Sites for Productivity

Beat it, beat it...as in music

I love tunes and having customized playlists to go with student units.  My favorite tool to create music playlists is Grooveshark

Below is a screenshot of the music we use in our "credit" unit

Getting Organized

Getting organized and staying productive aren't an easy thing to do.  My three favorite tools to stay on top of things are:
Evernote
Dropbox
Google Calendar

Here is presentation to help you learn the tools

Not flashy but oh so cool

Google Drive may not be flashy or have lots of amazing bells and whistles but it is a time saving tool. One of my favorite things is Spreadsheets....yes, I also love Excel but you can't easily collaborate in Excel. I use a Google shared spreadsheet for everything from my hubby and my budget to lesson plan ideas. Try it, you'll like it.

How do I learn techie stuff?

My favorite place to learn, in my free time, is Flipboard.  Flipboard is a free magazine app in which one can customize by topics.  Included on my Flipboard are Edutopia, Ted Talks, my Twitter feed, Google + feed and more.  I have one called just apps and I get to see the latest free apps of the day...Flipboard is AWeSOMe.  If your looking to learn in a relaxed way this could be it.

Share your lessons

We have all seen Khan Academy and today a teacher asked how she could do something similar.  Here are the tools I suggested to help her flip her classroom.

Present.Me

Educreations

Screencastomatic

Jing

Digital Story creators

Use Go Animate to get your kids attention

An awesome English teacher created this to send a message to her students...and it worked palmg's Animation by palmg on GoAnimate

8th Grade Story Tellers

Three amazing English teachers and I shared the follow tools this week to give students away to make their stories come to life. Here are the tools that we used:

•  Narrable  (free educator account)
•  Animoto (free educator account)
•  Storybird  

Staff Development Thinglink...we learned all this in one day!

Internet Safety...what's the big deal

Today I was teaching middle school 8th graders about Internet Safety, Cyberbulling & Sexting and I realized I would not want to be a teenager today.  Everything they do is recorded and makes a lasting impression.  I wonder how often someone sympathizes with them and shares how proud they already are that they have made positive online choices.

The lesson used was from NetSmartz and was very effective.