More Uses for the Video Projector in Your Classroom

True tech integrators know the digital projector can be used for much more than projecting. Here is a sampling of some creative ways to use your projector in any curriculum.

• Reading/Writing. Display images, words, or phrases for writing prompts in creative writing or poetry class. Model savvy formatting and editing skills by giving live demonstrations in your word-processing software. And put away those old flashcards—young students love singing karaoke to practice their pronunciation and identify targeted sight words.
• Mathematics. Utah State University's National Library of Virtual Manipulatives offers hundreds of multi-sensory games, illustrations, exercises and puzzles for K-12 students that explore numerical operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis. (nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vLibrary.html; free online, $39.99-44.99 for enhanced desktop version).
• Science. Ask students to add their experimental data directly to your spreadsheet and project graphs of their results for everyone to see—you'll identify those pesky outliers in no time. Protect your eyebrows and your budget by showing videos of dangerous chemistry demonstrations.
• Social Studies. Google Earth (earth.google.com) works wonders but loves to crash on older computers. Try the University of Texas at Austin's renowned Perry-Castañeda Library Virtual Map Room (www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/; free) for a wide array of PDF maps from around the globe.
• Timer, Stopwatch, Countdown. Using a simple freeware program like TimeLeft (www.timeleft.info), students will see exactly how long they've been working on a project, how much time is left, or how many days until the ice cream social after your final exam.
• Games and Quizzes. Turn those groans to glee come quiz-time with hyperlinked Powerpoint presentations that mimic popular quiz games like "Jeopardy!" or "You Don't Know Jack." Free Sheppard Software (sheppardsoftware.com) has dozens of interactive games that will have your students begging for more.
• Board Work. Standing at the whiteboard terrifies many students. Why? Writing large print on a vertical plane isn't easy for everyone and little handwriting slips can turn into big, embarrassing mistakes. Ask students to do the work on a sheet of paper, fire up your doc camera, then project their results. No more stage fright!
• Graphic Organizers. Online diagramming software like Gliffy (www.gliffy.com; free basic membership, premium account varies by number of users) or Bubbl (bubbl.us; free) can make creating lively instructional flowcharts, cluster diagrams, and spider maps a breeze.

Interactive Language Arts

How do you help your students to love words? You already have lots to do to teach students how to read, write, and speak. How about encouraging your students to get involved with words? Have students play with words using interactive sites. If your students have laptops or have access to interactive whiteboards, then check out some of these websites:

Bembo’s Zoo
Building Language for Literacy
Fridge Magnet Poetry
Magnetic Poetry Tiles
Make a Word
Quiz Tree
Road Hog Spelling
Voycabulary
Visual Dictionary Online
Word Ahead
Word Magnets
Zoom Playhouse

Electronic flashcards

By Jenn Farr

I must admit I have a bit of an aversion to drill-type activities, but I realize there are times that students need to practice and memorize certain concepts in order to succeed. Certainly we all know that studying makes for more successful learners. Abraham Lincoln clearly knew the value of studying when he said, “I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.” I doubt that Abraham could have imagined the neat Web 2.0 flashcard-type applications that our students can now use to help them with their studies.

I wish my daughter had access to StudyStack when she was studying for her Physician Assistant certification. When we moved her from college to her first job I think we must have moved literally thousands of index cards she had created as part of her studying strategy. If she were still in school she could now use StudyStack to create banks or stacks of electronic cards that she could review online, print, or export to her pda, cell phone, or iPod. Email registration is required in order to create a Study Stack, but students can use public study stacks if they do not have an email address or if you prefer to create the cards for them ahead of time. StudyStack offers several modes of studying: each stack can be viewed in flash card mode, in match mode, as a hangman game, crossword, word find, or bug match. Click on the export feature once you have created a study stack to learn the best way to export data to a hand held device.

A different repository of electronic flashcards can be found online at Flashcard DB. In fact, I found the selection of digital flash cards housed on this site to be far more extensive than those at StudyStack. Flashcard DB seemed almost boring compared to StudyStack since you can only review cards or print hard copies. On a happy note however, I found that it was pretty simple to export the cards from Flashcard DB into Study Stack which saved me tons of typing time (though do be prepared to do some light editing).

Another very large database of flashcards can be found at the Flashcard Exchange. Free email registration is required to make flashcards on this site, but no registration is required to use the cards that are already posted to the site. One feature I particularly liked about the site was the study results feature. You could assign a set of cards to students while they were in the lab or during recess and then ask them to show you the study results statistics so you could view how many cards they completed as well as a simple pie chart indicating the number of right/wrong answers. The selection of public cards on this site was fantastic, but there is a one-time lifetime fee required if you want to export the cards to portable devices or need to print them for hard copy review.

Quizlet is another excellent little application that will help students study vocabulary words. It was developed in 2005 by Andrew Sutherland, a 15-year old who wanted to find a better way to study his 111 French animal words. The rest is history and the popularity of his site is a testament to student ingenuity. The site is free to registered users and Facebook users. Data input is fast and easy and study options include a review activity, an input-the-answer activity, a quiz yourself feature, and two game-type features. The application also includes a print function and an export feature that imported fairly easily into StudyStack. Frankly, you may want to import some StudyStack cards into this application since the activities are quite different and compliment each other.

