OERI Tech Conference Resources

On May 28, 2013 Southwest Missouri Schools came together to offer a free technology conference for their teachers.  The presenters were outstanding and the information had great value to me as a classroom teacher because it was presented by other classroom teachers!  I only got to go to a few sessions so I decided to go back through Twitter #oeri13 and review the resources (I recommend you do this also).  It was so interesting and OVERWHELMING that I knew I better post it so I can reference it later.  So, here is what I have.  If you have a link to a resource not listed here, place it in the comments and I will add it to the post.

Presentation Resources:
Twitter Presentation Resources
@MrPowersCMS 

Screencasting
@lberg6

Evernote and Livebinder
 @vb4mb

Shift2Viral
@jgarton 

Get on the Tech Track
@tracie_joiner

Chrome Apps
@marcallie

eLeaders
@ShannonEllis9

Learn for Life:  21st Century Skills 
@sknight151 

1:1 Few of my Favorite Things
@mrcraigbarr

Chrome: Power up your Desktop


Apps Shootout

Janna Elfrink
@jelfrink

Lisa Berg
@lberg6

Amy Ramsdell

Dr. Brenner's Apps
@vb4mb
Dragon Dictation – FREE – App that allows speech to text
· Slingnote – $2.99 – Great for research – 2 browsers and allows cutting and
pasting along with citations for research. Also highlighting and note-taking
within the app as well
· Photosynth – FREE – allows you to take panoramic pics
· PicCollage – FREE – way to organize pics into collage for exporting
· Qwiki – FREE – allows you to make a short video set to music from pics on
your device
· Slideshark – FREE – presentation app – upload powerpoint presentations into
Slideshark and use for presentation, annotation allowed as well
· Haiku Deck – FREE – presentation app, quick way to make a presentation for
your classroom or have students make a presentation on a topic to check for
understanding
· WifiPhotoTransfer – FREE – simply connect to network and enter URL to get
pics off of ipad
· VoiceDream – $9.99 – app that allows you to upload PDFs, textbooks, etc and
it will read it to you. Lots of customizable features within the app
· WritePad – $9.99 – Advanced handwriting recognition app
· Apps Gone Free – FREE – Lists all apps each day that have ‘gone free’
· Discovr Apps - $1.99 – Way to search for apps that are similar to ones you like.
Enter an app name and see what else comes up (also has Discovr Movies and
Music)

App Shootout

Apps for the iPad.....and other devices:

Snapguide:  Step-by-Step instructional videos.  Add pictures and text.

Ask3:  Turn your iPad into a whiteboard that records writing and voice.  Lessons can be posted into an Ask3 classroom where others can add text and video comments, questions and answers.

 Markup:  Students email their documents to the teacher's Markup email account.  Teachers can grade (annotate) on the paper and email back to the student.

Remind101  Group text students and parents without them seeing your phone number.  Create up to 10 classes.  Schedule text messages. The app was created for an iPhone, but will work on an iPad.  When you are in the iTunes store make sure you can view apps for the iPhone.  There is an Android app and it can be used from a website.

Evernote:  Access notes, pictures, voice recordings anywhere.  Create notebooks to store your information.  Works with iPad, iPhone, PC, Chrome.

Skitch:  Annotate, add shapes and sketches to pictures, notes, text to get your point across.  Automatically saves in Evernote.  

Students Need Blogs to Read

As teachers we know that there is a process to introduce and/or improve writing for our students.  When I want my students to write a fairy tale, what do I do first?....make sure they read fairy tales.  When I want my students to write a newspaper article, what do I do first?.....make sure they read newspaper articles.  So, when I want students to start blogging, what do I do first?  Yes.....they should read blogs. 

You can Google search and find all kinds of blogs.  Encourage your students to search for blogs on topics that interest them: sports, sharks, cooking or comic books.  There are blogs out there on everything!  *Note: This is a good time to talk to your students on safety issues of writing and reading blogs.  **Double Note:  if you are not familiar with RSS feeds for blogs now is a good time to start researching that. 

How about I list some blogs for students to read to get you and them started!

