teachusingtechnology.com

CUE Conference 2010 – How To Videos Posted

Hello and thank you to all the people that attended "Igniting the Mathematical Mind" session at CUE on Friday (3/5 ) @ 11:30 AM! Jamie Sweet and myself really enjoyed ourselves and you were a great audience! We would really love to hear from you. We have posted how to create many of the games that we covered in our session. If you see something that is not there and would like to know how to create it, please let us know. Also, if you have time, please visit Session Evaluations (Friday @ 11:30 AM)and evaluate our session, Thanks! Click on the CUE 2010 tab above to access the videos. Subscribe to access the latest videos!

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The four minute flip chart for ActivStudio 3

Activstudio 3 is a wonderful piece of software that comes with the purchase of a Promethean Activboard. Some of you may have just received your Promethean board and your not sure where to begin. Sure, you can start writing on the board and even begin to bring in a few shapes or text but you want more, so did I! What I'm about to explain is an easy way to get you and your students started in just minutes.

1. Open Activstudio 3 Professional
2. Click on your RESOURCE LIBRARY
3. Click on the SHARED SHAPES ICON
4. Expand shared shapes and click on SQUARES AND RECTANGLES
5. Drag a HORIZONTAL RECTANGLE onto your blank flip chart (do this 3 times)
6. Expand the rectangles so that they are all of equal size and so that they cover the entire flip chart and are connected
7. Now, click on the first rectangle, from the color palette click on green and then click on the FILL TOOL icon (the bucket), move it over the first rectangle and click the space bar. The rectangle should have changed to green.
8. Leave the second rectangle black
9. Repeat step 7 for the third triangle, but change it to blue
10. Double click on the first rectangle and click on the icon, OBJECTS TO BACK. Repeat this step for the third rectangle
11. Double click on the second rectangle and click on the icon, OBJECTS TO FRONT
12. Let's add some text! Click on the TEXT TOOL ("T") and move the cursor over the first rectangle, towards the top portion and click the space bar. An area for you to type and a text palette will open.
13. On the text palette change the color to blue and type 1.23 + 0.02 = ?
14. Press the space bar 7 times (or so), change the text color to green and type ? = 1.25
15. Un-check the BACKGROUND box on the TEXT PALETTE
16. Close the TEXT PALETTE

Note: that when un-checking the background box, at times it converts back. Simply go back and un-check the background box.

There you have it! A revealing flip chart template. Move the math question from the left to the right and it will magically disappear and the answer will appear in the blue section. You can use this template to further be creative and add objects, multiple backgrounds and much, much more! Have fun with it. If you have any questions leave a comment or e-mail me. I am glad to help!

If you are more of a visual person, click on the tutorials tab for a video enhanced explanation!

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Cell Phones and PDA’s for Learning?

There is no doubt about it, as technology evolves, so do the opportunities for teachers to meld fantastic, pioneering technology with great teaching. In a newspaper article written in the Sunday edition of the Orange County Register, one of these opportunities are coming to fruition. We have heard of food on the run, but education on the run? Coastline College in Fountain Valley, California is launching what they hope to be a very successful campaign to allow students to complete classes, not only online, but on their cell phones and PDA's. In an age where cell phones are carried by young children as low as 10 years of age, maybe younger, cell phones can now be utilized as a bridge for learning, rather than the nuisance that they have become in schools around America. The misuse of phones in the classroom, such as texting or the inadvertent ring to disrupt a lesson have no place in school. However, when used to incorporate and allow students to get excited about content and buy in, I'M ALL FOR IT! We owe it to our students, at any level, to provide them with professional instruction in order to cause learning and understanding of content. As a professional, I look for opportunities for students to learn in an ever advancing technological age. Cells phones and PDA's may not be the answer for middle school students, not yet anyways, but for high school and college I believe there will be an ever growing progression in the utilization of all media, especially learning on the go. You may even see a student finishing their biology lab assignment at a bus stop near you.

Click here to read "Studying on the digital run."

Click here for Coastline College website

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Photo Booth: How to use it for making movie clips!

If you have a Mac and it has the Leopard Operating System, then you have Photo Booth. If you do not see it in the lower icon tray, then you can find it in the applications folder from the desktop Macintosh HD icon. Once you find the Photo Booth icon, drag it to your icons tray. What is nice about this version of Photo Booth is that it has the capability of inserting a static (still)  image or a dynamic (moving) image behind you as you record yourself in front of the image. It is very easy work with and gives, you the teacher, a great way to demonstrate a lesson or students the ability to create great projects. Creating is at the top of the updated Blooms Taxonomy model, so this is just another way to create, design and develop. Look under the TUTORIALS tab for step by step instructions on how to create a presentation using Photo Booth and its green screen properties.

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ELMO TT-OS Document Camera

You have worked hard to plan your lesson or activity, you have all your transparencies made, the day went great and then your off to a meeting with a parent. You go to shake their hand and you notice that your hands are covered in ink. You know, a day of transparencies, Vis-A-Vis markers and paper towels to try to clean up the mess. Not the most embarrassing thing in the world, however, teacher ink hands are just not necessary!  I utilize a document camera in my class everyday and guess what? NO MORE TEACHER HANDS! I use the TT-OS ELMO Image Mate in my classroom and it is great. You can place written or typed paper under the camera and display it on your screen through your LCD projector. Virtually anything that you have in the classroom will fit under the camera's eye. Have you ever done a science demonstration for your class, only to have a number of students that cannot see what is going on in the experiment. Having the document camera allows you to place a beaker or a Petri dish under the camera. The camera has a flexible neck that allows for angled views as well as phenomenal zooming to get close to the action. It changes the way you teach and increases those teachable moments that were once held captive, not due to your creativity, but to the lack of hardware that you have at your disposal.  Additionally, on the ELMO TT-OS, you can utilize an SD card to make a still image straight from the camera or even pre-load the SD card and project it onto your computer. Once on your computer, the possibilities are endless. You can annotate, highlight and so much more. Only your creativity decides the possibilities. Remember, no more teacher hands!

Click here to view a DEMO for the TT-OS

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