The Hero Factory

I was introduced to The Hero Factory by a fellow co-worker.  It is a website where visitors can create their own version of a Super Hero.  Now, my first thought was big deal.  Then she told me that students could use the hero that they created to write a story about their hero.  Not a bad idea.  But lets not stop there...so I started brainstorming....

1. Write a Poem about their Hero
2. Create a math word problem using the Hero in the problem and the solution
3. History teachers could have students create a biography of the hero based on historical events
4. Geography teachers could have students create a map of the where the hero travels
5. Economics teachers could have students write about the impact a Super Hero might have on the Economy.
6. Sociology Teachers could use this website when they discuss heros and who our heros our
7. Science teachers could talk about the scientific probablities of certain super hero powers
8. Foreign Lanugage teachers could create a Super Hero and then create a story line for their hero in the language they are studying
9. Business and marketing teachers could have students create a resume for their hero
10. Create a massive story within your class using the students hereos.  You could use Storybird or think of it like the game of telephone, but each student has to use their hero in their line of the story.

How does the site work?
1. Choose whether your hero is male or female
2. Choose facial characteristics - Hair, Eyes, Facial Hair
3. Choose your Upper Body Look - Shirts, Arms, Accessories, Emblems
4. Choose your Lower Body - Legs and Belt
5 Choose your Colors - Skin, Hair, Primary, Secondary, Detail
6. Choose your Abilities - Skin and Weapons (I wish their was more here, but there is not)

Click Finish and it Generates a Front Page of a Comic Book and a Name for your hero (Mine was rather simple...lacked any flare).  You can then Make Another, Print it, or Download it to a JPG....see mine below!

What ideas do you have for using The Hero Factory in your classroom?

Twitter Tuesday #2 - Twitter Tools!

Ahhh Twitter....where would educators be without you?  Joining Twitter has been like opening a treasure chest of educational technology gold!  One of the neat things about Twitter has been the useful applications, webpages, and software that I have found that actually enhance your Twitter Experience.  If you have a Smartphone...Twitter Apps can even greatly increase your Twitter experience!  I use Twitbird, but there is Twitteriffic and others you might want to check out.

1.) TweetDeck - I downloaded and used TweetDeck for the first time today for the #Edchat on Twitter.  I got to say that I thoroughly enjoyed using this platform.  It made following the Tweets a lot easier.  It is great to use for multiple accounts as well.  You do have to download it and use it on your desktop, but it is worth it.  I highly recommend you using this platform if you don't already.  There is also Hootsuite, but I am not personally using it, so it is not right for me to tell you about it.  If you are using it, tell me about it!

2.) Where You Tweet - Twaitter - Advertises itself as a business addition to Twitter, but I think it is definitely worth checking out...it has several features of good use...

• Schedule: Schedule your twitter messages
• Recurring: Set your twitter messages to send on recurring basis: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.
• Twitter Calendar: Manage your scheduled messages (Twaits) with our powerful calendar tool that works just like your Outlook calendar.
• Translation: Translate your tweets into any language with the click of a button. Do you follow tweeple that post in foreign languages? ...easily translate any tweet into a language you understand
• Feeds: Register your blog or business RSS feed with twaitter and have your new posts automatically sent to twitter. (coming soon)
• Schedule in Mass: Have a lot to say and a lot to schedule? Upload a file with your messages in our file format and we’ll be happy to schedule all the twaits for you.  (Coming Soon) *subject to Twitter message sending limits
  

3.) What is your Twitter History? Twitter + History.  A great way to log your Tweets so that you can track what you are saying in a calendar format.  It would be a great way to track the Tweets that you are doing professionally and want to remember in the future.  It is also a great tool to use if you have a Twitter account for your school or district.  It looks very promising if you want to track your Tweets.

4.) Your Very Own Twitter Statisitics - Track your tweets, followers, and those following you and how often those occur.  It evens provides estimates for your account in the future.  It also allows you to compare your Twitter with other users.  So...what are your stats....how do you "Twack" up with other users?

5.) Share Groups of Twitter Users - TweepML is a great way for you to track your #followfriday and #teachertuesday.  I highly recommend that you check this tool out and see how you can use it.  As they say "TweepML is an extensible, open standard format that allows you to manage and share groups of Twitter users"

6.) What is Your Twitter Karma? - See who is following you, see who you are following, and then see how the two groups follow each other.  Don't like your Karma...then you could use their tools to completely wipe out your Twitter account and start all over...not sure why, but the option is there.  I guess that is for those who feel bad Karma from their Twitter!

7.) Twitter List - I was fairly new to Twitter, and knew about the feature of List, but I had little understanding of how to use them, at least until I found this blog post about Twitter List and how they work.  I am still fairly new to Twitter, and most of the people I follow would fall under one list anyway, so I don't see a need for list yet, but something tells me you do.  Maybe this will help you out.

8.) TwitBlogs - I just found it and was having trouble getting it working.  It seems promising so I thought I would share it and figured that I would just check back when the glitch is repaired.  It is for when those 140 characters are not enough!

Remember, if you are not using Twitter, as an Educator, you should!.  If you missed last weeks Twitter Tuesday edition, you can find it here!

What Twitter Software, Applications, or Websites are you using? Let me know of some that I have left off this list because I don't know about them!

Must See Monday #2 - Free Technology 4 Teachers

Let me start off by saying that Free Technology 4 Teachers shares some of the best resources for teachers, no matter what subject matter you teach.  Free Technology for Teachers is the project of Mr. Richard Byrne; which you can follow on Twitter, and I highly recommend that you do so.  Mr. Byrne is a Google Certified Teacher and has been posting Technology for teachers since November of 2007.  Is it a coincidence that I started this blog in November as well? Hmm...probably not since my started 2 years later, and that is beside the point, since Mr. Byrne was an inspiration for my blog.