Blog Written by Kids
Lauren's Hockey Blog

Sara's International English Blog
The Time of Our Lives
Sisterville
Diary of a Sugarmonster
My Footballing Life
Spider....The Tomorrow Club
Childtastic Books

Blogs Written for Kids
National Geographic Kids Blog
NY Times Student Opinion Blog 
Discovery Animal Planet Blog
National Geographic Travel Nomad

Evernote

There are those apps that you have know about for a while, maybe even tinkered with at little, but you don't really catch on to them.  Until one day.....bam....now I get it!  That is Evernote for me.  I have the app for Evernote on my phone and my iPad.  Actually, I started out with Evernote by signing up through the Internet for an account. 

Evernote is a place to put all of your notes and reminders.  Notes can be most anything from a note you type up, an email you want to keep or a picture.  You can even make a voice recorded note! In Evernote you create notebooks.  I have several notebooks, but for example, I have a notebook titled "Beginning of the Year", one called "Baseball" and one called "Recipes".  When I have a thought about something I need to do at the beginning of the school year I can open Evernote, open that notebook and add a note.  I can also hashtag my note to make them searchable. Notebooks and/or notes can be shared with others you want to collaborate with.

If someone emails me a great recipe, I can send that email to my Evernote account and put @Recipes in the subject line.  That email will go directly to my Recipe Notebook.  I can even put #apple #pie in the subject line and it will be tagged.

I am a baseball mom.  I travel all over the place going to baseball games.  I can never remember what the facilities at all the fields are like for spectators.  Sometimes the bleachers are covered, sometimes there is a shady tree that I can put a lawn chair under, etc.  When I get to a field, I open Evernote on my phone, open the Baseball notebook, take a picture of the bleachers and hashtag it with the name of the field. 

This is a tool that students can definitely get started using on their devices.  The can keep all of their electronic notes organized and even share their notes with others. 

Tutorial Videos

Common Core App

Yes, Common Core is everywhere and now you can view them from your phone!  My first thought is, "Yeah, right, just what I want to do, look up CCSS while at the baseball game". But then I decided that there might be times I do want to get to the CCSS quickly.

That’s why I figured it’d be worthwhile to point out a free app that brings all the Common Core standards into one easy-to-read format: a mobile app! The app is called ‘Common Core Standards‘ and is quite handy for anyone looking to learn about the Common Core on the go.

Writing and Collaborating

No longer are students bound within the classroom walls.  Technology allows them to collaborate and work with students all over the world.  There are many places to find projects that connect classes together.

I have used ePals before to find short term projects or just to have year long writing buddies.  One year my students were pen pals with a class in Italy only instead of exchanging letters, we exchanged emails.

A couple of years ago a 4th grade class I worked with wrote stories using Storybird. This is a great book authoring site where you choose beautiful artwork from the site and write a story inspired by that artwork.  The book these 4th graders wrote were to be sent to Haiti.  One of the official languages on Haiti is French.  So the 4th grade students collaborated with a high school French class about 60 miles away through Skype, email and through the Storybird account.  The French class edited the books, gave suggestions on the storyline and then translated the book into French.  The books were bilingual books with and English page and corresponding French page.

There are so many ways to collaborate with other students.  It will take a little up-front work from the teacher, but the benefits are so HUGE.  The students are writing with and for a real audience.  They take more pride in their work.  The younger student love meeting and talking with the older students.

Here is another example of an 8th grade class working with a  3rd grade class.  Check out their writing project Writing Project.  They used 2 apps Book Creator $4.99 and Scrap Pad $4.99 that do cost, but I think the results were very worth it.

Non-Fiction Text Aligned to CCSS

ReadWorks is a non-profit resource that provides 1000's of non-fiction reading passages with associated text-dependent question sets, leveled using the Lexile framework for grades K-6.  Users can search lessons by grade level and Common Core State Standard.

Lesson plans, Student Handouts, Graphic Organizers and Teacher Materials can be easily downloaded and printed for later use.  Free registration allows you to set up your "binder" where you save your selected lessons.

Right now there is a limited amount of lessons per grade, but as this resource is shared with more teachers ReadWorks will be able to get more partners and therefore more funding for additional lessons and resources.  So, share the information.

***Note:  This blog has tabs across the top to navigate to core area subject pages.  ReadWorks is a resource listed on the Comm Arts page.

Video Tutorial