Too Busy To Blog

I absolutely love blogging!  In my personal life its something I carve out a lot of time for but my professional blog has gone by the wayside this year.  I have had too many rocks to fit in my jar as a proud Mom of a Varsity Football Player and the mother of a local make up artist and musician and as I have entered into my 40's I am now enjoying our local music scene with my husband of 24 years not leaving a lot of time for me to talk to all of you about the latest technology trends.

However while I am living my life I am using my iPad, my Droid Razr, You Tube, Google Apps etc... so it's always there always going on even when life is too busy to talk about it.

Even in my personal life right now I am converting hundreds of slides to digital images that are easier to manipulate and work with.  I have to tell you after filling all of the slide carousels with slides I am now even more amazed at my Grandfather Jerry Durand who was a professional photographer.  The patience he took and the time to fill up the slide carousels and regale us with stories and show us his slides is just mind boggling.  The pictures he took were just unbelievably up close to wildlife.....in a way my Grandfather was a Marty Stauffer in his own right but I will write more about our process in converting these slides soon!

Technology and talking are both always a part of my life.

So I thought what is new here at Castle Hayne about technology and what I will say is that our students are blogging this year too!  I think we are evolving to that point where we no longer talk so much about the gadgets we are using but we are getting to a point in our school where we are naturally using technology as an extension of our classroom and now we are concentrating on sharing what we learned with others.

So don't wonder where I am I am engaged, discovering, stumbling, surfing, tweeting, come join me on the journey! Follow me on twitter @KarenLynnTech.

Hope to tweet you soon!

Mrs. T.

Your wanna' be Digital Tech Maven :)

My Favorite New Tech Goodie - The Google Research Tool

I know I have not been around for ages!  But I have to share with you all about the cool new Google Research Tool!  You won't believe how easy it is!  I got this information from Tammy Worcester at the NC Ties conference in Raleigh last week and I was so excited to learn about it and instead of me telling you how to do it and then go to her site to see how to do it I thought I would do a fun Google Story for you to watch and then you can just go to her website and see how it's done.

Click Here:  To Watch My Google Story

Click Here:  To go to Tammy Worcester's site

The only sad thing I discovered is that Google is no longer supporting Search Stories and I was finally ready to do one.  Well you know what they say early bird gets the worm....and I am definitely not an early bird..ha ha...

and one last thing....I have lots more to share so stay tuned to my blog this is how I will be sharing some of my favorite new tech trends I learned at the Tech conference!

 Aspiring Digital Maven,

 Karen Lynn Tech

The Google Research Tool

Be Funky

My newest favorite photo editing tool is called "Be Funky".   It is a free photo editing software for students and of course it comes with all the goodies they love.  You can change color saturation, you can add fonts, clip art etc......you can distort features and "Cartoonize" yourself.   You can add custom frames, change border thickness and edit vignettes also!  This would be great to have students create their own story book or fairy tale characters based on themselves.  I could really see this tool being tied into literacy lessons but if you think of another way to use it please comment so other teachers can hear what you are thinking!  Here is an example of some Pop Art I made with Be Funky:

I love also that you can save it to your computer, Flickr, and even mail it and that only names a few of the options available!  Best of all it's FREE and no registration is required.  So try it out and let me know what you think!

Be Funky!

Mrs. T.

"drawz it" - A Clever New Drawing Tool For Your Classroom

This website "drawz it" is very exciting because students can draw, use the stamp tool, and type in a text box but while you still have the option to download to a computer you can now embed into a blog such as I did below or link it to Facebook, Twitter, Igoogle, Type Pad, Page Flakes and much more!  So teachers who blog in blogger or WordPress can now embed their student art work and basically have a digital portfolio. There is also an option to share to a public gallery!


Create your own drawings at http://www.drawzit.com/!

This is a web based program and from what I have seen so far it does not have any advertising on the site that would be an issue at all. You can also have students email the finished product to you which might make it easier since currently at our school when you download from Tux Paint you can't have your students save to the student share folder. I thought our teachers might want to try this and let me know what you think! I know you will all come up with some clever ways on how to use this cool new art tool!

Stay Techie!

Mrs. T.

Smart Response Systems A Powerful Tool In The Classroom

Our school is really getting into using the Smart Response Systems more this school year which is so exciting to me because I think it is a powerful tool for teachers and students a like.  If you don't know what a Smart Response System is its basically just that a response device created by Smart the same company that created the Smart Board.   The reason I think its so powerful is that a teacher can teach a lesson on any subject at all.  And at the end of the lesson simply run a quiz which can even be created in a basic power point and then  imported into the Smart response program and have the students take that quiz.  Once a teacher includes this as part of his or her lesson planning this all happens very quickly and is seamless.  Often the students are more engaged because they know they can very quickly push a few buttons but here comes the powerful part the teacher knows instantly who is getting and who is not getting the lesson which means they know which students may need more help on that particular lesson. 

So what is so exciting?  Well teachers have been individualizing and differentiating their lesson plans for years but what makes it so powerful is that they get the information so much faster which means a student can get help faster then ever before if they need it.  Oh and their are tons of activities and lessons that can be used with the Smart Response Systems too........don't worry I am enamored with them right now so there will be more to come on these tools that can be pulled out of your teacher tool box. 

Stay Techie!

Mrs. Thompson
Digital Maven

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!