Help! My Students Can't Verify an Account!

Don’t you just cringe when you find a great site to use with your students and it requires them to verify their account with an email? Many great sites go unused, especially at elementary, because some students don’t have email accounts, or student email through the school is blocked from outside domains! With a Gmail account you can give all of your students an email that can be verified by you! This is how it works -

Original email account is:
Morelandclassroom@gmail.com (or whatever it happens to be)

For each student you add (+number or +name) to your email extension:
morelandclass+1@gmail.com
morelandclass+ronnie@gmail.com

The email comes to your account and you can verify it.
Another suggested use would be for a parent who is interested in getting their child started in email, such as with a grandparent or relative. This could be used by the parent in the same manner!

LiveBinders

Do you have a binder for everything, and each binder has a place on a shelf?? I love organized people and I love organization, however, it is something that I continually have to work at. I want so badly to be one of those nice, neat organized people, and though my intentions are good - I suddenly find myself drowning in disorganization. Of course, then I try to get organized again and the cycle repeats itself! My poor binders end up with papers shoved into them instead of being inserted like they are supposed to be, and when I need one, I have to stop and reorganize it to find everything - thus defeating my purpose of being organized. Get the picture?

While attending the TCEA Conference in Austin, I was so excited when I walked into a workshop and all the material they were presenting on was organized in an online binder - that had been made available publicly - and it is free!!! LiveBinders offers a three ring binder experience on the web. They offer tabs to organize within each binder, and not just documents, you can store video, websites, and images in your binder! You can have multiple binders, and they are available anytime you need them with web access. Sharing your binders is very simple, 1) You can make them public and copyable or 2) keep them private to only a few using a key code you set up.

What are some ideas you have for using LiveBinders?? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Group Work
Handouts for presentations
Websites
Assignments for students
Recipes - personal or for teachers
Add your suggestions in comments!

Here is a binder I am working on that will include Smart Resources for Teachers:

SmartTechnology

Read it Later

I love to read blogs! The problem I have is time, or lack of it. When I heard about Read it Later I was excited! Read it Later allows me to tag a site, blog, or online article to read later. What made it so exciting was that I can download an app to my phone that allows me to read it there also. So next time I am sitting in the doctor's office or the computer is being used by someone else, I can grab my phone and read!

graphics from http://readitlaterlist.com/

You Know You are a Techy Teacher When . . .

According to some of my colleagues:

• You look at your phone when someone asks you, "What time is it?"
  
• Lights go out in the building and you keep teaching using your flashlight app on your phone.
• You Facebook your To-Do lists so that you can access them later on in the day . . .
• A Google Docs spreadsheet is shared with parents so they can sign up for volunteering
• You grab your laptop and carry it with you during a fire drill
• You need a sedative when your flash drive which contains your lesson plans breaks into pieces
• You tap your dry erase board to change the page while using an overhead projector
• Email signature contains your Twitter, Facebook, and blog info

What do you think? What makes a techie teacher? Please add your ideas by commenting!

Iconscrabble

Fun site! Type in a word or words up to 18 characters, and it will spell it out with icons. After it creates your Iconscrabble, you can mouse over each icon to see what company it represents or click and go to that site. Then you can share it to any social media or download it as an image.

See how many of these icons you recognize in this Iconscrabble!

Quizlet

Want to meet the students needs at their level? Students are continuously connected to information through the web and phones. Quizlet is a flashcard program that can do just that. Flashcards created can be viewed on the web, blogs, class pages, shared on Facebook, or even downloaded to SmartPhones! A list of available apps are available on the Quizlet website. For a small fee, users can create flashcards with diagrams, clipart, or images. There are pre-made cards in all subject areas and at all levels.

Dropbox - Saved My Day!!

Ever had one of those moments when you just knew you lost everything on your computer? I had one of those moments yesterday! My computer would not boot, and it kept giving me error messages. When it finally came to life, I decided to move some of my documents off of there. Unfortunately, my external hard drive was at home (of course!). I recently tried an application called "Dropbox". You create an account and anything you place in there is available from any computer you have Dropbox installed on. After downloading it, I was quickly able to drag and drop photos, video, and documents into it. Saved! Dropbox apps are available for iPads, iPods, and Androids. Now I have access to my items from any computer and my phone.