Penn Wood High School Instructional Technology E-Newsletter Jan. 8, 2010

E m a i l : s m o r m a n d o @ w p s d . k 1 2 . p a . u s w w w . p w h s c f f . w i k i s p a c e s . c o m

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2010 New Year’s Teaching Resolution?

The following are recommendations by Education World to help teachers interested in integrating technology into their classrooms but have little or no experience with technology.

• Manage with technology: Use technology to manage your classes. Average grades with a spreadsheet, use mail merge to send parent letters, and surf the Internet for lesson plans. Focus on using technology yourself before introducing it to your students.

• Start small: Set an initial goal of including technology in one content area or unit a month. Have students write a letter with a word processing program, create a graph in a spreadsheet program, or practice math skills using content software.

• Surf in shallow waters: Surfing students misspell site addresses and become distracted by commercial sites. Focus class research by hand-picking relevant, age-appropriate Web sites.

• Online learning tools: Learn how to use WebQuests, scavenger hunts, and other online learning tools -- and how to make your own -- at Ed Index. (Click Online Learning Basics on the drop-down menu.)

• Test online: Save instructional time and motivate your kids by creating, administering, and grading tests online. Check out the Education World article Motivate While You Integrate Technology: Online Assessment for more information.

• Know when to say no: Technology isn't perfect; it can't replace face-to-face teaching. Learn to determine when technology helps -- and hurts -- the learning process and use it accordingly. Your curriculum, not your computer, should be the focus of technology integration.

No matter what you know -- or don't know -- about technology, no matter how many computers you have, no matter how skilled your students are, you can integrate technology. Remain confident, flexible, and enthusiastic and you will succeed.

Penn Wood High School Instructional Technology E-Newsletter Jan. 8, 2010

E m a i l : s m o r m a n d o @ w p s d . k 1 2 . p a . u s w w w . p w h s c f f . w i k i s p a c e s . c o m

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10 Tools to Help Students Get Organized

After the holiday vacation some students will return to school determined to get organized and improve their grades. The following resources could help those students get a handle on managing their assignment due dates.

Remember the Milk is a free personal organization tool that works online and with mobile phones. Many of our high school students are carrying cell phones with them so we should capitalize on that and talk to parents and students about using a cell phone to get organized. Remember the Milk allows students to add assignment due dates to their to-do lists via text, email, or directly on their account homepage. A word of caution, while this services is free, students could incur a lot of charges from text and data communication on their mobile phones so be sure to discuss these options with parents before having students use the text/ data tools.

Macs have made digital sticky notes popular; Postica is trying to make sticky notes even better. Postica is a web-based sticky note service. The collaborative aspect of Postica is that users can share their sticky board with other users to share ideas. Users can send sticky notes to each other and edit each other's sticky notes.

Nexty is a personal planning tool that falls somewhere between a basic to-do list creator and a full-fledged project management tool. Nexty offers users the ability to create lists, prioritize lists, and set reminders. Nexty users can create project folders to which they can add to-do lists for completing each project. The settings in Nexty are intuitive and easy to adjust. Getting started with Nexty takes only seconds as you do not have to enter an email address to create an account.

Penn Wood High School Instructional Technology E-Newsletter Jan. 8, 2010

E m a i l : s m o r m a n d o @ w p s d . k 1 2 . p a . u s w w w . p w h s c f f . w i k i s p a c e s . c o m

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Ta-da List is a simple to-do list creation tool built by 37 Signals. Ta-da List allows to you to create a to-do list in 30 seconds. Just sign-up and start building lists. Your lists will be hosted at a unique url assigned just to you. Direct your browser to that url to check items off of your lists or to create a new list.

By App is a simple task management tool that assigns users their own unique subdomain. Through By App you can create a list of tasks for yourself and organize the list by semantic day (tomorrow, next week) or by date. If your priorities shift, you can reorganize your list with the simple drag and drop interface.

Track Class offers all of the features that we have come to expect in online student organizers. Through Track Class students can keep a schedule of courses, track assignment dates, write and save notes, and maintain a calendar of events. Inside Track Class students can also save files like essays they've written and slideshow presentations they've created.

Soshiku is a free personal planner designed for high school and college students. Soshiku lets students organize their assignments by course, add assignments, and receive text message and or email reminders before each assignment is due. Students can add assignments to their calendars directly on the Soshiku website or via text message. Registering and getting started with Soshiku is quick and the user interface is very intuitive and easy to learn.

Penn Wood High School Instructional Technology E-Newsletter Jan. 8, 2010

E m a i l : s m o r m a n d o @ w p s d . k 1 2 . p a . u s w w w . p w h s c f f . w i k i s p a c e s . c o m

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Deadline is a very simple, yet potentially powerful personal organizer. One feature that really stands out about Deadline is its very user friendly interface. To use Deadline simply sign up with an email account and start using it. When entering task reminders you can time in a day of the week or date in just about any format and Deadline will recognize what you mean. For example, when I entered a reminder for myself to post grades on January 4, Deadline will recognize that as next Monday. Or if I write "post grades on Monday," Deadline will recognize that as January 4.

IzzyToDo is one of simplest and easiest tools for building an online to-do list. IzzyToDo allows you to make multiple lists for multiple objectives. Once you've registered create a "target" or objective and begin adding "items" that you need to do to reach your target. You can try IzzyToDo before registering by using the demo on the homepage.

Stixy.com is an organization and collaboration web tool. Stixy, as the name implies, allows you to write notes and stick them to a clipboard. Stixy allows you to share you notes with others and have them respond to your notes. The Stixy clipboard has three other great features, the ability to stick and share documents, stick and share photographs, and create and share a "to do" list on the clipboard and on a calendar.

One last option that shouldn't be overlooked is Google Calendar. Google Calendar allows users to share and collaborate on the creation of a calendar. One way to use Google Calendar is to have students and parents share a calendar. The student can enter his or her assignment due dates and then his or her parents can check the calendar. For teachers there is another option. Teachers can create and publish a calendar that parents can check online for assignment due dates.

Penn Wood High School Instructional Technology E-Newsletter Jan. 8, 2010

E m a i l : s m o r m a n d o @ w p s d . k 1 2 . p a . u s w w w . p w h s c f f . w i k i s p a c e s . c o m

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6 Ways for Students to Publish Their Writing Online

In the course of a school year, most teachers will have students produce written content that they think should be shared with other readers. Other times teachers create writing projects with the goal of having students share their work publicly. The web offers many ways to publish written work; the following are six free options.

Google Docs and Zoho Writer are the probably the simplest tools for publishing written work to the web. In both cases you can create and share all of your works without leaving the program. Google Docs allows students to publish documents as a webpage. You can then email url or post the url on your blog or website. Zoho Writer provides an extra option which generates an embed code for your documents. Using the embed code will allow people to read your

documents without having to leave your blog or website.

Scribd and DocStoc are similar services that can best be described as YouTube for documents. You cannot create documents within either service rather you have to upload documents created with your preferred word processing program. Both services accept all of the common Microsoft formats, Open Office and Neo Office formats, and PDFs. Once you've uploaded your document it will be assigned a url and given an embed code. You can use the embed code to feature your documents on your blog or website. You can see how I've used DocStoc in the past by checking out this post.

If your students do any projects involving newsletter or magazine creation, you owe to them to check out Yudu and Issuu. Both services allow users to turn their static documents into page-turning online documents. To use the services simply upload your documents and select the visual effects that you want your documents to have. Without any special skills, your students' work can take on a very polished, professional look that they will want to show-off. You can embed the finished products into your blog or website.