When using an iPad...

My Favorite Grade

I love school!  Reading, Writing, Math, Science.  To me, the best grade was 1st grade.  I loved my teacher, Ms. Glascow.  She was awesome.  1st grade had a long recess and stations.  We had less homework than any other grade too.  I wish all grades could be like 1st grade.  It rocks!

What do you think?  Is 1st grade the best grade?  Why or why not?

Blogger App

Have you ever thought about using the blogger app for learning logs or reflections? Today I am checking it out!

How do I?

Welcome back to a brand new school year!


How do I?

Pin a program to my task bar

Set my Internet homepage and create a desktop shortcut

Set up Firefox as my default browser

Create a Pentamation shortcut on your desktop

Add a printer and set a default printer

Update my Schoolwires page

Add a contact group in Outlook

Access Cottonwood Creek information

Access Denton Creek information

Stay sane?  All I can offer for that one is keep breathing!

App Smackdown Vol. 7

I admit it.  I have been a bad blogger lately.  Something about the nice weather makes me want to leave the blogosphere and just be outside.   The good news is that I am back in action and ready to blog.  It is STAAR testing week here in Texas and in between my role of "break giver" I am ready to share some apps I have been obsessed with recently!


1.  Toontastic - This comic strip creator app is a great way to support your students as they learn about story structure!  Using the story arc, students can plan out the setup,  conflict, climax and other key peices of their story.  Simply select your characters and setting, hit record and move your characters around while talking through key parts of your cartoon.  What a great way for students to work on sequence of a story and more!



2. ScribblePress - This iPad app lets your students create and publish eBooks!  Books can be added to your iBooks library for easy sharing and reading. This is an easy way for your students to create and share for Writer's Workshop and beyond!



3.  Destiny Quest - A GREAT database for researching on our regular computers, CISD now has access to the Destiny Quest app!  Students can login to their school's resources, find great kid-friendly websites and even link to Safari Montage videos for viewing.  Just like in regular Destiny Quest, kids can build and keep a resource list.  This app is iPad only, but can really assist your students when researching.  See your Librarian on campus for more details!


4. Follett eReader - CISD also now has access to the Follett eReader app, which lets you and your students login to have access to a whole database of eBooks! See your librarian for more details!



5.  Wonderopolis - I am so excited about this!  One of my favorite websites now has a great new app!  Wonderopolis features a "Wonder of the Day" complete with a guiding discussion question, activities to support learning about that "wonder" and kid-friendly explanations.  I have heard of teachers using this as part of their daily calendar and for using "wonders" to support and enrich units of study!  This app makes it even easier to engage students in real-world learning.



What apps are you using in the classroom?  I'd love to hear and use your recommendations for the next App Smackdown!  Let me know in the comments!

Alli's App Smackdown Vol 6

It's been a busy week as everyone is working hard to prepare for Open House and make it to Spring Break! That said, my App Smackdown only has 4 apps, but they are apps that can be used in many ways!!

1.  StoryBuddy - A great digital storytelling app, StoryBuddy lets you create a book one page at a time.  Create illustrations, write your story and save your book into iBooks! This app is great because it can cross many subjects and grade levels.

Click here for an example of one of our Kinder kids using StoryBuddy (Thanks, Mr. D for sharing!)


2. Comic Touch Lite - Most of my Creekside friends have seen this one as it has been my obsession ever since my iDevice hero, Tony Vincent came to train Denton Creek in January. Basically, you use your photo library or take pictures with the camera  to create your very own comic image.  It is easy enough that our younger grades can create comics easily, while the older ones can do a series of comics to bring together for their own comic strip. I have seen it used in Math for depicting Geometry vocabulary, Language Arts for modeling personification and Social Studies to illustrate what students know about landforms.  A VERY versatile app!

3.  Pic Collage - Simple to use, Pic Collage lets your students create photo collages with captions and different backgrounds. They then can save the new image to the photo library on the device for use in presentations, movies or slideshows. Great for building creativity skills and for making a visual reflection of a concept or idea.

Please do not judge the app solely based on my non-student example above...the kids create so much better than I do!! ;)

4.  Pocket Zoo - Got animals?  Pocket Zoo does!  This app is great for animal researching.  Not only can students watch videos and read about different zoo animals, they can also watch live streaming animal cams and hear each animal's sound! This app would also be a great discussion starter for habitats and adaptations.


