A Few of My Favorite Techy Things

Today I want to talk about a few of my favorite techy things that I use in my classroom all the time.

I'm super lucky to have 24 iPads in my classroom, but I started out with just one little iPad 5 years ago that was funded by a Donorschoose.org project. I got a 2nd (same way) and then I wanted MORE! I wrote 5 grants and was about to give up when I finally won a grant and got 14 iPad minis for my students. Just recently, I convinced my principal to use some of our technology funds to get me 10 more so I can pilot a 1:1 classroom program in my school. I'm still learning about how to best implement technology in my classroom, and as quickly as things change, I'll always have to keep learning. Over the years, our iPads have become tools for learning and augmenting instruction.

Screenchomp is my favorite screencasting app so far and it's FREE! It's very kid friendly and easy to use too. Screencasting is just a video record of what you write or put on the screen and the audio in one nice little package. Two of my favorite uses are as an assessment tool and a reteaching tool. I love to use it as an assessment because I get to hear AND see what kids are thinking when they solve a problem in math, for example. I give the students different problems to solve, they write theirs down on the screen, hit record and start solving it as they talk through it. You can use this in any curriculum area! Some kids like to share their videos with the class and some are more shy. I have students copy and paste the link to their video to their notes so I can review them in one easy place. This is also an awesome thing to share with parents at conference time.

I also like to use Screenchomp to record mini lessons for my students to replay. This is awesome for your intervention group or for kids that just need reminders on how to do something. My goal is to have tutorials made for all the major skills I teach and have the links (via QR code) up on a bulletin board for students to access at anytime. You can also record directions for centers or for activities you want students to do independently. When you want to share a recording, just copy the link, paste it into a QR code generator and make a QR code that kids can scan easily so they don't have to type the link. Print out that QR code, stick it with your center materials or post around the room and you don't have to worry about kids not knowing what to do. You can also imbed photos to show kids visually exactly what to do. Click the pic to watch and hear one of my mini tutorials (warning: nothing fancy).

Speaking of QR codes, I'm not sure what I'd do without them! In addition to making websites easily accessible for students, you can create QR codes with text. Mainly I use QR codes this way so students can check their answers for task cards. It provides immediate feedback and is highly motivating. I have also made audio QR codes with students' speeches, stories, and songs. See how I made audio QR codes here. BTW, parents love these! QR codes can also be used for classroom scavenger hunts. The possibilities are mind boggling. If you'd like to know more, download my free QR code info guide:

My grade level is departmentalized so I get to teach math all day to my 2nd graders. Two of my favorite apps (by the same developer) are Pieces Basic and Number Line and they are both FREE! They are super kid friendly and really help students solve addition and subtraction problems. Pieces Basic is an app that has base 10 blocks while Number Line has, you guessed it, number lines. Students can manipulate the blocks or the number line to suit the problem they are solving and even write on the screen. What I love is that the set up and clean up is a breeze! No more hauling out (and storing) sets of manipulatives and then cleaning up after your lesson. No more missing pieces or mess. Also, if you tap the information icon, there is a great How to Use section that you should definitely show students the first time they use it. Both apps are set up very similarly so it is easy for kids to use.

Finally, I'm in love with nearpod. I can't even say enough about it, but I talked about it briefly in another post and I'll do it again! It is a way to push out content to your students' devices and control the pace of the lesson. There are interactive activities for students and their responses get sent to your device in real time. You can use this in the computer lab or with tablets. I tried it out for the first time this year and I'm hooked. There is a really awesome tutorial about it on the iTeach Third blog, which is where I first read about it. Just go. You won't regret it!

Check out my Classroom Tech Pinterest Board for more great ideas from educators all over the place. You can also read about some of the lessons I've learned over the years when using technology with your students.

Global Glitter Tribe December Linky

Hey everyone! I'm linking up with the GGT for the December linky and I must say that I really love the graphic this month! If you'd like to link up with us, please click on the button below to get your graphic, add your text, write your post and join in the fun!

Here goes nothin': 

First up, one of the easiest recipes you can make that will serve a family of four or can be doubled or tripled to serve a crowd is my Crockpot Chicken Tacos. Take a look:


One of my favorite holiday read alouds is Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. I love this book because in my family we usually fight over the tamales because they are so delicious. You know you are loved when someone brings their tamales out of hiding to serve to you. In fact, this weekend we made 18 dozen tamales but we have to split them between four families, so we really don't have too many tamales...

I've been so lucky the past two years because I have been getting some great technology to work with in my classroom. As of yesterday, I am officially a 1:1 teacher! I just got 10 more iPads and now I have 24! One of the things I love is using nearpod. It is a lesson presentation system that pushes out content to your students' devices (tablets OR computers). You control the pace of the lesson slides and the students engage in interactive activities, quizzes, polls, videos, questions and more. The most awesome thing is that when they answer a question or do an activity, the results show up in real time on your device! I can instantly see who is really understanding the concepts or who needs more help. I can also send examples of student work to each device so we can have discussions. My explanation can't do it justice so you should check it out for yourself. You can sign up for free and there are many free nearpod presentations plus you can make your own!! Here's a sample of the presentations I have in my library.


