What is the Hat?

Greetings,

Today, I will be blogging about the Hat. The Hat is a random number/name generator you can use with your students. This application makes sure each person is randomly drawn equally. What's neat about this application is once you download it, you do not need to be connected to the internet.

One of the great features of this application are the fun special effects. The generator will make a toggle noise and a drum beat noise as the names are being shuffled and selected. This tool has given me another option to use, besides my traditional popsicle sticks in a cup. The popsicle sticks in a cup still works, except this generator has sound effects and is very visual. This makes it more exciting for the students.

To download this free and fun tool you can visit the following web site: http://www.harmonyhollow.net/hat.shtml
Here is what it looks like after you have downloaded it.

The fist thing you want to do is input the students names manually.


Once you select the Add Names Manually button, you will see the following window screen. You will need to type in your students name to add them to your list.

After you have all the names of your students in your class. You have two choices.

1. You can shuffle the names and the names will jump around from top to bottom to different position. You can either chose the name on the very top of the list or the bottom of the list. Then you can chose to delete the name.

2. You can chose to draw the names randomly out of the Magic Hat. The student will see his or her name appear on the middle part of the hat.

I personally like using the Magic Hat, that way the students are selected randomly to answer questions when I am presenting a lesson to the students. The names can only be chosen one time, so it is a true random sample.

Once you have drawn all the names of the students, you will see an indicator that says all the names have been drawn out. Then you can reshuffle, and continue to draw out the same names randomly.

If you have more classes you can chose to delete the names, clear the list or import the names into the generator.

You can also go into the options setting and change the interface or sound effects if you would like.

I hope you enjoy this fun and useful tool. I know your students will enjoy it. Remember download it and play with it, and you will be ready for your students when you need to ask questions to your students randomly. Hope his helps you out. See you next week.

What is Cool Timer?

Greetings,

Hopefully you had a great Fourth of July spending time with family and friends. This week I am sharing with you a timer you can download to use as a stopwatch or a count down timer with your students. All you need to do is visit the following site to download it for free: www.harmonyhollow.net/cool_timer.shtml

Once you download it you will not need an internet connection to run the program. Here is a screen shot of what it looks like, once you have downloaded it.

Your students will enjoy watching the countdown timer when they are in working in small groups, or independent practice. After you have downloaded the program, you can choose different built in alarm sounds to sound off when the time expires. You can even personalize the timer by having a short message scroll across the screen.


Another feature on this free timer is you can change the colors of the digits, buttons, and backgrounds to match your needs.

You and your students will enjoy all these unique features on this free timer. Hope you enjoy this tool. I would recommend you downloading this program to your home computer so you can play with it. Once you have learned all the different features I mentioned above, you will be ready to download it your computer at school.

Next week I will be sharing with you a fun random number generator you can use with your students to make sure they are picked randomly when you ask them questions. Yes, you can even type their name in the random generator to personalize it. See you next week.

The 18 Best Subscription Based Web Sites for Learning

Greetings,

Today I will be blogging about the best 18 subscription based resources that I personally suggest to our parents at my school. Now remember, these sites require either an annual fee, or a monthly subscription.

I will list all 18 of them in no particular order. Once again, I have researched numerous school web sites throughout the country, and these are the top ones I have found. All of these sites are very excellent. You can choose which ones you like. Simply click on the link, and you can explore the web site. Some of the sites even have free trials before you subscribe.

1. Brainpop and Brainpop Jr.

2. Atomic Learning

3. Discovery Education

4. Safari Montage

5. Learn 360

6. Lynda

7. Enchanted Learning

8. Ed Helper

9. Scholastic Study Jams - For Free for a Limited Time!

10. Rosetta Stone Classroom

11. Learning

12. Ebsco Research Database

13. Gale Infotrack Online

14. Brittanica Online

15. Worldbook Online

16. Teaching Books

17. Tumble Books

18. Proquest

Hope these help you and your son, or daughter out to excel in their learning over the summer months. See you next week.

The Flip Digital Video Camera Introduction: Part 1

Greetings,

We are all now rested after the long break. I took a break from last week in observance of Easter. We are ready to go again, full speed. I have been looking online for tutorials on the New Flip Digital Camera Software, and so far I am unable to find any. So I decided to create one.

The training on this new digital camera is usually a 6 hour class, so I am going to break it down in my blog into a 5 part series. In the series I will be posting pictures and videos I took with the camera. I will also post helpful video tutorials you can find online. I will also post helpful ideas on how to use your Flip digital camera with your students or for you own personal use. Ok, lets get started.

