Teaching with Technology

You’ve seen them, right?  On the corners of mailings, on the windows of businesses, maybe even on the tags of things you buy.  You may have even used them…used your phone to scan one and get coupons or reviews for a business or more info on a product.  But did you know they are being used like crazy in classrooms?

Here’s one of my favorite videos about the use of QR codes in the classroom.

And here’s one based more for elementary school:

So basically to use QR codes, you need the following things:

• QR Code Generator (usually a website that will easily make the code for you)
• A device with a camera to read it(iPod touch, iPad, cell phone, or computer with webcam)
• QR Code Reader (which you download to the device with a camera

Want to create a QR code?  It’s easy…your students can even do this!

Here’s a few QR Code generators:

• QRStuff (create a colored QR code)
• Unitag
• Kaywa.com QR code generator

Here a few QR Code Readers:

• For iPods/iPads  phones and phones: i-nigma QR Code Reader
• For Mobile Phones: Kaywa.com QR code reader
• For Mobile Phones: NeoReader
• For Mobile Phones: AT&T QR Code Scanner 

And here are some cool links to use them:

• TagMyDoc
• QR Code Quiz Generator
• QR Voice (turn 100 words of text into speech)

Meg found this website at a conference this weekend.  She’s making us laugh with it.  I’m teaching a blogging class right now with a bunch of teachers! 

http://instantchan.com/

Need to know how to create a sock worm? Or banana split milkshakes? What about a pillow, potato woman, hamburger, or a friendship bracelet. Students in Mrs. Devlin’s class created videos to show you how!

In this project, they wrote step by step directions on storyboards, took pictures with digital camearas, and used photostory to record and create digital stories with step by step directions

.  

Take a look a few examples below, and check out all their stories on Mrs. Devlin’s Class wiki!

Second Graders at Glenvar Elementary researched animals using a google custom search and created powerpoints about them! Check out their work below!

Fourth Graders in Mrs. Corbett’s class created interactive posters about famous authors!  They used a service called Glogster Edu to create these posters!  Here are a few examples of their work.  You can see them all on the class wiki .

It’s amazing how engaged the kids were while working in Glogster!  Here is a video shot from the work session.

If you teach in the Roanoke Valley, you have access to Newspapers in Education. If you’ve used this service in the past, chances are you received paper copies of the Roanoke Times delivered to your classroom each day, for FREE. Now the service has improved even more…the Roanoke Times can now be viewed in a digital form, online, for FREE. It’s available for use in the computer lab, on your laptop, on your activboard, and even at home. And students can access too! It looks exactly like the paper version, but since it’s digital, it’s even better.

Electronic Edition of NIE

With the digital version you can

• search for specific things using a search box
• email or print articles with both text and pictures
• get inserts from any area in the county
• see past issues of the paper (up to a month)
• highlight certain sections, scan headlines, flip through pages
• And yes, you can get the coupons!! 

Article Options

Back Issues

I can see this tool being used by students of all ages.  Students can use pictures as writing prompts, find and highlight certain words, view articles about their community, or use the coupons for math lessons.  The weather section is great for all sorts of science and math activites, and  older students can print or email specific artilces to their teachers along with their reactions or summaries. 

In Roanoke County, we’ve set up accounts for our elementary schools to use.  Just visit  Newspapers in Education (nie.roanoke.com).  Please see your ITRT for the student login/password (hint: it’s the same student login/password as the computers in our school).  If you work for another division in the Roanoke Valley, or want your own teacher account, just enroll!  You can also contact Trent Currin at 540-981-3286 or email her at  Trent.Currin@roanoke.com.

This is what’s been jazzing me lately in the world of technology. I love watching technology open doors…

Babies with iPads is another site that documents how this technology can “help children with disabilities develop their communication, play, pre-literacy, cognitive, visual/auditory and motor skills.”

Some of our special education teachers will be receiving iPads or iPod Touches over the next few weeks set up by Devlopease, a company from Radford, VA who specializes in writing apps for special needs children, setting up devices, and training people on using them.  If you are one of the teachers receiving a device, here are some handouts that might help you navigate some of the ins and outs of using your device with Roanoke County Schools’ network and computers.

Mrs. Devlin’s class has been at it again…this time explaining subtraction with regrouping using Voicethread!   Check out their awesome projects (and leave them a comment or two)!

A few weeks ago, students at Oak Grove and Clearbrook went Oreo crazy!  They brought in packages of the yummy cookies and tried to stack the tallest towers.  But it wasn’t just for fun…it was part of a global project with students all over the world participating!  You can learn more about the Oreo Project on Jen Wagner’s website.  This was the 12th year of the project, and this time 15,501 students participated from 719 different classes. 

After stacking oreos, different grade levels participated in different activities with the oreos, from science to math to writing.  Many classes created Excel Spreadsheets showing the average cookie stack, or the mode, median, mean, and range of the stacks.  They even used excel formulas for their calculations!  

 A few examples of their spreadsheets are shown below!

Mrs. Beir’s Class (Clearbrook — 3rd Grade)

Mrs. Hushour’s Class (Clearbrook — 3rd Grade)

Mrs. Bralley’s Class (Oak Grove — 3rd Grade)

Mrs. Sharp’s Block 1 Class (Oak Grove — 5th Grade)

Mrs. Sharp’s Block 2 Class (Oak Grove — 5th Grade)

Mrs. Mortez’s Block 1 Class (Oak Grove –5th Grade)

Mrs. Mortez’s Block 2 Class (Oak Grove — 5th Grade)

Mrs. Grave’s Class (Clearbrook — 5th Grade)

Mrs. Hudson’s Class (Clearbrook — 5th Grade)