Technology Musings

Sometimes I think I would love to have been born in the Digital Age......our students find it so simple to grasp any concept where for me while Technology concepts come easily to me now they did not always.  I was fortunate that my mother got the first Atari computer that came out that went mainstream so since I was 12 or so we always had a computer in our house....prior to that she would always go out and get the latest electric typewriter etc....  I lived in a household where Technology was cutting edge....I guess you could say.  I come from a family of origin that embraced technology and technological advances. 

I do think this helps....we still all help each other with technology issues.  Many people I run into say to me "I do not like Technology".....I do not like computers" etc....Interesting very few of these people are children.  Our students at Castle Hayne love working with the netbooks, the Smart Responders, and even our AIG students love working with the ipads.  I think its because children know they can do anything!  I always tell people if you have gone out and bought the lastest cell phone, Xbox, Kindle, Nook, Wii, or even stream movies through Netflix that they are already using Technology every single day.  The more you use it the easier it becomes.

Recently I was driving home from out of town and decided to organize my books on my Kindle.  I then decided to read the "Kindle Cookbook" which tells you all the things I can do with my plain 2nd generation Kindle and I realized I had been way under-utilizing it. 

So take a chance......start a new blog, or even find a new one to follow.  Spend some time on some of our educational sites linked to our school website.  Another great place to start is using Google's apps they have created which are FREE.  Everybody has to start somewhere and as I was taught when I was growing up..."Practice Makes Perfect"...;)

Until next time!  Thanks for stopping by!

Are You Using PBS Learning Media In Your Classroom?

If your not....you should really think about adding it as another "go to " resource!  This is what PBS has to say about their new Learning Media program:

 PBS LearningMedia offers thousands of curriculum and professional development resources from the best of public media and its partners...for free! The service offers educators a wide variety of resource types - videos, interactives, audio and more - all curriculum-targeted for classroom use.

I signed up for an account today took me about 3 seconds it helps if you already have a gmail account set up for work anyway.  Here is the link for PBS Learning Media to sign up!

I was amazed at the variety of FREE resources available so I peeked and this is what I found just this morning:

For K-2 - A video about Curious George and 100's day! 
To Celebration Hispanic Heritage Month - We are The Music - For Grades 3-4
Fabulous resources for Literacy.http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/content/ea5f56db-1f09-47c3-a659-2414c3212ad1/

There is a huge amount of information that ties in global information, diversity, art, and culture.

I hope you take a look and see what PBS Learning Media has to offer just one of the many resources PBS Offers. 
Thanks for stopping by Trackin' Tech Trends!

Your Digital Maven -
Karen Thompson

Check out this great new resource! Museum Box

Remember when you were a student and you were told you had to do a report but it was just a lot of writing and you didn't think it was very interesting well we know of course writing can be interesting and so can research actually the better you get at it the more interesting it is!

Well here is a website where student's can put together their own museum box!  Click here to visit the site!

Let me know what you think!

Google Teacher Resources

This is a fantastic link!  All about Google Teacher Resources - it  is so interesting and broken down into steps that can easily be understood!  This gets 4 Stars from me for sure!   I was particularly interested in creating a Virtual Bookshelf in Google and the fact that I can embed books into my blog.  I will be working on that soon!  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Free Power Point Activities to use in your classroom!

     There are free power point activities at this site already created for you!   Our AIG teacher Ms. Cartwright shared with me this wonderful resource and they are power point activities that are very easy to use with a Smart Board if you have one or just projecting on a screen if you don't have one in your classroom. 

Go to Pete's Power Point Station Free Materials

There is also free clip art and free tutorials as well!

Have Students Create Reports With "Real Newspaper Clippings"

     Don't you think your students would have more fun writing a book report or doing a special class project if they could see it show up in a "real newspaper clipping" as shown below.  The only request this site has is that students' do not use a real newspaper name or the names of real reporter/news people.  You can understand why since this newspaper looks just like the real deal!  Let me know what your students think!

Click here to go to the site:

"This looks like a real newspaper!"

Have I got a new website for you! - Tagxedo

Check out Tagxedo!  turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even school projects-- into a visually stunning tag cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text.

http://www.tagxedo.com/



This will be a fun way for you and your students to incorporate any topic you are studying by using Technology to enhance it!