Video Killed the Radio Star... I'm a YouTuber!!!

Hey all! I'm finding that when I make an instructional video it is easier for me to post it to YouTube so it can be accessed by people in and out of the district. Keep checking back so you can see the videos I am putting out! Click here to check out my channel! 

My Favorite Video Making Tool!

Hello again! So my biggest requests in the past 4 weeks have had a similar theme:

• How do I make a video of myself reading a book and easily get it to students?
• How do I make a video of what is on my computer screen?
• How do I make a video of my computer screen with just my voice?
• How do I make a video of my computer screen with a video of me in the corner?

My answer to all of these is one of my favorite tools... Screencastify!

Here is a video to get you started on Screencastify. I also walk you through the process of upgrading to the premium features for free right now! Enjoy!

Giving Students a Voice: Tech Tip

Hello everyone! As I work throughout the district I have had a bunch of questions about helping our students get more practice recording their voices. Since so many students take the ACCESS test, practicing recording their voices not only helps with preparing them for the test, but also enhances their speaking skills.

If you work with littles, one easy way to get them speaking is Chatterpix. Chatterpix can be used on the iPads and Chromebooks. Students take or upload a picture and then use their finger to cut a "mouth" into their picture. They then can record their voices!

This is awesome for describing a character, retelling a story with beginning, middle, and end, or even explaining their thinking on a math problem. The videos can be saved to the device and then imported into their Google drive accounts!

Free Read Aloud Books

So I just found another awesome tool to add to your elementary school classroom: Vooks! Vooks has classic and popular story titles done as a read aloud. This would be awesome to support a class wide guided reading or to be a literacy station during reading groups. Some of my kindergarten teachers are using this during their student's technology center during center time!






The best part is teachers get a whole year free!!!!!

An Introduction to Flipgrid!

I know I will talk about Flipgrid more on this blog, but here is a quick introduction.

Flipgrid is website/app that allows students to answer a teacher prompted questions with a video response. Pretty simple, eh?

Yes it is simple..... but POWERFUL!

I have seen teachers use Flipgrid for:

• student book reviews
• math accountable talk
• make a hypothesis before a science experiment
• explain their thinking
• take notes for investigative journalism
• memorize a poem and present
• reflect on learning

My favorite part, though, is it helps our English Learners practice their speaking in a non threatening environment. It is also great practice for the speaking section of the WIDA test.

I could talk about Flipgrid for hours, but I'll write some other posts about it later to keep this short and sweet. Trust me.... go check it out and head on over to Twitter and see how other teachers are using it by searching for #flipgridfever !