Developing your PLN

Without having specific assignments related to our PLN due each week, this article gives great ideas to keep up with your PLN so that we can use it to our advantage when we really need it. It is most important to interact with other people, and to do so often. Without this, your PLN does not exist. Get involved!! The more involved you are, the more involved the people on the other end of your PLN will want to be. It is a give and take process, and it only works if both ends take the time to help the other grow. Use Twitter, blog often, and keep organized!

Remember that people are busy. It may not take 5 minutes for someone to answer your question or comment. If possible, ask multiple people so that you are able to get an answer quickly. However, be patient! Nobody likes a nagging person, and it is almost impossible to communicate with someone who does not have patience with you. Be real with your PLN. Putting on a face will only throw people off when they realize who you truly are. Take the time to get to know the people in your PLN. This will only bring advantages to your life.

Bottom line: PARTICIPATE!

Blog it up!

Now that we are at the end of the semester, I have taken some time to reflect on what will and what will not work in my classroom when I finally become a teacher. I enjoyed writing blogs each week because it was a way to have us begin our PLN journey and to get other peoples' insights to our profession. I have found countless blogs that I have added to my Evernote so that I can keep up with them. I have bookmarked many specific articles that I want to use in my classroom, and having this opportunity makes me excited rather than scared to begin my teaching career. In the beginning of the semester, we were told that we would have to incorporate technology into our classrooms 1,000 times more than it was incorporated into our's when we were in school. Then, I was stubborn and afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep up with all of the new technology. With this course, through projects, blogging, Twitter, and my PLN, I now know that I have other places to turn to when things start to get rough. I will be able to use technology to find ways to incorporate technology into my classroom! Technology seems to be a win-win for teachers, as it is where I will be looking to enhance my classroom and my students will be excited to use technology to learn.

Blogging in the Classroom

This blog gave great tips to teachers on how to integrate blogging into your classroom. He tells us to just get started with the blogging. Many people want their blog to look flawless the second it is made, but this is unnecessary because you can change the style of the blog later. You should inform parents of the blogging in your classroom, and explain why you are choosing for your students to blog. Internet safety rules and contracts should be reviewed and signed both by parents and students in order to maintain a safe learning environment online. Guidelines should be created and discussed with parents and students. Without communication, this form of learning will fail. It is important to set and discuss expectations with your class. Lastly, you should expect something will go wrong. Always prepare for the worst, but make these mistakes teaching and learning opportunities with your students. Be sure to explain to students what happened and why so that you can learn together about fixing the issue next time.

I just came across this blog today and plan on visiting it more often. This post was really interesting and helpful, and the blogger posts in an informal way in order to connect with his audience.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/11/how-to-set-yourself-up-for-classroom.html#.UocpsRpJOSo

Twitter experiences

Twitter has been beneficial to me, as I have been using it for another class since the beginning of the semester. However, it is really hectic and I do not have much time to go on Twitter to interact as much as I would like to and should. I do know, however, that if I have a question or concern about anything education (or really any topic) related, I can go on Twitter and reach out to those on my PLN. This is comforting because technology is developing so quickly, and it is hard to keep up! There are many subjects that one teacher teaches better than another because of the way they teach the lesson. If my class is not understanding a specific topic, I know that I can go on Twitter and reach out to other educators to see how they teach that subject. All students are capable of learning. But, as educators, we need to be sure to teach through various learning methods in order to reach every student in our classroom. On Twitter, I have found articles, blogs, advice on how to handle parents, advice on how to use Twitter to your best advantage, classroom set up ideas, classroom scheduling ideas, anti-bullying demonstrations, how to integrate technology into the classroom, and countless other things. Twitter has been a great resource, and I am glad that I started to use it while I am still in college. This will allow me to further develop my personal learning network, and, hopefully, I can do a Mystery Skype with one of these teachers with my class someday!

