NCEA good stuff like OZOBOTS

I recently returned from the National Catholic Educators Association conference in Orlando (nice!). Co-presented on two topics: Extending the Classroom with Edmodo (dear to my heart!) and Formative Assessment: Requirement for Learning. Both sessions went very well. My co-presenter, Carol Mayo, and I were quite pleased. The sessions I attended were good also. One of my favorite was Full STREAM Ahead with Fredy Padovan. (remember this name and follow him on Twitter and wherever else he roams) And while you are at it you should check out Immaculata-La Salle's 1:1 iPad program website. 

We got to play with Ozobots. Nice and simple robots to introduce students to robotics and coding. App is free. Little robots are @$50 each. But you don't even need an app to use these cool little robots. All you need is a piece of plain white paper and red, green, blue and black markers. Quite impressive and tons of fun!

New Year, New Name, New Look!

2015 has rolled right in and I am back in the game. Changed my blog name- Tail Wagger Tech- the last one just didn't roll off my tongue very well and I had to have something to do with dogs. Had to change the colors and background too just to keep up with all the changes. February kept me pretty busy with some presentations at TCEA in Austin. We presented on Formative Assessment: Required for Learning, Extending Your Classroom with Edmodo, and Using Edmodo Apps to Enhance Learning. The sessions went well and if anyone is interested in those presentations you can find them on my colleague's website www.holdthemayo.org. We will be presenting Formative Assessment and Extending Your Classroom with Edmodo at NCEA in Orlando. Looking forward to some Florida sunshine!

Speaking of Edmodo apps....My sixth grade music class is working on some composer research and they are using the InstaGrok Lite app in Edmodo. Using the apps in Edmodo is very handy since students don't have to log in to more than one thing. The apps operate right in Edmodo. InstaGrok Lite helps students gather information from websites, etc into a mind map of sorts. Another tab is their Journal where they can actually write their paper and take notes. It keeps their pinned websites in a menu to the side. I think it has made organizing their research much easier. If you are an Edmodo user don't be afraid to visit the "app store". There are many apps that are free to use with your classes and many are unlimited use, meaning they can be assigned to all your classes.

If you aren't an Edmodo user, well you really have to take a good look at that! And once you sign up and get a FREE account, check out InstaGrok Lite and all the great apps in Edmodo.

Class Dojo and making it to the end of the year!

I am winding down the school year, trying to get in everything I want to and constantly getting interrupted! You would think I would get used to this since every year it is the same. What is the phrase? Crazy is when you keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Yeah, that's me.

At the end of the year I sometimes find myself having to remind students about the procedures we have been following since August. You would think I had changed them or something! So I have to step up the discipline monitoring and keep on top of those that would like the last day of school to have been yesterday. I started using Class Dojo a few months back to help with classroom management. I was introduced to over a year ago but didn't put it into action. I now use it with my K-1-2-3-4 classes (should have included 5th too!) Class Dojo, open the app, and as class is moving forward if I see good behavior I can immediately award a point or if needed add a negative. You can also set up parent and student access so they can monitor the behavior away from class. I only use this in class since I see my classes once a week. Attendance can also be taken on Class Dojo and for me this is perfect. I had a colleague who used it with a 7th grade class that was having a lot of trouble staying focused and even at this "old" age, they loved it! Whatever will motivate them to want to do better is always a plus.
Class Dojo

Class Dojo is a creative and fun visual way to manage and track class behavior. You create your class lists, assign positive and negative behaviors (there are default ones but you can create your own too), and the cute part is the avatars for each students are these great little monsters! My kids always want to see the class page at the start and end of class, I think just to see their monster. There is an app for Apple and Android also so I can open the web page for

Even though you are probably at the end of the school year, if you need something new to help make it, check out Class Dojo. Once you play with it this year perhaps you will find it fits your needs for the coming school year.

Hang in there fellow teachers!

Stop the World I want to get off! NCEA

Apparently I just let 3 months go by without a single post. Yeah I am getting really good at this.

Back to it-
This week is NCEA in Pittsburgh. My partner in educational pursuits, Carol Mayo, and I are presenting on Tuesday on the topic of "Extending the classroom with Edmodo". One of my very favorite classroom tools is Edmodo. I use it on a regular basis and find it so user friendly I cannot imagine why any teacher would be opposed to trying it out.

One of the things we will look at besides the usual uses for Edmodo are now the "apps" that are available within #Edmodo. I also recommend that teachers take a closer look at the communities where you can connect to teachers from around the world.

If you are in Pittsburgh and attending #NCEA please join us on Tuesday.