Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 12/07/2010

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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 12/04/2010

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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 12/02/2010

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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 11/24/2010


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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Shutterfly--- The Best Christmas Card Selection on the Web

About a week ago, I received in the mail my Shutterfly 2010 Holiday Cards and Gifts Catalog. I was amazed to see all the new ideas to make your holiday season the best it has ever been. I started in the card section because every year I send out holiday cards to family and friends that were purchased from Shutterfly. Every year, I get many compliments on the quality of the cards and every year I’m proud to say they came from Shutterfly.


After looking at the catalog and online I have finally come to a decision on which card I will use this year. It has to top the cards I have sent in the past but at the same time send the perfect message. Now, all I have left to do is take the perfect picture. I have three daughters, a 10 year old, 3 year old and 18 month old which it can be difficult getting all three to cooperate at the same time.

So to reveal the card that I will use this year is???????? Joy-Magic-Story Christmas.

I choose this one because of the colors and the layout. I love taking pictures of my girls and this one for this. It also gives me room to type in information about what my family has been doing the past year.
Another gift idea I plan on using this year for the first time is the calendar product. In year’s past I have scanned in photos, created a calendar from scratch and then printed and bound it. This is extremely time consuming and with 3 little ones I don’t have a lot of spare time. I make theses calendars for my mom, sister and mother-in-law and they are always a big hit. Well this year, I plan on using Shutterfly to make this gift a perfect and affordable way to please my family. This takes the hassle and worry of late nights trying to make these calendars before Christmas arrives. I am so excited to use Shutterfly as my main gift-giving store. My family loves to receive pictures of my girls and with Shutterfly I can mix that up a bit. This way instead of getting just a print and frame I can make photobooks, coffee mugs, keepsake boxes, magnets, puzzles, coasters, notebooks, plaques, canvas wall art and calendars. I have ordered the magnets and coasters before and I am looking forward to trying out a few new ones this year.

If you like Shutterfly, don’t forget to tweet about it or add it to your Facebook profile and share your wonderful experiences with others. If this is your first time, go ahead, make the plunge it is well worth it and you won’t regret it. If you are a blogger and want earn free cards, tweet and or add this link to Facebook. Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Shutterfly takes the worry out of your holiday Christmas card shopping. I love this site and use it frequently to not only print my photographs but use it every year to print my holiday cards and birthday invitations.
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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Outlook 2010

I was thrown into a training session over Outlook 2010 for a group of staff members when I quickly realized that 2010 has a lot more features than the previous version. I was pleasantly surprised by these features and what they had to offer. My main goal was to help them use Outlook more efficiently and effectively. I began by showing them basic feature of email itself. I then moved on to the calendar and its sharing capabilities along with the task section and note taking. Here are a few items I focused on:
First, when wanting to share a calendar with your colleagues, create the calendar, then right click on that newly created one and choose share. An email message will pop up asking you who you would like to share this with. Type in the recipients names and a short message stating why you are sharing this with them. There is a check box that if checked will give your recipients full editing rights. If you don't check this box they will only be able to view it. You can change the permissions of each individual by clicking on the properties of this calendar. When the recipient opens the email invite at the top of the screen they will need to click on the button called Open This Calendar. This will open and share the calendar all in one.
A new feature with Outlook 2010 is that all calendars of a company can be automatically viewed. You can access these by opening a shared calendar. You won't actually see any details of the other person's events but you will be able to view their busy times and available times.
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Thursday, October 7, 2010

Google History Tours

I ran across this link just the other day that seemed like an awesome resource for history. It is called America: A Narrative History, 8e: W. W. Norton StudySpace and it offers US history tours that are powered by Google Earth. What an exciting way to experience historical developments that have taken place in history. Check out the tours which you can download to help your students better understand some of the most significant events in our history.
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Sunday, October 3, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 10/03/2010


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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 09/29/2010


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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 09/18/2010


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Friday, September 17, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 09/17/2010


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Thursday, September 9, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 09/09/2010


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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 09/08/2010


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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 08/25/2010


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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 08/24/2010


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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 08/21/2010


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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 08/19/2010


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Monday, August 16, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 08/16/2010


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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 08/11/2010


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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 08/03/2010


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Friday, July 30, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 07/30/2010


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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 07/21/2010


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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 07/20/2010


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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 07/14/2010


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Thursday, July 8, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 07/08/2010

http://www.icivics.org/
  • iCivics is a web-based education project designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in our democracy. iCivics is the vision of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is concerned that students are not getting the information and tools they need for civic participation, and that civics teachers need better materials and support.
    tags: civics games government democracy socialstudies

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Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 07/07/2010


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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 06/30/2010


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Monday, June 28, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 06/28/2010


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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 06/27/2010


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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 06/26/2010


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Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 06/08/2010


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Friday, May 14, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 05/14/2010


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Friday, April 30, 2010

Diigo Bookmarks 04/30/2010


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Thursday, April 29, 2010

My Favorite Free Ed-Tech Tools

This blog post is a part of the I Heart EdTech Blog Swap brought to you by SimpleK12.com. 

