I gave this note, with the candy to match, to the students in my advisory who graduated this week. It was hard trying to write it with nut-free candy but they loved it.
Dear ___________,
My sweet send off to you:
May you be Jolly Ranchers and Smarties
When you feel like a Dum Dum,
Or you have hit a Sour Patch,
Remember, sometimes the smallest act of kindness can be a LifeSaver
You are all Starbursts I have enjoyed our time together.
Kisses,
Mrs. Morra
Sometimes it really is the little things that make a big difference.
I love using Google drawings with my students and today we noticed that they added gradients to the fill tools in both Drawing and Slides.
There are two types of gradients: linear and radial.
In Drawing the fill menu looks like this:
In Slides, they added a section of colors that matches the slide color theme.
The Slides fill menu looks like this:
I would love to see more choices. More colors, blending multiple colors, changing the direction of the linear gradient or changing where the gradient starts and stops would be great tools to add. Hopefully. this is just the beginning. Meanwhile, my students and I will have fun playing with them.
If you have access to iPads in your classroom, a great activity with your students is to make pictures talk, create animations that anthropomorphize objects, or use personification to demonstrate understanding. It’s a great activity anytime of the year.
Two fantastic sets of free apps for creating talking pictures on iPads are ChatterPix /ChatterPix Kids and YakIt / YakIt Kids. With both sets, the “non-kid” versions provide additional sharing features such as uploading to e-mail and social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, while the “kid” versions only save to the Camera Roll.
ChatterPix Kids and ChatterPix from Duck Duck Moose are simple, elegant, and useful apps. Duck Duck Moose is now a part of Khan Academy. Both apps allow students to take a picture or use an image saved to Photos. With a swipe of their finger, students can draw a mouth on any image. There is one button to press to record, and the mouth then animates with the recording.
Features:
YakIt Kids and YakIt from Freak’nGenius are similar to ChatterPix Kids but have a few more features which make them slightly more complicated to use but add more to the final product.
These apps have the same features as ChatterPix Kids and ChatterPix plus:
Since all of these apps save to the camera roll, they are great for building and blending with other apps to create something that exceeds the possibilities of just one app.
Face On Coins Booth + ChatterPix Kids
Garageband + YakIt + iMovie
Creating talking pictures or animations offer amazing possibilities in the classroom. These two apps are so easy to use, students can complete a simple project in a short amount of time or make more complex projects that can lead to collaborative videos, ebooks, or websites. Not only are these apps fun for students, but they also allow them to think, create and demonstrate understanding.
I have been having some wonderful adventures with 3D printing in my classroom. One of our favorite activities is to draw something and 3D print it. You can use this for any image. It is quite simple even though you need to convert the file a few times. Here are are the instructions for creating a 3D print from any image.
Download the PDF here: 3D Print From Any Image
Enjoy!
Websites Used:
Online Convert
http://www.online-convert.com/
TinkerCAD
Google has been busy. Updating its logo was a big deal, but there are some pretty cool new things in Google Drive.
I have been creating a ton of new docs, sheets, slides, forms, etc for the new school year and I noticed several new things popped up as I was working.
Templates
So, I go to start a new Doc and a pop-up message asks me about templates, so I clicked on it. There are now bunch of professionally made templates that you can use. The templates have a very clean look with placeholders for text and images. Sheets and Slides have Templates too!
Sheets and Slides have Templates too!
Voice Typing
Under the Tools menu they now have “VoiceTyping.”
A big microphone icon pops up and turns red when you click on it to talk.
(Parts of this post were written with voice typing. It did get a little glitchy so I had to start and stop it to work a little better.) If you want punctuation you just say that punctuation. For example “period”, it will place a period at the end of the sentence and start a new sentence with a capital letter. If you want to start a new line, you just say “new line.”
***Google Support Blog Post with punctuation, languages, and trouble-shooting.***
Sharing
When you open up a shared document, you might see this blue icon that says “See new changes”. Click it and it will walk you through the most recent changes.
Sheets
When I opened up a spreadsheet a green explore symbol came up and charts were created on the right side window.
You can click on the charts and either make them bigger or bring them into the document to edit them. You have to mouse over to get the symbols on the left of the graph below.
Now I know those items are brand new, but also played with the new changes below and they are pretty awesome too.
Forms
I absolutely love the fact you can really customize forms. You can add image to the background, change colors for the form background, and have all sorts of fun with fonts. This was such a needed an update.
File Types
I noticed that every document now has an icon in the upper left corner that shows its filetype.
If you click on the icon it takes you to a page that just shows all the items you have that file type. for example I click on the Docs icon and it took me to a page with all of my docs. (This is very similar to the apps I have on my mobile devices.)
If you click on the upper left hand corner again, you will get a drop-down menu that takes you to the other file types as well as a link back to Drive.
I can’t wait to see what else I discover over the next few days.
I am so excited to present at ISTE again.
Join me on June 29th 8:30am in room PCC 125 for:
Google Chrome extensions dramatically change how you use Chrome, the cloud and the internet in general. You can personalize your online experience and use great tools and extensions. Learn how to make them work for you and your classroom!
I have had such an exciting spring launching Transform Learning.
If you are interested in my professional development services, Please check out my new site:
Happy Pi Day 2015!
I still love this video created by a 5th grader last year on an iPad. It is a great example bringing together a few iPad apps to create something unique and expressive that demonstrates understanding. You can call it app-smashing or app-synergy. I always say when it comes to creativity on the iPads: “If there is an ‘app for that’ you’re doing it wrong.” When you blend apps together it becomes more of what you want to create, rather than what an app can do.
Apps used to create this video:
Garageband + YakIt + iMovie
I love talking picture apps. Two of my favorites are ChatterPics Kids and YakIt. I talk more about them in this post on Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers blog and on my blog last June. Creating talking pictures or animations offer amazing possibilities in the classroom. These two apps are so easy to use, students can complete a simple project in a short amount of time or make more complex projects that can lead to collaborative videos, ebooks, or websites.
For this video, the student:
I love Google Earth and have used it for years with my students. Because of the price, I did not use the Pro version although there were some features I really wanted to use. Now I can! I can’t wait to see what teachers and students come up with using the Pro version.
Download: http://www.google.com/earth/download/gep/agree.html
Get License Key: https://geoauth.google.com/gev0/free_trial.html
You can check out the some of the features of Pro here:
https://www.google.com/work/mapsearth/products/earthpro.html
Making Movies in Google Earth Pro
https://support.google.com/earth/answer/176684?hl=en
Google Earth Pro Advanced Measuring Tools
Google Earth Pro Map-Making Tool
Google Earth Pro data import tools
Presenting at NJECC Conference 2015
http://www.njecc.org/conference/
I will be presenting 2 sessions on January 6th:
Google: More and Even More
Just when you thought you knew Google. There is so much information available to us now it can be overwhelming. Learn how to tame this information and explore many of the wonderful resources under More and Even More to help you get what you need or do what you need to efficiently. We will explore some amazing and not as well known parts of Google.
Undiscovered Treasure: Free Public Domain Books Online
This session will focus on the best sites for free books. The books we will specifically be looking for will be authentic pieces of literature that are in the public domain. These books can be powerful tools for encouraging and strengthening reading skills. You will be amazed at how easily you can access and share many classic books in your classroom on a variety of devices, including computers, tablets, and e-readers.
Plus, I will be doing an Ignite at the end of the day.
Looking forward to a great day!
