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Send Anywhere- share files between mobile and non-mobile devices

June 13, 2013Kelly Tenkely1 Comment4620 views

What it is: Send anywhere is a super handy app for iDevices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) or Android devices. With it, you can share photos, videos, contacts or any other file easily with other iPhone/iPad, Android, or website. There is no user account to create, simply enter the one-time key that you are given to receive the files. With Send Anywhere you select the file, photo or video, contact, etc. Next you can choose to generate a QR code that can be scanned, share a key for receiving files using text message or email, or scan for devices that are nearby. You can also choose to upload the file to a server where multiple users can then download the file for a set amount of time. The receiver of the file can either enter a one-time key code, scan the QR code on your device, make their device discoverable or go to the http://send-web.com website on a computer web browser to receive the file.

How to integrate Send Anywhere into the classroom: Send Anywhere is a great way to share files quickly with students or colleagues. This is also an easy way for students to share their work with each other or with you. Because it doesn’t require a login, it is ideal for young students who may not have an email address to send you their work. Send Anywhere is super versatile. Even if your students aren’t all using the same devices, you can share files seamlessly using one of the Send Anywhere options.

Often at Anastasis, our students bring their devices on field trips for note taking and photos. When they return to school, they are always excited to share what they collected on the field trip. Often one student gets the perfect shot that others in the class would like shared. With Send Anywhere, this transaction could happen quickly without the student with the picture spending a lot of time transferring it to the other devices. On other occasions, we ask students to leave their iPads at school and a teacher acts as moment capturer. When students get back to school to reflect, the teacher is able to quickly share the learning evidences for students to include in reflection blog posts or projects.

Did you create a file that you would like to share with students? Use Share Anywhere to distribute digital rubrics, syllabi, instructions, etc. Students can quickly enter a keycode and access anything they need. Send Anywhere could also be a great way for students to “turn in” their digital work. Again, this is a fantastic option for students that don’t have their own email address to send from.

Our students create portfolios that they share at our end of the year Storyline (essentially a celebration of all the growth that has happened over the year), we invite families to come join this celebration. So often, parents want a copy of their children’s digital work. On the display that students create, they could share the Share Anywhere key code, or QR code. This would also work for identity day presentations, science fairs, etc. Work and research can be shared through Share Anywhere.

Tips: Share Anywhere is a fabulous invention. I’ve long wished for AirDrop on the iPad to share files quickly between my own devices. This isn’t currently available but is being released in iOS7. Until then, Share Anywhere is the perfect solution. For the long-term, Share Anywhere is a great option when you have a variety of device types.

Price: Free

Device: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad

Requirements: iOS 5.0 or later

The Physics Classroom

July 23, 2012Kelly Tenkely1 Comment2498 views

What it is: Today I learned about this impressive resource from @ccscoachadams on Twitter. The Physics Classroom is a really great place where you can access physics tutorials, Mind on Physics Internet Modules (more than 1300 questions designed to improve understanding of common physics topics), problem sets for practice, multimedia (illustrated physics concepts), animations and activity sheets, curriculum corner (pdf downloads to complement the website), laboratories, photos, and more. The site is like a better version of the text books that I had when I was in physics. What I like about The Physics Classroom is the variety of resources that teachers can use to help their students discover and explore physics concepts. The student extras that take you to Flickr collections of “physics” photos is fantastic!

How to integrate The Physics Classroom into your curriculum: I’m not sure I would have my students spend a lot of time on this site on their own (it is very text heavy and they may feel overwhelmed at the scope). I would send my students to very specific places on The Physics Classroom to help them dig deeper into their learning and make connections. As I said above, the Flickr sets are fabulous. These are worth some time exploring!

The animations and information can be used to help students understand specific concepts that they are struggling to grasp. These could be shared on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.

The Physics Classroom could be used to help students extend their learning and understanding outside of the classroom. Students can use the site as a study aid or to dig deeper for additional understandings.

At the end of the day, this site is a treasure trove of resources for physics classrooms.