Edutopia

Edutopia is a great ning for educators because they want to make a difference. If you are an educator that does not have this goal, you should find a new career. You can look through the site organized by alphabetic letters or grade level, which are both great ways to organize the site. Edutopia encourages you to get involved and interact with others on the site to create better schools. There are blogs to keep up with, articles to read, examples of successful schools, classroom guides, and videos. There are hundreds of resources all on one page, and you can share this on your PLN Twitter network, which will then encourage your followers to join, which will then allow them to post to the site, which will then benefit you by reading their posts and advice. There are also quizzes that you can take, and you can subscribe to a newsletter so that you don't miss out on any important information. I am going to start using Edutopia and import things into Evernote from it to keep everything organized.

Twitter

Twitter has been a fun but challenging experience so far. It is really difficult to find the time to be able to get on Twitter between working and going to school, but when I do get the chance, I find it rewarding. Being able to connect with other educators who are passionate about teaching allows me to improve myself as a (future) teacher. I am excited to get into the classroom because of all of the tools I have access to. Before my PLN network, it made me nervous that I would be expected to use technology so much in my classroom. Twitter gives you access to websites, articles, videos and thousands of other resources to improve yourself as a teacher. I am relieved to know that I have people to reach out to with any questions and concerns regarding my future career. I want to be able to give my students everything I can, and my PLN has given me back-up.

Mystery Skype

Using Skype in the classroom to connect with other teachers and students across the world can be beneficial in many ways. We can learn about other cultures and how those students learn and interact with other teachers to learn more about our field and get advice and tools through them. Mystery Skype is when one classroom Skypes another classroom, and students from each take turns asking questions to try to discover where the other classroom is located. In my other class, we did a Mystery Skype with a third grade class in Florida...and they figured it out before we did! It was a lot of fun and it was neat to see elementary school kids in their own environment. Mystery Skype is a great way for teachers to integrate Skype and connected learning into their classroom, and it is a fantastic way to introduce this type of learning because it is fun, challenging and engaging. This will intrigue students and make them want to learn more about using Skype to connect with people all over the world for educational purposes.

Twitter

So far, my Twitter experience has been great. I have connected with many educators, and learned a lot from these people. I have participated in two chats and have gained so much knowledge. When I have followed people from these chats, many have directly messaged me to let me know that I can turn to them with any questions that I have or any advice that I need. It is so comforting knowing that there are other educators who are willing to help from all over the country (and world) that I can reach out to. I have found so many useful articles and countless advice from the people I follow, and I am going to use Evernote to organize it all.  was surprised when I was engaged in the chats because people actually reach out to you as a student individually. My thought was that professionals would see a college student as not being serious, and would disregard any input. Instead, I was tweeted at, retweeted, and welcomed to the group. I really enjoy being on Twitter for this reason because it makes me feel like I have people to rely on and that I am in a safe environment.

This page is made by someone that I follow on Twitter that I have integrated into my PLN network. It gives you countless people and things to follow and information to find. It is extremely helpful! Whenever I have a question, I can either go to this page or contact him on Twitter directly. You can find almost anything on this page, from bloggers to Twitter followers. You can contact him through the website, find other people to get in contact with, find YouTube videos, learn about #CEM (Connected Educator Month), answer many questions in the FAQ section, how to learn about becoming a connected educator, and so much more! There are blogs, articles, chats, and almost anything else you can think of to further your educational career.

Twitter

I have enjoyed this class thus far because of the guidance that I am receiving through social media networking. I have already found multiple articles on Twitter that I have incorporated into my other classes, and some that I have found very helpful with the teaching notebook that I am creating. I am going to use this notebook to write down any extra tips that I have learned from class to make me a better teacher when I become one. One article that I found told me about 5 great apps that I can use as a teacher to keep in close contact with parents at all times only problem that I have run into with Twitter is finding the time to use it, as I work two jobs and am taking five classes.

The most important part that I took from the following video from YouTube is that you must remember that a PLN is a two way process. You need to remember to bring your own questions and ideas to the table in order to create a PLN that will be successful.

Find me on Twitter so we can explore the process together! :)

@porterm33

10 Reasons it's a Great Time to be in Education

As many people are trying to get me to change my major from education, I found this article to be extremely helpful and encouraging. Rarely do you hear positive views and feelings about teachers and the profession, so this was a breath of fresh air to read.

