Bookmarking a Favorite Site to Your Home Screen

Schools out and now you have time to play with all your fun tech devices. If you're using an iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone you may have noticed that when you launch Safari it always opens by reloading the last page you used. There's a way to open to a new blank page every time or a favorite site and skip this reloading process, by using iOS's bookmarking feature.

                                   Launch Safari


               and type about:blank in the URL field and tap Go.


             A completely blank page will load. Tap on the share icon* (see note below)


        After tapping share, tap on Add to Home Page.


A dialog box appears, type in the name of your bookmark for example - New Page,

                                      then tap Add


            and the icon will appear on your home screen.


You can use the bookmarking feature to add a bookmark to your favorite web site onto your home screen.

After opening your favorite site tap on the share icon and go through the steps to add it to your home screen. Back to Top


*Note: Your device may have a different share icon, instead of a box with an arrow it may just be a + sign. They both do the same thing, offer you ways to share the web site. back to next step
Information from Dan Frakes,iOS Central, Macworld:July 2011
Photos from Techiedeb

OCCUE Tech Festival

*Saturday, January 22, 2011
Time: 8:15am-3:30pm
Location: Mater Dei High School
1202 West Edinger Avenue
Santa Ana, CA 92707

Keynote Speaker: Lynell Burmark

Register to Attend

Already have projectors in your classrooms?
Are you using them to develop higher order thinking skills (HOTS) and create transmedia activities where students interact with information rather than passively gazing at it?
Come get mind-bending ideas for learning that’s applied, not just regurgitated. Discover the coolest free tool ever! Find out how to get Interactive White Boards at half-price and enter a drawing for for a free copy of Lynell’s new book: They Snooze, You Lose! Go to amazon.com now to pre-order They Snooze, You Lose! and Lynell will sign it at Tech Fest.

About Lynell
Lynell Burmark began her teaching career at Stanford University where she received the Walter Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching. Subsequent classroom experience spanned K-graduate school. Since 1995, Lynell has consulted to high-tech companies and school districts, and keynoted conferences and educational events throughout the U.S. and Canada. Her classic book, Visual Literacy, won the book of the year award for publisher ASCD. Her latest book – They Snooze, You Lose: An Educator’s Guide to Successful Presentations – takes visual literacy to the next level with new research and more practical applications. Visit www.educatebetter.org for more information and free resources including downloadable articles and banks of images suitable for educational use. Lynell is passionate about the use of images in presentations and feels the highest praise is when someone says: “You practice what you preach!”

More about Lynell from previous post. Scroll down to see post on Lynell Burmark

*pictures and info taken from CUE email

Speak Up! Survey

The Speak Up Survey is 100% confidential. That means your name is not attached to your information. However, the number of participants from a school is listed: the numbers of teachers who did the survey, the number of students, the number of parents and administrators. Why is this important? We are at Davis, that's why. : ) Please complete the survey for yourself and get your students to take it during lab time or at home. Send the link home to parents. K-2 teachers can do the group survey with their students. If anyone needs help just ask. We want our school to have 100% participation. They've extended the deadline to Jan. 17th.
Go Ducks!

Discovery Education: Contest

From now until December 17 STAR Discovery Educators and their students have the opportunity to earn holiday gifts for students in need by submitting entries to the The Hub Create a Story Contest.

I started to get all excited about this because the winning class gets prizes. The teacher gets a flip camera, storytelling software and a green screen. The students get to have fun creating stories and could win HUB Paks. But I realized maybe not everybody at Davis is a DEN STAR Educator. We are a school with a focus on being outstanding in the areas of Math, Science and Technology. So why aren't we all DEN STARS?

Right, we all can't be experts in everything. But we all can be DEN STAR Educators, it's not something that's hard to do. If you are a DEN STAR, and think you can squeeze this in next week, here's the link to the contest.) How many DEN STARS do we have at Davis?


Please become a DEN STAR. I hear ya. Not this minute ok. But within this school year. You can become a DEN STAR just by sharing ideas with others about using Discovery Education. (OK there's some paper work involved, too. But it's not hard.)

