What are you teaching the world?

Hey folks,

This is a great video to watch on a Friday afternoon and end your busy week!  You might be inspired--might even smile (or laugh) a little bit!

Have a great weekend teachers!

http://pernillesripp.com/2013/09/12/what-are-you-teaching-the-world-a-video-to-show-your-students-tomorrow/

Til next time . . .

Vickey

Registration for NATC

 

Hey folks,

 

Well, it's the LAST week of school!  It's going to be a really CrAzY week for most of you.  I hope that you will take a few minutes before the end of the week to register for the North Alabama Technology Conference, to be held on July 23 & 24 @ Hazel Green High School.  Cost is $30 for both days or $20 for one day. 

 

One session is already closed and about a dozen more only have 2 or 3 seats left.  There are plenty of 2-hour workshops to choose from or you may select to attend numerous 1-hour concurrent sessions mixed in with one or two workshops—any combination will work!  We are expecting a great conference.  Hope you will join us!

 

Here's the link to register.  http://goo.gl/qrBFQ.   Last day to register for the conference is June 3rd.

 

Have a great LAST week of school and a great LONG summer!

 

Til next time . . .

 

Vickey

 

PS – Do you think I said “great” enough times?  Do you think “Tony the Tiger” was at my breakfast table this morning? (you young teachers may not even know who that is!!!)

What Will You Learn this Summer?

Hey Folks,

The end of the school year is approaching.  This year seems to have "flown" by!  After you have slept in late for a few days, what are your plans for the rest of the summer?  I hope that you will consider reserving some time to learn something "new" in the area of technology over the summer.  Here's several ways that you can do that:

If you are a Twitter user, you might want to check out some of these "hashtags" to follow to gather new ideas.  CybraryMan has the best collection of educational groups/people to follow.  Here's the link: http://cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html (also check out the rest of his website--great resources).

SimpleK12 has some awesome 30-minute webinars scheduled for the summer.  The membership fee is somewhere around $200 per person, but they offer lots of free sessions, too.  One June 3, there will be several 30-minute sessions on "Tools for Student Projects".  Also, June 5th, sessions will be on "assessment", and July 2nd will cover the topic of "bullying".  Here's the website:  http://community.simplek12.com and click on "webinars".  Look around the website and you might find even more free resources.  Our very own Melissa Mann from Madison County Elementary presents online for SimpleK12 about Special Ed and technology, iPads, etc.  Great service!  More webinars will be posted as the summer goes by.  Go back to this website again to check those dates/topics.

Dr. Janet Slaughter from Central Office Assessment Dept. created a Symbaloo (icon enhanced website) with some great Common Core (College & Career Ready) resources.  Summer would be a great time to investigate some of these resources.  Here's the website: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/janetslaughter.

Two conferences that might be of interest to you--for more technology "knowledge".  Alabama Educational Technology Conference (AETC) will be in Birmingham on June 10-12.  The website is http://alex.state.al.us/aetc/.  You can still register onsite.

Also, Madison County Schools is once again sponsoring the North Alabama Technology Conference (NATC).  Those dates are July 23 & 24.  The conference is located at Hazel Green High School and price is $30.  To see workshop listing and also to register, go to this website:  http://goo.gl/qrBFQ.  Registration closes June 3rd.

I'm sure there are many more opportunities for professional growth that will be available to you.  Please feel free to share those with me.

Til Next Time (and Happy Mother's Day) . . .

Vickey

Technology Conference Registration Open Til June 3rd

Hey Folks,

Just a reminder to register for the North Alabama Technology Conference.  Several workshops are almost full!  Don't want you to miss out on some great technology professional development.

Here's the link to register:   http://goo.gl/qrBFQ.  Cost is only $30!  That's a great deal!

Registration closes on June 3rd.

Til Next Time . . .

Vickey

I Choose "C"

 

Hey folks!

Last week, someone shared with me the video at the following link about Common Core.  It's hilarious!  Thought you would enjoy it this week (especially since so many of you are testing).  Thanks to Jane Scott of Legacy for sharing!  It's called "I Choose C".  Great insight for Common Core (or College and Career Readiness).

Here's the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2mRM4i6tY

Enjoy your day!  Til Next Time . . .

Vickey

Testing Photo

Hey Folks!

Happy Friday!  Couldn't resist posting this picture today.  Thinking about all the testing currently underway and those end of year tests coming up.  I knew you needed a laugh!  (thanks Lori Alexander for sharing via Facebook)

Have a great weekend!

Til next time . . .

Vickey

Phone Camera Uses

This morning I opened an email that linked to a blog posting that shared 10 Everyday Uses for Your Phone’s Camera.  The post has some great suggestions for using your phone's camera and I wanted to share these with you.  Great ideas!  These came from a resource I had suggested to you earlier this year--gcflearnfree.org.  Hope you enjoy reading this blog post:  http://blog.gcflearnfree.org/2013/05/02/10-everyday-uses-for-your-phones-camera/

Have a great day!

Til next time . . .

Vickey

North Alabama Technology Conference

Hey Folks,

The 2013 edition of the North Alabama Technology Conference will be held on July 23 & 24, 2013, at Hazel Green High School.  Registration is now open.  Here's the link:  http://goo.gl/qrBFQ

Lots of workshops and concurrent sessions to meet the needs of beginners to advanced users.  Check out the .pdf documents of workshops and concurrent sessions at the link above.

