Chris Lehmann’s Talk at the 140 Conference

I’ve said it before, and here again, “Educators must get plugged into an online professional network.”  I found this talk via Twitter, and was able to watch it live online as the presentation was made.  Thanks to Steve Anderson, a North Carolina educator you should definitely follow, I was able to locate an archive of Lehmann’s talk.  Chris Lehmann is a principal at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia.  Folks, Chris gets it…

Watch the video, here – http://www.ippio.com/video/5351/Social-Media-Education

-Lucas

Check Out Jennifer Angel’s Prezi: What Great Principals Do Differently

I love it when I see our teachers integrating technology. It’s just as exciting to see our district administrator’s putting new technology to work. I’ve posted about Prezi before, but I wanted to share a great example. Below is a Prezi created by one of our assistant principals, Jennifer Angel. The subject matter, Todd Whitaker’s What Great Principals Do Differently is very relevant and this showcases what Prezi can do.

So, are you interested in using Prezi? Educators can sign up for a free account with 500MB of storage and lots of extra features. Just visit Prezi’s Edu License page and sign up. Then you can create your own Prezi’s. Yes, these can be embedded into your teacher websites as well!

Todd Smith of CFES Integrates Technology

Today I came across the work of one of our teachers, Todd Smith of Cape Fear Elementary. Take a look at some of the exciting ways he’s engaging students with technology in his classroom:

Also, check out his students’ history vodcasts and their wiki.

Great work!

-Lucas

Mathtrain.tv – The YouTube of Mathematics

Got this great resource through my network today. It’s called Mathtrain, and it’s the equivalent of a YouTube site featuring mathematics videos like this one:

Enjoy!

-Lucas

Educators – Get Prezi for Free!

Teachers, are you tired of PowerPoint? Are bullet points boring your students to tears? Changed your students’ glazed-over look during your presentations with Prezi! What is Prezi? Glad you asked! Prezi allows you to create dynamic, web-based presentations that go beyond the monotony of slide-by-slide PowerPoints. Here’s an example about Web 2.0 tools:

Also, notice that your Prezis can be embedded into a website. That means your presentations can be placed into your teacher web page for student review. Sign up for a free account today at: http://prezi.com/profile/signup/edu/.

-Lucas

Poll Students With Cell Phones or Twitter – Results in Your PowerPoint!

Poll Everywhere

That’s right!  With Poll Everywhere, you can now collect data from students such as poll questions, test review questions, etc.  Students can submit responses as text messages or through Twitter and the live results appear in your PowerPoint!  Poll Everywhere provides free accounts for K-12 Teachers that can track up to 32 poll responses.

Check it out at http://www.polleverywhere.com/twitter-powerpoint-slides.

If you decide to use this in  your classroom, let me know!  I want to see it in action.

-Lucas

Education Videos Available Online!

In case you weren’t aware, NCLive.org has a sizeable collection of PBS videos available for online streaming from their website.  You can sort the videos by content area or by series.  This is a good alternative to United Streaming if you can’t find what you’re looking for there.  These should now be accessible from any school in the district.  To see what they have, visit:  http://media.nclive.org/.

Happy viewing!

-Lucas

Another Grant Opportunity!

Teachers!

Finances are tight, but so many of you are doing amazing things with your students and have some great projects and ideas!  Well, here’s another simple opportunity for you to get funding for a special project with your students.  ING is offering money to teachers for education projects through their Unsung Heroes program.   Over $3 million dollars will be awarded. They will be giving away 100 $2000 awards, with at least one $2000 award per state.  In addition the top three projects will be awarded larger sums of money with a top award of $25,000.  The application process is pretty straightforward and can the form can be downloaded at:  http://www.ing-usa.com/us/stellent2/groups/dc/documents/companylobinformation/001143.pdf.

A couple of hours of your time could net you a substantial sum of money for your school project!

-Lucas

Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners

Came across this great article in THE Journal today.  It’s a great list of ten, very useful, web-based tools to use with students.  Take a look!

-Lucas

Grammar Ninja!

Here’s another great online game that I found from my network on Twitter.  It’s called Grammar Ninja and is a time-based game that helps you develop your skills identifying parts of speech.  It’s pretty fun… and educational!

Oh yeah, did I mention it was developed by a high school senior as part of an independent study?

-Lucas