I was preview shopping last month before the big sales and wandered into Bath and Body Works to pick out some scents for my daughters. I almost always shop online but you can't smell the scents online so I actually went to the mall...gasp! I totally fell in love with this new scent and then I couldn't decide which daughter to give it to so I bought it for myself!!! It's called Fresh Sparkling Snow and it just smells SOOO good.

I'm doing a book study at school with Ron Clark's Move Your Bus, which is totally motivating the leader in me and kinda frustrating me at the same time. The concept is that your organization is a bus and instead of having an engine, the bus is propelled with the power of the people. Now, on your bus you have runners, joggers, walkers and riders plus (hopefully) a driver. I love Ron's description of the different types of workers and now I can't help but to constantly think if I'm being a runner or not. Check it out for yourself:

When it snows around here in the desert (which it occasionally does) people freak out! I'm not kidding or exaggerating when I tell you that everyone expects a snow day when we get one inch of snow. We make tiny muddy snowmen and put on our winter gear and play around until about 2:00 in the afternoon when it melts. I'm a summer girl. Flip flops. Tank tops. Hot weather. Bring it on! I do not like to be cold so you can bet that if it snows, I'll be bundled up inside, fire roaring, sipping hot cocoa. I can enjoy how pretty it looks from inside. Here's a picture I took last year when we did actually get a good amount of snow (for us):

Well, I hope you've enjoyed reading my post and encourage you to link up or check out some other posts!

Five for Friday: Field trips, Geometry, and a $1 deal

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs (2 weeks in a row!!) for FFF. This week was a doozy!

 On Monday, I had an observation by my principal, who I really adore, BTW. The first observation of the year didn't go so well. It was one of those days that they wrote Murphy's Laws about. Anything that can go wrong, will.

However, the 2nd observation was A-W-E-S-O-M-E! It went so well that I was even impressed with myself. It was just one of those perfect teaching moments that remind you why you became a teacher, and for once, there was a witness!!! I haven't received my scores back, but his verbal feedback was all I need. He said it was fun being in my classroom watching me teach!

 Tuesday we had our long awaited field trip to a children's museum called Explora. It really is the best museum in the state and so many of our kiddos have never been! It is jam packed with hands on science, exploration, and building activities. We had a docent lead us around for 2 hours and then we went across the street to a really great park for lunch and play. It was so much fun!

I've been chugging along, trying to pretend that the tickle in my throat is not a sign that I'm getting sick. Mind over matter, right? Not so much. I woke up Thursday to find that I had lost my voice. My hubs convinced me to stay home and NOT TALK. Ummm ok? That's like asking the sun not to shine. 

We're learning about 2D and 3D shapes in math, which is a nice break from drilling subtraction strategies nonstop! I found this awesome FREE Geoboard app that I used in the lesson I blogged about yesterday using technology in teaching about shapes (read about it here). Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of getting those geoboards out. Why? Well, rubber bands + little boys = teacher nightmare. The beauty of this app is that it has lots of colors to choose from, it is easy to use, and the rubber bands can't fly, shoot off the board "accidentally", or break. Check it out:

Even though we're working on geometry, students are still practicing subtraction. I made this cocoa themed Double Digit Subtraction Warm Up Task Cards set so students can continue to practice. It features problems with and without regrouping and QR codes so students can check their answers. I've marked it down to $1 until 2/2/15. Grab it before the price goes back up!

Using Technology to Teach Shapes

I'm always looking for ways to integrate technology into my lessons. These are my three goals: to enhance my lessons with the use of technology, get students more engaged (which leads to more learning), and for students to use technology to interact with others.

Often, technology is an afterthought to a lesson. We're busy. We have major demands placed on us that we must meet and often we just simply don't have the time to incorporate technology into our lessons in a meaningful way. It can be a daunting task. It is best to start simply.

I found a great FREE geoboard app last summer and I knew I wanted to use it, but couldn't think of any ideas at the time so I just filed it away in my brain for later. This month, as I planned my geometry unit, I lugged out my box of dusty geoboards, looked at the sad state of my rubber bands and then a light went on! The geoboard app! I downloaded the app and played with it for a little while. It is crucial to test out the apps you're going to use to see the potential pitfalls and benefits before you hand it over to the students.

