Web-tools, Lobster, and Richard

What in the world do those three things have to do with each other you ask?  Well, they all have to do with my recent trip to Portland, Maine to attend Practical Ed Tech (PET) Camp with Richard Byrne.  Now it makes sense!  If you don't follow him on twitter, pinterest, or his blogs, you should!  He's got great tutorials and advice that I've found to be priceless as I set forth on my tech-journey.

I spent two full days with Richard exploring different web-tools, apps, and programs to use in my classroom.  Each day I walked out of the conference room with my head filled with ideas and new "toys" to try in my room next year.  My head literally hurt from all the thinking I had done for 8 hours!

So, I'm sure you're now thinking, what things are you going to use?  Well, sit back and I'll tell you a few.

One thing I'm really looking forward to using more this coming year is Google Maps and Google Earth.  I want to use Google Maps to pin the different places in New Zealand that our school will be "visiting" this year for Global Awareness Day (GAD).  Jim Lewis (friend/former colleague of Richard's) came in and did an incredible presentation on using Maps/Earth in different ways in our class. While texting with my dear friend Sheila, we were lead to the idea that we should do this for our classes to further illustrate the country.  The GAD idea was inspired from one of the activities that he had us do, and the texting...got to love collaborative thinking/planning with colleagues in different states.  I can't wait to do the tour with my classes, I hope it's as exciting for them as much as it was for me!

I'm also looking forward to using it with my social studies topics.  I want to teach my kiddos how to use the maps and place pins on specific locations.  They can then put tidbits of info with their pin and share it with others.  I thought that might be something a little more fun than just looking at the maps of Egypt, Rome, and Greece in our textbooks.  We can use the different layers on the maps to explore more than just their physical location.  Layers like terrain and street view aren't something that you can see on an old fashioned map.  Then there are pics that people have taken that you can view, so it brings a whole different vision to the place.  The class can create a tour of their locations and tell you how far it would be to walk it! Can you tell I'm excited to get started with Maps?  Here's the link to the map I created on the left.  I put a few pins on it and found the distance between the pyramids I pinned.  It's too much fun!

I'm thinking I'll use Google Earth as a whole class presentation tool since it sucks up a lot of bandwidth and I don't want to crash the system.  I manage to break enough stuff without trying so I don't want to do something that I know I might be bad!

Richard also spent some time on blogging.  I sat up straight and was extra diligent for this part!  Did you notice that I embedded the Google Map into my post?  I even changed the width and height so it fit in my template better. Yup, learned how to do all that and I feel pretty good knowing I could make it work!  Here's a video I use with my kiddos that I'm going to embed, just because I know how to do it!  :)  Knowledge is a powerful thing!

I love School House Rock, don't you?  This is one of my favs.  The kids in my class sing it for weeks afterwards...of course I sing along with them. (Sometimes I'm the one who starts it!)

Well, I've rattled on for long enough.  I need to keep some of my new things to try for another post!  This one's long enough for today.

Happy blogging and keep it techy!
Stephanie

Old and new...

Happy belated 4th of July!!

 I hope everyone had an enjoyable day.  In spite of the downpours we experienced at our festivities, we had a wonderful day with family.  The hubby and I went back "home" to spend the holiday with family and participate in the annual "Mile Long Yard Sale" that my aunt's neighborhood has hosted for over 20 years.  It's practically become a regional event.  We saw license plates from several different states!!  While it poured most of the day, we did get a chance to walk around a little and look at the "offerings" that were put out.  It was slow going, between the rain, baby strollers, wagons, golf carts being driven around, and the gobs of people.  Reminded me of this little snail who was on my sidewalk last night! All in all, a good day spent with good friends and family.

Rewind a little, as I was getting ready, at 4 AM, I started to think about how many old computers and gaming systems people would be trying to get rid of that day.

That made me stop and think about all the tech tools and devices that I'm busily learning about and how much longer they have to live.  Stop!  Think about that...how much longer will all the devices, apps, programs, and such still be around and used in the next 5, 10, 20 years?  Made you stop and think, didn't I? What will be the newest app we all have to have?  What will phones be able to do?  Will tablets still be as hot of an item?  Hmm...my brain's still working on those questions.

 I finished getting ready and headed off to my aunt's house and was determined that I was going to look for old stuff and take pics.

This is 5:30 in the morning!  They smiled all day!

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for my blog post so all I have are pics of "Little Man" and my nieces decked out for the day instead of the discarded tech items I had in mind.

Still smiling!  This was at 3 in the afternoon!!
The rain finally stopped, but most of the shoppers were done for the day at this point.

Oh well, such is life!  Instead, you'll have to enjoy the sweetness of my little loves!  Enjoy their cuteness!!

New Google Certifications...

I started looking into getting Google Certified this past spring.

 Little did I know that they were in the middle of updating/upgrading their certification testing.  :(  That did put a damper on my enthusiasm, so I put it on my summer list of things I want to accomplish.  I also put it in writing to my principal as a summer goal so I was making a real commitment to get it started.  What was I thinking?!?  That means I really have to follow through with this!!  Well, I'm happy to say I started on that path today!!  I've begun the road to achieving my "Educator Level 1" status today.  I've worked through about a third of the lessons, but wanted to take a quick break and blog about it...plus my brain's on overload and it needs a cool-down for a few minutes!  Who knew there was sooo much to learn about a web tool that I use every single day?  And I mean I use it e-v-e-r-y single day!! Anyways, here's a link to the newly updated and upgraded Google Certifications!  I will be happy to report when I've finished my first certificate!  Happy Googling!

Just have to brag...

Just wanted to post a quick pic of a bulletin board I'm proud of putting together.  The "Little Man" helped me get all the pieces together and up, it took us a little over 3 hours to get it all together and up.  My class had a fun time writing messages on their "Twitter" feeds in binary.  Glad I went to Baltimore for the Code.org seminar where I got the great idea!!

Happy Summer Vacation!!

The most wonderful time of the year...at least for teachers!  It's time to recharge batteries, de-stress, relax, and then start thinking about what we want to do differently next year.  On my list this summer is to start a blog (Ta-da!  It's started!), attend "Summer Camp" with Richard Byrne to learn some new tech tricks, and spend some sunny days on the beach with the hubs. Anyways, back to why I'm starting this blog, my goal is to make this my running record of what things I want to try, things I have tried, and finally how it went (both positive and negative).  If I pick up some followers along the way, even better!  I hope they share their experiences so we can all become better at what we do...teach!