10 Reasons it's a great time to be in education

The first reason tells us that schools and students will rise to the occasion of the job market competition. This will give schools a better chance of hiring the most qualified and dedicated teachers because there is such a huge pool of applicants to choose from. Education will always be a top priority in society. It will be the face of many conversations, shows, etc. because we need it and it will always be around. It will also always be debatable because of the many issues we face with education. Technology is allowing schools and teachers to come further than they have ever been able to before. This will help aspiring teachers to be marketable and ready to conquer their lessons in the classroom. The shift to cooperation and collaboration has helped classrooms develop more as a whole. No longer are many classrooms a teacher lecturing for the entire session, but now students are working with teachers to develop their understanding of the material and create a better classroom environment.

College education programs are doing better at preparing teachers to educate students. There are more rigorous classes and laws passed to create more well-rounded professional teachers. Local businesses are also collaborating with schools and opening their doors for employment. This will allow students to develop responsibility skills in a work setting ahead of graduating. Money is no longer the determination for success. Before, poverty stricken districts did not think that they would be able to keep up with surrounding communities, but money does not matter anymore. It is the quality of what we are teaching our students that matters, and the ability to utilize resources that are given to teachers.

Schools are slowly becoming more important to the community. For a while, the community and schools have been separated. Now, there is a connection between the two. This is important for our students' development and for support throughout the communities. With this support and new technological advances, students and teachers are able to go further. Every day we learn something new, and teachers are able to show students hundreds of new things every day. We are there to teach our students, but dedicated and true teachers are there to impact the lives of their students.

iPad apps!

First off, I participated in #edtechchat Monday night, which was overwhelming! I constantly had to keep updating my page and had at least 30 new posts every time! On the other hand, I was able to interact with the author of our textbook, @snbeach! I also found a great article on prioritizing when it comes to creating your PLN.

Snapguide looks pretty cool and I am going to download it on my phone. From what I got from the website, it looks like  you can find pretty much any guide on how to do things here. The Nearpod Demo on Youtube was awesome. It allows students to answer questions and work interactively off of iPads, and the teacher receives the results of the students' answers. This is a quicker way to run your classroom, and students will be more excited to use iPads rather than the traditional pen and paper.

I love watching Khan Academy lectures, so I am really excited about this ShowMe app. I think that, as teachers, we will be able to use each other's ideas to better our lessons through this. Sometimes it is hard to teach certain subjects for one person, but is simple for another to teach. This is when you can go on ShowMe and see how other educators taught the lesson. Meanwhile, you can share your lessons with other teachers. This different perspective will implement learning.

Educreations is another neat app that is an interactive whiteboard with audio. You can add sound, text, and pictures to your creation and share it with others. I like that one teacher in the article said that she can use this to see her students' process of solving a problem to see where they did or did not go wrong. Educreations was used in this classroom and was very successful. Sometimes we forget how easily young students catch on to technological ideas, and these kids are proof!

Ask3 was my favorite thing so far! So many students have a hard time asking the teacher for help because they feel stupid, and through this app, students can ask each other questions first. Too often, students give up because they do not want to ask the teacher for help or admit they are struggling. If they see other students using the app for help, people will catch on and it will be a better experience overall. It is especially useful in subjects such as foreign languages and math because it is near impossible to explain through a text message when you have a question.

Augmented Reality seems like a great way to get students excited, engaged, and involved in class activities. It is bringing something to life, and it is a growing sensation. In our classrooms, we will need to be using this type of education pretty often by the time we become teachers. If not, our students are going to be bored, disengaged, and uninterested in what we are teaching.

In 10 Things Your Students Should Know About Their Digital Footprints, the first point was amazing. Obviously, we all know that employers and colleges look at our social media pages. But the fact that the one daughter's mother called the school trying to get her daughter in by making the other girl look bad was hilarious. Parents are crazy and I feel so bad for the daughter that did not get in because it was her mother that made the mistake. Anyway, the first daughter should not have put up such pictures for the chance of not being accepted. I liked the fifth point to make separate personal accounts because that has worked well for me in this class. I joke around a lot, and some things I say may come off the wrong way. Having a professional Twitter account like we do in this class allows me to keep things completely separate and professional on this account. Not that I post obscene things on my personal Twitter, but many friends seem to tag me in tweets about jokes I make, and I do not want anyone to take it the wrong way. Bottom line, digital footprints are everlasting. There is nothing that you can post that cannot be brought up in some way, somewhere, in the future.

