Christmas Fun with Doink

Oh my goodness! Must share this one NOW.
I saw this link on Edmodo and if you use the Doink Green Screen app you will love this.
The author of the post gives you all the directions but she also gives you the file to just download and open on your iPad and use immediately. Thank you thank you thank you!

Follow this link to Tricia Fuglestad's post . Works like a charm and I am in the process of trying to decide how and who to use this with. How fun!

Working through the School Year Pt. 1

Yes, I can believe it has been since June that I made a post. Summer flew by (my daughter got married!) and the school year started before I realized it. If you are reading this and are a teacher I know you understand.

Tools I am using this year:
Trying to get my kiddos competent in the basic Office products. They do a really nice job and I've been using GCFlearnFree.org for my middle school students. Love the lesson! Easy to follow directions, good pace and show what a finished product should look like. A very valuable (and FREE) site to use. They offer other lessons also so be sure to investigate what they have on the site.

Digital Citizenship
Now there's a loaded topic. I have been working with this for about a month now.

I use the NetSmartz site (kids and teens). They have a lot of good resources for educators and parents.
I had my middle schoolers working in the Be Internet Awesome from Google site. Very fun.
We also used the Nearpod lessons from Common Sense Media. I bought the lessons and find it was a very good purchase. The lessons and resources are well done.
And now I am going to try the FBI- Safe Online Surfing. So many options. Just trying to speak it in as many ways as I can to get the point across and hope they made good choices in their lives.

Google Doodles

I often tell teachers don't zip past those Google Doodles because they can be a great stepping stone to a good discussion or lesson. For instance, today's doodle celebrates the birthday of Oskar Fischinger. And to my point, I have no idea who he was or what he did. So naturally I go explore, which is what educators encourage their students to do, or at least I hope you do. CNET describes him as a "filmmaker and abstract animator". There is a lot to learn about him and the work he did which was clearly ahead of his time.  Do not jump past those doodles. You might abandon your lesson for the day but anytime you encourage learning and discovering new things is never a bad thing. #lifelonglearner


Kreise (excerpt) by Oskar Fischinger from CVM on Vimeo.

Summertime!

Well I think we can all agree that I am not very good at this blog writing thing but I persist. More to come! Just had to squeeze in a line before it was too bad.