Cyberbullying Presentation

Here is a presentation that I created for an after school training session for our staff. I figured that I might as well share it so that someone else might benefit from it. Cyberbullying is a real issue in our schools and one that should not be taken lightly.

Search Engines, Bookmarking and Citations

Another presentation that was created for an after school training on researching with the internet. This one focused on using appropriate Search Engines, Bookmarking and Citing.

"I Love to Read Month 2013" Calendar

As a first year Technology/Media Specialist, it is my responsibility to organize and set up a schedule for February's "I Love to Read Month". With great help and input from our wonderful teachers, we created a month of wonderful reading activities to help promote and inspire reading. Below is the schedule that I put together, which can also be viewed as a PDF here.
Please feel free to use or share as needed.  

iOS Device Management Presentation

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting at our county schools Multi-District Workshop. One of the presentations that I gave dealt with setting up and managing iOS devices in an educational setting. Since this is a complicated topic, I thought I would share the Google Presentation here so that it might be beneficial to others looking for guidance.
If you have questions or need some input, please feel free to contact me.

iOS Management
Presentation Description: Looking at bringing in iOS devices to enrich your curriculum with technology? This session will look at the various ways in which these devices can be setup and managed in your classroom, department, or in your 1-1 school. We will demystify the Apple Volume Purchase Program and explore the different ways that you can use to deploy your devices. No experience necessary.

iPad Apps in the Shop - Part 1

With the integration of iPads into my Industrial Technology curriculum this year, I have had the opportunity to try out various iPad apps with my students and see which ones work well. I wanted to share my experiences so that other teachers might be able to make informed decisions about which apps you might want to use.

The following highlights the apps that have had the most usage in my classroom. This will be part 1 in a series of several, as I have over 100 apps and counting on the iPads. The cost section is in reference to Apple's Volume Purchase Program for Education, where 1-19 copies are typically full price, and 20 copies or more are sometimes reduced to half price if the developer chooses so when they submit them to the App Store.

Click on the App buttons below to get more information from the App Store.

Edmodo

Cost: Free

Account Required: Yes

Student Email Required: Yes

Frequency of Use: Daily

I used Edmodo in my face-to-face Computer animation course as a way to share links, videos, and other resources with my students. Students have the ability to turn assignments via Edmodo, which I find particularly useful. The interface is very similar to Facebook, so my students jump right in and start communicating with each other right away. I even had a student who was home sick working on that days assignment and communicating with their classmates.

Dropbox

Cost: Free

Account Required: Yes

Student Email Required: No, I use my school address for all the iPads

Frequency of Use: Daily


I use Dropbox on every device that I own! Dropbox enables you to save your files in the cloud and access them when you need them. This is especially useful when I want to share files to all the iPads, or if I want students to share files with me. I have this app installed on the iPads, as well as the computer in my lab, and they are all signed into the same account to simplify sharing.

iBooks

Cost: Free

Account Required: No

Student Email Required: No

Frequency of Use: Daily


iBooks is they app that I use to share any PDF resources that I have along with some free books that I have downloaded. It is much less distracting to have students read an article in iBooks than on the web. In fact, Safari (on my iMac) now has a feature called "Reader" that allows me to get rid of all the extra fluff on a web page which makes it much easier to read.

iMovie

Cost: 1-19, $4.99, 20+ $2.49

Account Required: Yes

Student Email Required: No

Frequency of Use: When Needed


With the addition of the cameras to the iPad 2, iMovie now gives my students the ability to creative dynamic videos. The best part is that they use one device to plan, shoot, edit and turn in their projects. iMovie for the iPad is very intuitive and my students have picked it up very quickly and have created stunning work. I used to be impressed by the ease in which my student learned and created on the computers, buy I am astonished by how fast they can create with iMovie on the iPad.

Ruler for iPad and iPhone

Cost: Free

Account Required: No

Student Email Required: No

Frequency of Use: When Needed

Most of my classes create "things" as part of the learning process. Very often in the process of creating, a rules is needed. Now I do have rules in my classroom, but the Ruler for iPad app allows my students to have a ruler on them at all times. The app allows student to drag their fingers to create a start and stop point. The distance between the two is then shown in decimal format to a hundredth of an inch.

MITx Circuits & Electronics Free Certificate Course

MIT has recently announce that they will be offering a FREE interactive online course about Circuits and Electronics through MITx. The course, MITx 6002, also give the option of receiving a certificate upon successful completion, also for free.

This is part of the course description from the courses site:

The course introduces engineering in the context of the lumped circuit abstraction. Topics covered include: resistive elements and networks; independent and dependent sources; switches and MOS transistors; digital abstraction; amplifiers; energy storage elements; dynamics of first- and second-order networks; design in the time and frequency domains; and analog and digital circuits and applications. Design and lab exercises are also significant components of the course. You should expect to spend approximately 10 hours per week on the course.

In the video below, the instructors are introduced and the course is explained.



This would be a great opportunity for anybody of any age looking for a chance to take a premiere introductory level course for free. The course starts on March 5th, and concludes on June 8th, with registration has already started.

Tri-Lambs in Training

Founding brothers of the Tri-Lambda

During the past several January's, 8-9 local school districts have come together on a common inservice day to share staff presentations and network with other teachers. We have titled the inservice "A Gathering of Great Minds", and it has been a great venue for learning new skills, meeting other teachers, and satisfying those pesky continuing education requirements for re-licensure. I have been part of the planning committee for three years, representing my school.

This year I, along with a good friend an excellent teacher Cullen Franek, were lucky enough to give a presentation on various Web 2.0 sites that would benefit the classroom. We choose the title "Tri-Lambs in Training" to represent our session for several reasons. First and foremost, we saw ourselves as the "nerds" of our districts and wanted to share. Secondly, we found these awesome Revenge of the Nerd's cardigan sweaters on 80tees.

Two studs in sweet sweaters

Using Google Docs, we collaborated on a list of our favorite Web 2.0 sites that we felt were worthy of sharing. This list topped 170 sites, which we knew was too many to share in a 50 minutes. So we picked the ones we felt would benefit teachers the most. The list was now narrowed down to 50 sites, which we felt was an appropriate amount for the time allowed.

The presentations went very well, and we received a lot of good feedback from our peers. I am sure that the sweaters helped, but I am also guessing that our charming personalities, good looks and the awesome Web 2.0 sites also contributed. That being said, I wanted to share our presentation links with my readers. Feel free to distribute, share, use as needed. This was created for the betterment of any and all. Enjoy!

Tri-Lambs in Training