Technology in Education: Notes from the Closet

image source: http://www.moyeamedia.com/blog/?tag=mothers-day-pictures Happy Mother's Day!   Recently we've spent some time focusing on mom.  During lab students have had the opportunity to create Mother's Day projects.  Younger students created "I like" lists for mom.  Older students chose to create PowerPoint coupon books, PowerPoint Poetry or Wordles that describe mom.  Below are the templates I used with the students and some finished products (the Wordles will be laminated with a magnet for the refrigerator). Take a look: Mothers Day Wordle Template by nmzumpano Mother’s Day PPT coupons by nmzumpano Sample Mother's Day Coupons Happymothersday Template 1st2nd by nmzumpano

8th Graders!  Do you know these words??  http://edudemic.com/2012/12/100-words-high-school-students-should-know/ This month we are hard at work in lab creating poetry.  Below are links to 4 poem generators. http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/word_mover/words.01.html http://www.piclits.com (Examples of PicLits below!) http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/theme_poems/ http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm April is Poetry Month by nmzumpano Prior to this we worked on acrostic and free verse poems.  Younger students (1st-2nd grade) worked in Microsoft Word to construct their acrostic poetry.  Older students used Microsoft Power Point.  Why Power Point?  The program allowed students to focus on different design elements and practice animations.  There was more freedom for placement of clip art as well.  They did an exc...

Recently I came across a resource through my PLN (Professional Learning Network) on Twitter  that gave me an idea for Black History Month.  If you are an educator and you are not on Twitter we need to talk! Using a resource shared by  James Gubbons   that was originally created by  Tony Vincent  I decided to introduce QR Codes to the  4th grade students .  We talked about what a "quote" was and referenced some  famous quotes . I brought the iPads in and displayed some of the mystery quotes from Tony's website around the room. The students worked in pairs to scan the QR codes to find missing words from famous quotes.  For today's purposes I only used quotes from African Americans.   The students then created their very own quotes, with "mystery" missing parts just like the ones we scanned.  I demonstrated how to create a QR code using QRStuff.com and created a step by step guide for the students to assist them. Q...