Tips: Spend some time exploring this site before recommending it to students so that you can help them navigate it. It is SO information heavy that it could be a turn-off for students who are just dropping in looking for something specific.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Physics Classroom in your classroom!

Planet Foss: Investigating Science by Taking Pictures

February 9, 2011Kelly Tenkely7 Comments4387 views

What it is: Planet Foss is a science photo sharing website for students. Students are enlisted to help capture science in the real world through pictures and share them with other students around the world. Students choose a science course to investigate, see what photo challenges exist within the course, and then take a picture of science as it happens. Each course comes with several challenges; the challenges are all based around themes that tie into the FOSS investigations. When students have taken their photos, they can upload them, tag them, and record observations about the science they captured in their picture. Students can also head over to Planet FOSS just to check out the photos taken by other students, they can search by the date that the picture was uploaded, by tag, keyword, or search by location using a Google map. Courses on Planet FOSS include Chemical Interactions, Diversity of Life, Earth History, Electronics, Forces and Motion, Human Brain and Senses, Planetary Science, Populations and Ecosystems, and Weather and Water.

How to integrate Planet FOSS into the classroom: Planet FOSS is an excellent way to involve students in science exploration and discovery in the real world. The great thing about the site is that it helps students discover the science that it all around them. Through the photo challenges and investigations, students learn to view the world through a new lens and begin to understand that life is science. That isn’t a concept I understood until I was out of school (for me science usually meant filling out a worksheet or memorizing science vocabulary-sad). Don’t have access to digital cameras at school? Students can still use Planet FOSS by exploring other student photos. The photos are a great way to introduce science concepts and illustrate concepts in a way that is more authentic than the textbook offerings. As students view others photos, they can leave feedback about the photo, observation, or comment on the similarities or difference to where they live using a set of virtual “stickers”.

Tips: To protect student privacy, Planet FOSS does not accept any photos that includes pictures of students. Planet FOSS has a great introductory video that will have even the novice computer user uploading photos in no time!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Planet FOSS in your classroom

Critical Past

August 10, 2010August 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely14 Comments5142 views

What it is: Critical Past is a website I learned about today from Tom Boito’s great blog EDge 21 in his Catch of the Day. The resource is too good not to share again here! Critical Past is a collection of more than 57,000 historical videos and more than 7 million historical photos. All of the photos and videos are royalty free, archival stock footage. Most of the footage comes from U.S. Government Agency sources. All of the videos and photos can be viewed for free online and shared with others via url, Twitter, or Facebook. The videos and photos are also available to purchase for download.

How to integrate Critical Past into your curriculum: Critical Past is an incredible collection of historical videos and pictures. The site is easy to search either by decade and topic or keyword. The clips and photos on Critical Past will bring historical events alive for your students. Use photos or videos on Critical Past to help illustrate what students are learning in history. Ask students to be “eyewitnesses” of history and watch a video before they have context for it. Students can write or blog about what they think they are witnessing, afterward they can research the event more in-depth and write a follow-up reflection on what was actually happening in the clip.

** Check out this awesome lesson that @pharesr created based on this post. So cool!

Tips: Along the right side bar of Critical Past, you will find “related videos.” Students can watch a clip and the related videos and reflect on how the clips are related. Sometimes it is a similar time period, sometimes a related event, other times it is a related location.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Critical Past in your classroom!

Fotobabble

March 23, 2010Kelly Tenkely10 Comments5546 views

What it is: Fotobabble seems to be everywhere I am lately, and now that I have had a minute to play with it, I can see why. Just upload a photo, record your voice, and send or embed away. It is very simple to use and has really fun results! The only downside for use in education are: 1. on the home page of Fotobabble you can see other members creations, at the time of writing they are all clean but I would hate to send my kids here without knowing exactly what content they would run into; 2. To use Fotobabble as a student, you must first sign up. This requires an email address 🙁 Which means that under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, that children under the age of 13 cannot sign up for an account on the site for their own creations. I would love to see Fotobabble create an education version that can be used by students under 13 if monitored and signed up by an adult, and without the other user generated content on the home page. That being said, Fotobabble is a fantastic tool for the classroom.

