Making Teachers Nerdy

The most wonderful thing happened to me this year – I lost my job.  After several years in full time tech integration, budget cuts landed me back into the classroom.  Isn’t that a strange twist of fate?  Yes, I was a bit bent out of shape at first, but quickly (and I mean in just a few days) realized how amazing it would be to take all the training I’ve been doing with teachers and directly give it to the students we’re trying to impact.  What would it be like to actually run my own 21^st century classroom?  What tools would I need?  What projects would I want to run?

I tossed the ideas around for a few weeks while I was finishing up my summer nerdy teacher workshops and pulled out one of my favorite novels to teach, Treasure Island.  Knowing that I would be a project based classroom, I immediately went to work on designing a Treasure Island unit.  Today’s post will feature the steps I took to develop this unit in hopes of guiding other teachers into developing their own projects.

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Today I’m sharing with you a couple of my favorite Google treasures, and these have the potential to finally make searching for students less stressful as they turn searching into a visual – Hooray!  I’m hoping this will eliminate some of the “being lost in the web” time teachers and students face and help to find better results more efficiently.  Honestly, I cannot wait for school to start and see how students interact with these features.  I hope you have fun playing with them and even more importantly, find great uses for them with your students.

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Today’s post is the first in several that will give you an insight to some Google tools you may not have not had the chance to previously explore.  Yes, we all Google in one form or another, but most of us are unaware of little tools and great updated features that make Google more than a basic search engine.  Plus, with the newest features of Google Squared, the Timeline, and the Wonder Wheel, students and teachers have a way to navigate through information more efficiently and effectively.  I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of getting results quickly rather than wandering in the web for hours.

Today I’ll talk about two free Google phone applications and the Google Book Search.  Though I’m pretty confident these tools were not invented with teachers in mind, they do feature great applications for educators. 

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More and more websites are coming online to give students the ability to unleash their creativity in new and innovative ways.  From abstract art to pointillism, students now can click and draw their way into original works of art, and today’s freebie gives you a great list of places to begin. 

The sites are labeled by grade level to help guide you to those that best suit your students.  In addition, I’ve added ratings to give teachers and students an idea of how much interactivity is available at each site.  Some allow students to create from beginning to end, while others simply generate the final product with minimal effort.  What you will not find here are basic virtual coloring sheets.  I tried to find sites that would give students a chance to generate their own original works of art.  What could be better?

I will warn you that some of these sites will drag you in to create for long periods of time.  Don’t worry, you’ll just be channeling your inner artist.  Have fun!

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Who doesn’t love a good story?  I love the kind of story that leaves you hanging on every word or the one that brings back feelings of nostalgia.  What makes us remember these stories?  Is it how we personally relate to them or the moment where we know the comic punch line is about to be said?  In any case, stories are how we capture the moment or reflect on how things once were, and with today’s resources students have a wealth of tools available to make them present day archivists.

Today’s post shares resources to help you get started In exploring what digital storytelling is, what web 2.0 tools are available to use, blogs from other Ed-tech folks who are brilliant in digital storytelling, and few ideas to spark your imagination.  Be certain to check out some of the student samples such as SFETT and Oklahoma voices as these are true indications of what can be done with a great story.

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