Integrating Tech In the Common Core

Technology has the power to take a mediocre lesson and make it jaw dropping.  To take an uninterested student and get them involved and excited.  Technology can change EVERYTHING.  

However, it is so important for us to keep the focus on the learning, on the engagement, on  the skills and the take away.  We need to only incorporate technology where it enhances the learning, when it breaks down barriers and takes learning to a new level.  We do not want to have the focus of any lesson to be the use of technology.  If you objective for the day is to "make a Prezi" you are sadly missing the boat.  We need to focus on the learning at hand and look at ways where the technology can  bring your teaching to life.

The Common Core Standards

Math Standards

English Language Arts Standards

Every Common Core Standard Related to Technology- From Ben Rimes, K-12 Instructional Technology Coordinator, Mattawan Consolidated School

General Sites

50 Resources for Implementing the Common Core for Teachers

Tools for Teaching- Great teaching.  Inspiring Classrooms.

Better Lessons- Common Core: National Education Association

The College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing

The Production and Distribution of Writing

K-5

6. Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others

6-12 

6. Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others

When I read this statement the tool that stands out (actually, it is more like standing on the roof top yelling its name!) is Google Apps for Education, Google Docs in particular.  Google Docs allows you to collaborate with up to 50 people at one time and share your document with up to 200 other collaborators.  When you share you can designate if you are giving editing rights, commenting rights, or just viewing rights.  This tool is in the cloud and is a free.  That means that as long as you have the internet, you are seeing the same thing as all of your classmates- as Google always gives you the latest version of the software.  It evens the playing field between your wealthiest student and your poorest student.  Google Docs keeps track of every single revision made on the documents- so you can look back at any time and see who contributed, what they wrote, and at what time.  You are also able to restore the document at any time.  AMAZING!  

With the integration of Google Hangouts, you can "hangout" with up to 9 different people and work on the same document from 9 different locations all while seeing their face and hearing their voices.  

Check out these links for more information on Google Apps for Education.  But keep in mind, it isn't the tool that we need to focus on, it is the learning, the collaboration and the empowerment that matters. 

Google Docs, Presentations, and Forms

Google Docs 101- Video Tutorial

Doctopus

The Lexile Framework for Reading-  Enter your Lexile measure, select your interests, and find books you'd like to read!

Level It Books- Scan the barcode of the book and you will be given the Lexile score among other information

iBooks- Great source of digital text, particularly books in the Gutenberg Project.  You are able to book mark, highlight, add notes, find specific words, change text size, have words read aloud and define words.

My Favorites

iMovie

Puppet Pals

Sock Puppets

Toontastic

Wordle

Taxedo

Doc Story Builder

64 Sites for Storytelling and Information- A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet

English Language Arts Resources

Ohio Resource Center- Common Core English Language Arts Standards Find lesson plans, activities, and resources sorted by standard

Collaborative Writing and Digital Story Telling with Google Apps for Education

How Students Use the Internet for Research- Edudemic

Common Core Language Arts Lesson Plans

The Library of Congress

Achieve the Core

Math Resources

TED Talks- Dan Meyer- Math Class Needs a Makeover

IXL- Math practice by grade level and standard.  First 20 problems a day are free.  Yearly subscription fee.

Ohio Resource Center- Common Core Math Standards

Khan Academy- Thousands of video tutorials explaining mathematical concepts and practice problems available to support students in developing their understanding of math.

Common Core Math Lesson Plans

Learn Zillion Instructional videos and resources sorted by standard

Achieve the Core

PAARC Resources

PAARC Online- The PAARC site offers information about the online assessments our student's will be given

Technology Guidance from PAARC- Outlines the minimum requirements for new technology purchases

Smarter Balanced Practice and Pilot Tests-  This is NOT used in Ohio but it is one of two major Common Core Testing Agencies (Parcc and Smarter Balanced)   

Ohio Specific Resources

INFOhio Common Core Toolkit-  Tools outlined here require a password that is available to every public school student and teacher in Ohio.  Contact your technology coordinator or librarian for the password.