ENJOY!!!  Have you tried any of these?  How are you using them?

Spring Cleaning CISD Style

'Tis the season for Open House, pre-testing jitters, and my favorite, Spring Break countdowns!

It is also time to do some spring cleaning and in Coppell ISD's case, that means it is time to clean out your H drive!  Our goal is to get all employees down to 4GB or less.

Not sure how big your H drive is right now?  Check out this screencast by my awesome teammate, Technology Toni!

http://www.screenr.com/b1s8

Happy Cleaning!

Alli's App Smackdown Vol 5 - TCEA

Hi!  Just a quick post from Edubloggercon in the TCEA Web 2.0 Lounge.  My nerdiness is official now.  I am sooooo excited and inspired by what my collegues are sharing!

I'll be quick, but here are my top 5 Apps I saw today!

1. Aurasma - Your students take a pic, this app takes them to a video you have preselected! Great for scavenger hunts!

2. Educreations - Another awesome screencast/show me what you know app!

3. Action Movie - Add stunts and effects like car crashes, explosions, and falling rocks to your video productions!

4. Sock Puppets - Tell a digital story with these sock puppets!

5. PhotoTangler - Take a bunch of pictures and meld them together to make a photo collage.
IDEA: Have students create a brace map of a topic. (ex. parts of an apple)  Then, using the brace map, ask the students to take a picture to represent each part they wrote about (ex. seeds, stem, fruit, etc). Use this app to "meld" the photos together, label it and post it next to the brace map!

2 Disclaimers:

1. I have not tried these yet - I literally learned about them a few minutes ago! If you try them, comment to me to let me know what you think!
2. These aren't on Creek Devices yet...see #1 for a reason why!

HAPPY APPING!!!!

Alli's App Smackdown Vol 4

This Monday was an amazing day for me and (hopefully) the teachers at Denton Creek.  The only thing that would have made it better was if the Cottonwood Creek teachers could have been there.  My mobile device hero, Tony Vincent came to present a full day workshop on ways to integrate iTouches and iPads in the classroom. He shared many great apps and ideas!

That said, it was hard to select my top 5 apps of the week!  Here are some that excite me right now!!!

1. Skitch (iPad only) - Use drawing tools to annotate screenshots, websites, pictures and more.  Great for students to practicing labeling, locate text features, etc. Students can save pictures with annotations to the camera roll of the device for later.  Simply plug in the device to save pictures to the network or use Bump to send the picture to someone else's device.

2. Tour Wrist - Use this Map app to go on virtual field trips, discuss landforms, observe different kinds of rocks, etc.  Great 360 panoramic views!

3. Splice  - Film videos, edit, add transitions and titles all on your device with this app!

4. Socrative (Student) and Socrative (Teacher) - Think you need clickers for student response?  YOU DON'T!  Socrative is a response tool that can be used on any device or computer to poll, question, test and discuss concepts with students.  Login as a teacher to create your "room" and post questions, exit tickets, quizzes, etc.  The students then can use the app on an iPad/iTouch or navigate to the room on a desktop or laptop to answer! Learn more at www.socrative.com/ or ask me for a quick demo.  :) You have to see this in action!

5.  Sparklefish - This Madlibs-style game teaches parts of speech using audio. Students can create funny stories and then listen back to them!


Happy Apping!

Tips and Tricks for Blogger

Today I am blogging live from TENOR ITS, a regional technology integration group meeting.  The presenter right now is covering some tips and tricks for using Blogger.  Some tips are new and some may only be new to you, but here are some great tips and tricks!

• Threaded Commenting: Now it is easier within the comments of Blogger to reply to a comment on a blog. Prior to this, all comments were "lumped together" under your post.  It was difficult to see if someone was commenting on the post or on another comment. Now, your readers can comment on each others' comments in a more organized way!

• Connect with Google+: If your Blog is linked to your Google+ account, you can then send your blog posts to people within your circles.

• Custom Mobile Templates: You can now customize the way your blog will appear on mobile devices. Many times all of our hard work spent customizing how our blogs look is wasted when our readers are reading from a mobile device.  Now you can set up a special "mobile look" for your blog.

• New Blogger Interface: You may have noticed a link at the top of your Blogger dashboard that allows you to "try" the new blogger interface.  This interface will eventually be permanently updated for all blogs, so now is a great time to try it out!

• Stats Available: The stats page has been updated.  You can now see where people are viewing your blog and from what type of devices.

