Glogster - Presentations meet Blogs

Glogster is a website that I came across a while ago, but never thought much of it.  I recently tried with my middle school classes and the results were mixed.  As a teacher I loved all of the posters that they came up with but some of the students thought it was a bit hard to use.

I asked my students to create a Glog as a way of presenting their group's scientific method posters.  One of the reasons I liked this site was that it was web based and each group has a single username and password.  This way there were no issues if someone was absent (you know, the "but my partner saved it on their account and now I can't do anything").

It is important to note that there are two version of this site the regular version and the education version.  The education version is best (in my mind) because it doesn't make the the Glogs public and searchable as the regular version does.

There are paid and free components of the educational version and while I like all of the components of the paid versions, I didn't think I would use it enough to make it worth it (I'll probably only use it 2 or 3 times a year).  As I become more familiar with it I might find more uses for it.  When you sign up for an educators account you do get a trial of the full version to see what it's like.  Overall I would say paid or free, I still think this is a great alternative to the regular paper and marker posters or power point presentations that we are used to.

Have you tried it?  What do you think?

Sites for the Tech Savy

One of the technology teachers at my school shared this site with me and I wanted to pass it on to you.  It has a list of great Web 2.0 sites that you can use in your classroom.  I have tried a number of them and will be writing my reviews of them in the coming days.

I hope these help you and please share any others that you have come across!

Review - Technology Style

I wanted to share with you something that I have been doing with my Chemistry class to help them review for the midterm that is coming up.  Students have been working with partners or by themselves to create review powerpoint presentations.  They can choose to do a simple powerpoint or (and this is what most of the students choose) they could make a Jeopardy, Family Feud or Who wants to be a millionaire powerpoint game.  I gave students four periods to work on this and their presentation had to cover a full topic as defined by the standards (when I teach it I teach each topic as 3 or 4 mini topics, so it's a good chunk of material to do a whole topic).
Then I reviewed their work and put them up on my webpage for kids to use when studying at home.  They are also great to have when you are looking to fill 10 or 15 minutes in class.  Plus the kids love that you use something they made.  Their presentations are often challenging because they want to try to stump their classmates.

What things have you done in your classroom to review for major tests?

Bill Nye Worksheets

If your middle school kids are anything like my middle school kids, they love watching Bill Nye the Science Guy.  I try to show the movies as much as I can because I know the kids like it and I think it's nice to have material presented to them in a different way.  I usually just show them the movie and that's was it, but I found this site that has worksheets to go along with the Bill Nye videos.  The site from Star Materials.  The worksheets are not anything fabulous, but just enough to make sure that the kids are paying attention during the movie.  It also gives you a good follow up to the movie and a closure to the lesson.

I'll be trying them out this year with all of the videos I show in the future....will you try them too?

Regents Chemistry - worksheets, labs and notes

For those of you who teach Chemistry I have a website that has great worksheets on it.  It's called Evan's Regents Chemistry Corner.  While it is geared towards those who teach in NY, Chemistry isn't all that different around the country.  It also some worksheets and activities for those who teacher honors classes and might be preparing their students for the SAT II.
As a new science teacher, this website has helped me out so much when I needed a homework assignment or worksheet to do in class.  Some of the worksheets are better than other...I like the worksheets the best.  The lessons is a good thing to give students who are absent or those who need read a topic in a different way.  It's also a good reading assignment for the students (hello Common Core!), especially when you are going to be absent and you want to leave something substantial.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Do you know Mobi?

For the past few years I have been using a product called Mobi from a company called EInstruction.  What is this product you ask, well it's really just a giant mouse that you carry around with you, but it does so much.  It's about the size of a composition notebook and it wirelessly connects with your computer.  Now you can stand at the back of the room and interact with your computer.  You can do simple things that you would normally do with a regular mouse but it also has the added feature of allowing you to write on the computer like an interactive whiteboard. 
I love it because it does everything that you can do with an interactive whiteboard, but you don't need to feel trapped at the front of the room in order to manipulate the board.  As a traveling teacher this is really easy for me because I don't need to reconnect to the board that in the classroom.  I have the used both the Interwrite electronic whiteboards that are in the classrooms and the Mobi that I bring along with me and I love the flexibility of the Mobi.  (Plus it's A LOT cheaper and much easy to get your school to buy or get a grant for).

What interactive whiteboards do you have?  Do you have any fun accessories that go with them?

Create your own eBooks

One of the things I have started in my class this year is online textbooks.  I created a book as a .pdf so that it could be viewed on a computer or an ebook reader (Nook, Kindle) or IPad.  The problem is that eBook readers display things best when they are ePub files.  I came across this great website that allows you to take anything that is PDF, Word document and select other files and turn it into an ePub file.

Now my students can read their Chemistry textbook on their Nook while they on the couch (or one can hope, right?)