INFOhio Symbaloo of links 

Apps

The Common Core... There's an App for That-  Article from Tech and Learning

The Common Core...  There's and App for That- Easy to Print Version- Henderson County Public School

APPitic- Amazing resources from Apple Distinguished Educators

The Padagogy Wheel- iPad Apps sorted by Bloom's Taxonomy level

Videos

Watch, Know, Learn. Videos from all over the web compiled in one place. The videos are teacher approved and rated then compiled and sorted by grade level and common core standard. AMAZING! They also have videos for many of the text exemplars!


First Grade Classroom
Second Grade Classroom
Third Grade Classroom
Fourth Grade Classroom
Fifth Grade Classroom
Sixth Grade Classroom
Seventh Grade Classroom

Interesting 

One of my favorite graphics about technology in the classroom

The Rise of Blended Learning- Smithsonian

Five Requirements of Technology Before it Enters the Classroom- Edudemic

An amazing book about the integration of Google Apps for Education in the Classroom

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The Padagogy Wheel

Fire up your printer- This is an AMAZING Resource!  Allan Carrington has taken Bloom's Taxonomy to the next level.  He has created this iPad Wheel that has 62 different apps sorted by Bloom's Taxonomy, it even has action verbs and activities linked for each activity.  Kathy Shrock, laid the foundation work for this- so it has to be good!

This is already in printable format so you will want to print it and hang it somewhere prominent.  Yes, it is that important.  Here is a direct link to the printable format.  Enjoy!     

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The Best Handwriting Apps

I have a four year old daughter who is learning to write and we LOVE using the iPad for this!  Somehow she doesn't see it as tedious when it has sounds, music, games, and visuals attached.  It was really important for me to get a stylus to use with these apps.  I was very focused on getting her to hold a "pencil" correctly so writing with her finger seemed counter productive.  We have two that we love but I'll talk about those on another day.  :-D  These are our FAVORITE handwriting apps- and we have tried a ton of them!



For Beginners: Letter School- $2.99

Letter school is the best out there for beginners- it really makes them want to learn and increases there overall knowledge!  At least so far!  It has capital and lower case letters as well as numbers.  You can choose if you want Zaner-Bloser, D'Nealian, and HWT Style.  And what is more you can have this customized for three different students- so if you want one student working on numbers, one on uppercase, and one only doing lowercase you can do that.  

Every letter is displayed differently, in some of the letters it cuts grass, other lights up like Christmas lights, flowers bloom, candy goes around the letter, a rocket ship blasts off.  Very exciting stuff!  I found a video on YouTube demonstrating the app.

What I love about this app the most is that it breaks each letter down into three steps.  Scaffolding at its finest!

Intermediate: iTrace- $3.99

This is my most recent discovery.  I feel it is more for someone who has a grasp on what letters are and why they are important.  This app has the ability to add you child's picture and name and then inside of words, it allows you to practice their name, choosing any color that they would like!  How cool is that!

 What really sets this app apart from all of the others is the history.  You are able to see all of the past attempts for each letter and the date that it was written.  Awesome!  It will also tell you what letters are the favorites, tracks the number of letters written, time spent on the app, and what letters are tricky.  This is great if you are not watching over the student's shoulder- and want to be sure that they are in fact practicing.  :-)  This app does not mandate that the letters are 100% perfect but does still make sure that it is close.

Advanced:  Handwriting without Tears: Wet, Dry, Try- $4.99

If you have never heard about the Handwriting without Tears program, it is worth checking out!  This app offers capital letters and numbers.  With each letter you write it three times.  The first time you use a wash cloth, the second time a towel, and the third time a piece of chalk.  This app is tough and sometimes frustrating for my daughter who is at the very beginning stages of learning her letters. It lacks the music and flashy elements but it demands a higher level of accuracy.  In a Kindergarten or First Grade classroom this app would be hard to beat!  When you go to far off the desired path, it will show you what to do and will have you start over.  This app mandates that the letters are written well.