I thought that these videos were cool because it explains how we are still finding the rules of internet etiquette because our parents and grandparents did not have to worry about these things until the same time that their children did. I also thought that it was crazy that there is an actual rubric for digital citizenship. That just shows how important it truly is. If you don't have anything good to say online, don't say it at all. Obviously, this should be the motto we follow all day no matter where we are, but we can at least start with something that will be there forever: the Internet.

In the end, we just need to remember that social media can be extremely beneficial in our lives. We can use it to communicate with people and to keep in touch with old friends, to find family members that you haven't seen in a while, to keep up with news topics, to create a personal learning network, to find jobs, and for countless other reasons. But we need to remember to keep our digital footprint clean, as this can change social media's beneficial attributes into detrimental situations.

We also need to stop being so addicted to Facebook......

Skype and Google Hangout

"When students are able to learn from an expert in a field, it takes their learning to a new level". This quote from a 5th grade teacher really struck me because we see it every day in schools, yet rarely find ways to make it happen. Students are most excited about school when they have something that they know is going to be fun ahead. Not only do students love technology, but they love visitors! Anything that is inconsistent to their day will make an impact, and Skyping with authors of the books they read is such an awesome idea! I think it's really great that authors are willing to participate in this, and reading the stories and thank-yous from teachers makes you really happy.

The video about Skyping was really cool because I did not realize how often Skype was actually used in classrooms now. My favorite part was the class that read a book to a class in Spain, and those students read the same book back in their language. The video was really interesting because it gave you step-by-step instructions on how to engage in a Skype call with other people with your classrooms. Sometimes people forget that you have to prepare ahead of time and that you should have a reflection time afterwards, and these are some of the most important parts. Giving students something to do during the video is also a great idea because it is easy for students to become distracted when they are not engaged in something.














Google Hangout is great for collaboration and can be used with sharing Google Docs, having a customer feedback discussion, and virtual whiteboard brainstorming. I like everything that Google has to offer because it is free, simple, and all connected. Rather than attaching a document from Word and sending it in an email, you can share a Google Doc with someone right over the Internet and they will have access to it.

This article explains how to use the tools on Google Hangout, and my favorite one will always be sharing the screen with the other person. It is insane how far technology has come, and to be able to see someone else's screen as they are doing something is so cool. Earlier today, I had a problem signing into my Comcast account to pay my bill for my apartment. I started an online chat with a customer service representative, and then they called me to do it over the phone so that they could control my screen from their server. They fixed my problem and the bill is paid on time!

Google Helpouts seems like an awesome idea, and I'm excited for it to take off. With certain things, I have to see what is actually happening rather than just reading about what to do. With Helpouts, I will be able to ask someone over a Hangout for help, and get advice and information right away.

All of this new information about Skype and Google Hangouts are going to be extremely beneficial when I am finally in the classroom. These are great ways to keep my students engaged and interested in topics, and can also be used as a "treat" if the students are behaving. When I was in school, our "treat" would be 5 minutes to play Oregon Trail...It is so crazy that students are now using iPads in the classroom and speaking to people all over the world in seconds.

40 ways to use Google apps in the classroom

This slideshow explains good ways to use Google apps in the classroom. I thought this was cool because it is mainly what we have been using in our class, and I like it so far. I especially like how you can share things with other people without having to make a copy or email it. Instead, you can just use Google Drive to share your work with others.

This article gives 40 ways to use Google apps, but I am going to pick my top 5 favorites.

1. Create a shared lesson plan repository. With this, like we have for our class, you can share information with your students.
2. Improve the writing process. Students can work collaboratively from Google apps anywhere. This allows students to peer review other students' work and get ideas for their own work, as well as create stories together at the same time.
3. Coordinate sign ups. This can be used for parents coming in to speak, for parties, for volunteer opportunities, for conferences, and basically everything in between.
4. Create amazing presentations. This is like PowerPoint, but is free! Students can easily create presentations on Slides through Google Apps.
5. Google Forms. This allows you to take surveys, assess students' learning, and get opinions from your class.

