<![CDATA[Teacher Tracks

<![CDATA[Teacher Tracks - Blog]]>Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:04:05 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Mouth Power- Fun Game About Brushing]]>Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:45:25 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2012/02/mouth-power-fun-game-about-brushing.html

Mouth Power (http://www.mouthpower.org) can be done individually by students in a lab, but would be better on an interactive board as a class. Users take a trip through a lab to learn about dental hygiene and work through activities to earn teeth for their smile. The activity goes beyond the basics of telling students to brush and shows how to brush and the correct way to floss. It also has a neat time lapse feature to show what happens when you don't take care of your teeth.

Cons: There isn't voice audio on everything, so non-readers will need assistance.

I've added it to under the Health resources on "For a Better World" page.

]]><![CDATA[Kozzi- Awesome Site for Free Photos]]>Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:00:27 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2012/02/kozzi-awesome-site-for-free-photos.html

Here is another great site to add to your list of places students can find free photos for projects.

Kozzi earns revenue for the advertisements placed on its page. This allows them to provide their professional photo images free. I stumbled upon this site today and found it to be an incredibly rich resource for finding pictures. Using a simple copy/paste was much easier than downloading the images from the lightbox.

I've added Kozzi to my list of Photo Resources.

]]><![CDATA[Inspirational Blog Post]]>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:52:35 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2012/02/inspirational-blog-post.htmlCheck out http://blogush.edublogs.org/2012/01/24/20/, an insipirational blog post from Paul Bogush about giving students 20% of their time for free learning and exploration. I may consider doing something like this next year! ]]><![CDATA[Lessons on the Presidents]]>Fri, 10 Feb 2012 07:19:31 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2012/02/lessons-on-the-presidents.htmlhttp://lessonsonamericanpresidents.com/ seems to have some great lessons on presidents! Worth checking out! ]]><![CDATA[SMART Training Notes]]>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:28:46 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2012/01/smart-training-notes.htmlTonight I participated in our local Regional Office of Education's SMART Board Intermediate Training- Session1. My notes from the training are below, both for my own reference and for anyone else to see some ideas I learned!

New things I learned:
~Using the keyboard to read the words that are typed or written.
~You can change your pens to be defaulted to a different color/font.
~The color of the box changes for objects that are infinitely cloned.
~You can lock an object so that it can be moved but the size won't change, or you can lock it so you can move and rotate (but the size won't change).
~You can layer multi-colored text to give a 3D effect.
~Transparency layer lets you use the tools over the internet (or other software) and record some notes. Is there a unique use for this?
~You can change the default colors of the caligraphy pens just like the other pens.
~You can double click on a shape box and automatically type into the shape! Then you can drag the box smaller and hide the text.
~Use the "Groups" button on the tabs menu to organize slides into different categories.
~You can add visuals to your "My Content" folder (specific to your computer)- just by dragging and dropping.
~Use the page recording feature to record directions to have students go follow. (save the file and it will save the recording)
~Looked at Lesson Activity Toolkit to see awesome ideas (Anagram- used to arrange letters for spelling, Sentence Arrangement- put phrases/sentences into the correct order- although beware the color never changes and kids catch on to that-, Hot Spots- has a neat human body checker!, Timeline editor is great for students to make timelines, the maps work by letting you drag the states or countries into the map on the correct spot.)

Things to look up or follow up on:
~teq.com - "free learning objects" (neat garbage can she showed us)

Ideas for use:
~Using table with table shade for vocabulary or review questions.
~Creating a Presidential Technology lesson, where students have to match up which president would have used which technology for communication.
~Use the "Category sort (image)" on the Lesson Activity Toolkit 2.0 to have students put ideas into order (maybe PC troubleshooting tips!)
~I really like adding the question mark ? information button from the Lesson Activity Toolkit 2.0
~Use the memory game tool to match pictures of famous "techies" with their names.

What I still have questions on:
~What's the point of "pinning" a page?
~Unit 5 has it set so that the "My Content" travels with the teacher's logins (so any computer you use with SMART notebook you can access your content)- this is really cool, can it be done at my school?
~Where is that US Map?
~How do I make the hidden tunnel? ]]><![CDATA[Visual.ly Lets You Search Infographics]]>Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:18:39 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2012/01/visually-lets-you-search-infographics.html

Visual.ly is a search engine for looking up infographics across various websites. With a quick search for "government" yielded about twenty results. According to their site they are working on a feature to let you create your own infographics, but you can currently upload yours to add to their collection.

While doesn't make my top list of resources yet, it is definitely one worth checking out and keeping an eye on.

I've added it

]]><![CDATA[Drawing Site Beautiful Curves]]>Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:19:30 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2011/12/drawing-site-beautiful-curves.html

Beautiful Curves is an HTML5 web based drawing app that lives up to its name. Tim Holman created the site which is simply too fun to stop playing!

This would be an interesting site to let students create an artwork of their feelings. More curls may represent feelings of more chaos, maybe change the thickness to represent emotional intensity, and of course color choice.

I've added this site to my Art Resources page and my Stress Relief page.

]]><![CDATA[Setting up Nook Tablet with MyMediaMall]]>Thu, 29 Dec 2011 07:15:19 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2011/12/setting-up-nook-tablet-with-mymediamall.htmlI received a Nook Tablet for Christmas from my loving husband who so generously indulges my fervent reader mood. Of course on a teacher's budget I can't afford to purchase ebooks all the time, so I'm taking advantage of our library's subscription service to mymediamall. I couldn't figure out how to make the books work on my tablet however so I had to poke around the nook boards on B&N's website. A very helpful post on how to do this was here. I also thought the video explanation here was incredibly useful.

Now if only I can figure out how to get android games on here.... ]]><![CDATA[Conference Prep- The tools I use to prepare.]]>Wed, 28 Dec 2011 08:25:20 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2011/12/conference-prep-the-tools-i-use-to-prepare.html

At #ice12 (Illinois Computing Educators Conference) in March I will be presenting two sessions, and with the conference just a few months away it's time to start prepping which tools I'll be showcasing. In the past I've used Delicious to bookmark the sites, however I'm not using Delicious (or any social bookmarking feature at present) so this year's prep is going to be different.

This year I'm using pinterest to bookmark sites, articles, and images while I brainstorm. When all is said and done I'll have digital handouts available on this website, but I may also have the pineterest board refined as well. So far it seems to be similar to livebinders. The first time I tried the "pin it" bookmarklet button it didn't work...but we'll see how it works the next time.

]]><![CDATA[Educreations- create iPad videos for lessons.]]>Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:11:07 -0800http://www.teachertracks.com/2/post/2011/12/educreations-create-ipad-videos-for-lessons.html

I do not have an iPad...yet (ohh...when money flows 'aplenty...) however I stumbled upon http://www.educreations.com/ this morning and was really impressed with its possibilities.

This find inspired me to create a new list for Educational iPad apps.

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