What I feel makes this app stand out is that you can pick and choose the letters that you would like to learn or you can follow the Handwriting Without Tears order.  This order starts with the "easy" letters first and builds to the increasingly difficult letters.  This method also claims to help students eliminate reversals.  

I hope this helps in your journey to learning to write letters well.  Do you know any other apps that are must have for helping to learn and master letters?  

**** I am not being paid for these reviews or recommendations but if you would like to, let me know!

 ; -)

iPad Apps In and Out of the Classroom

It's true- I'm  a little bit obsessed with finding and trying new apps.  I don't believe I have gone more than 2 days without downloading a new one.  So I am constantly deleting subpar apps to make room for new exciting apps.  So when I was asked to present "iPad Apps- In and Out of the Classroom"at the Tech Expo held at Sidney Local Schools I jumped at the chance!

I took note of all of my favorite apps- both those for classroom use and without.  My list grew to about 60 different apps- seriously!  And these are all ones that I actually use.  :-D  So I am so excited to be able to share this list with you!  Not all of the apps are free but many are- so I hope you learn about a few new ones!  

What are your must have apps?  Did I leave any off?  

iPad 2 Wi-Fi 16GB - White (Google Affiliate Ad)

Felt Board

Have you seen this app?  It is Felt Board and it is just like it sounds.  It has 27 different backgrounds to choose from, tons of people, animals, clothes, and props.  It has all of the pieces for common felt board activities including 5 monkeys jumping on the bed, Humpty Dumpty, I Know and Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and more.  At $2.99, you will be WAY ahead when you consider all of the time and money put into making a felt board activity.

In college, we had to make all of the pieces for a felt board story.  I did Mama, Do You Love Me?  It took FOREVER.  I remember staying up late putting sequence onto this fish only to have it look a little sub par.  With this app, I hope that assignment is obsolete.  

This would be an awesome center activity.  You could have the students make a picture and then write or tell a story to go along.  I did this activity with first graders and they LOVED it.  Worth every single penny spent!  :-)

Could you see yourself using this app with in your classroom or with your own students?  My three year old daughter loved it!  What other free or paid apps do you have and consider a must buy?  

Photon- Flash Player Web Browser App

Photon  is an app that allows you to see and interact with any flash based websites on the iPad.  This $3.99 app was designed for gamers but works amazingly well in any context.  Inside the app on the upper right hand side, you click the lightning bolt to enable any flash based content.  Love this app!  It allows me to work with all of my favorite sites without leaving the iPad.  Hope you find this useful!

Virtual Manipulatives

ABCya has done it again!  I'm sure many of you are already familiar with website.  The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

 But what I just found out is that they have an app.  This app is awesome for teaching fractions, decimals, and percents.  The screen shot below is the directions for using.

Basically on half of the screen you can choose from fractions, decimals or percents and drag them to the second half of the screen.  This allows you to compare fractions like the picture below.  But what is even more exciting is that when you click on the fraction pieces it will show you the fraction as a decimal and a percent.  It also has the feature that lets you draw.

This is an awesome app!  I have my fingers crossed that they add more manipulatives in the future.  At the price tag of free, you can not beat it!  What do you hope they add next?

Apps Gone Free

This app is amazing!  Apps Gone Free is a free app that has a daily calendar of all of the previously paid apps that have gone free.  Each day when you open the app you can see around ten apps that are free for usually a 24 hour period.  It is rated a five star app with a whopping 23,000 reviews- unbelievable.

The apps featured are usually under the $5.00 mark and are often times games or other simple things.  But there is usually a keeper.  This is a great way to try new apps without breaking the bank, and if you decide that you don't like the app you can just delete without remorse. 

Technology Tailgate!

I'm so very excited!  I am now a collaborator on Technology Tailgate!

