Online Stopwatch and Timer

Teachers are frequently looking for a way to keep track of time.  Online stopwatch is a free and easy online tool that can be projected onto a screen or just utilized on your computer.  Whether you want a stopwatch, or a countdown clock, this is an outstanding site to visit.  It can be used in many ways,, provides multiple different formats, and because it is web-based, can be accessed on many different devices.  I know teachers that have used it for timing standardized assessments, timing speeches, and for many other activities.  If you want to keep track of time, this is for you.  Give it a try, it is one bookmark you'll want to save.  Check out the chart below for other ways this free tool can be used.

ETech 2012 Wrapup

Over the last 3 days, I've been fortunate enough to be able to attend Ohio's ETech Conference in Columbus. I was able to attend many wonderful sessions and spend time with my technology colleagues. I was also able connect with a few of my Twitter tech friends that were in attendance. Now it's time to analyze what I saw and see what we can use/share with our teachers. Here is some of what I saw.

Teaching Writing in the 21st Century Classroom
Presented by Matt Gillispie. He and a couple of his colleagues shared different tools and websites that helped with the teaching of writing. Key tools shared-
Neatchat.com
Puppet Pals for the iPad
Socrative.com
Screenr.com
Voicethread
Edmodo.com
Schoology.com

A Keynote Address given by Dr. Michio Kaku
speech similar to this one on YouTube

Students Leaving a Legacy: A Student Created Digital Wiki-textbook
Garth Holman and Mike Pennington talk about their digital textbook and collaborating on the project with their students. Here is the link to their digital text.

Google Forms for Everything!
Eric Curts of North Canton City Schools talked about the uses of Google Forms - presentation link here

It Takes a Village: Innovative Ways to Collaborate
Holly Harwood shared many ways teachers can collaborate to help learn and share techniques and materials for class. Her presentation was shared on their wiki.

Jump into the Cloud, Google Apps for Eudcation Edition for your SchoolAnthony Luscre, Mogadore Local Schools
Link to his presentation.
He also has presentation and tech materials available at http://searchfindknow.com
Also attended his session entitled
Creating District, Building, Classroom and/or Student Websites using WeeblyLink to the presentation.

A Keynote Address given by Brene Brown, entitled Teachable Moments: Bringing Courage, Compassion and Connection to the Classroom. The Keynote was outstanding. She has given multiple Ted Talks. You might like to see them. Try this one.
http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html


As you can see, there was a variety of information to absorb and process. That's my goal over the next few weeks. Check out these resources and see if any are right for you.

Magic Wand Scanner

Check out this scanner.  It is the Magic Wand Portable Scanner, from VuPoint.  It's a AA battery-powered wand scanner that stores the image on a mini-SD card.  Really, this scanner takes about 5 minutes to setup and with some practice allows you to digitize just about anything you can hold flat.  The wand is about 9 inches wide so it has the ability to scan a sheet of paper, making it easy to scan a student's work without having a flatbed scanner in the room.

Once the scan is complete (and you can store many scans on the same card without having to unload), you hook the scanner up to your computer.  It uses a standard USB cable, which is included.  Once plugged into my mac, iPhoto opened and the images were ready for uploading.  No software to install.  Easy!!!  We are hoping that this wand will make documenting student work a little more accessible and convenient.

We also hope that it will help organize paperwork around the house.  My wife can use it while traveling to organize receipts, so that will save us some follow-up work when she returns home.  Also, it will allow us to throw away papers that we can scan and keep digitally.  We'll let you know in a few months just how helpful this device is.

Teachers Getting Started

For teachers that are just getting started utilizing technology, there are a couple of things to do at the beginning that will help facilitate the process.  There are a lot of free online tools for teachers to use, but most require an email address to register your information.  I would suggest that you spend a half hour and create two email accounts outside of your school address, so you can easily become a user of these online resources.  The two emails that I would recommend creating are free and easy to setup, and they are Google Mail and Yahoo Mail.

I would recommend creating a free gmail account.  It is not necessary, but I have found it to be quite useful to have a gmail account.  First of all, I use it to log into my google applications.  I also use it to log into Blogger, so I can blog and tell you about all these wonderful tools.  Gmail is also rarely blocked by email filtering systems, so you emails sent to and from this account will likely get through to the receiver.  Google will then have your information, so when you add different applications to your repertoire, you will be able to log in and be able to work.

I mentioned that gmail is not necessary for use of the Google tools.  You can create a google login using any email address, but since the process is so easy, I would recommend getting a gmail account.  I do not spend a lot of time checking my google email since I do get most of my traffic through other accounts.

The other email account I would create is a free Yahoo email account.  Yahoo has some nice features on their website and being a member of Yahoo will allow you to customize your homepage as well as many other things.  The main reason that I created this account was so that I could join Flickr.  Flickr is the site that I use to upload photos and share photos.  I requires a Yahoo ID, so creating it early will be helpful.

I think that creating these accounts when you first get started, will allow you to be thoughtful and consistent when choosing your login names, passwords, and email addresses.  The more consistent you can be with your online presence, the easier it will be for people to find you, follow you, communicate with you, and share with you.  My feeling is that people need to embrace that fact that these online tools are here, and learn quickly what they can do to help facilitate growth.  It takes some work (or what I like to refer as "play time") to figure out, but the benefits are great.  Plus, you don't have to spend a lot of money for special programs.

I will try share information in the future about Google, Yahoo, and Flickr.  I just wanted to suggest that there is some simple work you can do help facilitate your successful use of the tools.  Spend a half hour getting your accounts and passwords set up.  It will help you with your work in the future.