How to Create a Brochure

Steps to creating a brochure in Microsoft Word:
1. Open Word
2. File > Project Gallery
3. Under Category > choose brochures
4. Click on the template that you wish to use.
5. Replace with your information.

Here is a video to watch:

Starboards and Cows

Oral Tests for Students - Two Methods

Method 1:  Embed oral test on a blog.

Here is a link on how to embed a MP3 on a blog:
http://freecomputech.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-upload-mp3-songs-to-blogger.html

Here is a sample for a test.


Method 2:  Audio Recorders
Record your test either in Garage Band or on a recorder.
If you use Garage Band, you will share it into iTunes. Make sure that it is a MP3 file.
After it is in iTunes, you will then drag it onto your computer desktop.
Plug in the Audio Recorder to you computer.
Drag your MP3 file into either of the folders labeled A-E on your audio recorder. Just remember which folder you put your file in.
Then drag the icon of the audio recorder to the trash can to eject it.

Three Workshops

I had the privilege of getting to teach three workshops to teachers. I have added two pages and one blog post with a slide show to this website with the links and topics that I taught. Here are the sites:

Google Docs and Forms
Web 2.0
Tammy W.'s Sites

I Can't Find my Phone

In preparation for my next workshop, I ran across this website. It was too good not to share right now.

This link: http://www.icantfindmyphone.com/  will call your cell phone from your computer. If you have access to the web, then you can call your phone. This is extremely nice if you loose it at home, and you do not have a land line anymore.

Google Forms - Tech Time

Skitch App

I borrowed this post from another Blog!

Skitch

Skitch is an app that was mentioned by several different presenters at TCEA (including Lisa Johnson  and Yolanda Barker from the techchef4u blog). I finally took the time to check it out this week. As I explored, I got excited about all the ways it could be used in the classroom with all ages in ALL curricular areas. Skitch allows you to annotate photos, maps, screenshots, or blank backgrounds with different colored text, arrows, and shapes. From within the app you can access a Google Map of the world, take a screenshot of it, and then annotate over the screenshot of the map. You can also pull in photos from your photo library, the web, or take a picture or screenshot by clicking a link within the app.

Why I like Skitch:

• It's free!
• It's very user friendly - students of any age will be able to navigate the app without much assistance
• Creations will be automatically saved within the app, but can also be saved to the iPad's Photo Library or Camera Roll, emailed to the teacher, or synced with Evernote.
• The possibilities for use in the classroom are endless! See the picture below to see how you can use Skitch to label the body parts of a grasshopper.

Classroom Integration Ideas:

• Math: Have students label all the geometric shapes found in a photograph.
• History: Have students map out a famous battle.
• Science: Students could label a map with low pressure and high pressure systems, tectonic plates, landforms, etc.
• ELA: When learning about descriptive words, have students find a picture and label it with all the adjectives that describe the picture.

Skitch is also available in the Mac App Store as a download for your computer, so teachers could use it to crop and edit photos and create visuals with annotations for their students. For more information about the Mac App Store, click here.

URL Shortener and QR Creator

Google's URL Shortener  QR Creator

Want to make a long URL shorter and turn it into a QR code at the same time? Then head over to http://goo.gl. Shorten your URL. Paste that shortened URL into your browser and add ".qr" to the end of the goo.gl-shortened URL to create an immediate QR matrix barcode.

TCEA 2012

This week is our annual trip to TCEA. As always it has been a wonderful experience. I will be adding a page to this blog with the many links that were shared with us this week. Some of the top, hot workshops this week were:
1. Anything iPad
2. Anything Google
3. QR Codes
4. Web 2.0 sites
5. 21st skills

Google Forms and Flubaroo

I may be the only one that did not know this, but I figured it out last night. If you use Google forms for tests or quizzes, you can download Flubaroo to grade your quizes. I have been using Google forms for quizzes so that I could help save a tree and so that I would only have to grade one spreadsheet instead of many pieces of paper. Now with this plug-in and the click of a mouse, the quizzes are graded.

Here is the link: http://www.flubaroo.com/

If you have any questions or would like to see a demonstration, let me know.

Care and Feeding of the Cows