Check out my very first post on one of my favorite apps: Sock Puppets! I have learned loads on this blog and I'm so excited to become a part of it!  If you haven't followed either site nows the time!  :-D

The Top 100 Sites and Apps of 2012

Technology is my passion.  I LOVE challenging myself and learning something new.  Each January I look forward to Tech and Learning's top 100 list of websites, only this year they added apps.  I like this app because it isn't a repeat of the same sites year after year.  I know the good ones of the past, let me know what is up and coming!  I just downloaded TeachersTech an app that has many how to videos on Web 2.0 tools.  So far, the sound isn't working for me but I haven't had much time to play other than that it looks like there is a ton of content.  My personal favorites include Pinterest, Pow Toon, Watch, Know, Learn.  Something to keep in mind is that not all of these sites and apps are free but they are guaranteed good!  If you do nothing else today, this is it, check out this list and let me know which ones you try or love already!

iMovie App: Fullenkamp Family Video- Christmas 2012

Every year my husband's family does  a Christmas video usually they are sweet, Christmas themed and are well planned out.  This year not so much!  We had some CRAZY kids.  There was no way they were following a script.  Have no fear, I whipped out my iPad and booted up the iMovie app and well, it turned out.  It was super easy to make and it accounted for all of the crazies in my life.  In terms of apps it comes in a bit pricy at $4.99 but I can totally see myself using this time and time again.  Here is the link at the app store.  It did take up quite of bit of memory on my iPad but you are able to compress it once you are finished with the editing process.  As you may be able to tell, we used the retro theme for the first part and the super hero theme for the second.  There are 12 others to choose from.  This has been one of my favorite things ever!  I cannot wait to use this for right to read week.  Have you used the iMovie app yet?  How was your experience?  Any other apps that you recommend?  Thanks so much for stopping by!  

P.S.  Just found this blog: Sent from my iPad and she is having a linky party about apps, I think I'm going to post today instead of next week.   I cannot wait to hear others favorite apps.  :-D  Exciting isn't it!

P.P.S. I'm also linking up with Technology Tailgate for her Techy Tuesday Link Up.  :-D

   

My very own handwriting font!!!

I can finally cross this off of my bucket list!  I now have a font of my very own handwriting!  And, it was way easy.  I will hopefully take the time very soon and do a nice copy, but I did this one very quickly just to see if I could and I can!  Holy Smokes!  I have my very own handwriting as a font!  :-D Just to show how excited I am, here's a screen shot!

Crazy isn't it!  Want to make your own font?  I did it through the app iFontMaker.  It is a $6.99 purchase but so far it has been worth it.  :-)  Check it out!  And let me know if you like it!

BookMyne

Our school library has just started using the most amazing app.  The BookMyne app allows students and parents to search the school library, see when checked out books are do and place holds on any book that they would like.  We are still in the testing fazes but so far I love it!  I like that when I'm planning a lesson at home I can reserve the book that I need and not fear that it will be checked out by the time I get there!  If you have a library that uses SIRSI the BookMyne app is the way to go!  It is free in the app store- view the listing here. 

Project 365

Project 365- My FAVORITE App!

This is my absolute favorite, most used app.  Not because the app itself is amazing but the power of what it makes me do.  For the last 6 months I have taken a picture a day and posted it to this app.  From the app it sends it to a website that you can share with your family and friends.  When each month is completed, you can save that month as a PDF for download.

It has been amazing to look back and see my life unfold before my eyes.  My two kids are growing and changing every single day.  We are putting up a building in back and watching it progress through the different steps with a definite timeline has been empowering.  Many times it seems I get so wrapped up in the day to day annoyances and projects but this has really helped me to step back and see the big picture.   

This app has a free version and a paid version.  I bought the paid version and haven't regretted it.  The paid version sends you a reminder daily at the time you set to take a picture.  I love this app!  If you have an Apple device try it- and let me know what you think!!!  Click here for a link to the App listing.