Todd's Tuesday Tech Tip #28: The Story of Send

Hello Colleagues,

Happy Tuesday!

Have you ever wondered what happens when you hit the 'send' button in your e-mail program?  To be honest, I don't think I gave it much thought.  However, once I explored Google's new site called, The Story of Send, I became quite fascinated.  I think you will do.  Here is the link to the main page.

How do you think you might use this in your classroom?  I think the video would be fascinating for just about any age, including me!  It might get students thinking about the complex systems that are at work in our world.  Just think about plumbing, sewage, telecommunications, electricity and on and on. 

What do you think?  How would you use it? 

Thanks,
Todd

Todd's Tuesday Technology Tip #27: Graphic Organizers

Hello Colleagues,

Happy Tuesday!

This week's T4 is all about graphic organizers.

I found this tip on Tammy Worcester's Website.

We all love them and use them frequently in our teaching.  However, the ones I have are pretty static and I usually end up re-creating them for a specific task using lots of cutting and pasting (old school copy and pasting) to make them work for my task at hand.

Well, I found something that I think you will really like and hopefully use.  

Worksheetworks.com 

The site above has twelve customizable graphic organizers.

Here's all you have to do.

1.  Go to the website:  

2.  Choose a graphic organizer.

3. Complete the form:


4.  Click the "Create worksheet" button.

5.  Click the "Worksheet.PDF" button.



6.  Save and open the file using Adobe Acrobat.







7.  Print!

Thanks!

Todd's Tuesday Tech Tips #26: Comic Creation

Hello Colleagues,

Happy Tuesday!

Today is all about comics.  There are so many choices out there for creating comics with children, but I've narrowed it down to two.  One is for our younger students and the other is for the older. 

The first is Arthur's Comic Creator This site is pretty awesome.  You can start with a clean slate and slowly add in your characters, or you can pull the lever and it will put in a 'story starter' for you.  Once the story starter is in place, you can change it however you like.  You do this by clicking on, removing and adding different characters, backgrounds, etc. 

The second site is called: Make Beliefs Comix.com

The first thing I noticed when I began working with this site is the possible complexity.  You can choose a whole range of characters, settings and even emotions.  Like the Arthur site, each element can be scaled up and down, rotated and flipped to your liking.  Make Beliefs Comix.com even has the ability to have you write your comic in a multitude of foreign languages.  I could see this as a possible Spanish activity. 

The only downside I've seen to Make Beliefs Comix.com is that it limits you to three panels.  However, my very curious teenager didn't let that stop her.  She used the site to complete an English project by making four three panel comic strips to accomplish her goal.  Once you've created your strip, we used the always handy PDF (Save to PDF function) when it was time to print.  From there, we were able to put all of the strips on one Pages document and print them off.

So, how do you think you might be able to use this with your students?  As always, we would love to have your thoughts on our T4 website so that we all can learn from one another and our valuable insights.

Please note:  I'm attaching two files to this Tech Tip as well.  These two files come from The New York Times Education Wing and are great ways to use a photo (from the Times or not) to pull out details of a story.  I thought they fit the theme of comix quite well.

Here are the links to those files:  What's Unsaid and Storyboard

Thanks,
Todd

Todd's Tuesday Tech Tips #25: Crossword Maker

Hello Colleagues,

Happy Tuesday!

Today we are going a bit "Old School."  I can remember years ago when Discovery School hosted a puzzlemaker application.  In point of fact, they still do.  However, it is not nearly as cool as today's link.    Crossword Puzzle Maker is way better, in my opinion.  This site allows you to really customize the look of the puzzle.  It can be as simple as you like, or it can be a complex puzzle suitable for the newspaper!

If you create an account, it will store your puzzles for future use and allow you to edit and create them again.



There's this week's tip.

How do you think you might use this tool?  

Thanks,
Todd