PlanbookEdu's EdTech Roundup for November 6th
Editor’s note: Guest contributor Nancy Barlow regularly blogs at The Teacher Geek. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Wikipedia is Fun, But...
The education library blog Finding Dulcinea writes about The Top Ten Reasons Students Cannot Cite or Rely on Wikipedia. While Wikipedia offers a vast collection of information that one can quickly reference, being that it can be edited by anyone on the internet, it's not a reliable source for accurate information. One of the big ones is just because "...you can't rely on something when you don't even know who wrote it." If that's not a good enough reason, be sure to read the nine other very good ones in the article.
Amazon Lending Library Could Change Your Classroom Library
Amazon already offers textbook rentals through its Kindle (and Kindle-ready) devices. But it recently announced that any Kindle owner with a Prime membership ($79 per year) could participate in their new lending library, which includes 1000's of titles (like Hunger Games). You must have a Kindle, so free Kindle reader apps are not included in this deal. But if you or your students have a Kindle, this could be an option for reading books that are not available in bound form at your school or library. Let us know your thoughts on this new deal.
THE Place for Science Education Resources
Michael Gorman at the 21st Century Edcational Technology and Learning Blog writes a comprehensive review of ScienceNetLink, a "premiere K-12 Science Education Resource." ScienceNetLink is a FREE resource full of lesson plans, interactive whiteboard resources, and interactive activities for every branch of science. Go grab a cup of coffee and get your bookmarking finger ready, because you'll be there a while!
App of the Week: Mad Libs
Mad Libs never fail to elicit a giggle from its participants. The classic wordplay game is now available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch in the Apple Store, and for Android devices in the Android Market. The first "book" is free (Vacation Mad Libs) and subsequent books can be added for $4.99 each.
PlanbookEdu's EdTech Roundup for October 30th
Editor’s note: Guest contributor Nancy Barlow regularly blogs at The Teacher Geek. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Learnboost: Make All Of Your Classroom Management Digital
As a perfect complement to PlanbookEdu, try Learnboost - a web-based gradebook and management tool. The easy-to-use interface allows you to combine grades, data, attendance, calendars and and integrated state standards into one seamless experience. Add Learnboost to your Google Apps, and you've just made your teaching life much, much easier. You will find clear, simple data reports and excellent customer service. One unique feature is that teachers can share with parents gradebooks, class calendars, and attendance records by creating a secure access code for each student. If you find yourself yearning for a one-stop-shop for all of your student management needs, this deserves a close look.
Thinking About Starting A Classroom Blog? Read This First
Silvia of the Langwitches blog has written an interesting article discussing student blogging as more than just technology integration. It's about literacy. She advocates that instead of just starting a blog for blogging's sake, think about the outcomes - they can go far beyond just "technology integration" and well into literacy and critical thinking skills. She then lists about a dozen student blogs of every grade level and subject, as examples of the kind of high-quality, student-centered, displays of critical thinking that we all want from our students. Use them as a model for your own student blogging quest.
The Teacher As Communicator
Have you ever sent an email that was misinterpreted? Do you want to speak up at staff meetings, but find yourself without the right words to say? Would you like to beef up your parent communication? The Simple K-12 Blog has a free download for teachers to assess and bring clarity to your messages. There's a large section on non-verbal communication behaviors. If you've gotten feedback from your administrator that you need to work on your communication skills, or if you just feel like you could do a better job at speaking, writing, and listening, then check out the free PDF.
App Of the Week: Green Eggs and Ham
Would you try it with a goat? A Dr. Seuss app, that is! More than just an e-Book, Oceanhouse Media’s Green Eggs and Ham is a beautiful and faithful-to-the-book app version. It’s a joy to read, listen to, and follow along. Check out all of their Dr. Seuss titles. Available for Android, Nook, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.
Set Background Color
Setting the background color for a box or group of boxes is a great way to organize your plans and make it easy to find things quickly. You can set the background color by clicking the Edit link in any of the boxes. Look for the icon with multiple color swatches.
Once you select it you can choose from 16 background colors. Hovering over the color will give you a preview. Click the color to select it. Clicking Reset will restore the box to the default white background.
Once you've selected the color you'll see it in the edit window and as soon as you save it will be applied to the box.
PlanbookEdu's EdTech Roundup for October 23rd
Editor’s note: Guest contributor Nancy Barlow regularly blogs at The Teacher Geek. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
The Why Files: The Science Behind the News
One More Story: Books Come to Life
Dipity's Timeline Creator Has Features That Work For Everyone
App of the Week: Kids Time Fun
October Updates
We have two great new additions to announce. First is an expanded toolbar with new options for toggling the full standards text and full attachment name. Second is a new print option, Day By Day, which will generate an entire week at once, separate by day.
New Toolbar
You can access the new toolbar by clicking the wrench icon next to your planbook title in the weekly view.
The new toolbar will slide out below the planbook title.
The font size and spell check were in the old menu and work similarly. The Standards and Attachments options are new.
Standards will only appear if you are using standards in your planbook. You can toggle between showing just the standard code or the code along with the full standard text.
Previously when you attached a file a paperclip icon would appear and you could see the file name if you hovered over it. If you had multiple files attached to a plan it could be tricky to find the right now. Now you can toggle between showing just clip or the full file name.
Day By Day Printing
We've supported single day printing for some time, but to print an entire week you would need to print each day individual. With day by day printing you can print an entire week at once with each day on it's own page. This is a great option for teachers with long plans.
Day by day printing has been added to the print options screen. Right now only PDF format is supported. We are working on adding the other formats, but there are technical issues with forcing page breaks between the days when printing from the browser or generating Word documents.