Using iPad Apps to Stay Current with Education

If you have an iPad, there are some great apps right at your fingertips to help keep you current with educational news and trends.  There are two apps that I really like, both in what I like to call "magazine format" which allows you to flip through pages and browse news stories.  Flipboard and Zite are both free apps on the iPad (iPod touch and iPhone).  You can customize subjects and add your Google Reader content to both of these apps.  Flipboard allows you to share articles via Twitter, email, and favorite items in twitter.  Zite allows you to share articles via Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, and email.  Both apps are great ways to stay current, and don't take a lot of time out of your day.  Just a few minutes every day, and you can browse all the latest headlines in education.
Flipboard
Zite

Digital Learning Day

Menasha Joint School District is participating in the Digital Learning Day, February 1st!!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 13, 2011
MEDIA CONTACT:
Jason Amos
(202) 828-0828
jamos@all4ed.org

Twenty-seven States Committed to Celebrate Digital Learning Day
States Pledge Support for National Awareness Campaign Highlighting Technology’s Role in School Reform and Strengthening Instructional Practices

Currently, the following states are signed up as partners for Digital Learning Day: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

The celebration of Digital Learning Day will be tailored within each participating state. Some activities these states are planning include a proclamation from the state governor, a showcase of student work through digital learning, lesson plan contests for teachers, announcements of digital learning projects, and highlights of promising practices within and among states.

All are welcome to participate in this celebration of innovation. Act now! Join the important national and local discussions by signing up to learn more about Digital Learning Day at http://www.digitallearningday.org.

The Alliance for Excellent Education is a Washington, DC-based national policy and advocacy organization that works to improve national and federal policy so that all students can achieve at high academic levels and graduate from high school ready for success in college, work, and citizenship in the twenty-first century. For more information about the Alliance for Excellent Education, please visit http://www.all4ed.org.

Soundzabound

Did you know that if you are using copyrighted music in a project, under Fair Use you can only use 10 seconds of that music? If you have your students download music from anywhere on the Internet that is not royality/copyright free they are infringing on copyright policy.

Here is a simple solution to finding royality/copyright free music! Check out Soundzabound. 

Soundzabound is a site that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Division for Libraries, Technology and Community Learning has purchased a subscription for Wisconsin to use. Soundzabound Music Library offers a wide variety of music, audio themes and sound effects for grades K -12 and universities that ensures your copyright safety. Perfect for podcasts, PowerPoint™, videos, news shows, video yearbooks, digital storytelling, presentations, TV broadcasts, web design and more! This site is one of the more frequently visited sites that the DPI offers through Badgerlink.

To access Soundzabound you need to first go to www.badgerlink.net and click on the link for Soundzabound. By entering the site this way, you enter through the subscription that the DPI has purchased. Watch the video below to learn how to locate music and download a song for use in a project.




The music from Soundzabound can also be used in Windows Movie Maker and Animoto.

District Library Resources Page

Have you ever wondered if our district had a subscription to a particular site?  Do you need resources for a research paper?  How about just some great sites to use with your students?  Well then, if you are in the Menasha Joint School District, you are in luck!  The District Library Resources Page has all of that information and more.  Want to know who to contact to get a book from another school?  It's there!  Forgot the username and password to access Brainpop or Big Universe?  It's there!  Need primary sources for student's to use in their research?  It's there!  Students and staff can access the page, but need to be logged into their district provided email accounts.  This helps protect our usernames and passwords from the outside world.  Take a look, I'll think you'll find something on the page you didn't even know you had access to as a district employee.

Flip the Moodle Way

Flipping the classroom can be quite easy using Menasha Moodle course server. You will be able to add music, video, and websites with activities. The reasoning behind Flip is to allow the students to have prior knowledge of the topic being studied in the classroom before coming through the door. Peoples' neurons need to be sparked two to three times before they can make a connection. By Flipping you have already sparked the neurons one time.







Any questions on Moodle Course Server you can go to Atomiclearning or speak to Isaac or myself for pointers.

Atomic Learning

Atomic learning provides video tutorials for a variety of software and web2.0 tools. One of the major hurdles facing educators who want to use a new tool is learning how to use it and Atomic Learning provides a great service to help you do so. The tutorials are easy to find, cover many different tools and are available anywhere you have internet access. The Menasha Joint School District subscribes to and you will be given automatic access to the program at www.atomiclearning.com if you would like access to the tutorials from home you can find the district password on the training resource page right above the link.

Positives

-Tutorials on Google Apps, Moodle, Contribute and Microsoft Office
-Easy access in district or at home

Negitives

-District needs to purchase service
-No tutorials on Edmodo

Capturing Student Voice

Here is another free site that I'm excited to share with you! It is a very simple website that allows users to capture voice and then put that recording into wikis, websites, blog and more. The site is called Vocaroo. The is no need to log into this site. It used to be an option but they got rid of it. The netbooks that are being used in the 7th grade and by Maplewood staff have microphones built into them so you can easily record audio. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to capture voice using this site.


The ability to record voice can be useful for many multimedia projects as well as in foreign language classrooms. There is no limit to the length of the recording. If you close the window before copying the code or URL for your recording, it is lost and you will have to re-record. If sounds quality is bad, adjust the volume on your computer.