Tech Bytes

Do you have students who need text read to them? If so, there is a Google Add On that can be found in the Chrome Web Store called SpeakIt!.  SpeakIt! allows a student to highlight text while on the Internet and have it read to them. This is a great tool for students who have difficulty with reading comprehension, who may be slow readers, or students who have dyslexia. This tool is a quick way for your student to help themselves instead of waiting on someone else to solve the problem, or worse yet, don't complete an assignment due to their reading difficulty. If you are a Google school or if your students have a personal Google account, they can use this Add On.  Watch the instructional video to learn how to add this to Google Chrome.

As many of you have begun to try new and creative ways to engage your students with your curriculum by using technology, I wanted to offer encouragement. There will be times when lessons fail: because the technology doesn’t work, because the lesson wasn’t completely thought out, because the idea was good, but the execution left something to be desired. Whatever the case may be, when you are being creative and takings risks, failure will happen. Robert F. Kennedy said “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”. He wasn’t saying we should embrace failure, rather embrace the purpose of failure, which is to learn from it. I came across a three part article written by Michal Eynon-Lynch, the second of which is titled, “ Failing Toward Success ”. In this article, she address how as educators, we should respond to students work, especially when they do not reach the standard set. However, I also think the article relates to how we should respond to our own teaching m...

I discovered yesterday, that NASA is having a container design contest for students age 5 to 19. I have introduced the contest to my students and shared the information with a few others. I am including a link here for anyone who would like more information. NASA Challenges Students to Design 3-D Space Containers In my class, students will be using SketchUp Pro to create their 3-D drawings. We have just started using this software at my school and the students really seem to enjoy it. I will be working with the math and science teachers in the Fall of 2015 to implement 3-D drawings in their classes. I can't wait to see what we can create! As a public school, the company provided us the software free of charge. There was some paperwork to fill out but it was a simple process. So far, the students have created houses, golf courses, tanks, and boats. For more information about SketchUp Pro, simply click here. 

I have been really focused on integrating technology into the secondary math classroom. I came across this blog post from "talkin heads TECHNOLOGY". I did not realize you could create graphs in this way using Google. Check out their latest entry on "Graphing with Google". Graphing with Google

I like to talk ideas out; it helps me gain a better understanding of what it is I know and what it is I don’t know. Also, when others express their ideas, I am able to learn  and approach an idea from another point of view. When students discuss their ideas and explain their reasoning, they gain insights into their own thinking. Also, by hearing a peers explanation of a topic can increase understanding. I may not fully understand the way a teacher explains a concept with academic language but a peers language may make complete sense to me. Class time is a very limited commodity. One way to include class discussions in your math class is with digital discussion boards. The use of digital discussion boards has many benefits. First, it gives every student in the classroom a voice. Second, student misconceptions can be identified and addressed more quickly as well as allowing students the opportunity to evaluate others’ mathematical thinking. Third, all students are held accountab...

Sometimes as teachers we can feel as if we are walking through a dry desert and the new ideas just won't flow. However, I just returned from the TCEA Conference (Texas Computer Education Association) held in Austin which was like an Oasis. I was introduced to many new things this year and I was inspired to get my blog updated again. We are hearing often in the education field about formative assessment. Often, we get to the end of a unit, we give our unit test, kids aren't successful, and we move on because there is so much to cover before the end of the year. By assessing our students often, we can better gauge if students are learning and if they aren't, we can adjust our teaching. But assessment takes time. As the teacher, you may have to grade up to 175 papers and that doesn't count the time it takes to then break down the results to see what the students know and what they don't know. I have discovered there are resources out there for teachers that can hel...

As a teacher, I am always striving to find new and innovative ways to improve my students learning. The newest innovation is the Flipped Classroom. With this type of learning environment teachers video/record or provide resources for their lessons, the students use the resources on their own time and then come to class to do “homework” and to work with the teacher and other students on what they have learned or did not understand. By teaching in this way students are allowed to learn at their own pace and to receive the help needed.  One way to flip the classroom that I use is to incorporate LiveBinders into my classroom (see earlier blog post for information about Livebinders). I started teaching stop motion/claymation to my students 2 to 3 years ago in the traditional manner. The projects I received from my students were decent. Last year, I decided to try something new. I created a binder in LiveBinders that included resources for every aspect of the claymation process alo...