Google is free and helpful in so many ways, and I think that we, as teachers, are lucky to have it and will be using it very often when we start our careers.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OhZuPRWgT-eit2-c4yEER4epRC3IumbOcTH2saONMeg/present#slide=id.g323f8ef1_2_199

This article is about using social media in the classroom. As we are getting to the point to where social media is prevalent almost everywhere in the entire world, we may need to rely on this to contact our students at times.

Twitter can be used for a classroom collaboration. Students and parents can follow the class account, and it can be used to let them know information and get right to the point, since there is a limited amount of characters per tweet. As a teacher, you can tweet links to classroom activities, articles to be read, and general classroom information. Facebook can be used by creating a private group just for your class and their parents. Facebook allows you to do what Twitter can, but it is used more to post pictures and give more information because you have more room. Even better, you can link your class' Twitter and Facebook accounts together to kill two birds with one stone.

Google Plus allows students to collaborate with other people in their field of interest. This is best used in older grades when students have a better idea of what they want to be. Here, then can ask questions, participate in discussions, and have a better idea of what the people in their field of study do and are interested in. Linkedin is also more useful for the older grades, as it gets your students out there in the real world. Here, students can look for jobs, internships, volunteer opportunities, and upload their resume and work experience. SchoolTube is the site to use to flip your classroom. You create short videos that explain the assignments and lessons. You can collaborate with other teachers on here for good ideas on how to flip your classroom accurately, and for easy ways to help students understand lessons. Students can watch these videos from anywhere because they are online.

Edmoto allows you to set up information, lessons, and assignments while collaborating with your students. As the article says, it is a mix between Facebook and Blackboard. Animoto engages viewers in the videos you create. It makes your videos more interesting and exciting. Jing lets you record what you are doing on your computer or laptop. This is especially helpful in explaining new assignments or procedures for visual learners.

Always be sure that your students know about privacy settings, and that parents are on board with the use of social media.

http://gettingsmart.com/2011/12/developing-a-social-media-strategy-for-your-classroom/

Evernote

For another class, I had to download Evernote. It is the coolest thing ever. You no longer have to worry about remembering important things for class, important events, or anything that you write in here! It is an archive of all of your thoughts, ideas, projects, and whatever else you want to put in there. You can add pictures, record things, make a calendar, upload assignments, archive websites, access websites when you're not connected to the internet, jot reminders down to look back to later, and so much more! My first post was about my brother's Polish Water Ice franchise, which just proves that you can write or upload ANYTHING onto here. You can also create different folders for each topic. My plan is to make a folder for each of my classes and for both of my jobs so that I can upload assignments, due dates, notes, and reminders, and have it all in one place. They also have an app that you can download, which is even easier and more convenient to use. As a teacher, this will help me organize my lesson plans when the time comes, and I will be able to save cool ideas that I see and want to look into more later. You can also search for specific topics, such as math lesson plans for third graders, and Evernote will then guide your search towards these topics from then on. If you take a picture of something with text on it, and then search your pictures for a specific word that was on that poster or board, it will find the picture for you and highlight it. I am really excited to get started with Evernote, and I think that all future teachers should give it a shot!



Notice the elephant in the logo- This is because it is said that elephants never forget anything!

Life on the Screen

My favorite part of this article was when Lucas pointed out that visual learning and interactive learning through technology is just as important as learning from tests and reading from books. In fact, there are studies that prove the complete opposite. As Lucas says, there are a lot of schools who are in denial of this fact, and are afraid to separate from their ways that they have been using since the beginning of formal education. I also liked how he said that we should include art in music in English class. Rather than having these subjects be separate from the typical math, science, social studies, and English, we should incorporate them into these main classes. They are considered just as essential to a students learning as are the other classes. It was easy to picture the circle that was being described as to integrate all subjects together. Arts and music emotionally effect a person, as math is more logical and precise. However, one is not more important than the other. We need to teach all of these subjects in order to enrich our students' lives. Lucas also says that "One of my concerns is that we're advancing intellectually very fast, but we're not advancing emotionally as quickly". I see this all the time in the schools I work in, and I feel that he is right when he says that art and music help students explore their emotional sides. It does not make sense that these are the first things cut when school budgets are cut.

