If you have a Promethean board, here is a great Pi Day flipchart!

You can also visit the Symbaloo webmix for this presentation.

J Mason Tomlin School Choir 2011

Triptico is where the cool IWB tools came from.

Class Dojo is web based, so there’s no need to install any software.  Setting up your class is quick and easy, with a very user friendly dashboard for teachers.  When you first sign in, Class Dojo will walk you through the steps to set up your class so you can be ready to roll in just a short amount of time.  With a few simple clicks, you create a class, enter your student names, and set up your positive and negative behaviors.  You can use the defaults provided, or add your own to customize it.  That’s it!  Once you have set up your class, simply start the class and project the screen onto your IWB or projector screen.  As the class progresses, you can add positive and negative points for the behaviors you selected.  Class Dojo instantly provides visual and audio feedback to the kids.  At the end of class, you can view your class report card which shows an overall view of behaviors, or you can drill down to view individual performance.  This is a great way to keep track of student behavior for parent conferences!  Don’t want to be tied to your desktop computer to use Class Dojo?  If you have a smartphone, you can access your account and award points with it while being able to walk around the classroom.

I’m setting up my classes now, and I can’t wait to see how it works with my kids!  I think they will love it.

Check out this great video that demos how to use Class Dojo:

It’s been a busy week for me, with lots of opportunities to be a student instead of a teacher for a little while.  Wednesday was our County-wide In Service day, and I had the chance to do some more work revising our technology curriculum.  It’s going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it to have an updated curriculum that covers the new standards.  After we wrapped up at school, it was time to head out to Atlantic City for the annual NJEA Convention!  The NJEA Convention is held every year in AC, and around 40,000 educators attend!  There are workshops and presentations on every subject imaginable.

My favorite part of Convention was the High Tech Hall.  This portion of the convention was dedicated to using technology in the classroom.  Many of the available workshops were informal round-table settings where fellow educators had a chance to share and explain tools they have successfully used in the classroom.  There were tons of subjects to choose from, and the presenters were all very knowledgeable and helpful.  There were also slightly more structured workshops held by Dell and Thinkfinity on topics such as cyberbullying and how to find great resources online.  On the last day, I even got up on stage  for the Web 2.0 Smackdown and shared my current favorite, Kerpoof!  It was a great two days of gaining new ideas and tools to use in my lab!

I arrived home from Convention on Friday evening, and was up bright and early Saturday morning to catch a train with my fellow teacher, Mrs. DeStefano, to PA for EdCamp Harrisburg!  It was Davann’s first EdCamp and I was excited to share the experience with her.  As usual, the EdCamp staff were amazing.  Everything was well organized, the facilities were beautiful, and everything ran smoothly.  By the time we arrived, the session board had already filled up, so we were able to decide on our sessions for the day right away.

We both went to our first session together, a chat room for computer lab teachers.  It was a great idea, and a wonderful session.  We had a chance to meet other computer lab teachers, and share ideas, tools, and stories.  I had a chance to get up and share Symbaloo, a tool I use for collecting and organizing web links that I use in my classes.  We all agreed that it was wonderful to be able to network and share with fellow lab teachers, so with that in mind, I’ve set up a Diigo Group for computer lab teachers to share their favorite links and tools.

For session two, I went to a presentation on mobile gaming.  We learned about using Aris to create interactive, geolocated games. While much of it seemed a bit complex for an elementary group, I did get some great ideas for using it with parents and staff.  I’m looking forward to having a chance to explore the program and create my own games.

We broke for lunch after session two, but the learning didn’t stop.  We joined new friends for good food and more discussions about what we had learned.  We had all enjoyed our morning sessions, and couldn’t wait to get back for more in the afternoon.

Session three was another great one on using screencasting as an assessment tool and as a way of flipping the classroom.  Although the presenter used it in an eleventh grade english classroom, I could see many uses for it at the elementary level as well.  I already use screencasting as a way of creating tutorials, but now I have a lot of great ideas on how to use it to give students feedback on their work.

For our last session, Davann and I met up again for a discussion on using online tools to foster writing.  There were a lot of great examples – some of which I already use, and a lot of new ones I can’t wait to try.  We both agreed that it was a very useful session!  Afterwards, we headed back to the main meeting room for the final event of the day, the Web 2.0 Smackdown.  With only 60 seconds per tool, we were able to get through a lot of great intros to web based tools.  The list of tools is available online for anyone to view.

When the Smackdown was over, it was time for us to head home.  While we would have liked to attend the after-party, our train awaited.  We spend a good portion of the ride home excitedly discussing all we had learned.  I think I have another convert to the wonderful world of EdCamps!  Now I need to find time to go through all of the great resources from both conferences and see what new and exciting things I can use in my classes!

This year, Voki has made it even easier to implement in the classroom.   The newly implemented Voki Classroom allows teachers to create student accounts without the need for email addresses, and gives you tons of management features that we had been wishing for with the original Voki.  Teachers can now create classes to put students in, assign lessons to individual classes, and have finished lesson projects appear on a showcase website.  While the original Voki website is still free, the classroom edition does have a fee, but it’s very reasonable at $29.95 a year.  That account allows you to have up to 200 students, but Voki claims that if you need more, you simply need to ask.

If you’re looking for ways to use Voki, there’s a lesson plan database with teacher submitted lessons that you can browse through.  You can also access the Teacher’s Corner and discuss Voki with other teachers using the site.  I’m looking forward to trying out the new classroom features this year with my students!

I had poked around on the Kerpoof website a few years ago, but wasn’t really sure how to use it with my classes. It ended up sitting on the back burner while I tried other websites and programs.  Recently, however, I started hearing about more and more teachers using Kerpoof with their kids and decided to see what all the fuss was about.  Kerpoof has changed a lot since I first looked at it, and all the changes are GOOD!

Kerpoof provides a safe online community where students can express their creativity in pictures, stories, and even movies!  It’s both kid and teacher friendly, and is very easy to set up.  Teacher accounts are free, and with your teacher account, you can set up unlimited amounts of classes and students.  Students are given a unique nickname, password, and class ID so that they can log in without needing an email address or any personally identifiable information.  Teachers have full control over sharing levels for each class, as well as the option to enable a class message board or chat.

Once students log into Kerpoof, they can create their own avatar to use on the website.  They can also earn Kerpoof Koins by creating projects and use those coins to buy more characters, scenes, brushes, and other cool items in the Kerpoof Store.  No real money is used!  Students can also pick which type of activity they want to do – Spell a Picture (great for younger grades!), Make a Movie, Make a Card, Make a Drawing, Make a Picture, or Tell a Story.  Each activity has suggested grade levels, but most can be adapted for almost any grade.

The tools in Kerpoof are fairly straightforward and intuitive.  Most items utilize a drag-and-drop format, but there are also options to create your own items.  Even non tech savvy people should find the website and tools fairly easy to use.  The kids, of course, pick it up in no time.  My students are VERY excited about Kerpoof, and can’t stop talking about it.  You can also print out login cards with their information on it so students can log in and create at home.

For teachers, there is a resource filled educator’s section that includes lesson plans, classroom ideas, a teacher’s guide, and even a page showing how Kerpoof integrates with state and national standards.  Even without all of those great resources, it’s easy to see how Kerpoof can be integrated into the classroom.  My fourth grade students are using the Movie Maker to retell one of their classroom stories!  I can’t wait to try new activities with my other grades.