iPad apps and #edtechchat

First off, I participated in #edtechchat earlier tonight, which was overwhelming! I constantly had to keep updating my page and had at least 30 new posts every time! On the other hand, I was able to interact with the author of our textbook, @snbeach! I also found a great article on prioritizing when it comes to creating your PLN.

Snapguide looks pretty cool and I am going to download it on my phone. From what I got from the website, it looks like  you can find pretty much any guide on how to do things here. The Nearpod Demo on Youtube was awesome. It allows students to answer questions and work interactively off of iPads, and the teacher receives the results of the students' answers. This is a quicker way to run your classroom, and students will be more excited to use iPads rather than the traditional pen and paper.

I love watching Khan Academy lectures, so I am really excited about this ShowMe app. I think that, as teachers, we will be able to use each other's ideas to better our lessons through this. Sometimes it is hard to teach certain subjects for one person, but is simple for another to teach. This is when you can go on ShowMe and see how other educators taught the lesson. Meanwhile, you can share your lessons with other teachers. This different perspective will implement learning.

Educreations is another neat app that is an interactive whiteboard with audio. You can add sound, text, and pictures to your creation and share it with others. I like that one teacher in the article said that she can use this to see her students' process of solving a problem to see where they did or did not go wrong. Educreations was used in this classroom and was very successful. Sometimes we forget how easily young students catch on to technological ideas, and these kids are proof!

Ask3 was my favorite thing so far! So many students have a hard time asking the teacher for help because they feel stupid, and through this app, students can ask each other questions first. Too often, students give up because they do not want to ask the teacher for help or admit they are struggling. If they see other students using the app for help, people will catch on and it will be a better experience overall. It is especially useful in subjects such as foreign languages and math because it is near impossible to explain through a text message when you have a question.

Augmented Reality seems like a great way to get students excited, engaged, and involved in class activities. It is bringing something to life, and it is a growing sensation. In our classrooms, we will need to be using this type of education pretty often by the time we become teachers. If not, our students are going to be bored, disengaged, and uninterested in what we are teaching.

Skype and Google Hangout

"When students are able to learn from an expert in a field, it takes their learning to a new level". This quote from a 5th grade teacher really struck me because we see it every day in schools, yet rarely find ways to make it happen. Students are most excited about school when they have something that they know is going to be fun ahead. Not only do students love technology, but they love visitors! Anything that is inconsistent to their day will make an impact, and Skyping with authors of the books they read is such an awesome idea! I think it's really great that authors are willing to participate in this, and reading the stories and thank-yous from teachers makes you really happy.

The video about Skyping was really cool because I did not realize how often Skype was actually used in classrooms now. My favorite part was the class that read a book to a class in Spain, and those students read the same book back in their language. The video was really interesting because it gave you step-by-step instructions on how to engage in a Skype call with other people with your classrooms. Sometimes people forget that you have to prepare ahead of time and that you should have a reflection time afterwards, and these are some of the most important parts. Giving students something to do during the video is also a great idea because it is easy for students to become distracted when they are not engaged in something.














Google Hangout is great for collaboration and can be used with sharing Google Docs, having a customer feedback discussion, and virtual whiteboard brainstorming. I like everything that Google has to offer because it is free, simple, and all connected. Rather than attaching a document from Word and sending it in an email, you can share a Google Doc with someone right over the Internet and they will have access to it.

This article explains how to use the tools on Google Hangout, and my favorite one will always be sharing the screen with the other person. It is insane how far technology has come, and to be able to see someone else's screen as they are doing something is so cool. Earlier today, I had a problem signing into my Comcast account to pay my bill for my apartment. I started an online chat with a customer service representative, and then they called me to do it over the phone so that they could control my screen from their server. They fixed my problem and the bill is paid on time!

Google Helpouts seems like an awesome idea, and I'm excited for it to take off. With certain things, I have to see what is actually happening rather than just reading about what to do. With Helpouts, I will be able to ask someone over a Hangout for help, and get advice and information right away.

All of this new information about Skype and Google Hangouts are going to be extremely beneficial when I am finally in the classroom. These are great ways to keep my students engaged and interested in topics, and can also be used as a "treat" if the students are behaving. When I was in school, our "treat" would be 5 minutes to play Oregon Trail...It is so crazy that students are now using iPads in the classroom and speaking to people all over the world in seconds.

Evernote

In this blog, a teacher talks about using Evernote to remind his students when assignments are due and to remind them about the homework for that night. I like this idea, especially because so many students are reliant on technology to remind them to take medicines, keep appointments, and various other things. By integrating Evernote into your students' education before college, it will make college easier for them to be organized. I wish that I knew about Evernote before this class because I work two jobs and am taking five classes. When I try to make plans with friends, I have to look at all of my schedules if I did not have time to write it down in my planner, and sometimes that does not even work.

I also thought that the video on Penultimate was really awesome. It is a great way to organize notes and recipes, directions, and really just about anything that you want to put on there. Rather than carrying around multiple notebooks, address books, recipe binders, etc., you can use Penultimate and sync it with Evernote to create folders and sections to keep yourself organized.

I liked how Nussbaum-Beach and Hall described the connected learning communities as a combination of three things, as a three-pronged cord. Connected learning communities contain your local community (personal learning network), global network (professional learning community), and bounded community (a community of practice or inquiry). Basically, this is three groups of people which has are one face-to-face, another online, and the last people who have the same interests and want to connect together on a deeper level (page 28).