ABC Reading Eggs Apps on sale... Don't miss out!

Take advantage of the current discount on some fantastic educational apps!

If your not hooked on the ABC Reading Eggs Apps yet, now’s your chance to purchase them for a discounted price and see what the fuss is about! Until January 1^st you can pick up a bargain – with the apps only 99c each (normally $2.99).

The ABC Reaging Eggs Apps are a range of fun, interactive and motivational educational apps that teach children essential reading, writing and numeracy skills. Titles include Eggy Vocabulary, Eggy Add to 20 and Spelling Games.

You can see them all at: readingeggs.com.au/apps.

Don’t miss out!

Editing photos with easy... using ipiccy.com

I've discovered a website recently that's fantastic for photo editing. It's simple and straight forward, student-user friendly and best of all it's free and doesn't require yet another user name and password!

It's called ipiccy.com

You begin by uploading your photo. Just click and begin experimenting. Think Photoshop...  but simplified. Anything you might want to do in Photoshop, you can do with ipiccy.com. There are the standard editing tools from cropping, blurring, changing the colour balance etc. to the fancy - turning your picture into a cartoon image or wanted poster. The possibilities are endless.

I use ipiccy.com with my class all the time. This site is definitely worth exploring (and using)!

Kleinspiration Guest Post - GoAnimate

A big thank you to Erin from Kleinspiration for allowing me the opportunity to guest post about GoAnimate on her fantastic blog! View the post directly, click HERE. Kleinspiration is one of my favourite 'go to' blogs for ideas and 'inspiration'!

Also, just to let you know - I've updated my Tech Tutorials page and you can now learn all about Wikispaces and GoAnimate, for use in the classroom.

Tessellating Patterns using Microsoft Word

 Have you ever considered using Microsoft Word to teach tessellating patterns?

I usually have students start with a simple shape, such as a rectangle or square. They then copy the shape and paste it next to the original shape, leaving no gaps. Repeat the process. Students can then change the colours to make it more interesting.

After that, students can experiment with other shapes by choosing more complex shape options and rotating them to fit into a tessellating pattern.

  

Newest Team Member at Technology Tailgate

I am excited to announce that I have recently joined the team of collaborators over at Technology Tailgate. If you haven't heard about it - it's 'the' place to be if you want find out the latest websites, programs, apps... anything technology!

Check it out and become a follower. It will change the way you teach!

Technology Freebies Link Up

Sunday is the day for sharing! Technology Tailgate is hosting a technology freebies link up - so check it out!

You never know what you will find and be able to draw inspiration from.

Technology is the way of the future, y'all! Don't try and fight it!!

Online Dictionary - WordSmyth.net

When students are completing dictionary work, I will often have them working in pairs. One will use a traditional hard copy dictionary and the other will find the word online, using a laptop.

I love Wordsmyth.net as an online dictionary, because it has a beginner's, children's and advanced option. If the meaning provided is too difficult, then students can choose an easier definition for a better understanding of the word. There is also a button, whereby students can listen to the pronunciation of the word.

Student Grouping Made Easy!

I’m forever trying to think of new and creative ways to group students. Recently, I have discovered a website that will do it for me!

At Instant Classroom, once you have created a login and password, you simply enter the names of the students in your class and with the click of a button, student groups are organised for you.

If you have different groups of students throughout the day (ie. maths or literacy groups), you can have separate lists all contained within the same login. You can also upload a photo for each child if you want. And if a child leaves throughout the year or a new one joins the class – just click the edit button and add/remove the name. It’s that easy!

At Instant Classroom, it also has two additional features. The first is a ‘seating chart maker’, which will randomly allocate seating arrangements. The second is a ‘random name generator’, which will randomly select a student from the list.

It’s a super dooper easy website to navigate – give it a go!

Wikispaces in the Classroom

Back in September, my school collaborated with two other schools in the area for a Professional Development Day in order to share skills, resources and ideas. A few teachers from each school offered different workshops for other staff members to participate in. I was involved in running a workshop with another colleague and we chose technology as the focus. In particular, it was about using Wikispaces in the Classroom.

If you’ve never heard of Wikispaces before, it is basically a secure website that you can use with your class to post work, pictures and facilitate discussion. You can add pictures, video, audio and web links etc.

I’ve included some screenshots below to show some of the pages from my class’ wikipage.

As part of the Professional Development Workshop I put together a step-by-step guide on how to set up, customize and effectively use Wikispaces. I have put up all of these instructions on my Tech Tutorials page.

WeCreate Awards

I'd like to share a little victory that my class had this year. My class (known as the Year Three Superstars) entered the WeCreate awards, which is an initiative of the Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre. We entered the 'eStory' category, which involved creating a digital story using a language learnt at school (we chose Vietnamese). We used iMovie to put the video together.

Our entry made it to the finals and they we WON! It was the first time I had entered any competition like it and victory upon our first entry was pretty cool. We attended the award ceremony back in November at the Sydney Opera House.  

I've embedded the video, however viewing it on the screen cuts off the captions (which is fine if you understand Vietnamese!) It's probably best for viewing on the following link:

• eStory - Postcards Home, by Year Three Superstars

I'm pretty sure the links stay viable until next years winners are put up in their place (Nov. 2013).

The eStory was inspired by 'Are We There Yet?' by Alison Lester. If you're not familiar, it is about a family who take a journey around Australia to discover the natural wonders and awesome sites.

Find on Amazon

On top of that, we have some seasoned professionals at our school when it comes to technology. They also entered into different categories of the WeCreate awards and we won all four categories that we entered! Our school definitely cleaned up on the day!

You can view the other competition winners from my school using the links below:

• eFilm - Bluey, by Class 5L
• eAnimation - Let's Protect Our Wildlife, by 5L
• eResource - Australasia, by Class 5/6P