This list gives you the top educational bloggers known to people. The third one on the list was Jerry Blumengarten, who I already follow on Twitter and who we did a Google Hangout with in another class! He has some great posts on Twitter and is a leader in the #edchat chat every week. I will be referring to this list when I need some new ideas on who to follow and want to see more educational information to blog about, or just to learn more about becoming a teacher. I had to make a professional Twitter account in another class of mine to develop a Personal Learning Network, and this list is going to help me greatly to find new people to interact with. I feel that this will help me come a better teacher because there is so much to learn out there. Without lists like this, it would be so difficult to know where to start. Before finding an article like this one, I had no idea where to start with my PLN. I have already bookmarked this website and now have this in this blog so that it is now archived and I can refer to it for extra help and to interact with current educators.

http://www.weareteachers.com/education-directories/top-edu-bloggers

Last night, I participated in the #edchat chat on Twitter, and it was really cool to interact with others over this and to see what other people's opinions are. The topic was: If there is so much research that points to homework being useless, why are teachers still giving it? There were so many responses and people participating in the chat that it was hard to keep up with! However, I did get links to some of the website articles provided, as well as nice quotes that related to the topic. I will also be reading the archive of the chat later tonight, so that I am able to see what everyone had to say.

After reading this article, 50 Must-Download Apps For Lifelong Learners, it gave me hope knowing that there are still people who want to continue their education. It was also cool to know that people are using their iPads for this reason, rather than just sitting around playing games. With the discussion that was held in another one of my classes about how pen and paper may soon be extinct and students may be only using technology, it is comforting knowing that there are so many educational apps available for these students and for others. My top 10 favorites listed in this article were:

1. iTranslate- This app helps you learn different types of languages right at your fingertips.
2. Instapaper- This app allows you to save blogs and other websites to be able to read offline.
3. Reading Rainbow- I used to be OBSESSED with this show when I was a kid, so it is awesome that there is an app for that that I can share with my little cousins and the kids I babysit!
4. Goodreads- This app allows you and others to rate books. I love reading but have a hard time choosing books, so I will be downloading this one!
5. TED- This is an app that has a ton of video lectures available for all to learn about whatever they want to!
6. Khan Academy- I have been on this website before, and I love it! It's awesome that he has an app for it because you can bring your learning anywhere.
7. NPR- This app gives you current events to learn and read about. I love these types of things because it is sometimes hard to keep up with current events while being so busy.
8. eHow- This is one of my favorite websites to go to when I have a question about something, and having it as an app would make it so much easier to access.
9. First Aid by American Red Cross- This is a great app to have at all times. No matter where you are, you may need to use First Aid, and having this app at your fingertips would allow you to help people in need properly. I especially like this because I babysit a lot and work in schools, and the kids are constantly getting hurt.
10. Math Formulas- Reference Guide- This gives you all of the formulas you could possibly need.

These apps are awesome for people who are in school or people who want to continue their education outside of school. Check out the website to see all 50 apps!

http://www.edudemic.com/50-must-download-apps-for-lifelong-learners/

Using Photography in the Classroom

This blog was about making school more interesting and fun by incorporating photos into the classroom. You can post pictures of your students on a private page online that only your students and parents have access to, which will not only give students an incentive to participate, but will ease parents' worries that their child is not being taken care of during the school day. Photos can also be used to decorate work that the students have done, such as art projects or papers. These works suddenly become more interesting to students, parents, and faculty walking down the hallway because there is a picture associated with the assignment.

My favorite use of photography in the classroom from this blog is to have the students use a digital camera or iPad to take pictures of something specific to share with the class. For older kids, this can be objects associated with the math assignment that is due at the end of the week. For younger kids, you can send them around the room looking for something that has stripes, something blue, or certain shapes. You can then hook the device up to the computer and project the students' findings onto the board.