Getting SMART Notebook Software without the CD

The question was raised at the last in-service: "How do I get Notebook on my computer at home so I can work on my lessons there?"
The first step to getting the software download is to get a product key and for this you'll need the serial number of your board which is located under the pen tray and on the back.

Click on the picture to see the location of the serial numbers. Once you have the serial number you'll fill out a request for a product key and SMART will email you the product key number.
Once you have the product key you can download Mac versions or a Windows version of SMART Notebook. During the installation process you'll be asked to enter the product key. If you don't have one you'll only be able to use the software for 30 days. When you reinstall it the second time you'll need to uninstall the first installation. So get the product key the first time around to avoid more work for yourself. If you need any assistance, ask one of the Tech Team for some help. That's what we're here for :)

SMARTBoard Basics

From orientating your board to using the Lesson Activity Kit to creating your own lessons, this in-service should answer some if not all of your questions.
If you have questions after the in-service comment here and we'll get an answer back to you.

After Hours: If you couldn't attend the Basic in-service today you can open the link to the SMART notebook presentation file and see what we did. You can also use it to practice. We couldn't open it in the primary lab. My version was newer than the lab software but it should work in your room as it was created on version 10. It has videos and links to resources. Check it out.
SMART Basics Presentation

A Day of Discovery

It was great to see so many Newport-Mesa teachers show up at the Discovery Event. Dr. Rafferty and Mr. Eddy were sprucing up the campus early in the morning and Mrs. Brusic helped clean up the monitor screens in the lab. Even though there was some difficulties with the wireless system for non district employees, it turned out to be a great event with about 200 attendees. Everybody was inspired by Hall Davidson's keynote and ready to become a STAR teacher. Ms. Lopez braved a space trip and baby Finn modeled for the digital photography class. It was quite a day.
Become a DEN STAR teacher and then sign up for the DEN Summer Institute. It's not to late, the deadline is April 26th.

A Free Day of Discover coming to Davis April 17th

Join KOCE, Discovery Education, and Newport-Mesa Unified School District as they present a free Day of Discovery at Davis Magnet School in Costa Mesa on Saturday, April 17, 2010. This Day of Discovery will provide Orange County-area educators and welcomed guests with an exciting and enriching day of professional development focused on creative ways to engage your students using digital media from the Discovery Education streaming library.

Open to all, but sign up today - space is limited!

https://discoveryed.wufoo.com/forms/koce-day-of-discovery/

Here are the details:

When: Saturday, April 17, 2010

Where: Davis Magnet School
1050 Arlington Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 (map)

Time: 9:00 AM – 3:30 PM (registration begins at 8:30 AM)

Cost: Free!

Contact Jamie Annunzio at jannunzio@koce.org or Lindsay Hopkins at Lindsay_Hopkins@Discovery.com for more details.

Help us get the word out and invite other educators! Download a printable flyer at koce_day-of-discovery-flyer.pdf

Blog Name Change

I started this blog in 2005 while working at Adams Elementary. The posts were to be a resource for the staff. This year I've moved to a new site, Davis Magnet School. We are starting out with some major differences from other schools: every teacher has a smartboard, laptop and projector in their room. Each teacher has at least 4 PCs and a printer and a document camera. I feel like I'm in tech heaven. I think the deciding factor is the tech support. I know the staff is all gearing up to make this an awesome school. Since my blog goes with me I changed the name and picture to my new site but I left some of my old posts for resources as the URL remains the same. My new site is K-6 instead of K-5 but I'm hoping no one takes offense.

Grandson, Clark, watches Signing Time while we pack up the classroom I was in for 10 years.

OCCUE Tech Festival - Blog Your Way through the Primary Grades

The most common use of a blog is "posting" a thought or some commentary which can or cannot, depending on how you set it up, be seen by the world on the Internet. You can allow the whole world to make comments regarding your great thoughts or restrict access to a select group. Blogs are used for two way communication.
I saw blogs as a free web site. A site I could create to direct my students where I want them to go on the web and I didn't have to pay a yearly fee for a domain name or a web hosting service. Plus blogs are pretty easy to set up. You don't have to know html.


