Favorite Tools

I had several favorites depending on what I wanted to use them for. Smilebox, Animoto, and Vokie I liked for presentations on Morning Announcements. I could have students help put them together. I liked Glogster as I thought it would be an awesome tool for students to present their work...snd of course I loved Edmodo, Wiki and Weeby's for collabrations and displaying student work.

Week 9, Thing 23--Prezi and SlideRocket

Both tools are for presentations.  They are a little fancier than Microsoft Powerpoint.  With a Prezi your work is like on a wall and you link your items in the order you want to show them.  You can have them zoom in ,  zoom out, and rotate in any direction to spotlight the item you are viewing.  This one I'm going to give a try.  SlideRocket is an online presentation tool that is held completely in the cloud so you can access it anywhere anytime.   What was interesting was if you edited a slide that was in several presentations it would automatically edit it in all presentations so all was updated to the latest comments.  This one looked like it would be good for business corporations.  

Week 9, Thing 22

These are posters students can make online.  It's a creative way students can share information and make presentations on what they have learn.  Super!

Week 8 Thing 21--GoAnimate and Storybird

GoAnimate.com: Stripes and Longneck by dlsobien

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

This was very easy to do.  Great for having students present a story or a report.  This one is a text video.  You just type in the words.  GoAnimate added the voice, etc.  As a teacher, be sure to check out  GoAnimate4schools.  Teachers can have up to 100 student accounts free.

Storybird For Teachers is a site for  storytelling.  Students can create their illustrations, add their story and share all online.  The best is that no student e-mails are required.  It's all through the teacher's free account.  So take and look and enjoy.

Week 8 Thing 20--Animoto

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

I like this one.  Students can enter their photos and video clips to quickly produce a 30 second video to music.   Great for quick presentations...the picture transitions from one to another is very cool.  Animoto can automatically do that for you.  You can use the free account or get one of the upgrades.  I can use this during my Morning Announcement Program.

Week 8, Thing 19--Bubblesnaps

This is a sample of Bubblesnaps.  Once you create an account, you upload a picture and add bubble captions.  This is an easy activity to introduce digital storytelling.  The account stores up to 18 photos.

Interesting Tech Tool--For Announcements

This little collabrating tech tools was made at http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp .  There are a few other choices there as well.

Week 7 Thing 18--Taxedo

Tagxedo is a program in which the word wall can be created in a shape.  The words can come speeches, essays, blogs, etc.  Tagxedos are fun and easy to create.  If you have a challenge with trying to save the snippit code to embed your project, you would  left click on the code, hit Ctrl-A (to select all) and then hit Ctrl-C (to copy). Go to your document and hit Ctrl-V to paste.

Week 7, Thing 18--Wordle

Wordle is a word wall created on "the cloud."  Easy and quick for spelling, language arts, vocabulary and any other subject that needs a word wall created.  It can be printed and published but the program does not save it. To keep a copy of it on the computer for later use you would need to make a copy of the screen (Fn Key + F11 Key).  (Note: When I used those keys my laptop didn't seem like it made a copy of the screen.  However, when I went to paste,  it was there.)  Next you need to open up the Paint Program in Accessories and paste the photo in.  Then select Save As, name your photo and be sure to change the file to a JPEG file.  Save it and when you open it up, it will open in Microsoft Office Picture Manager.  Look for the Crop button to crop of the parts you do not want...then save for a clean sharp picture to use as you would like.  This sounds like a lot but once you do it a couple of times it will be easy.   Once your Wordle is made Randomize it to see the variety of Wordles from the same list of words.  Pretty cool.

Week 6 Thing 13--Wallwisher

Wallwisher is an online bulletin board to collaborate with others.  (Note:  The above Wallwisher takes a few seconds to load.) 

Week 5 Thing 12--Google Reader

Google Reader can be accessed through your Google Account...just go to and click on the word "More" in the menu area on your Google page.  In this app, you can search, add and connect to other blogs/subscriptions in your interest area.  The Reader will alert you when new postings are added to the subscriptions you are connected to.  Enjoyable to use and you can delete items at any time you are no longer following them. 

Week 5 Thing 11--Google.Doc

With Google.Doc one can create and share word documents, spreadsheets and power point presentations on the "cloud" with colleagues, students and friends.  One can access and edit the items from any computer and one can give permission for others to edit as well.  The best is the program automately saves it with the newest additions for you to access it and you don't have to e-mail it back and forth.    I love this site and plan to use it with my teachers....all you need to do is create a free Google Account.  It does have a spot for Google Educators with tools to use with students.  This is a site worth looking at..
Also for more information on using Google with your students, check out this Blog by Ms. McGinn  http://technologyjunkiegroup.blogspot.com/2011/04/thing-11-google-tools-for-savvy.html .    At the end of the blog there is a link to a video clip on sharing documents with students without creating student emails. 