• Blogger App for iOS:  Have you used the Blogger app?  It makes it easier to post on the go!  I could see students blogging live during class from an iDevice simply by logging into this app.  TIP: Check your photos - sometimes the formatting gets thrown off when posting photos from the app.  You may want to go in and check your posting on a desktop or laptop to be sure photos and formatting "look" right.

Need help using any of these cool features?  Let me know!!

Laptops as Netbooks

This year at the Creeks, we have reimaged our laptops to work like Netbooks. This holds some benefits (faster computers, automatic login, etc.), but also means we have to get creative with saving documents as students do not have access to their H or S drives.

Here are some ways to save documents from laptops!

1. Flash Drive - Encourage students to bring flash drives or use one "class" flash drive to pass around. This option allows for minilessons on saving to a flash drive and safely ejecting a flash drive, which are two valuable skills for our students!

2. Google Apps - Since Google Apps automatically saves in the cloud on the Internet, have students complete projects within Google. Google has comparable products to the Microsoft suite. Below is a comparison chart:

• Documents - Word
• Presentation - Power Point
• Spreadsheet - Excel

The best part of Google Apps? It allows students to focus on content since the products are a lighter version of the Office products. Instead of getting caught up in animations, students can focus on their thoughts and ideas.

3. Fileway and Edmodo - If your students are creating projects in Microsoft Office or Smart Notebook on the laptops, try using a storage tool like Fileway or Edmodo to keep the files. Students can save their documents to the desktop of the computer (short term only), upload the document to one of these tools and then delete the file from the desktop. When ready to work on the file again, they can return to the storage tool and download the file, again saving as a temporary file that will be deleted once the student uploads the new version of the document to the storage space.

For more information about Fileway and Edmodo, check out the links below.

Fileway

Edmodo

Happy saving! As always, let me know if you have questions or need help!

App Smackdown of the Week - Vol 3

This week, I again got to work with my awesome teammate, Sarah Daugherty, on an Appy Hour. This time, we focused on Math apps.

What I love most about these sessions is that the teachers are give TIME - to play, explore and think about what will work in the classroom. We get to be true facilitators, asking questions, providing ideas and joining in the collaboration. I'll be offering sessions like these at the Creeks once a month in the spring.

Want to see some of the awesome apps the teachers found? Check out their favorites by following the link below!

www.wallwisher.com/wall/appyhourmath

What are your favorites? How do you use iDevices in Math?

Alli's App Smackdown of the Week - VOL 2

This week, I got to work with my awesome teammate, Sarah Daugherty, on a professional learning session called Appy Hour - Language Arts.

The teachers there did an awesome job participating in a Wallwisher, posting their favorite apps to use in Language Arts activities. Check out their favorites by following the link below!

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/appyhourLA

Some of my favs on the list?

Dragon Dictation - great for fluency!

Magnetic ABC's - word work, anyone?

FlipCards - Practice vocabulary...great for ELL students!

What is YOUR favorite Language Arts app?

Alli's App Smackdown of the Week

The title of this post is taken from something AWESOME we did at edCamp Plano called the App Smackdown. Everyone took turns going to the microphone and taking 2-3 minutes to say what cool apps and sites they were LOVING at the moment!

So in honor of that...here are 5 apps I am LOVING right now!

1. Songify - Simple recorder that turns your spoken words to sound! Cool for poetry or for having students explain science processes like the water cycle or math problems! Share via a classroom Twitter account and your parents will be impressed!

2. Breakfast Maker - This app lets you decide what you want for breakfast and helps you cook it! Why is this educational, you ask? Well, what a great prewriting activity for a how-to writing or a different way to teach sequencing! If you like this one, you'll also find others like Thanksgiving Dinner Maker, Snowman Maker, Pizza Maker, etc.

3. StoryKit - Create your own stories and illustrations or change some old favorites!

4. Idea Sketch - A great mind mapping App! Organize pre-writing, brainstorm ideas, work on word and vocabulary associations all from your iTouch.

5. Google Earth - Just like the desktop version of Google Earth, you can "fly" to any location, view pictures and videos and learn more about Geography! Great for charting explorers' paths, finding the birthplace of a famous person, learning about local and national landmarks and more!

What apps are YOU loving right now? Tell me in the comments!

Please comment if you read this post so I am held accountable for writing more!

