Tech Chick Tips

Tips and tricks for teaching 21st century students using 21st century skills from two Texas educators obsessed with anything digital! RSS Subscribe to RSS

0067 TCT – The Apptabulous Episode

 
icon for podpress  0067 TCT - The Apptabulous Episode [39:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The show notes are coming soon-ish. We promise! In the meantime, you can just listen! Show notes are up! See below :D

Haiti donations (1:10)

  • 2010 Earthquake in Haiti: The www.state.gov website serves as the State Department’s portal of information on U.S. foreign policy and information about the State Department. This site refers to information about the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Canadian ADE (3:58)

  • ADE: Apple is currently accepting applications for the Class of 2010 ADEs in Canada. For more information and details on the application process review the guidelines for Canada on page 2 of the Contents section above. Deadline for application is February 13, 2010.

iBoard (4:22)

  • iboard player: Approx 400 resources for students and teachers to use with IWB. Subscription is needed, but there are 15 sample activities available.

Kid Blog (7:12)

  • Kidblog.org – Blogs for Teachers and Students: “Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with their own, unique blog. Kidblog’s simple, yet powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. Teachers maintain complete control over student blogs.”

Big Universe (9:30)

  • Best Children’s Picture Books Online – BigUniverse.com: Award-winning education website for grades K-8. This engaging web community uses beautiful picture books to instill the love of reading, writing and learning, while providing an anywhere-anytime, standards-based, education resource that connects teachers, students and parents.

Audio Owl (15:22)

Cellphone contract (18:01)

Toy to Tool Blog (20:42)

iPod Touch in Education (24:10)

Best Kids Apps (26:01)

Appolicious (28:00)

AppsFire (29:19)

  • Appsfire: easily share your favorite selection of iPhone apps with anyone. Appsfire was born in early 2009 out of an encounter, a user frustration and a challenge: ‘crack’ the iPhone sandbox to collect the list of user apps, thereby allowing the creation of a service to facilitate peer-to-peer app recommendations… a few months afterwards, Appsfire.com was born, starting with a Mac OS X client app and a web front, followed by a native iPhone app and a PC port of the sync app.
  • AppsFire: Helen’s Ed Apps: Widget created by Appsfire that has my picks for Education Apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch

Best App Ever voting (31:29)

  • 2009 Best App Ever Awards: Lots of categories, including several for kids of all ages. You can also vote for your fave until Jan 31, 2010!

App Store Expense Monitor (33:02)

Our app picks:

Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (36:12)

TeachersPick (37:37)

  • TeachersPick: “Teacher’s Pick gives you the ability to randomly and uniquely choose students without having to rely on memory, cups of craft sticks or flash cards. Just add your class names and the students in each class. Teacher’s Pick keeps track of which students are active and inactive (already chosen) and gives you options to pick a student from the active group or pick from the full group (active or inactive).”

Posted from Diigo.


Posted on : Jan 21 2010
Posted under links, podcast |

Episode 53 – the truce episode ;-)

Peanut Butter Cup Heart
Creative Commons License photo credit: Bob.Fornal

Resources

  • Philosophy for Children — Philosophical questions for students based on children’s books. Each book has a link to the philosophical issues covered in the book and another link with discussion questions. Great way to do HOT with younger students!
  • HippoCampus — (from the site) HippoCampus is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE). The goal of HippoCampus is to provide high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students free of charge.
  • Historical imagery from around the globe
  • Ocean floor and surface data from marine experts
  • Simplified touring with audio and voice recording
  • Mars included; still missing Moon
  • Cool Math — Lots of math resources–LOTS!
  • BibMe — (from site) Free fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It’s the easiest way to build a works cited page.
  • OttoBib — Bibliography by ISBN; several formats; auto alphabetize!
  • Lexipedia — Word power visually (definition, antonyms, synonyms, etc)
  • Be the Boss! — Blog post from Principal’s Page. Even if you’re not the principal, find some good leadership ideas here.
  • iEar – I Education Apps Review

iFaves

 
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Episode 52 – Back from Canada, eh!

