Fine Tech in the Classroom

I came across this fun site (may have already been posted on DEN) http://buildyourwildself.com through Tech Thoughts by Jen  My students are going to love it!

Thanks to whoever added the new presenations templates for our blogs.  I absolutely love, love WordPress and the flexibility.  I’ve been using WordPress since Dreamhost added as a “goodie” to those who use their service.  This template is my favorite.  You are able to add you own photos.  

Other free WordPress blogs I have use is through the WordPress site and through Edublogs.

I keep changing my class blog template.   I like the clean lines of this one and my students enjoy the animation I get from animationfactory.com that match with what we are learning in class.

Maybe everyone has seen this site but it’s new to me.  I got this from one of my online gifted colleagues.  I plan to use Wordle the first day of class when we go to the computer lab.  My plan is to have the students describe themselves using adjectives and put it into a “wordle.”  This should be fun.

I just love Google’s Picasa.  Posting my vacation pictures last night, I realized that you can embed your pictures into a slide show into your web page.  It was easy using my Edublogs site and Picasa.  Picasa gives you the code after you upload to the Picasa Web Album.

I stumbled across this web site:  http://windows.about.com/od/shortcuts/tp/windows-keyboard-shortcuts.htm

I’ve used most of these shortcuts for years, but I’m glad that I have found an easy to read page to put in my homepage links.  The about.com folks always have great articles.  I just wish they didn’t have those irritating pop-ups.

Social networking is here to stay and I believe as educators and parents that we must learn all we can about them and be assured that our children are being involved in a responsible mannner. Click here for an excellent article and suggestions for parents.Some guidelines I think are important are:
*Take extra steps to protect younger kids. Keep the computer in an open area like the kitchen or family room, so you can keep an eye on what your kids are doing online. Use the Internet with them to help develop safe surfing habits. Consider taking advantage of parental control features on some operating systems that let you manage your kids’ computer use, including what sites they can visit, whether they can download items, or what time of day they can be online.
*Go where your kids go online. Sign up for — and use — the social networking spaces that your kids visit. Let them know that you’re there, and help teach them how to act as they socialize online.
*Review your child’s friends list. You may want to limit your child’s online “friends” to people your child actually knows and is friendly with in real life.
Be assured that when your child is in my class, I am supervising what they are doing.
Some sites I have checked out and are designed for pre-teens are as follows. Join them yourself, but do let them know you are a parent.
Barbie Girls
Millsberry This is great and the students have to go to games to learn in order to earn points.
Imbee This is a site we will probably use in our class.
Whyville
Club Penguin This is produced by the Disney Company.