Top 10 Posts of July and what I've been up to

Here are the top 10 posts of July.  Check them out if you haven't yet!

1. Free Online Graph Paper
2. Increase to OneDrive free storage
3. My Online Planbook
4. Remind 101 gave me a Badge!
5. virtual exit tickets and in class assessments
6. Online Planbooks
7. PowToon Slides - Animated Slide Shows
8. SMIR.CH - how to use any phone (including "dumb" phones to do research
9. My 100th Post and TeacherCast University
10. DOTGO - search the web only using text messaging

I've been taking my summer "break" a little easier this year (I had a really rough school year), but am still focusing on school stuff.  I've been trying to make more blog posts here (please let me know if there is something that you are curious about) and updating a lot of my school files for next year.  For the first time in a long while I will not be teaching a new course next year!  I am still teaching 3 different preps, but at least it nothing new to prep for.  I've taken a few professional development courses as well and have been looking into ways to learn to code (that's right...geeky girl here!).

What have you been up to during your time off from school?

My 100th Post and TeacherCast University

WOW---this is my 100th Post!!!!  I'm glad to have all of you followers out there and hope that you'll spread the word about my blog so that I can share with others.

I love sharing with other teachers and TeacherCast University loves to as well.  They offer a few classes (all of what are FREE) on things like using Remind with your classes, green screening and iPads in the classroom.  You get a professional development certificate when your done so you might even be able to get your district to give you some credit for these classes.

Other than this blog ;-), where do you look for professional development?

Increase to OneDrive free storage

I previously wrote about OneDrive as being an alternative to GoogleDrive and Dropbox and now OneDrive has gotten a bit more competitive.  They now offer 15GB of storage space (just as much as Google Drive) and almost 8 times as much as DropBox.

Microsoft is working to become competitive with GoogleDrive.  OneDrive offers a similar experience as Google Drive in that there is a web based editor for things like documents and spreadsheets.  While I still like Google Drive better, I never say no to free storage.

What do you use for your online storage?

EarthViewer App - take a look into Earth's past

I came across this app called EarthViewer.  It's a free app for Android and iOS and as soon as I found out about it I downloaded it on my class's ipad.  This app helps to answer questions such as: "What did Earth look like 250 million years ago? Or 1 billion years ago? Or 4.5 billion years ago? What was the climate like in the deep past?"

EarthViewer is an interactive tool for exploring the science of Earth's deep history. From molten mass to snowball earth, EarthViewer lets you see continents grow and shift as you scroll through billions of years. Additional layers let you and your students explore changes in atmospheric composition, temperature, biodiversity, day length, and solar luminosity over deep time.

What cool apps have you used in your class?

DOTGO - search the web only using text messaging

DOTGO is a mobile publishing technology built to serve interactive content through text messaging.

To reach a supported domain that ends in .COM through text messaging, compose a new text message to the phone number DOTCOM (368266), and send the domain name in the body of the message.

For example, text wikipedia.com to the phone number DOTCOM (368266).

To reach a supported domain that ends in .NET through text messaging, send the text message to DOTNET (368638). To reach a supported domain that ends in .ORG through text messaging, send the text message to DOTORG (368674).

Once you have made the domain request to DOTCOM, DOTORG or DOTNET you will receive a one time message (1 msg/request) back with information on the site if the SMS website is available through DOTGO. You'll also receive within the response one time message news or information about the site, including how to opt in to on-going subscription alerts (30 msgs/mo) where available. DOTGO will notify you if the site is not available.

virtual exit tickets and in class assessments

Exit Ticket is a new website/app that I discovered.  It is a way for you to virtually assess your students.  You can use it as an do now/bell ringer, mid-class checks for understanding or exit tickets.  I know there are many programs out there that do similar things, but I really like ExitTicket because of all of the features that you get in the free version.  The thing that I love the most is that the free version allows you to track individual students!  Yes, the students do need to create accounts, but you can collect a lot of data.

There are so many great things that you can do with it.  They have created a toolkit for teachers to help them implement ExitTicket in their classroom.

What do you use for quick informal assessment?

Top 10 Post of May and what I've been up to

The month of May has been a crazy month for me.  It's was out last full month with the students and they are itching to get out (almost as much as the teachers are).  This has truly been a challenging year for me and I learned a lot about myself as a teacher.  I identified some strengths and weaknesses and know what I need to work on for next year.  Still two weeks left with students and two more weeks of finals and teacher only days but I'm looking forward to the summer.

What has your year been like?

Top 10 Posts of May

1. ChemThink
2. Free Online Graph Paper
3. PowToon Slides - Animated Slide Shows
4. Remind 101 gave me a Badge!
5. An Easy How to For inserting tables in a Word Docu...
6. Top 10 Posts of April and What I've been up to
7. Remind 101 Donors Choose Giveaway
8. StudyBlue Pro - give it a try!
9. NMLSTA Boston 2014 Share-A-Thon Presenter Handouts...
10. Bill Nye Worksheets