How to integrate Fotobabble into the classroom: Fotobabble can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom. For students over 13, it is a great creation tool. Students could take pictures, or find creative commons images that illustrate vocabulary that they are learning and record themselves saying the definition and using the word in a sentence. Students could collect and trade Fotobabble vocabulary with other students in the class and embed them in a blog or wiki to create their own visual talking dictionary. If you teach students younger than 13, have teachers or parent helpers build audio visual dictionaries that can be added to throughout the year. How neat would it be to have a talking, visual word wall?! This would be helpful for math, science, social studies, history, and regular vocabulary words that students learn. The format will be so valuable to your audio and visual learners. Did you take pictures of that field trip? Upload them to Fotobabble and students can record thoughts, observations, and lessons they learned on the field trip. Consider creating a class Fotobabble account that you (the teacher) are in charge of. Upload student illustrations and record a story that they have written using their own voice. This is the perfect type of project to share at parent teacher conference time. Parents can get a good idea of their child’s writing, reading, and fine motor skills all in one spot. If you complete a similar project several times through the year, both students and parents can see the growth and progress that has been made during the school year. Fotobabbles are an outstanding way to send your young students on an Internet scavenger hunt. Along the way, record directions with Fotobabble and embed on your class website, wiki, or blog. Non-readers will be able to listen to, and follow directions for any assignment. Upload a picture of a landmark or map and have students record fun facts that they have learned about the place. Send special messages from your class home to parents in the weekly newsletter. Take a picture of a project that the class has done, or of a fun activity from the week. Students can record a message about upcoming events, fun highlights of the week in learning, and a list of helpers who have signed up for the week. Parents will love hearing their kids give the news updates for the week! Are you wracking your brain for a fun Mother’s/Father’s day activity? Why not record the kids leaving a special message to their parent with a special picture made just for them? Now that is a keepsake!

Tips: Because younger students can’t sign up for their own Fotobabble account, consider creating a class account that you can be in control of. For younger students, having a Fotobabble recording center set up on one of the classroom computers might be appropriate. Since you will control the account, you will be in charge of what content is added by students.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Fotobabble in your classroom.

The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults

February 17, 2009Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3558 views

What it is: Digital Vaults reminds me of Museum Box that I wrote about a few weeks ago. The National Archives has put together an amazing site where students can create digital content with primary resources. Students can search photographs, documents, and other records and collect them. Students can use collected items to create their own digital poster or to make a movie. Students can also create a Pathway Challenge. In a challenge, students create a series of clues that show relationships between photographs, documents and other records. Others can take part in these Pathways Challenges. There are also ready made challenges that students can take part in, I just took the Lincoln challenge. Clues are given and students have to find a record that matches the clue. Very cool!

How to integrate Digital Vaults into the classroom: This is a truly incredible way for students to interact with history. While the site may be too hard for primary elementary students to use on their own, the Lincoln Pathway Challenge could be used with an interactive whiteboard with the teacher guiding the challenge. Teachers could also create a unique challenge that directly matches your curriculum for students to complete. The poster, movie, and create your own Pathway Challenge are an engaging way for students to learn about history in a hands on approach. Give students a direction to go and then give them time to collect resources, and create their digital history vault. This is not history as I remember it…in fact, I’m sure I would know much, much more about history if I were involved in my learning this way! This is so much better than learning history from an outdated text book, the Pathway Challenges are like virtual field trips through history.

Tips: I learned about this awesome website from Free Technology for Teachers, a great blog!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Digital Vaults in your classroom.

Picasa

January 7, 2009Kelly Tenkely6 Comments2162 views

What it is: Picasa is a free download from Google that helps you organize, edit, share, and create using photos. The edit feature allows you to fix red-eye, crop, and fix any blemishes or scratches. Picasa lets students create turning photos into movies, collages, and slideshows. Picasa also makes it easy to upload albums to the web to share. Picasa has been around for a while as a Google tool but the big news this week is the release of the beta version of Picasa for Macs. The neat thing about the Mac Picasa release is its integration with iPhoto. The features are pretty neat and definitely worth a look for either platform but with the announcement of iPhoto ’09 yesterday, they aren’t as impressive. HOWEVER, Picasa is completely free while iPhoto ’09 is not.