Now, why is this site a Must See...well, it is really more than a Must See, it is a Must Follow.  So far 15,000 other people do.  Daily post about Web 2.0 and other technology resources that teachers can use; and every single post I have read has always been free...hence the title of the blog.  Over 2600 post to date with technology related resources.  Do the math...that is over 100 a month!  Man, and he does all this on top of teaching...Kudos!

Free Technology 4 Teachers was nominated and won The Best Resource Sharing Blog and The Best Individual Blog in the 2009 Edublog Awards.  That makes him a Repeat Champ since he won The Best Resource Sharing Blog in 2008 as well.  You can Become a Fan on Facebook as well...and let me give Mr. Byrne credit for giving me the idea to create a Fan Page as well for this blog.  Any links he adds go to a Favorite List that he has created based on the resource in each post.  So find your subject matter and see what can help you in your classroom.

Two documents on Free Technology 4 Teachers that I suggest you view are digital magazines created on Yudu.  I have posted about the Twelve Essentials for Technology Integration before and they are a great tool for beginners trying to integrate technology.  He also has another publication, Beyond Google, which discusses "15+ tools and strategies for better Web Search Results."  It appears he has a thing for Green Laptops though because both front pages have Green Laptops.  I personally prefer red (Go Louisville Cardinals!)

While typing this post, Mr. Byrne typed another post about technology.  Keep up the great work for all the educators out there!

Does Your School Tweet? They Should!!

So last night I had a parent and member of the community request that I create a Twitter Account and Facebook account for our district.  Well, I am not far enough up the food chain to do anything with the district, but I did ask and get granted permission to create a Twitter account for my school.  I am not quite ready to tackle a Facebook Account yet...Just starting with Twitter.

After creating an account and emailing all the teachers telling them about it, I received an email that the district was worried about students Tweets with profanity being Tweeted to our Twitter account.  I have our account set to private so that I have to approve all the followers.  I also don't plan on following anyone that way their tweets do not show up on our Twitter Account.  Then we ran into the problem of reply Tweets (@).  Well I realized that I could easily block the user if they left a vulgar or profane Tweet mentioning the school account.  By Blocking them I delete the Tweet from our Twitter Account.  That means constantly monitoring the account, but it is Twitter...isn't that the point?

Now that I have got that out of the way, why should schools use Twitter?  It is a great source for communicating with parents, students, and the community.  What could you communicate you might ask?

1. Daily and Weekly Announcements, Office Information, Guidance Information.
2. Cancellations and Delays
3. Student of the Week or Day
4. Athlete of the Week or Day
5. Stories about students and teachers from your school
6. Awards, Scholarships, Grants, and Accomplishments by teachers and students at your school
7. Sports scores and statisitics
8. Scheduled events (Sports, Band, Drama, Meetings, Registration, etc.)
9. Club and Organization information.  Sponsors could share field trip related information, meeting dates, Volunteer opportunities.  Imagine what this could do for FFA, FBLA, DECA, BETA, etc, etc, etc
10. Daily Lunch Menu
11. Dates and information for extra-curricular activities
12. Links to teacher webpages and student work created and posted online
13. Due Dates and Test dates both school wide and within teachers classrooms

How does your school use Twitter?

Be sure that your school has a policty regarding Social Networking before creating a Twitter Account.

5 Tips for Beginning Bloggers

Looking through some blogs that I normally follow (and some I don't) I have seen quite a few post by people offering tips to beginning bloggers.  One I found via Free Tech 4 Teachers.  Another I found via my Twitter account through Liz Davis and her blog.  Since I am rather new to the idea of blogging I thought I would share some of the ideas that I felt have helped me.  Most importantly though, once you have that one post everyone reads, more and more people will follow your blog.  Thinking creatively is very important.  Hope these help.

1.) Daily Post Focus - Have something you know you will want to post each day.  Create a catchy title.  These will most likely make people want to come back to your blog to see what your daily post is for that day.  It gives you and your readers a purpose for your blog.  Here are my daily focus topics.

2.) Tracking and Statistics -  It is great to know who is visiting your site and from where.  Feedjit is a great example.  It helped me realize I needed to have Google Translate as an option on my blog because I realized I had people visiting from all over the world.  It also helps you know what site brought people to your blog, as well as what sites people are leaving your blog too.

3.) Share and Quote - Share other bloggers that you follow through a Blogroll.  Depending on the blog service you are using will determine how you can create a Blogroll.  If you are sharing information from another blogger be sure to link to their page and/or quote their original information.  Never claim what is not your own.  It will be hard to make friends in the blogging world.

4.) Exposure - Get your name and blog out there.  Join Twitter.  If you are not on Twitter, here is why you should join.  If you join Twitter, or are already on Twitter, Follow me.  Post your blog on the Moving Forward Wiki and other Educational Wiki's.  Claim your Blog on Technorati.  Create Social Bookmarking accounts so that you can save links from your blog and create a network with other people.  Join some Ning's and communicate and share with others who would be interested in reading your blog...that is what first got my blog some exposure.  Share any network you belong to on your blog as well so that others can connect with you.  Include an RSS reader as well so that people can subscribe to your blog.  Feedburner is what I use and recommend. 

5.) Tagging and Searching - Make sure that the tags for your blog post are relative and meaningful.  Make sure that you include broad tags and specific tags so that it broadens their relevancy.  Include a Search toolbar within your blog so that readers can easily find material within your blog that they might be looking for.  Make your blog searchable by adding it to Google.

Do you have a blog?  Share your blog with me.  I am always looking for new blogs to follow and search through. 

Have you enjoyed your visit to my blog?  Let me know.

Hope that you find this information useful.  Please share and spread the word!