So, with the state of the economy and the holiday season upon us, scams are definitely on the rise. Unfortunately, online scams are running rampant, especially within our school district’s email system. On a weekly basis, I have teachers forwarding emails they are receiving from businesses, especially banks. So, I went online to get some information about phishing scams, and found this great video created by the guys at commoncraft.com. They have tons of videos on topics from scams, to blogging, to electing a president…all in plain English! You can find their videos on their site, or on their youtube channel.
Here is their video on phishing scams:
This is a great video to show to students as well. So many of them handle many computer issues at their homes (crazy…but I see it all the time) that all it takes is for the kid to open the email, say “mom, I need your password for this thing the bank needs” and badda boom badda bing…scammed! It is all about understanding the amazing ‘beast’ that the Internet is.
Graphs, Charts, and Equations … I feel an obsession coming on
So, my last post was about this sweet site Sue Waters posted on her blog called Crappy Graphs. The site allows you to create a graphs and venn diagrams about whatever you want, label the x and y axis, and draw your graph. I can see never ending opportunities to use this site in classrooms of all disciplines. Here is the graph Sue created in her blog post:
How true is that!? Her use of understanding and effort is something that my previous school used to have students graph after receiving their standardized tests scores. It really helped the kids come to grips with the fact that most of the time, when minimal effort was provided on their part, minimal understanding happened.
In the classroom setting, this can be used for students to graph their progress in many areas of the classroom (test scores, homework turned it vs. grade in class, etc). When it comes to integrating graphing into your curriculum, Math and Science are obvious classes people can see this being used, but what about a Reading class? What about students tracking their level of understanding throughout parts of a book being read. Or a graph based on a character in a book, with the contents of the graph reflecting the “ups and downs” of the character’s stress/anger/attitude/etc…What about a Social Studies classes? Graphing a country’s morale during a period of time in history, or the state of the economy of a country over a period of time.
Of course, with any graphing activity, analyzing the graph is a must. This is where higher level thinking questions and discussion prompts can be worked into the lesson and the ‘true’ understanding of the content is exposed. How can you see graphs used in your subject?
Want more choices? Here is a blog post about a site that helps you create line graphs, pie charts, venn diagrams and even math equations called graphjam. Here is mine
I haven’t had much time to hunt for goodies online, but I have stumbled onto two finds that I want to share…
Bubbleshare
Bubbleshare.com is a great slideshow service. Here is what they have to say on their site:
Create a free account and upload photos to share with friends, family, or the world. Unlimited storage means you’ll never run out of space to keep hundreds, even thousands, of your favorite pictures.
Add fun clipart, audio captions, video captions to your albums. Perfectly frame your photos with over 20 themes. Print stunning photo books, calendars and more!
This service can be used when creating digital stories in your classes and if the students create accounts, they can work on their assignments from home if they have access. You could also take powerpoint presentations, save the slides as pictures (file>save – in the save as file type area at the bottom, choose .jpg from the list) and create a bubbleshare slideshow of your powerpoint to post to your website or blog.
Box.net is an online file storage service that offers various levels of online file storage plans. They actually have a free plan with 1GB of online storage space. This is great and all, but the best service is box.net’s widget creator. The site allows you to upload files to their site and widget code is created. You can then place the code on your website or blog. See the sample in my previous post.
When you go to the site box.net/widget you can create an account quickly and upload 3 files. You can adjust the way your widget will look. When you are done, you will receive the widget code in the page. If you have more files, all you have to do is go to box.net, log in, and go to the my files tab. Here you will see a folder that has been created; open the file folder and upload any additional files or delete unnecessary files. This is a great service for those of you who want to include handouts on your sites!
If you are like me, you access two or more comptuers on a daily basis and rely on your flash drive to transport your files back and forth. Jooce.com provides an amazing service that allows you to create a ‘virtual’ desktop. You can upload files and music to your desktop and can be accessed anywhere. The site is very easy to navigate, the set up process is quick, and your desktop will be set up in a snap. You can also share your files with others, which is a great way for teachers to share content area lessons and activities. Students can share documents they are working on in order to continue group work while outside of the classroom. The opportunities are endless!
Is your cell phone at risk of being “hacked”?
Our cell phones are now being threatened by hackers. With many people owning cell phones with more computing power and fast internet service, a new victim of choice may be the cell phone user. Learning how cell phone networks work will be a challenge for hackers, but phone owners can fell secure in the fact that there is “no hard evidence that hackers are already targeting cell phones.” Read the full article here.
Google is holding a contest for anyone out there that thinks they have an idea that can help the world. Google’s Project 10^100 is part of Google’s 10th anniversary and they want you to submit your fresh idea that you feel would make an impact on the world. The idea can be big or small, involve technology or not. The contest ends October 20th; 100 semifinalists will be announced by Jan 27; the public will vote between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2.
Bubbl.us provides a free service that allows you and your students to create mind maps/graphic organizers/think bubbles…The creations are easy to make and are saved to the account created by you or your students. The mind maps can be posted online or in your blogs, printed, and emailed. And the best part is that it is a FREE service!
I have been experimenting with the widget options here at edublogs and wanted to pass on two cool widgets.
The first is clustrmaps. If you notice on the right side of this page, there is a map of the world. Each time someone visits my blog, this map will show their location as a red dot. As of now, it looks like I have had people in California, Wisconsin, and somewhere in the Middle East! Wow!! To add a clustrmap to your blog, get to your dashboard and choose PLUGINS (to the right). The last plugin is the WIDGET PACK; activate it. Now, click on the DESIGN tab, and choose widgets. Add the ClustrMaps widget, move it into the desired position on the sidebar, and save. Now you have clustrmaps!
The second widget I would like to talk about is actually one you get elsewhere online. It will allow you to add music to your blog. This widget can be added into a post (as mine has here) or in the sidebar…but more on that in a minute. You will want to visit playlist.com, create an account, and follow the step by step instructions, and get to the screen where you are given a bunch of code. Highlight and copy the code.
If you want the playlist in a post (maybe you want the kids to listen to a song and write about it, analyze it, etc) you will create a new post, click on the HTML tab (upper right corner of the post body area; and paste the code. Save and Publish your post.
If you want the playlist to be a permanenet fixture on your blog, go to DESIGN>WIDGETS on your dashboard. Add a text widget. Save. Move the text widget to the desired position on the sidebar. Save. Edit the Text widget; paste the code into the body area. Save and Publish. Your playlist will now be on the sidebar!
NOTE: this playlist does not show on school computers because of the district filters…
Every Monday, I will post tech websites, software, and/or news articles that I think are fun, interesting, or something I think the you will enjoy. These finds are for anyone, not just the teachers here at Escobedo. However, because our purpose is to make the curriculum come alive with technology, where appropriate, I will add notes for teachers on how they could incorporate the finds into their classrooms.
If you have a tech find, please visit my Submit a Tech Find page and submit your find. You could win a prize!
Tech Finds for the week of September 29, 2008:
http://www.wordle.net - This is a really cool site that allows you to enter a list of words which are then arranged to create a picture…like this:
This could be a fun way to have students present a list of words compiled from a lesson. Whether it be what the student feels are key words from a chapter or story, vocabulary terms, or a great icebreaker for students to describe themselves with the words they used.
