Alexis Morgan’s Blog

These are my links for January 22nd through January 31st:

• The Hero Workshop –
• Free Technology for Teachers: 20 Educational Alternatives to YouTube –
• 10 Digital Writing Opportunities You Probably Know and 10 You Probably Don’t | ICT in my Classroom –
• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education by Blog By Carol –
• 50 Tools and Tricks to Revolutionize Your Notetaking | Distance Learning Net –
• Museum Box Homepage –
• Video in the Classroom –
• White House stuck in “Technological Dark Ages” – Obama might be keeping his BlackBerry, but his tech-savvy staffers are reportedly stunned by the West Wing’s painfully antiquated gear, not to mention a constricting, Web 2. …

These are my links for January 16th:

• Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Youtube: Everywhere but the Classroom (And How you can Bring it There Anyway) – The comments list some alternatives on how to access YouTube movies.
• Free Technology for Teachers: Five Fun Spelling Games – more spelling games
• ReadWriteThink: Student Materials: Persuasion Map –
• Google Closes Many Services – what areas of Google are shutting down or no longer being supported
• Top 50 Educational Policy Blogs – To keep you abreast of the most interesting of these discussions, this article has compiled, in no specific order, the 50 best and most important education policy blogs. Check them out…

These are my links for January 10th:

• Building a Digital Locker: Personal Learning Networks Explained | Edutopia –
• How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website – Learn how to embed videos, mp3 music, Flash videos (both swf and flv), pictures, fonts, spreadsheets, charts, maps and everything else into your blog or website.
• REFLECTIVE DIARY TOOL –
• Background about the project – Planning for a Photo a Day –
• Photojojo » Project 365: How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New Way –

These are my links for January 8th:

• How to use Google Earth more effectively. – elearnr –
• Power Up Your Professional Learning Network – SlideShare –
• The Geo-Literacy Project: Students Use Technology to Explore Their World | Edutopia – Thousands of articles, videos, slide shows, expert interviews, blog entries, and other resources highlight success stories in K-12 education. Core concepts include integrated studies, project learning,technology integration, teacher development, social and emotional learning, and assessment.” /><meta name=”keywords” content=”Integrated Studies, Project Learning, Technology Integration, Teacher Development, Social and Emotional Learning, Assessment” /> <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html
• ReadWriteThink: Student Materials: Word Wizard –
• The Best Sites To Learn About Valentine’s Day | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day… –

These are my links for January 2nd through January 6th:

• Welcome to the BrainyFlix SAT Vocab Contest – Brainyflix – Learn vocabulary the fun way. Submit your own videos!
• 43 Folders | Time, Attention, and Creative Work – 43Folders.com is Merlin Mann?s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.
• hos_entry –
• Instructify –
• Watch Online | Top Documentary Films –

Edmodo   Free microblogging for educators. Teachers and students can use it to send notes, links, files, assignments, and other events to each other.

Google   Google is so teacher friendly that they’ve even created an academy to teach teachers how to use Google in the schools. From there, teachers turnkey their district.

ClassMarker  Create free quizzes and tests online. It even marks your tests for you too!

Google Earth Lessons An educational resource for teachers who love Google Earth, but may still be unsure of how to integrate it in the classroom.

Almost a year ago, Jennifer Dorman, created a Discovery Educator Network on Diigo. Diigo is a social networking site that allows users, especially educators, to compile links to various resources and tools. Instead of saving your links on a the favorites icon of a computer, this site allows you to access your links anywhere at any time. Please join Diigo and then join the group.

Deep breath…as a Google Certified Teacher and a DEN STAR, I have a quota of PD, workshops, and one-on-one sessions that I must fulfill to keep my position. I intend to use my district as a launching pad for introducing students and staff to 21st century technology.

Next week, teachers will be coming in and out my classroom to observe how I use Google Sites with my students. Following that session, I will be holding a training session with K-2nd grade teachers on using United Streaming in tandem with StoryTown, the new Harcourt Reading program adopted by our district over the summer.

One of the best blogs, Langwitches, hosted by Silvia Tolisano, is asking educators to participate with her in a collaboration project called, Around the World with 80 Schools. For the past week, I have been Skype driven.  Skype is a software program that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet. Sounds great, right? Well don’t throw out your Verizon plan just yet.  Like any phone service, Skype requires that you first buy credit (usually $10.00) and they charge $0.21/min for all landline phone calls. However, calls to other Skype users of the service are free. I am interested in using the program to collaborate with other 21st century educators, hold conferences, and let my mother know that I’ll be a little late for dinner.

Well, Langwitches, is asking for volunteers to Skype with her and her class as she attempts to connect with over 80 schools around the globe in six months. I think this project is a great endeavor and I would signed up to participate. If you are interested, please visit her site, http://langwitches.org/blog/, and read her previous articles on Skyping in the classroom.

I am finally a DEN STAR!!! After attending a workshop this summer in New Jersey, I knew that the DEN was the place for me. Now I am a Google Certified Teacher and a DEN STAR.  Now comes the fun part – training.