Finding ways to link lessons to your set curriculum can be hard. Using a camera can make it easy! There are countless ways that students are able to find relationships between the past and present through a camera and old pictures, and the author of this blog mentioned students finding examples of cause and effect throughout the school day. As soon as you take out something that is not used every day, like a camera, students suddenly become more interested in what you are talking about and are more willing to participate and have fun with the projects.

So get ready, grab your camera, and start teaching!

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2013/09/5-fantastic-photos-using-camera-classroom

Reading Workshop Ideas

This blog was great because the teacher that wrote it teachers second grade, which is around the same level that I want to be at in my career. I have worked with kids since I was in the 9th grade, and the first thing you notice is that they want to tell you EVERYTHING. They want you to know funny things that happened that day, bad things, weird things, gross things, and even things that are made up.

Padlet is an awesome way to be able to hear all of your students' issues, concerns, and stories. The kids can use the computers in the classroom to enter their comments onto a "cork board" that is projected onto the screen. Like Google Drive, it happens in real time and more than one person can be logging at the same time.

Answer Pad is a fun way for children to express their ideas. The teacher can ask a question to the class, and the students can write or even draw their response. This would only be used in a classroom in which the students have access to iPads, but it would be a great way for students who are visual learners to interact in lessons.

With LiveScribe, students can put stickers on paper in notebooks or projects, touch the sticker with the LIveScribe Pen, and you will hear audio coming from the pen! The author's son did this with a report on parrots in preschool, and posted a video of how it was done Here . I think that this is a creative and fun way to get students engaged in lessons and for them to heighten your senses during a presentation.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2013/09/how-technology-can-support-enhance-your-reading-workshop

5 Great Apps for Teachers

I have been working with kids since I was 14 years old, and I absolutely love it. Not being the most creative person, it can be hard for me to come up with new and different ideas for things to do, with regard to both the children and parents that I am interacting with. I often turn to online posts and blogs to help me with this problem, and this one caught my eye because it tells us how to involve parents in a classroom easily. Since I am looking to teach third graders, I know ahead of time that parents are going to want to be even more involved than older students' parents would because of my class' age.
The first app is called "WDWDT: What Did We Do Today?" and is great because it can be updated throughout the day during lunch and recess times. When I babysit after school, I ask the kids "What did you do at school today? Anything fun?" and the only thing that they can remember is something that was either extremely out of the ordinary or something that happened within the last hour and a half that they were in school. As a parent, I know that I would be frustrated with this answer each day because I would want to know what my child is learning in order for me to be able to do things at home that are alike. With this app, a teacher can update parents at all times of what their students are doing during their school days.
The second app is called "Educreations" and is an interactive whiteboard. If there are lessons that the students are having trouble grasping, teachers can put the lesson on this app and include their voice, color, and writing. Parents will then be able to help their students at home so that the kids can have a different perspective on the lesson. This is also important with other lessons being taught because many parents do not know a good way to go about helping their kids grasp the concept. There have been multiple occasions where kids I am watching need help with their homework, and I show them how to do it, but "That's not how my teacher does it." Not being in the classroom with them, I do not know how to show them the right way to solve the problem. This app would eliminate this issue.
The third app is called "Aurasma" and allows a teacher to create augmented reality. Teachers are able to write on a homework paper or letter home to open this app, and holding their phone over the paper will automatically open a video that the teacher has posted. This is important when there is more explanation needed with homework or trips.
The fourth app is called "Animoto" and is a video app. With this, teachers are able to create videos out of pictures that were taken, as well as add sound to it. Between art projects and field trips there are plenty of pictures taken in the classroom. This allows parents to stay connected and see what their children are doing throughout the day. This is especially important on days that the kids go on trips and the parents are unable to come along.
The fifth app, and my favorite one, is called "Remind101". This app is used to text message parents of the students to remind them of different events and tasks during the week. Sometimes, kids just do not bring papers home that they are given from teachers. Somehow, it gets lost in the mix when going from school to home. With this app, teachers are able to text parents reminding them to pack a lunch for a field trip, sign a permission slip for an event, finish the class project by Friday, study spelling words, etc. It is perfect for a quick and easy way to keep in touch with parents through their phones, which are usually checked on an hourly basis.

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2013/09/5-apps-creatively-connect-parents