Primary Wall

@plnaugle shared Primary Wall via twitter and after looking at it, I decided to share it on my blog.
This is a great resource that is super easy to use. As you can see above, it's a sticky note site to use with your students. Several of my teachers have used Wallwisher, but we've had some difficulty with them saving and loading, so we are always looking for similar sites.
Basically, you create a site, share the link with your students, and give them a question or something to comment about on a sticky note they create. One thing I like about Primary Wall is you don't have to approve each sticky (although that is a nice feature sometimes.)
This has lots of possibilities in the classroom. Have students post a sticky note on Monday morning about something they did over the weekend, have students post a sticky note on questions they may have during a lesson you are teaching-review their questions at the end of your teaching time, have students post a sticky note if they have a question about homework that can be discussed the following day. Those are just a few....if you use a site with sticky notes with your class, please post a comment to share you ideas with other educators!

Big Huge Labs (Ideas for Classroom Use)

I know I have blogged about this site before, but as I was showing it to a teacher today, I was reminded why I love it so much!

Big Huge Labs is such a wonderful site for teachers and students.

Here are a few ideas on ways to use their site.

1. Cube-upload 6 images and you can make a cube (the size to fit in the palm of your hand) with lots of uses. For example, upload scenes from a book and have the students tell what is going on during that scene, why they liked or didn't like it, create a different ending than the picture shown, etc. Or, create jpegs asking questions for your cube such as "What is your favorite book and why?", "Where is your favorite vacation location and why?", etc. This can get small groups talking quickly just by rolling the cube!

2. Motivator Poster-create a motivational type poster by uploading your picture and adding text to it. These don't have to be the usual "TEAMWORK" type motivational poster....get creative and use it for other uses such as vocabulary words...upload a picture that shows the meaning of the word, then make the large word the vocabulary word and the tagline under it can be a sentence showing the correct use of the word. You could also upload a book cover a student has read, make the large word a word they choose to describe the book, then the tagline can be a sentence to describe why someone should read the book.

3. Magazine Cover-let your students get creative and create a magazine cover all about them! Or how about making one for their mom or dad for mother's or father's day? Simply upload a picture of the student with their parent and have the student create headlines about their parents. Another idea would be to upload a book cover as the picture and the headlines on the magazine cover can be persuading students to read that book.

4. Trading Card-create a "baseball" type card for students in your room. They can put a title, subtitle, and description of themselves for a beginning of the year "Get to know you" activity. Use it for a character in a book. Have the student illustrate the character and write a description of the character for the trading card. We have also used this for students to create a trading card on an assigned President. It could also be used to create trading cards for different locations throughout the world....post them around your room so students can learn about various places like a virtual field trip.

5. Captioner-don't have lots of money to spend on comic software? No worries! Just upload your picture and have students add thought or conversation bubbles to them easily with this feature.

Big Huge Labs has tons of choices for you to use with your photos. There is also an educator account which allows you to use the site without ads and allows students to sign in without an email address!

If you use this site with your students or to create things in your classroom, please leave a comment to share your great ideas with everyone!

CAPTURED! Photo of the Day for Students/Classes

I've always seen people who do the photo a day for an entire year, and I always think, what a great project. Well, I doubt I'm the first to try it with classes, but I created a Flicker Group for Students/Classes Photo of the Day just for the school year (really only days students are in school.) It would be great to have as many classes participate as possible. Please consider joining. :)
I hope to present this idea to my teachers like this: 1.  Rotate students choosing what to take a picture of, taking the picture, and sharing about it (maybe the caption-just a simple sentence).
It would be great to have classes around the world join this group so we can learn more about each other just simply by sharing pictures!!! It also is for all grade levels.
So, as you start back to school, let your students start clicking and post those pictures to our group!!!  It will be GREAT!
Please note: A WIKI will soon be posted for this project for classes that participate to share their info.

Off to ISTE

Sorry I haven't posted in a while...I was on a 7 day cruise, home for 6 days, then came to North Carolina.

As I wrap up my family vacation at the beautiful beaches in North Carolina (after a last minute change of plans from going to Gulf Shores since the oil spill has reached there), I will be driving home a LONG 12-14 hours tomorrow (Saturday) and flying off to ISTE Sunday morning.  I'm sure I will be asleep on the plane, but can't wait for ISTE.  This is my first year to attend and I am so excited at the opportunities to meet a lot of people from my PLN face to face and learn as much as I can to share here and with my teachers at PDS.  Hopefully, I will be blogging as time permits, so I can share with YOU what I am learning at ISTE. I will also take notes using Google Docs and share those notes with everyone. Sharing is the way to go!!!

VoiceThread

If you aren't using VoiceThread, check it out. There are lots of possibilities to using this tool with your students, no matter what the grade level.
I am leading an after school session on VoiceThread in the classroom today and wanted to share some great links I have found and others have shared with me for you to access.

Links for VoiceThread resources:
17 Interesting Ways to Use VoiceThread in the Classroom
VoiceThreading Across the Curriculum
How to Make a VoiceThread
VoiceThread for Education
VoiceThread Resources
EdTECH Vision Voicethread wiki
Tom Barrett's VoiceThread post 1
Tom Barrett's VoiceThread post 2
SFA examples
VoiceThread Ning