Star Wars Crawl Creator

While reading through my Feed.ly I came across the Star Wars Crawl Creator on the Whiteboard Blog and was immediately intrigued because I am a big Star Wars fan.  I immediately thought how this could be a cool way to introduce a lesson or an activity for the day.  You could even type in your agenda and share it with your students.  Of course over time this would be "just another tool," but as often as you can change up the monotony of a classroom, the better.

Students could also utilize this tool as well.
1.) Define vocabulary
2.) Introduce a topic in a project
3.) Summarize a short story, movie, or unit of content.

To utilize the Star Wars Crawl Creator, you just edit the title, subtitle, and body.  You can then preview what it looks like and share it by using a link or embedding it on a webpage or other presentation tool.  By email or if you use Facebook and Twitter in your classroom you can share it that way.  Helpful for students that are absent.

You can see a sample below of this blog post.

Generated Paper - Plenty of Printable Paper Options

I know that there is a major move towards 1 to 1, BYOT/D and other options, but not every school is fortunate to be in a situation to have those tools available to them.  With Generated Paper users can download from over 40 different templates various types of paper for free into a PDF file.

Generated Paper options include various types of lined and graph paper for note taking and math classes, elementary based paper for learning about letters and handwriting, games (like Sudoku and Tic Tac Toe), wire-framing, business, music, foreign language, and calendar templates.  If a customize option is available, it will allow users to make edits to the page prior to downloading and printing.

Sandglaz - Simply Powerful To Do List

Sandglaz, which is currently in Beta, is an easy to use To Do List application.  You can create an account or sign in with Google.  What is different about Sandglaz is the way that it organizes and prioritizes what you include in your To Do Lists.  Tasks are grouped into cells, inspired by Eisenhower's Matrix, by importance and how soon you need to complete them. Simply drag and drop tasks between cells to change their priority.  See the image below:

Each To Do List will provide email reminders to help you stay organized and remind you of important events.  You can also share your To Do List and therefore collaborate on a project with other people.  For students, and teachers, who struggle to stay on task and get things done, Sandglaz could be a valuable tool, especially for tasks over a longer period of time.

3 Essential Windows 7 Tools

We recently did a computer refresh in our district and several teachers received computers with Windows 7.  I recently typed up a document sharing with them 3 essential tools/apps that they could use in their classroom.  I also wanted to share them here because it is be a bad assumption on my part to think that teachers know about them.  So here is a short description of each tool, how to access the tool, and how to use the tool.  Share with the teachers in your building who also use Windows 7.  These are very simple and effective tools.

Snipping Tool

A.)   Description:

a.       This is a screen shot tool.  It allows you to click and drag around an area of your computer screen.  This is a great tool for capturing photos from the web or text from an article.  This is a tool for taking a “Screen Shot”

B.)    How to Access:

a.       Start Menu/Windows Icon Button in lower left corner

b.      All Programs

c.       Accessories

                                                   i.      If you want it on your desktop, right click, followed by “Send To” and select “Desktop (Create Shortcut)

C.)    How to Use:

a.       Click the down arrow next to new to determine the style of screen shot

b.      Your screen will cloud over.  Click and drag your mouse around the area that you want to capture.  You will see a red line.

c.       Release your mouse button to capture your screen shot.

d.      A window will open with what you captures/snipped

e.      Here is where you will save your image.  There are some additional features: Draw, highlight, copy, etc.  Use as you wish.

Sticky Notes

A.)   Description:

a.       Digital Post-It Notes that you can see and view on your desktop.  No more notes around your monitor screen

B.)    How to Access:

a.       Start Menu/Windows Icon Button in lower left corner

b.      All Programs

c.       Accessories

                                                   i.      If you want it on your desktop, right click, followed by “Send To” and select “Desktop (Create Shortcut)

C.)    How to Use:

a.       Double clicking the icon will open up a post it note.  You can type on it directly.

b.      Clicking the “+” will create a new post it note.

c.       Right clicking on the note will allow you to change the color

                                                   i.      Blue, Green, Pink, Purple, White, Yellow

d.      The x will permanently delete your post it notes.

Magnfier

A.)   Description:

a.       Allows you to easily zoom into certain areas of your screen.  You can also press and hold the CTRL button while using the scroll button on your mouse if you don’t want to use this tool

B.)    How to Access:

a.       Start Menu/Windows Icon Button in lower left corner

b.      All Programs

c.       Accessories

d.      Ease of Access

C.)    How to Use:

a.       Click to open and move your mouse around the screen to see the zoomed in areas.

b.      You will notice a magnifying glass.  Click that to access options.

c.       It defaults to a zoom of 200%.  You can change that if you need to by typing in a zoom or clicking the “+” and “-“ buttons

d.      Clicking on the settings icon (a gear) will allow you to activate color inversion and other features.

Tools for the 21st Century Teacher - Volume 2

This is volume 2 in what I will become a series of Tools for the 21st Century Teacher eBooks.  I have made this available through Issuu again and also made this document available for download.  So if you visit My Library where this is stored, you will see an icon to download it as a PDF at the bottom.

Happy Reading!

Open publication - Free publishing - More web 2.0