TechChef4u App

Back in February I attended TCEA and went to a session titled "Hot Apps for HOTS". Excellent session from the ladies at TechChef4u. Well now they have an iPhone app!


I am so excited about this app especially since I will be helping my school introduce and integrate 60 new iPads. This app should be a must have for anyone doing the same. You can always rely on the reviews and there are links out to their blog, TechChef4u, and to the AppyHour4U podcasts. As you can see from the app screen shot, you are able to search apps based on grade level and category. Nicely done. Downloaded my app this morning and I suggest you do the same!

App Description: TechChef4u offers multiple resources to support teachers and parents in their search for FREE quality apps to support their children and students. While the TechChef4u app is an educational app store that provides searchable and categorized lists of 500+ FREE apps for PK-12, the app doesn’t stop there. Check out these other features.


Here are screen shots from the app store:

Uploading files

In case you were not aware, I teach music and write a blog called The Singing Hound wherein I share my experiences using the SongWorks principles. I wanted to share some of my Smart Notebook lesson files but wasn't sure how I could do that inside of my blog. I didn't and don't see a way to upload anything here except for images, videos and sound. Nothing about document files and especially Smart Notebook files. In my search to find a solution I came across a post from the Blog Doctor describing various ways to do this. The one that worked for me was to create a Google Site to host, upload the file there and then link to the download address using this code:

Read more: http://www.blogdoctor.me/2007/02/upload-files-to-blogger.html#ixzz1vLDxFGr9


This seemed to work quite well so I thought I would share this information for anyone trying to do the same. You can read the full directions for doing this at the link above. There may be other solutions but this will work.Thank you Blog Doctor!


**my apologies for the missing code** You can see I have it now in place :-)

Copyright

Every year in our teacher tech camp we talk about copyright. One summer we did a whole session on the subject: mistake. It is such an important topic but very difficult to teach and pretty boring to listen to. So what to do? You have to do it. Teachers really do want to do the right thing. And it is our responsibility to help our students understand the importance of following copyright rules because no one else is telling them. A recent post at FreeTech4Teachers had an excellent video from Common Craft about copyright. It is simple and very clear about how copyright works and the use of Creative Commons. Definitely will refer teachers to this video and recommend they show it to their students. Follow this link to the Common Craft site for the video or go to the FreeTech4Teachers site.

The Flipped Classroom

I attended (and presented at) the Region X "Innovate 2 Educate" day of technology. It was a great day and many thanks go out to all the presenters for sharing their talents with us. The keynote speaker was Kevin Honeycutt from Wichita, Kansas, and he was awesome! Another post to follow on him. If you ever have the chance to talk with him or hear him speak, it will be well worth your time.

One of the sessions I attended was on the Flipped Classroom with Kimberly Howard. There is a big push in many schools to use this format in the classroom. I think this method has a lot of merit and needs to be closely examined. Teachers may find it initially time intensive to prepare for it, but once you are past that, it will be easy, easy, easy. I plan on using this in my classroom next year. I'm sure I will have plenty to talk about!

To basically define the Flipped Classroom this is where the "lecture" or teacher centered activity is done at home via prepared video by the teacher and the "homework" is now moved to the classroom where a teacher can be a guide for the student.
Take a look at these links and the info graphic that follows:

The Flipped Class Network

DMS Flipped Math Classroom

Prezi presentation from Kimberly Howard (presented at Region X)

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media