A blog can be used to store links you want your students to use at various times. "First Grade Computer Links" has Internet links for first graders that correlate with the reading and math themes they're working on in the classroom. The links are changed as the themes are changed but the main page stays the same. If they click on the reading link while they are doing Reading Theme 5 in the classroom, that link will take them to links, linked to sites where they can practice theme 5 skills.


Character Counts allows students to read about a good character trait and make comments if they see someone displaying those traits. Primary students usually need a sentence frame filled out to take to the lab with them. Like- ____________ was being responsible when he/she _______________. OK, this is the old commentary and comment type blog, but it's true students of all ages like to see their comments on the web.



How's The Weather is a collaborative blog recording and comparing data and information about other classroom communities registered with the Internet Project Groundhog. Students can just view and read the information. Or you can post questions for them to answer through the comment area.



First Graders can Write! is a blog to post the daily writing prompt and have students use the comment area to share their writing.



Starting Your own Blog
Two great choices blogspot.com or edublogs.org

Some things to help with your blogs:
JOTT is a service where you can, once your account is set up, call the service and say your post over the phone. It asks you who you want to jott, beeps for you to record your message, then posts the message. Once posted, students can see it and listen to it. The students can make posts verbally, without having to set up email accounts and making them members of the blog. It's great for making them speak clearly. (I wouldn't let them have this access without supervision.)


Filtering: Many school's IT departments filter the web to protect students from accidentally or on purpose going to sites not meant for children. You might create a blog and find you can't run it in your classroom because it's blocked or the links you're trying to use are blocked. Usually a friendly call to the IT department, asking them to unblock a site you want your students to use, works but you may have to wait or fill out a request and wait. The web site tinyurl makes long urls short and can help with the filtering problem.

PHOTOS
Just as a general rule: keep your photos small. That way they load quickly. Large ones take forever and may not load at all. (After waiting forever!) Experiment with the size so you can be happy with what you can load and how fast it loads. Cutting down a regular sized picture, 3872 X 2592 in your iPhoto by 4 is a good start. You may have to go smaller. I usually use pictures sized 484 X 324. I make by link button pictures 100 X 100. The clipart to the left is 750 X 995 and it loaded quickly. Depending on how many people are uploading when you're uploading also effects the speed of how fast your pictures load. If you're loading small pictures and it's taking forever, come back later and try again. Also, sometimes just refreshing the screen will speed up the process or logging off and then back on. (I've tried everything.)

When using your blog to teach you may want to take screen shots of your computer window. When using a mac, a sized screen shot is taken by pressing the keys - control, shift and 4 at the same time, then dragging the cross, that appears on your screen, across the area you want to take a picture of. When you let the mouse up the picture is taken and saved to your desktop, labeled picture1, then picture2, etc. On a PC use the ALT and PNTSCN (print screen) keys to take a picture of the window you're using. It saves it to the clipboard and you need to paste it where you want it. To take a picture of the whole monitor screen click the print screen key. On the mac for a whole screen shot click the control, shift and 3 keys together.
















POST OPTIONS: Time stamping with the time you want the post to say it was posted.

A LITTLE HTML
Both blogspot and edublog have a great help index, but knowing a little html can make things a lot easier for you. The html for creating a link is



The number 1 area is where the url address goes. The number 2 area is what you want to call the link. Most blogs have a link button to use when editing, but it's nice to know the code if you need it.

MAKING A PICTURE A LINK
This is the html code that shows up in your editing text box when you insert a picture. It's automatically inserted. To make the picture you inserted a link, you need to replace all the code in front of the

with the url you want your link to go to.
It will look something like this.

CREATING RETURNS IN YOUR TEXT
To create a return in the text that shows on your blog, use
instead of using the return on your keyboard. This makes your editing text not so spread out and it helps with getting text under pictures.


One last bit of advice: The preview of your blog does not always look like the published version. It sometimes helps to publish your blog, take a look at it, then make final changes back in the editing mode.
Have fun blogging!