Finally, let’s finish this little Web 2.0 Flashcard review with The Flash Card Machine. Initially, I was not impressed with this application. It wasn’t quite as intuitive to navigate and the database of cards was smaller than databases found on many of the other flashcard sites I reviewed. Then, I realized you can add sound and graphics to your flashcards! Free email registration gives you the opportunity to create cards that could be used by art teachers, music teachers, and assistive technology teachers. This was the only product that I came across that allowed the flashcard developer nearly complete control over content! I would highly recommend this product if you work with young or struggling readers. As you create sets of cards you can elect to keep your cards private or make them public. In addition, there is an option that allows you to direct users to a given webpage. That means that you can create a direct link to your cards from a teacher webpage or a link in a PowerPoint, etc. and your students will not have to search for your cards or sign in to use the cards! Do not overlook this humble-looking little application…it has the potential to provide differentiated opportunities to all your students!

While I have included several of the Web 2.0 Flashcard sites that I particularly like, there are a number of Web 2.0 sites you can use to create study activities for your students. Keep in mind, students can also create their own electronic study cards. Students can even swap study cards with their peers as they share web addresses or export hard copy versions of their flash cards. And of course, you can always project these flashcards on your interactive whiteboard; voila, you have an interactive review lesson! Oh…and don’t forget to add the links to these digital index cards on your website so students can practice during recess on classroom computers, from their home computers, or in the computer lab. I’m sure Abe himself would be excited by the study and review opportunities all these flashcard sites offer!

Comic Life

Comic Life lets you create astounding comics, beautiful picture albums, how-tos and more. This short movie demonstrates the use of templates in Comic Life.

If you can't view the video below, view it on YouTube here

How to Save a YouTube movie on a Mac

This explains how to save a YouTube movie for an iPod, PowerPoint or just to have on your computer. 

1. Download iSquint http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19769/isquint

2. Find your YouTube you wish to convert. Copy and Paste the URL into http://keepvid.com/ 

3. Download and convert to the flv format.

4. Now drag the flv file that you saved into the iSquint application and choose either the ipod or tv setting. Click on start and you have a mp4 file.

When I find a way to do it in fewer steps, I will replace this one. However, for now this works.

Clearing your Cache and Cookies

Most browsers hold a saved copy of visited webpages. Clearing your browser's cache and/or cookies can resolve a number of problems you may be experiencing while using Blogger or other sites on the web. Instructions for clearing your cache and cookies are different for each browser type.

To clear your cache and cookies, please follow the steps below.

For Safari:

Click Safari in the upper left corner of your display.
Select Reset Safari from the menu.
A pop-up box will appear. Click Reset.
Click Safari again.
Select Empty Cache from the menu.
A pop-up box will appear. Click Empty.

For MS Internet Explorer:

Click Tools at the top of your browser window.
Select Internet Options from the menu.
Select the General tab, if it's not already selected.
Locate the Browsing history section and click Delete.
In the Temporary Internet Files section, click Delete files If a pop-up window appears, click Yes.
In the Cookies section, click Delete cookies If a pop-up window appears, click Yes.

Google's Search Tools

Google's Search Tools

Calculator
Type a calculation and press enter. You will see the answer in the results window.

Conversion Tool
Type something similar to one of the following and press enter.
Be sure to use the word "in."

1 mile in feet
1 cup in tablespoons
100 dollars in Euros

Dictionary
Type "Define:" and then the word you want defined.

define: congruent
define: pragmatic

Weather
Type the word "weather" and then the city (or city and state) and then press rturn to see the weather conditions for the next 5 days.

weather Whichita
weather London
weather Gunter, TX

Flight Search
Enter the airline and your flight number and press return to see the flight status.

America 5324
AA 5324
United 786
UA 786

Movie Search
Enter "movie:" and your zip code. This will return a list of theaters, movies, times, and reviews.

Movie: 75090
Movie: 90210

Free Online Training

http://login.customguide.com/GunterMiddleSchool

Go to the first site and create you a login. 

http://static.customguide.com/lms/html/k12_faqs.htm

This second site gives you all the courses and some FAQ you might have about this program.

YouTube to your Computer

This is information from Debbie Murphy.

Here is a link to the TubeTV download I was telling you about. It's for Mac OS X and it's free!  It allows you to download and change youtube or other files into a format you can store and playback!

http://www.chimoosoft.com/products/tubetv/

Thanks for sharing this, Debbie. 

Have Your Mac Read to You

Text to Speech

To enable text-to-speech, go to System Preferences > Speech. On the Text to Speech tab, check the box next to "Speak selected text when the key is pressed," and in the next dialog box, press the key combination you want, such as Command-R. Choose a voice, and exit System Preferences. Alex is the most normal voice.

  

Highlight what you wish for the computer to read to you, then press the key combination you have chosen. 

Enable Right click on Mouse

To right click on any Mac without changing any configuration:

1. Click “crtl+Mouse button”
2. A right click menu should pop up

To enable right click on an Apple desktop with an Apple mouse connected:

1. Go to “System Preferences”
2. Click “Keyboard & Mouse”
3. Click the “Mouse” tab

4. (Picture is above)

   A picture of the mouse will show up. Click the drop down menu on the right hand side and select “Secondary Button"
   
5. Now whenever you click on the right hand side of the mouse, a right click menu will appear