Teaching Voki to Students

One of my favorite Web 2.0 tools is an avatar creator called Voki (www.voki.com) Click on the Voki below to learn more and check out the links to some screencasts that can be used to teach Voki to students!



Creating an Avatar in Voki
http://www.screenr.com/fU0s

Adding Sound to a Voki
http://www.screenr.com/QU0s

Backgrounds, Players and Sharing
http://www.screenr.com/yU0s

Adding a Voki to your Google Site
http://www.screenr.com/HS0s

Screencasting using Screenr

I have been working on a series of screencasts for a teacher who will be introducing Glogster to her students next week.  I used a tool called Screenr, which I love because it limits my recording to 5 minutes or less. 

(For those of you that know me, this will give you a chuckle as I am the most long winded person on the planet!)

Besides limiting me to only the most important words I want to say, the other great thing about the 5 minute limit is that it helps me to chunk my lessons so that I cover only a small amount of information at a time.  When I teach live, I try to chunk instruction also so that students get a blend of instruction and hands-on application so it works out very well for me.

Screencasts are awesome for use in the classroom also because it changes up your instruction and helps with engagement.  There are many tools for this type of instruction out there and many can be used for students to create screencasts or video presentations as well.

Want to see Screenr in action and learn somethings about Glogster?  Check these out!

Glogster for Kids Part 1 – Intro to Glogs, changing the Glog wall and page wall, adding graphics and text

http://www.screenr.com/e0Ks

Glogster for kids Part 2 - add an image, link and edit text

http://www.screenr.com/V0Ks

Glogster for Kids Part 3 – adding video, sound and saving/publishing

http://www.screenr.com/2rKs

Want to learn more?  Let me know!

Back to School Changes

Hi all!  It is that time again, time for a brand new year!  I am very excited to spend my second year helping teachers to integrate technology at "the Creeks!"

This year brings some technology changes to our district.  See below for information on what's new in CISD!

To make this presentation full screen (recommended), click on the square icon next to Slide 1/13 above.

Alternative Presentation Tools

Teachers are always asking me for tools that provide an alternative to the same old Power Point presentation. If you wonder this too, check out this post from the Blog "Stretch Your Digital Dollar"

Powerpoint Shmowerpoint: Teach kids to create really engaging presentations

Summer is a fantastic time to play and learn!  When you need a break from the heat, try some of these tools on for size!

Digital Storytelling

I love technology and I love writing stories.  For me, digital storytelling is super exciting because it melds the two together.  I will be teaching digital storytelling at the CISD Summer Conference and hope some of you will be attending.  I have been working with several new tools to prepare for the session.  One that I just had to share was www.storybird.com 

Storybird has a variety of  artwork in its art gallery that students choose from to illustrate their books. I think this is awesome because it acts as an artful resource so that the students can simply focus in on their writing and thinking.  I also just now learned that teachers can create accounts with sub-accounts for students...so easy!  Teachers can also create assignments for the students within Storybird!  Not only that, students can invite others to collaborate on their stories and purchase the completed stories in hard copy form!

Here's an example:

Season's Greetings on Storybird

I am looking for a class to test with...any takers????

Things I Love About My Job (A Non-Comprehensive List)

This year has been tough to say the least.  Beginning a new faction of a career is never easy, no matter how exciting that new thing is. (And for the record, my perfectionist nature makes me a terrible new person.) As I reflect on the end of the year though, I am awed at the incredible growth my campuses have experienced, the growth that I have experienced too.  And though we have further to go and more mountains to conquer, though I have way more to learn, let me tell you some of the things I have loved about this year...

1. Seeing a teacher's first tweets after seeing the beauty of a Twitter PLN
2. Hearing the chatter of students as they Glog for the first time
3. Experiencing chicks hatching live because of a well placed webcam and UStream
4. Answering Team C's question of the day while collaborating with the head of the team on any and every tech tool known to man
5. Spreading QR code love to some tech savvy and brave teachers when others just saw crazy black and white bar patterns
6. Taking Kindergarteners to the moon with Google Earth
7. Designing and training some awesome sessions with some super smart teammates, especially the one held in the Cottonwood Lounge...um, library.
8. Getting excited to learn again...can anyone say, Flubaroo?
9. Planning lessons that excite and challenge kids, teachers, and sometimes me.
10. Visiting many types of classrooms and being knocked out at the talent, commitment and teaching methods my teachers have.

That is not a comprehensive list, but it does contain some highlights...What have your highlights been?