CUE 2008 Internet Resoursarama

Attendees at this presentation get a chance to win a 1 year free subscription to BrainPop. You have to fill out an evaluation and be there during the drawing :)

Great Educational Sites (K-3):

Starfall is primarily designed for first grade, but can be used for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and second grade. It has a major focus on letter/sound recognition, and first grade phonics skills. The format is fun for your students and they can print out a worksheet for more practice with the skill they worked on.


Little Fingers is a on-line software company, meaning none of their software is on CD, you have to purchase and download it. They have all kinds of language arts and math games for elementary students. They also have free online games for preschool through 4th grade.





The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) is an NSF supported project that began in 1999 to develop a library of uniquely interactive, web-based virtual manipulatives or concept tutorials, mostly in the form of Java applets, (like you care about that) for mathematics instruction (Pre-K-12th grade). It's a free online source and has a free download trial desktop version. You can also click on links to have a Spanish version or French version.


Story Place is a site with games and read alouds organized by themes. Click on other themes to see the long list of titles. This site is easily navigated by your students.




Count Us In has 15 Math games for little ones covering counting to measuring and everything in between. Each game is designed to help children understand basic concepts in mathematics. All of these games require the Flash 5 Player or higher to work online.


Gamequarium is a site with lots of links to games for all subjects and the links are lots of fun for your studens (and they're learning, too)! It's organized by K-2 to 3-5. It links to lots of other sites, mostly all good.


Storyline on-line is a free online video streaming program featuring members of the Screen Actors Guild reading stories aloud. They talk about the stories and how children can get the book. It also has printable activities that go along with the stories.


Fun Brain is a site first graders love. It's engaging and they like to navigate on their own.




PBS Kids- Between the Lions has great short videos on phonics rules and letter sounds. The PBS site has lots of pages with their TV characters themes. There's lots of printable activities as well.




Computer Centers This is a teacher created managed site, that has links for students to work on the current skill in the first grade N-MUSD pacing plan. It's updated for each Houghton Mifflin reading theme and is easily navigated by students while directing them to a limited area of links. It links to a kinder centers page and a second grade page.


HMTech Wikispaces is a site designed for those teachers that think teaching Houghton Mifflin is too all consuming to have time to integrate technology or teachers that feel their classrooms have been conquered by the worksheet. We hope to change your mind and give you hope. This site has been made by teachers that use technology daily to motivate and engage students in authentic learning, differentiate instruction, integrate many standards into one lesson and like to have FUN!:) It IS a work in progress. Please, please add ideas!


Brainormous created by Aaron Turner, a flash script writer, is a web site with games for learning number facts. It focuses on third grade multiplication skills, using a solar system theme. Students go on missions to objects in the solar system and to get their fuel for each trip they need to do math facts. The faster and more correct they are they get more fuel. It also has addition and subtraction games that can be used at lower grades and of course for higher grade students who haven't mastered their addition, subtraction or multiplication facts. You can play free on line or download the software at a very low price. If you can it's always good to pay the creator for his/her time and effort to create these cool things for our students to use.

BrainPop is a library of short videos on everything from the Underground Railroad to the atomic model to Shakespeare. It has Interactive quizzes for assessment and enrichment materials like experiments and creative activities ideas to supplement the movies. Topics are aligned with state and national education standards and searchable by state standards. They're also by subject area; Science, Math, English, Social Studies, Health, Technology and Arts and Music. Right now the library consists of more than 600 movies for grades 3-12 and they are constantly expanding. All the videos are closed-captioned. Many are also available in Spanish at es.brainpop.com. The videos are hosted by an orange robot named Moby and his bubby Tim.

You can get a 30 day free trial with the access code PALM2008, but you have to activate it by March 21st.