Week 4 Thing 10--Voicethread

With Voicethread you can link several types of multimedia items (PDF documents, images, video, etc.) together with audio narration in a slide-like format.  People can play it online, stop it at any time and leave comments.  This is a great tool for sharing student work and for collaboration and discussion. The Voicethread can be embedded to blogs and websites.   I signed up for a free VT Educator account.  There is a fee for the premium account.  Check out some the sample voicethreads created by classrooms...it will give you some great ideas. 

Week 4 Thing 9 -- Blabberize

This looks like a fun podcasting tool for students to create and give facts about the photo that they are displaying.  The only little challenage I had with this site was getting the mouth the way I wanted it.  Everything else was very easy.  I did find a quick and easy video on Schooltube with instructions on how to create a Blabberize product.

Week 4 Thing 8 -- Voki

This cool cat was created with Voki.

Week 3 Thing 7--Picnik

This photo was edited from Picnik which is a very easy photo editing program and fun too.  I'll probably use this one again.  Also once your picture is edited you can save it right to your computer.

Week 3 Thing 6: Comics in the Classroom--Extra Credit

Comics in the classroom is a great way to present ideas to students that are Visual Learners. Also students can use the knowledge they have learned to create a project and present that knowledge to others. It's very empowering to the student that their work can be printed and posted online. The best is the project can be used as a teaching tool to share with other students. The program I used in this blog was Toondoo. Another great program is Pixton which is a little more advanced  but still pretty easy.

Week 3 Thing 6, ToonDoo--Comics in the Classroom

By dsobien | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

This was created by ToonDoo.  Another very easy program and fun to do.  The program has a free section and a paid section.  Your creations can be embedded on blogs and websites as well as saved on your own computer.  Check out the linked tutorial (ToonDoo User Guide) I found online if you need help in creating a comic.  It also alerts you to where the embedding code is too. Technology has changed our world so quickly in the past thirty years that we are now moving "out of the box"  in education.  Students tend to learn more when they can actively participate in creating and presenting the ideas they have learned. 

Week 3 Thing 5 Photo Book Creation

This link is to my cat photo book created with the program Mixbook. ( Some of the words were cut off from the embedded version below.) This program was fun and it's easy enough to be used in the classroom with students. To create and share books online is free.  However, you can not save to or print from your home computer.  You can have the books published in print for a fee.

Week 3 Thing 5--Mixbook/Smilebox Comments

I really like both of these digital photo book programs. Both are easy enough to be used by teachers and students. Mixbook I liked as student work could be shared in a book like format and placed on a school wiki or school blog for viewing. Smilebox is great for presentations with music. It could be used for a general display of what's going on in the classroom or a special event. Also it would be great for me to showcase our weekly star students on our morning announcement show. I have been using powerpoint but Smilebox looks so much easier. Both programs have an Educator's corner...Smilebox has a free part and a paid subscription part. They look as though they give a few paid memberships away for educators for a year. I signed up to see if I could get one. Check it out...

Week 3 Thing 5--Mixbook project embedded

| View Sample Photo Books | Create your own Photo Book

I embedded the Mixbook Project to my blog.  After I saved the project I returned back to the main page, scrolled down and in the lower right hand column there is an embedding code.  Just copy it and then go back to your blog.  Select New Posts and click on the HTML tap to copy the code in this area.  You can also embed projects into wiki's as well.  I came across a Mixbook tutorial online showing how to do a project with instructions on where to look for the embedding code.

Week 2 Thing 3

  This avatar was created at http://www.doppelme.com/.
I enjoyed creating the avatar.  It was quick and easy.  I'm planning on looking for other avatar creating programs to post and share.  Fun....

Collaboration Goal

Collaboration is an important tool for a teachers and my number one goal.  This year I want to promote the use of Edmodo and Skype.  I also want to encourage teachers to use Google's Doc for document sharing and to create a wiki to share student projects.  Does anyone know of any other sites to use for educational collaboration?

Welcome!

 Welcome to Chissy Tech Talk!  This blog was created to explore Web 2.0 tools with teachers and students.  You are invited to share great apps, lessons and tools you have come across.  For those interested in avatars check out http://www.doppleme.com/.  It's a quick easy little program to use.