There will also be an administrator strand with a local PLU available for Madison County administrators (other school system administrators will need to contact your PD person for permission to use this training as a PLU).

Hope you will plan to attend.  Can't beat the price ($30) for such great professional development, food, networking with educators, and opportunities to win great door prizes!

Hope to see you this summer!

Til next time . . .

Vickey

eLearning Alabama course

During the last few weeks, I have been taking an online course through eLearning Alabama (http://elearning.alsde.edu/)  called Developing and Growing Personal Learning Networks for School Leaders.  We have learned various ways to stay in touch with professionals, our peers, other educators, and the school community via podcasting, blogging, Twitter, and other social media resources.  I found that I am already doing a lot of the things mentioned in this course, but just not on a consistent basis. 

Plan of Action:  After taking this class, I am going to strive to become more regular in my blogging efforts with at least one post each week, get my ideas for podcasts "off paper" and "onto the internet"--I want to do a short podcast showing how to use one of the technology tools that I post in my blog, and become more vocal with my Twitter "tweets"--I follow several people, but I never post anything myself, so I am going to start re-tweeting things that I think teachers in my school system would like to read about. 

I really did enjoy the online course and encourage you to check out future courses. The website is listed above.

Smore.com (Creating web-based flyers)

Hi,

Hope you are enjoying Digital Learning Day.  Here's my first post with an easy tool to use.  I've used this tool to create web flyers for church and personal uses.  Hope you enjoy!

 

Smore.com is an online publishing tool that allows you to create multimedia flyers you can share with others. It is quick and easy to use!  You can add text, images, videos, audio, web links and more. It is flexible enough to use in almost any curricular area, and is a great way for teachers and students to publish to the web quickly and easily!

Smore.com can be used for school events, sporting events, classroom newsletters, persuasive writing projects, reports, invitations, biographies, school events, and more. Best of all, it is free...and works on mobile devices like iPads!  You can view the flyers very easily on a mobile/Smart phone.  You can then share these via Facebook, email (ListServ), etc.  If you want to print, make sure you pay attention to the "length" of your flyer.  This tool was made to be a web flyer, not necessarily a printed flyer.

Here’s the link to Smore:  http://www.smore.com

I’m attaching a quick video on how to use Smore.  This video was not created by an educator, so use your imagination on school ideas.  Let me know in the comments area below if you try this tool and how you like it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkOlntlWrmo&safe=active

*Also, here's a 17 minute video made by a technology person at a school system.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SeOe0OBiqc&safe=active

I really like this web tool!  It's so professional looking--looks like it took a lot of work, yet it is so easy to create!

Have a great day!  Til later . . .

Vickey

 

Digital Learning Day

Tomorrow (February 6th) is National Digital Learning Day.  What is Digital Learning Day?

 

Digital Learning Day is a national campaign that celebrates teachers and shines a spotlight on successful instructional practice and effective use of technology in classrooms across the country. Last year was the first year for this event and thousands of teachers joined in the events of the day. 

Here is a link to the website.  http://www.digitallearningday.org/splash

If you are participating in the events of the day, please comment below what you will be doing (or what you did) with your students and/or faculty at your school.  Would love to see photos, too!  Please send to vsullivan@madison.k12.al.us. 

I will be posting numerous posts all day long on February 6^th, giving ideas of technology resources for you to use personally or with your students.  Please come back to this site tomorrow to check it out!

Have a great day! Til next time . . .

Vickey

Launch of new blog - Give Me Five!

 

Do you have FIVE minutes?  Great!  I want to share some technology resources with you.  It will take FIVE minutes or less. 

 

Today is the launch of my new blog, aimed at sharing new technology resources with the teachers in my school district.  However, I realize that others will be able to view this blog, so I hope you enjoy the resources, too.  Some of the items I will share will be pertinent to only Madison County Schools and I'll try to identify those with each blog post.  Not sure of the timing of this blog--probably will start weekly, but may end up with several posts one week and no posts the next.  I'm just going to play it by ear.  No promises!

 

Several years ago, I sent an email to our teachers called "Website Wednesday" where I shared several web resources and a "Teacher Thought for the Day" every Wednesday.  This blog will be similar to that email, being careful to not take more than five minutes of your time to read the blog and view the websites, videos, app reviews, etc.  Some of the items I will share will need more time than five minutes to explore, but my blog will just be an introduction to the technology resources.  I will also be posting these same comments on my Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Give-Me-Five/424597504270723.  You can "like" it!

 

So, I hope you enjoy hanging out with me for FIVE minutes from time to time!  You will be able to leave comments.  I hope they will be positive.  I reserve the right to delete comments that might get away from the purpose of this blog. <grin>.

 

Let's get started! . . .

 

 

 

Want to learn some new computer skills?  Here's a great website:  http://www.gcflearnfree.org.  This site has over 750 lessons that are very visual and detailed.  You can learn new technology skills such as Google, Apple (iPads, etc.), Microsoft products, Internet skills, computer basics, Pinterest and other social media resources, as well as math, reading, and life skills.  GCFLearnFree.org is a program of GoodWill Industry of Eastern NC and is absolutely FREE!  Bookmark this site--you will definitely want to come back to it time and again to learn how to use these products.

 

Here's a flyer to share with others about this great resource:  http://assets.gcflearnfree.org/downloads/GCF_Flyer_English.pdf

 

Thanks to a couple of great computer teachers in our school system who shared this resource with me (Jennifer Whitt and Vanessa Snow).

 

Have a great day!  Til next time . . .

 

Vickey