OC CUE Tech Festival: Web Resources for Primary Grades

Finding resources on the web that are specific to your grade level and to the skills and strategies you are teaching on any given day is not easy. You may be looking for material to help you teach or a site that gives your students independent practice in the skill of the day. Sites that offer interactive activities to reinforce the skills your students are learning and that require only a small amount of your time for instruction are the ideal.
Our vision was and still is to create a collaborative site with links to interactive sites - students can use independently, project sites that incorporate 21st Century skills and links to downloadable lesson presentations for teachers; all pretested by teachers, and that support our curriculum standards.
Before you get into checking out web sites, you should have a social book marking account. Furl is one source for social book marking. Once you set up an account you can book mark sites no matter whose computer you're on. All the bookmarks are kept on an on-line site you send them to. If you don't already have a social bookmarking account you can set up one with Furl.net, then you're ready to check out some resource sites. If you're not on your own computer use the link http://www.furl.net/doc/get_started to get back into your account and set up the furl button link on your own computer later. Use the get started link and log in (top right) using your user name and password (that you hopefully wrote down).
Our first site hmtech.wikispaces.com is a wiki that has links for each week in our K-3 HM Reading Themes. Right now this is just a K-3 site but, the great thing about wikispaces is that any one can post to the site and we're hoping some teachers of other grades who have created presentations or used links will post links to their work for other teachers to use on the site.

At the time we created this site there was little online support from HM. But other groups were also gathering materials and links. Two good examples of these collaborations are Santa Maria-Bonita School District
and YAHOO WEB GROUPS
These are groups you can join and download files or contribute files that support using HM. Some groups can be joined immediately and others have a moderator who reviews your application before they email you that you've been accepted. To join a group you must first open a free account at my.yahoo.com or click on one of the group links below and click on sign up on the top left. After you have your verification email you can go to groups.yahoo. and find your group under "Find a Group" or click on one of the group links below and then click on sign in.

hm_kinder

5TH GRADE GROUP

HM SHARING ALL GRADES

HM SHARING 1ST GRADE

HM SHARING 2ND GRADE


HM CHAT
This is a chat group, started in Missouri, who posts times for future chats. This group is intended for use by teachers, specialists, and administrators using Houghton Mifflin Reading programs. It is a forum for educators to share ideas, discuss strategies, and ask questions of each other about using these programs to their fullest potential.

Once we got our site going we thought what we really needed was a site with links and presentations not just for reading but for all our curriculum and techtips.wikispaces.com came into being.


Computer Centers are links for students to use during UA or other practice time.

There's more! Check out the posts
Tons of Resources from Gail Lovely (NECC 2006)
Visual Literacy Resources from Lynell Burmark( NECC 2006)
Primary Source Materials from Kathy Schrock (NECC 2006)

At the NECC 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, the Teacher Tube(a great teacher resource) execs were recruiting and offered me suggestions on how to get my site funded. They are looking for teacher created videos to share with other teachers. Just a sample:

Google Sky

Keeping up with technology is definitely a collaborative effort. So I'm out there looking at what others are doing. Today Mark Wagner's blog mentioned that all his teacher "participants came in excited about the release of Google Sky". It looks like a great tool to integrate technology into 3rd grade science. To read more about it check out the Google Sky News Story.
What was really exciting "blog communication" was that K. Lysenko, the director of Sky-Map, who read Mark's blog, commented "what Google just announced already exits in web-based version for about a year". You can check out that site at Sky-Map.org

Educators in Space

Yes, it's summer and who will read this? One never knows. Just it case you are reading this, did you see the shuttle launch Weds. evening? I of course missed it, even though I wrote it on my calendar. Thanks to my son in law, Mark, who did watch it on NASA TV, I was reminded that it's not to late to get involved, thus the post. This is a historic mission because teacher Barbara Morgan, who was the alternate for Christa McAuliffe, is among the crew. Finally, after twenty-one years, there is a teacher in space. Of course, NASA has provided a page of online educator resources related to the mission.

If you want to get involved you can sign up for a hour session with NASA educators at set times. It costs $25. Come on guys this is an opportunity you don't get everyday. You can even purchase seeds from the plants on the space station. The sessions end August 17 and you have to sign up 3 days before a session. Please check it out!
click for times