The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness

Sunday, December 27, 2009

12 Essentials for Technology Integration

Recently the Edublog Awards opened the door to several blogs that will help many of you in your classroom. One of the award winners is a Mr. Richard Byrne who is responsible for the blog Free Technology 4 Teachers. I knew about his site prior to learning about the Edublog awards just by searching Google, and his site was part of my motivation for creating this blog as well.

One of the parts of his blog is a digital magazine that he created using Yudu titled The 12 Essentials for Techology Integration. It is a great publication that offers free resources that you can use in your classroom. His blog posts are also very original and offer a wide variety of resources across the spectrum of the subject matter that as teachers we cover in our classroom.

I highly recommend this site not just to visit once, but to subscribe to as well. He is not just on top of Web 2.0 technology but also news stories and websites helpful to technology integration.

5 Minute Videos

5 Minute Videos is a website dedicated to videos that are less than 5 minutes that can help you with everyday problems. I personally checked out the Technology section and there were quite a few useful researchers that educators could use to help themselves as well as their students. Many of the tech videos are organized by subject matter, ie.; IPhone Apps, Software, Tech support, Product Reviews, etc. Surf through and see what you might find that is of use to you...I am sure there are questions that you need answered and these can help you.

Other categories include Health, Fashion, Games, Gardening, Music, Travel, etc.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas

Here at The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and for those of you who do not celebrate Christmas....Happy Holidays.

Feel free to track Santa

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Virsona - Create a Virtual You

On this Christmas Eve Eve if you have not found a gift for someone, why not give a gift that keeps on giving. Virsona is a website that allows you to create a Virtual You. What does that mean? Imagine your great great grandchildren being able to interview you... not read about you, but interview you. Through the website you can create an account and answer questions, or tell the website about yourself and then provide questions that relate to that information. You can keep a daily journal entry so there is a timeline of events. You can also provide your philosophical ideas, political beliefs, religious beliefs, etc.

From a classroom stand point, imagine interviewing Abraham Lincoln and asking him about Slavery or the Gettysburg Address. Or interviewing any other President. The website has an educational feature that allows your school or district to pay for an account to create student accounts and then your students could use the site to create virsonas of a historical person as part of a project.

Visit the website, play around for a little bit. Or go directly and talk to President Lincoln.

Imagine the possibilities if we could get every President, leader, actor, actress, politician, etc. to use this site, then they would never really die and we would also be able to know where they stand and what they did.

Friday, December 18, 2009

The 2009 Edublog Awards

Winners, First Runner Up, and Second Runner Up have all been announced for all 19 categories. Each category and its homepage for winners and all those nominated can be found below.

No better resource for education and technology then all the blogs available here. Check them out and see which ones you can follow to help improve your teaching.

I am looking forward to next year!