ZITE: Personalized Magazine for Iphone and TouchPad

This is a wonderful app and it's available for Iphone and Touchpad. It's just what is says, a personalized magazine. They "evaluate millions of news stories a day". You let them know what you like, and they take it from there. It allows you to say whether or not you liked an article. You can add your own recommendations.
You know how sometimes you have a magazine, you leaf through i,t and you put it down?  Zite is made based on the information you want, so the chance of that happening is at a minimum.
Of course, the topics I have chose are teaching, education, tech in the classroom, etc... I find myself tweeting most of the articles they provide.  The cool part is that many of the articles are written by educators whose work I am familiar with.
I try to read Zite at least once a week, and I have not been disappointed yet!

BeatBlaster!

I like the sound of this app, Beat Blaster.It reminds me of the boomboxes people used to carry. How technology has changed, huh?
I use my Ipad in the classroom.  One thing that bothered me were the speakers, because they really don't project across the room.  I had priced some of the speakers I could use with my Ipad, but did not want to spend that kind of money on something I was just going to use in my classroom.  I was also worried about remembering to put it away everyday.
Yesterday, I read about the app Beatblaster on Zite.  I loved it! It turns your Ipad into a hi-fi music system, and you can use your Iphone as a remote. I uploaded it, and it is wonderful. Simple to use and the sound is fantastic!
I am sure you can think of many situations where you can use this in your classroom. Now when I play "Waka,Waka" by Shakira to let my students know it's time to pack up, we can all hear it loud and clear!

Digital Media:New Learners of the 21st Century:PBS

Watch Full Show on PBS. See more from Digital Media - New Learners Of The 21st Century.

Appsolutely Amazing!

Finally, I have an Ipad!


 I already had an Iphone, but this Ipad, I am just loving it!  Of course, being a teacher, I can barely contain myself with all the appsolutely amazing ways I can use this Ipad in my class! Here are a few resources I have found!



65+ Ipad Apps Perfect for Elementary Schools/ Edudemic


Quick List: Ipad Resources for the Classroom / TeachHub


APPitic - a collection of 1300 + apps for education/ Apptic

Ipad Apps for Teachers / Cool Cat Teacher Blog

Ipads in Education / Exploring the Use of Ipads and ebooks in schools and colleges

#Edapp


I had to add one more:

FreeTech4Teachers - Just put Ipad Apps in the search bar (search the site, not Google) and you will get a list of apps Richard Byrne has written about.



Any resources to add to my list?

Mathematically Fun Resources!

Sumdog - These are FREE games that make Math fun and competitive!  Love it and most of al, my kids love it! Activities for all grades that follow the Common Core standards. You can create challenges between the students in your class, same grade, the entire school, or the world.  Students get points.  They even set up contests for each state.

MangaHigh - Another site with Math games.  You have to create a school account so that students can play the game, but it's FREE. My students love it, and I am able to assign challenges on the skills I want to reinforce.

HoodaMath - FREE Games, tutorials, worksheet, movies, and a very, very, cool theme song! They are in the process of aligning their games with the Common Core standards.  The kids have a lot of fun, while they learn.


TenMarks -FREE Online Math program that provides individualized practice for each student. Love the fact that I can create assignments using the given curriculum.  They are aligned with the state and common core standards.  Reports can also be sent to the parents.  You can upgrade to a premium account if you wish.

Arcademic Skill Builders - Play games and learn! They have games for a variety of subjects, including Math. If you want reports, etc..., you have to upgrade.

Writing Tech Tools!

checkthis (HP Teacher Experience Exchange) Here is the checkthis I made this morning. It was soooooo easy to use. You can add text, images, links, videos, even your Twitter name,(although that wouldn't work for me for some reason) As I played with it, I thought this was a great tool to liven up research projects. I envision a Qwiki video being one of the components.  The other great thing is that you can create an expiration date, AND you don't have to login. I could post all the research report links on Edmodo!



OneWord (EduPLN post by Ary Aranguiz) I was playing with checkthis and wanted to add my PLN posts to my list and I spotted this blog post by Ary. It's exactly what it says, one word. One word pops up, and you have sixty seconds to write about that word. It can be shared if you include your name and email address. I have 5th graders, so I would just use it as a freestyle writing assignment and not worry about sharing. Awesome!

Kidblog.org (A personal favorite) If you want your kids to blog, this is the simplest I have come across. Create an account for your students. Make sure you click moderate comments and posts in the Control Panel, and set them loose. Share the link so that your kids can get comments from a real audience.


StudentTreasures I have used this company for three years. The books that are created are beautiful, hardcover, and FREE! Contact the company, choose a publishing date, have your children become authors, ship the kits to the company(They pay for shipping), and wait for your books. We had one problem with two books last year, (out of 175) and it was resolved immediately! The students are so excited about being real life, authors.


Bitstrips for Schools I used this last year and I loved it! Kids really love comic strips. I would give them a topic, and they would run away with it. I don't think they really understood that they were writing, because it was a comic strip.Students can design their own characters, add text through speech bubbles, and now they have added a built -in art library. They offer a 30 day free trial if you want to try it out!

Tech Tools and Resources #4

Knovio/Online Video Presentations: (A Twitter PLN member) Do you like Photopeach? Animoto? Well, you will like Knovio!  It takes your Powerpoint slides and turns them into a video presentation. If you are interested in signing up for Knovio, use this link Knovio signup. Ok, this was me trying it for the first time, but I just wanted to let you know what it looked like.:)

DrawaStickman (Edmodo community) Very cool and very funny! It's great to teach following directions or anything you can think of! You draw the stickman, the site gives you directions on what to do next. It is so cool because it's interactive, your drawings actually move!

QRPedia(FreeTech4Teachers) Again, very cool! If you place a Wikipedia URL in the box, it turns it into a mobile friendly QR code! I used it to create this QR code. Very simple to use!