In this episode of Tech Chick Tips…

Pinto MacBean in Bow Island, Alberta Creative Commons License photo credit: Fracture

We’re back from Canada and the Teacher2Teacher conference. Love our new friends! We blabber on a bit so if you’re not interested in our trip to Canada, fast forward to about 11:42 :)

Resources

  • PageKeeper – quickly and easily create a webpage of links to share with your students and parents. Free with no advertising! Best example of its use: DJBecker’s Page
  • DrivingKids – Here’s a first – we talk about something we pointedly do not recommend. Listen to the podcast to find out why! Well, okay – it’s because the navigation is clunky, the games aren’t easily discernible to ability level and the chat has very little protection for kids
  • SmartPhone Filters – discussion of filtering on smartphones for students/kids and a link to one such application for the iPhone
  • WebSlides on Diigo – turn a collection of bookmarks (or an RSS feed!) into a slideshow. Look for an example at the end of this, and all forthcoming podcast episode notes
  • TweetCall – call in your Twitter updates for free!

iFaves

  • GeoLogTag ($4.99 @iTunes) – use your iPhone as a geotagger to snyc up your photos with your location

 
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The golden episode…yup #50!

water abstract
Creative Commons License photo credit: (nz)dave

Episode 50-Links that make us think…

Resources

  • Jeopardy Labs -  Allows you to create a customized jeopardy template without PowerPoint. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world.
  • TikaTok – Imagine a story, create a book.
  • Kinetic City – Amazing collection of games, science experiments, and projects. Beat the bugs and set things right.
  • JayCut – Online video editing.
  • Edmodo – Edmodo is a private microblogging platform that teachers and students can use to send notes, links, files, alerts, assignments, and events to each other.
  • All About Explorers – All About Explorers was developed by a group of teachers as a means of teaching students about the Internet. Because we wanted to make a point about finding useless information even in a site which looked at first to be fairly well put together, all of the Explorer biographies here are fictional. While many of the facts are true or based on truth, many inaccuracies, lies, and even downright absurdity are mixed in indiscriminately. As such, it is important that you do not use this site as a source of reference for your own research! Follow @explorers on Twitter.

Faves

  • ABC Animals ($2.99) – ABC Animals provides a wonderful set of interactive flashcards that aid in teaching young children to recognize, say and print English alphabet letters (website).
 
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Posted on : Mar 05 2009
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted under links, podcast |

Episode 46—We’re Ba-a-ack!

Diversity ClucksThanks for the encouragement–we missed you guys!

And we promise to podcast more regularly now that we’re back!

Please welcome new Twitter friends: @Dominguez73 and @jillbalzer and encourage them to post away!

Creative Commons License photo credit: chrisjfry

Resources
Educational Technology Clearinghouse
Digital resources for Florida schools, but available to everyone! Awesome resource!

Oovoo
Skype-like communication application. Available for Windows and in Mac beta. Text, audio, and video chat with up to three people. Send video messages. Record videoconferences as flash files. Send files up to 25 MB. Upgrades available.

Twiddla
A web based interactive whiteboard. Share documents, mark up images. Public whiteboards do not require accounts for collaboration.

BetaVote
Global online vote for US President. Could lead to interesting discusssion about the various countries and how they vote. Also good for math applications (statistics, story problems, etc).

Neave
The interactive playground of Paul Neave. Features flash-based constellations, earth view, arcade games, and digital art.

Pumpkin Seed Estimation
A fun fall activity open to Prek through 3rd grade student worldwide emphasizing math skills and allowing students to share their work globally.

ClassroomBraids
Students interact via a wiki and learn about cultures while learning about sailing and traveling around the world.

Redfining Rigor — ASCD Article that challenges what we think about appropriate content.

Learning Opportunities

NECC 2009
Washington, D.C. – 35th Anniversary – Registration is now open; also open discussion on the NECC Ning discussion forum regarding Fair Use and Digital Citizenship.

K-12 Online Conference
The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2008 conference theme is “Amplifying Possibilities”. Going on now through Oct 31, but archived as well!

TECH Forum
High-powered, one-day event provides K-12 decision makers with thought-provoking content on the hottest topics of the day in education technology.

 
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