How to integrate Picasa into the classroom: Picasa is a great way to organize photos you are taking of your classroom in action. Create a web album, parents always like to see the great things their kids are learning. Students can use Picasa to organize images they find online or pictures they take on a field trip. These pictures can then be used to create a movie, collage, or slideshow directly in the Picasa software. Students could create a class story in pictures, create a movie out of it and share it with other grades. Students can also collect historical images, scientific images, etc and easily create a movie or slideshow displaying their knowledge.

Tips: Picasa is available for Macs in beta version and Windows and Linux based in alpha.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Picasa in your classroom.

Capzles

July 22, 2008July 22, 2008Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2610 views

What it is: Capzles is another interactive timeline maker. I really love all the little extras that Capzles has! With Capzles teachers and students can add photos, videos, audio, and text to their timeline. Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized. Capzles also provides options when sharing your Capzle, it can be private with a specific list of who can view the Capzle or made public for the world to see.

How to integrate Capzles into the classroom: Obviously Capzles is a great way for students to create timelines about any subject. The web 2.0 collaborative aspect of Capzles makes it very appealing to students. I think Capzles could also be very valuable in the primary classroom. Students probably won’t be creating their own timelines in Capzles at this age, parent helpers paired with students to create simple timelines would be appropriate. Becasue Capzles has the capability of adding audio, photos, and text, it would be the perfect place to record students reading throughout the year. As you assess student reading through reading records, record the students using a program such as Gabcast, Gcast, Audacity, or Garageband. Take a digital picture of the student reading. Througout the year, you can make a Capzle for each student. This is an excellent motivator for students, especially your struggling readers. Students can see their growth throughout the year in pictures, and hear their reading progress made throughout the year. You can share the Capzle with parents (they will go crazy for this keepsake!) and with the students future teacher. How much would you love getting a timeline of your students from the previous year? You would have a jump start on their struggles and strengths in reading as you quickly flip through their timelines. Cool huh?!

Tips: When assigning students to create a timeline, direct them to concentrate on the “meat” of the timeline first. Then they can go back and design their timeline with themes, colors, and backgrounds. If you don’t specify they will spend all of their time tweaking the look and run out of time to add the content.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Capzles in your classroom.

Photo Booth/ Seenly

October 25, 2007October 25, 2007Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3236 views

What it is: If you are lucky enough to have a newer Mac in your classroom, you are familiar with Photo Booth. Photo Booth is reminiscent of its name sake, it allows students to take pictures with the built-in iSight camera. If you have a pre-Photo Booth Mac or a PC you can now use a free Browser application called Seenly. Seenly lets students take pictures of themselves (even applying different effects like sepia tone or x-ray). Seenly can be used on older Mac’s or PC’s. The only requirement is a web cam. These are coming way down in price, $15-$25.

How to integrate Photo Booth or Seenly into the classroom: Photo Booth and Seenly can be used for a multitude of projects throughout the school year. My favorite project for using Photo Booth/Seenly is for character education development. I create a “How are you feeling today?” grid in Pages or Word and save as a template. Students take pictures of themselves displaying the different emotions and drag and drop onto the template. When they are finished we print them out and create a class book of emotions. This is a wonderful way to teach students empathy. Photo Booth/Seenly can also be used at the beginning of the year for a getting-to-know you project. Create a bulletin board with student pictures. Students could use Photo Booth/Seenly to star in their own stories. Teachers, take pictures of students throughout the year as you podcast students reading. The photos with the podcasts make an excellent end of the year gift for students and parents as they can see and hear students growth throughout the year. Create a classroom “dictionary” where students create definitions for themselves along with their pictures. When teaching action verbs, have students take pictures of themselves actually doing an action verb. You will find a hundred and one uses that you never expected when you bring a web cam into the classroom and pair it with Photo Booth/Seenly!

Tips: See the image below for an example of the “How are you feeling today?” templates I created in Pages. One template was created for kindergarten through second grades and the second template was created for third through fifth grades.