Merry Christmas from The Bednareks! After break, I will be holding after school sessions on Macbook usage, Haiku, and google drive/apps (more?). I am working out the scheduling yet to try and avoid as many conflicts as possible. I will also be using the recent survey results to initiate contact with those who expressed a need/desire for more tech PD.
Hope your break is wonderful and enjoy your time off to re-charge. Merry Christmas!!
This week's blog is not necessarily something you will use in your classroom. This was originally written to share with parents through school newsletters, but it applies to anyone so I thought I would share:
If you are like my family, you fill up your camera, tablet, or phone with pictures and videos during the holidays. You want to cherish these memories for years to come, but you also don’t want to have these photos and videos taking up valuable space on your devices.
Here is where ‘cloud storage’ comes in. Cloud storage means that you can upload your photos or videos to a web-based site that will store your photos for easy access from any device. This is a safe option, because if you were to lose or break the device that has all your photos, you would in-turn lose all your photos too. Had you uploaded your photos to cloud storage, your media would be safe. There are many options to choose from when it comes to cloud storage. I have shared a few of the more popular ones with you below.
Name
Site
Max. Free Space
(Roughly 150-250 Photos per GB)
Other
Dropbox
www.dropbox.com
2GB
Can add free storage by taking surveys, connecting to Facebook, etc..
Flickr
www.flickr.com
1,000 GB
Does not upload videos automatically.
Google Drive
www.google.com/drive/
15 GB
Easy uploads to popular photo editing sites
iCloud
www.icloud.com
5 GB
Integrates with all apple products
Amazon Cloud
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/home
Unlimited**
** Must be an Amazon Prime member ($99/yr)
There are many other factors to consider like ease of upload, photo editing, album creation, etc. I hope you find the perfect place to store and preserve your families memories.
If you don't know what a meme is, you probably do, but just don't know the word for it. It is a picture with a caption, that usually uses sarcasm or humor to state a point. Memes are great attention grabbers, and students love them because they are familiar and simple. Also, memes are easy and fun to create. I have created a short list of uses of memes in the classroom. Classroom Rules and Expectations Need to do a refresher on your classroom rules or expectations? How about a short powerpoint full of memes. The message gets across, the humor keeps the students engaged, and with the right facilitating, a quality discussion could result. You could print memes as posters and post around your room. Here are a few examples:
Reinforce Class Content
There are many memes out there that related to your curriculum if you search for them. You can create a meme for anything as well. A relevant meme can excite and engage students. Here are a few examples of memes that reinforce content.
Math:
Science:
Social Studies:
ELA:
Formative Assessment
You could have students create a meme relating to course content as a way to assess learning. After teaching a lesson on digital literacy, a student in my class created this meme:
How to Make Your Own Meme
There are apps available on the chrome store like memecreator or Meme Maker, but really I found the easiest way to create a meme is using Google Draw. All you have to do is insert the image you want, and then write your caption using WordArt or a text box. It really is easy. Sometimes, I give my students the caption, and have them find a picture. Sometimes, I give them a picture and a topic and ask them to write a caption. My kids love creating them, and actually were creating them for fun during free time as well.
Thanks for reading and have a nice weekend!
HEY, Tech This Out....
Name: GoNoodle
Type: Site
Subject: Health/Wellness
Grade: K-5, Special Ed??
What it does: Has a variety of 'get moving' videos that you put up on your projector that you can use to get your kids active between activities. The more you use it, the more you unlock, so kids get excited about upgrading characters and activities.
My Take: If you are familiar with "Just Dance" or similar games, this is kind of the concept. Your class mirrors the screen. Kids getting a little antsy after their reading stations? 2 minutes of GoNoodle can help them re-focus for math time. Again, the more you use it, the more you "accomplish" and unlock. Kids like that they are working towards a goal. This is definitely for the younger grades, but I could see this being usable in some special ed classrooms as well.
Link: https://www.gonoodle.com/
Here is a Mrs. Bednarek's Kindergarten class using Go Noodle. What a fantastic teacher!!! (Brownie points +2)
Here is a sample Go Noodle video like you would get from the site:
