IPads in the Classroom? You Need This Resource!

Thank you to Larry Ferlazzo and his blog Websites of the Day, this blog post may be short but it is FULL of IPad apps that you may want on your personal IPad or your student/class IPads. Each link has tons of good apps, many of which I either have on my IPad or have tried on student IPads. If you have a moment and are wondering what apps would be good for you or your classroom, this is the place to start!

IPad resources click here!

Google Chrome Extensions

   Many staff members at our middle school loved the Google Chrome Extensions that were presented in one of our professional development workshops, so I thought this resource from Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers might be a good one. He has a list of his top 10 Google Chrome Extensions. Again, my favorites are the Speak It (text to speech extension), Save to Google Drive, Send this link with Gmail, and View Page in Clearly. The Speak It extension works with Google Drive documents, so students could have their papers read back to them if they wanted to use that as a way to proofread and hear their writing and how it sounds. Not sure how it could be on all the lab computers or laptops, but I am sure it could be. I have several of the extensions in his list, so you might consider giving them a try. They really are very helpful!

Top Google Chrome Extensions click here!

How to Print Infographics and Posters

  Just a quick blog post to alert others and me about a site that could help you print those cool infographics that you may find on the web. I have a ton that I would like to print but can never figure out how to print them. Plus, without color printing, I sometimes don't even try. But regardless of the color printing, I am going to try using this tool/site to print some and see what they look like. I will hopefully comment later today or this week as to how well it worked. If you try it before me, please let me know what you think!

Block posters click here (good for printing infographics too I believe!)

And here is a list of the "Best Infographics of the Year" that I plan to search and try to print from. Thanks Larry Ferlazzo and his Websites of the Day!

Just a Reminder....Duolingo Continues to Improve!

Duolingo just added Italian to its list of languages it is helping people learn. I have had a couple of students interested in learning Italian, so this is great! It is a pretty fascinating site because you aren't just learning a new language, you are also helping in translating the web into other languages with the help of thousands or millions of other people around the world. While it is not a great stand alone site if you are trying to learn a language, it is a good supplement to a foreign language course you are taking or if you are currently doing Rosetta Stone. And it is FREE!!! That may be the best part. One of the things I noticed that might be good for students is how they can start making connections with certain words and groups of words because they sound alike. This could build on information they received in class or help them learn the future class information even faster. While it only has about 6 or 7 languages right now, it does have some of the main ones students may be learning in our American schools. It even has English which could be good for our English Language Learners as well. Give it a try to see if it is something you could use in 2013!

Duolingo click here!


   I just tested it out and it is pretty fun and educational. You can also compete against Facebook friends. So maybe you and a Facebook friend each want to learn a language in 2013, this could be your method!

Trading Cards for Historical or Fictional Characters

I love ideas like this! Next time you are studying something in history, social studies, or even reading a book in literacy, have the students make a trading card of one of the historical figures or book characters. To make the cards, you would have to know lots about your person and the student would have to research the person more to add details to the card. Similar to the fake Facebook page for a historical person, but a little simpler. Would be fun to see what the students come up with. Give it a try or have some students do it for an extra credit option. Good luck!

Trading Cards of historical figures click here!

(Oh, you could do it for famous scientists too!)

5 Dice: Harder Than It Sounds

At first, I thought this game might be a good free app to put on our Middle School IPad for our students in math intervention. Then I put it on my own personal IPad and I was nearly stumped from my first roll. Now, I think this might be more of an App for our advanced students in each grade and maybe for students when covering order of operations. And maybe students don't have to get the answer exactly correct, but just use what they know about order of operations to get as close to the target as they can. But I did have fun trying this game and I definitely had to know my order of operations. So it is a good app to download (since it is free!) and have your students try.

 5 Dice Order of Operations App click here!

Tech Tips from Pros

Ran across this website while catching up on blogs. Great idea, but it does not look like they have posted many tips in the month of November. I wonder if they will begin to post more. If they do, this could be a good site to bookmark. Either way, some of their current tips are pretty good and pretty relevant to questions our own teachers may have. I would bookmark this site and check it whenever you have a tech question to see if they have addressed it. And hopefully they start posting more to their blog.

Technology Tips from the Pros click here!

Add Test Review to Your Class Blog...Amazing Ideas!

Wow, I love a couple of these ideas! Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers blog had a guest blogger, Dan Klumper, a 6th grade social studies teacher, post some wonderful ideas. I wish I taught high school science again and could do a couple reviews like his "Silent Video Review". At our middle school, I could see tons of courses/teachers take advantage of it. You don't have to have a class blog to do the idea, but it would be helpful as you could just embed the video to your blog. The 2nd idea is one that I have thought about doing for my counseling/life skills class sometime. Have a designated date/time for online chat/forum in the evening. Parents, students, whoever could join. I also think the Wallwisher idea (Especially since WallWisher has now been updated and many of the bugs from the past year or two fixed) would be super for any class/class review. Either way, please click on Richard Byrne's blog entry and click on the ideas, especially the first one. These are definitely ideas we could use and the students would really benefit from. (If you have an IPad....the first idea is even easier as you can video and upload in a matter of minutes!)

Ideas on how to Use Your Blog for Review Purposes by Richard Byrne (written by guest blogger Dan Klumper)