Next, I thought about how to use it in a lesson I had planned, but also wanted to get more use out of it than one or two lessons. I decided to design a math station around it that focused on the skills I wanted students to master. In this case, my objectives were simple: define and describe 2D and 3D shapes using attributes such as edges, faces, and vertices. Check out my 2D and 3D Shape Task Cards with QR codes:

After a few introductory lessons about the attributes of 2D and 3D shapes, I was ready to put these task cards in my math stations. I know a thing or two about kids and technology. You need to let them play with a new app a little bit before you expect them to get to work. I did a demo using AppleTV and the AirPlay function on the iPad on how to use the app. I showed them how to make shapes and let them use it with a partner for a few minutes. Then, I showed them the tasks cards and explained how to show their work on their recording sheets. The task cards also feature QR codes that students can scan to check their answers or scan to see the shape.

The math station was a hit! Now it was time to use what they've learned to solve some shape riddles. I used these Geometry Interactive Notebook Pages from Lucky Little Learners. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love using Angie's interactive notebook products. I think I have almost all of them!

We cut and pasted the riddle flip flaps into our interactive notebooks and did the first two riddles together. Each pair of students had an iPad and worked together to make the shape on the geoboard app that was described, draw it under the flap and label it. I walked around the room and asked certain students to show what they did on the geoboard app by "jumping on" AppleTV with the AirPlay function on their iPads. This is a skill I had previously taught so they knew just what to do. I chose specific teams of students to show what they did and we had a great discussion about whether the shapes they made really fit the description. At one point, we had a great debate about whether the shape's sides were all the same length or not.

We had to get the meter stick out to measure what they were projecting on the board to settle the question. At one point, I looked around the room and realized that ALL my students were engaged in the lesson, they were consulting our math word wall and were having meaningful discussions with each other. It was a simple lesson that was so much better because students were able to visually share their work with their classmates on our interactive white board. They had a sense of pride when they got to share and used higher order thinking skills to defend their work. Beyond the fact that my students now have a stronger understanding of geometry, they were able to also increase their critical thinking skills.

Movie Clip Monday Linky

I don't know about you, but I love reinforcing the concepts that I teach with video clips. I even have a Pinterest Board dedicated to collecting videos for my classroom called Educational Videos.

That's why I'm also excited to be linking up with the Techie Turtle Teacher for a fun new linky party called Movie Clip Monday!

Before I share my video with you, did you know that there is a way to show a video from YouTube to your class without worrying about ads, questionable popups or other "junk" you just don't want your kiddos to see? It's called safeshare.tv and it couldn't be easier to use. Just copy the link of the video you want from YouTube and paste it into the safeshare box and it will make a new link to the video that you can use to safely share the video. 

I put this adorable penguin video on safeshare for my class since we're studying penguins this month.

Cool Cute Chicks! - Amazing Animal Babies: Emperor Penguin Chicks (Ep 5) - Earth Unplugged

I love this video for two reasons: it is highly engaging visually and gives great kid-friendly information. 

Do you have a great video that you want to share? Link up with the Techie Turtle Teacher by following the directions below!! 

1. Find a video that you'd like to share with your readers.2. Download the Movie Clip Monday graphic above by right clicking to save as. Save your picture in a convenient place for you.3. Write about your video and include the Movie Clip Monday graphic with a link to this post.4. Come back to this post to add your link to the linky. 5. Visit other blogs and leave comments for someone who linked up before you and come back to leave a comment for someone who linked up after you!

An InLinkz Link-up

Tune into Technology 7/29: QR codes

I'm linking up with iTeach 1:1 for a cool linky called Tune into Technology.

This week's theme is QR codes! I have been called the Queen of QR codes at my school. I put them on everything! One thing I love to do is put them on the products I make so kids can check answers. I have even put QR codes on products I have bought and on information for parents. If you don't have a clue what QR codes are or how they can be used in classrooms, check out the post I wrote about them here.

I branched out a little last year and used QR codes to make student work come alive. When we studied the solar system, students made these adorable accordion books to demonstrate their learning. You can get the Solar System and Planet Flipbook Reports from Creative Classroom Lessons.

Then, I asked them to write a 3-5 sentence "speech" summarizing what they learned. I gave students at least a dozen sentence starters to help them craft an interesting speech. The last thing I wanted was: "Jupiter is a large planet. Jupiter is next to Saturn. Jupiter is cool. Jupiter is.....". BORING! I had the kids practice their "Power Speeches" with a buddy several times before I recorded them. Click on the link to hear one student's
space report. You can also scan the QR code:

 Now, you can see and hear what kids have learned. I set them up on desks (gallery walk style) and gave pairs of students iPods to scan the QR codes and listen to their classmates. Now the kids are learning from each other and getting visual and audio input. Let me tell you how impressed their parents were!

You may be wondering how in the world to make an audio QR code. This is the way I do it but there may be an easier way and I'd love to hear it if you know!

 Thank you to Amazing Classroom.com for the use of the tablet clip art!

I know this was a loooooong post! I hope you found it helpful. As always, if you have ANY questions, please comment below. Also, feel free to pin the heck out of this post ;) and if you'd like more info on technology use in the classroom, check out my Classroom Tech pin board.