Here are the titles of the blog session topics I will be following over the next 4 weeks.

Week 1 or Today: Introduction and Session Breakdown

Week 2: Digital Video Cameras in the Classroom

Week 3: How to Use the Pocket Digital Video Camera

Week 4: Working with Video Footage and the Software

Week 5: Using Video Footage with Other Compatible Software

Make sure you let all your colleagues know that I will be continuing with week 2 on this topic next week. For now you might want to visit the web site http://www.theflip.com/ so you can get acquainted with the camera.

I recently saw comedian/singer and celebrity Jaime Foxx using the Flip digital camera at the Grammy award show a few months ago. I think he was recording one of the music acts. They showed him on TV holding up his flip digital camera. If celebrities are finding these cameras easy to use, then we can all learn to use them with ease for our own personal use.

I did a review about this camera a few months ago. If you have not read it, I recommend you read it before you go through this blog tutorial. It can be found by visiting my January 3, 2010 blog post, or you can just click here: The New Flip Camcord Camera by Pure Digital

Next week I will be blogging about how to use the digital video camera in the classroom with students. So don't forget to let all your colleagues know about my free technology blog. See you next week.

$30,000,000 Deal for Sharing Video!

Greetings,

I recently visited with a colleague of mine this past week, and it gave me an idea to blog about today’s topic. Most people have already heard about Youtube. You know where you can create a free account and post your own videos online. Here is a real life rags to riches story. Recently an unknown film producer produced a short four minute video costing around $300, in which robots where attacking a city and Hollywood found it. There soon was a bidding war for the video and finally Sam Raimi, the producer of "Spiderman" offered him a $30 million dollar deal. That’s right a 30 million dollar deal to collaborate with him to produce a new movie with robots of the future blowing up a city. If you the video above is not working, here is the link Panic Attack! or you can click on the picture above. So far this video has received over 5,500,000 hits. To learn more about the video, yahoo has posted a blog discussing more details of the future Hollywood blockbuster. Just visit http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzzlog-uruguay-to-hollywood.html So what kind of effect does this have on teachers?



If you have a video creation in which you are teaching a concept or idea you can post it on either http://www.youtube.com/ or http://www.teachertube.com/ Teachertube is a video sharing web site, in which teachers post their collection of videos. When you go to presentations for staff professional development, you know how the presenter usually has a funny video clip stressing an important point in his or her presentation. This is the site where most of those clips are coming from. So check out these new video sharing web sites and yes, you too can produce your own videos to share with the whole world.

Stay tune to next years blogs. I will be teaching you how to download videos from Youtube directly to your computer that you can use in presentations. I will also be reviewing the new flip camera by flip and sharing with you my exciting video about the Wintery Blizzard in West Central Texas I encountered, where I was stranded on the highway for 9 hours with thousands of other people. I will be showing you how to edit, crop pictures and take screen shots of your work in MS Word and soon I will be going step by step how to set up your own microphone in your classroom. I can't forget twitter, how to host your own web cast, and how to create your own podcast, as well as more picture sharing web sites. We have an exciting new year coming so stay tuned and we will see you next year. A lot of school districts have banned Youtube so I have posted the video here.

Tell the Whole World!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a talking picture worth? This week I am introducing a new web site that lets you turn any picture into a talking picture. That’s right, a regular picture into a talking picture. All you have to do is click on the picture to the left or click on the following link: http://www.blabberize.com/ Just like the picture says, it only takes 30 seconds. It's fast, easy and also fun to use. How would you like to use this tool to teach the students a concept or an idea from a talking picture?Your students or audience will love it. You can also put it in presentations or entertain your audience to make a point. Hope you have fun playing with it and we will see you next week.

Express Your Next List of Words With Creativity!

Greetings fellow Colleagues,

As you know, we all give our students list of words, ides or concepts to remember. How can we find a unique and fun way for students to remember them? Well here is a cool web site that can turn your list of words or ideas into a format that represent them in a unique way. It allows us to express creativity by putting words all together to make unique vertical and horizontal designs called word clouds. You can use different colored fonts, layouts and colors in your own word cloud. After you have finished creating your word cloud then you can save it or print it or share it with others in their gallery. You can also see other word cloud creations that other people have made and shared with the world. To try it out for free you can visit http://www.wordle.net/ Hope you enjoy this site and we will see you next week.