Guest Blogger Kim Munoz (@techmunoz) shares her experiences in the world of web 2.0 tools. She is a very resourceful and knowledgeable Ed Tech Specialist who has some wonderful ideas and lessons that can easily be implemented into anyone's curriculum.

Web 2.0 tools are engaging and fun for students! Many of the tools below connect students to the world by allowing them to post, link and embed projects they have completed in class, as well as comment on other projects to provide feedback. The whole world can be invited to see and comment on student work. The audience doesn’t have to be just the teacher or the classroom anymore. It can be mom’s and dad’s, grandma’s and cousin’s, as well as a classroom in England or Spain. The possibilities for connecting are endless.
So what activities can I do in class that can get my students sharing and collaborating? Well, here is a list of some activities I have successfully tried in my middle school classroom.

1. http://www.animoto.com/: Things I Like Project

The students signed up for a free account on Animoto and made a 30 second movie with pictures and words of things they liked. They used Animoto’s pictures and video clips, as well as some pictures from the internet. My 8th graders that have a blog, embedded the video to showcase their work, and the other classes presented their videos in class. I posted a link to my blog on twitter, inviting anyone to check out my student’s blogs and leave comments on their project posts. Instructions on how embed videos in a blog are located here: http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/2009/09/25/teaching-animoto-and-embedding-in-blogs/

Other project ideas: MATH—have students take concepts and make a movie describing it using visuals they find online or pictures they take of real world items relating to the concept. Language Arts—Character Analysis


2. http://www.coveritlive.com/:

Live Blogging Activities—Great for engaging while watching movies, videos or any visual presentation.

How it works: The only thing you need to get started is a free account on Cover It Live, and a blog to embed the code to the live blogging event. You can check out this site as an example to see some examples. http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/live-blogging-events/

Activity: I had my students Live Blog during President Obama’s speech to students in the Fall of ’09. They were able to interact with each other’s thoughts as the speech was happening. Here is the site where the activity took place: http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/2009/09/07/obamas-speech/ If I had sent out the link to the blog activity on Twitter, or to my school faculty members, others could have joined the conversation. Later in the semester 3 classrooms interacted with each other while watching the same video from an author, but in their individual classrooms. This allowed student interaction without having to move students or manage a larger number of people.

3. Student Blogs: http://www.edublogs.org/

I set up a blog for each student in my 8th grade classes using edublogs.org. It is a free blog site, but I paid the $15 every 3 months to have some of the extra features the students loved. Their blog served as an online journal, but also as a portfolio of their work. Any video created, artwork or class work the students wanted to showcase, could all be documented on their blog. I would take pictures of art projects or of the students working hard, to give them pictures to post. However, many Web 2.0 sites that allow you to create on them, also gives you an embed code to publish your work. Here is a great example of one of my student’s blogs. http://zoeyc1.edublogs.org/


4. http://www.artsonia.com/—House Project and Fundraiser

My students learn how to use the drawing toolbar in MS Word by drawing a House. When they have completed the project, I teach them how to save it as a picture (.jpeg), then I upload it to Artsonia.com. This site is an online art museum for kids up to 18 years old. They can share their artwork with the world as well as enjoy many other features of the site, such as the gift shop. Anyone can purchase an object, like a t-shirt or apron, with their child’s artwork on it. 15% of all sales go back to the school, so this site can serve as a great fundraising tool as well! Each student has their own URL that takes family, friends and teachers directly to their work where they can join their fan club. Students love to go back to their art page to see how many visitors they’ve received and how many people have signed up for their fan club. Fan Club members receive updates when new artwork is posted to the student’s site. All a teacher has to do to get started is sign up for a free school account and you can start publishing work immediately!


There are so many more projects we have done this year that engaged students and gave them a product they were proud to show off. If you would like to see more ideas like these, come visit my teacher blog at http://techmunoz.edublogs.org/
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Diigo Bookmarks 04/29/2010


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