Picasa and Picasa Web

One of my other new favorite applications is Picasa and Picasa Web.  Picasa is a photo organizational application that has a local version, meaning it is a download onto your computer.  Local Picasa is a photo catalog.  It helps organize all of the photos on the local machine.  Through Picasa local, one can create collages, edit photos, create slide shows, create movies, email photos, blog, print and order photos or photo gifts directly from Picasa with a click of a few buttons to your favorite local print shop in town.  A few features Picasa also contains is face recognition of peope in your photos and Geo Tagging. Once people are tagged in Picasa, it will automatically tag them in the future.  Unless you have twins and they look alike, then it won't let you take them differently as it sees them as one person. :)  Geo tagging put a geographical location to your photos as to where they were taken.

Organizing my digital photos, has been a challenge as up until now I had not decided on a particular tool to make it happen.  Picasa does it for me.  With Picasa Web, or what is now Google+, I can easily upload photos from my phone to an online album, that I can access anywhere to share with friends and family. Being able to upload photos from my phone also saves me storage on my mobile phone storage card but I still have access to them whenever I want.

I was concerned about the storage in Picasa web as my pictures from my cell phone are 8 megapixels, which makes for large files.  Picasa and Google have very reasonable upgrade storage prices as seen below...

	20 GB ($5.00 USD per year)
	80 GB ($20.00 USD per year)
	200 GB ($50.00 USD per year)
	400 GB ($100.00 USD per year)
	1 TB ($256.00 USD per year)

So when I meet my maximum storage on Picasa Web/Google+, I can easily and afford-ably upgrade to maintain easy online access to my photos.

Screenr

Screenr is an unbelievably easy screen cast resource.Screenr makes it a breeze to record and share screencasts up to 5 minutes in length.

Here is a brief tutorial video on Screenr.  Screenr is a great resource to show how to use an app, how to access a program, or help someone navigate around the web or computer, and to review concepts.  Screenr is free and there is no software to download.  You simply create an account and begin recording.  You can even log into Screenr with  your Google account, facebook, or other social networks.

I have primarily used screenr to create brief math reviews for my math class.  Here is an example of one of  my screenr screen casts.

Multiplying Positive and Negative integers
Order of Operations with Grouping Symbols

I have also created screen casts to walk my dad through how to access and use different online resources.  He is a very visual person and just explaining something over the phone usually creates more confusion.  So I have created screen cast for things as simple as showing him how to access different aspects of his netflix account.

I have found, through my students, that Screenr videos themselves don't always play nice with different operating systems so I have gone to uploading my screen casts to my YouTube channel.  This way I know students can easily access the screen cast.  This is a very simple process, it only adds another minute to the process.  Uploading the videos to YouTube ensures students can  easily access the math tutorials via many different mobile devices.

Aside from uploading to YouTube, Screenr screen casts are also easy to upload to Facebook and Twitter.

Overall, Screenr has made making and sharing short screen casts simple.

Google Forms

If I had to choose only one online tool that has made the greatest impact on me I would have to say Google Forms.  This tool has simplified, and stream-lined so many tasks for me personally and professionally this year.  Google Forms are easy to create, easy to use, easy to analyse, and easy to manipulate when the data is collected, regardless of the purpose.

I have used Google Forms to:
 gather student information,
gather parent contact information, ,
  math quizzes or extra credit, 
schedule parent-teacher conferences
Gather Wreath Orders for my daughters

These are a few of the ways I have utilized Google Forms recently. There is an unlimited number of ways to utilize a Google Form.  Our school has recently gone to reporting detentions/disciplinary referrals via a Google Form.  This is posted in a central location for all staff to access.  By moving this to an electronic form, it is quicker, and easier to notify everyone of the infraction.  Then the spreadsheet is automatically created to analyse our disciplinary referrals for MBI purposes.

I am currently working on a form to collect all our family's contact information (addresses, emails, phone number) and important family dates (birthdays, anniversary's, etc)

I look forward to continuing to explore ways to utilize Google Forms in my personal and professional life.

Google Tools

The Google tools we have learned and worked with over the last few months through this fabulous course has made my personal and professional so much easier.  My top favorite Google tools would have to be Google Docs, Google Forms, Google Calendar, and Google Sites.  These are resources that I use on a daily basis now for my personal life and for my students and their parents.

Google Docs has become such a useful, convenient tool for me in the classroom and at home.  Many of my documents are now on my Google Docs site so that I can access them anywhere, from school, home, and anywhere in between with the aid of my cell phone.  Already this year, I have had to have a last minute substitute teacher in my classroom, and because I have my sub outline uploaded to my Google Docs I can do my plans from anywhere and get them to my classroom by early morning without a panic of how I am going to prepare for such circumstances.   I have done a little collaboration with students via Google Docs thus far.  I foresee Google Docs as being a great avenue for students to share their working pieces of research with me throughout the process. I also use Google Docs to store documents that I want my students to be able to access.  I can attach the document to my website, my calendar, or in emails to parents. This is a sample Google Document that is on my website and we send to parents multiple times a year to remind them of Students In Good Standing.

Google Forms, which is a part of Google Docs, is another favorite.  I will go into more detail with Google Forms in a separate blog.

The Google Calendar is a great way to coordinate all of my activities and meeting for school and home in one place.  I use Google calendar for my personal meetings, activities, and reminders.  Then I can access all them from one place no matter where I am at.  My cell phone is Google supporter, so I also access all of these resources at anytime through it.  I also use Google Calendar for my students.  I post their daily homework assignments on a calendar that is public and posted on my Google site, so they can access it at anytime.  This is nice because all I do is update my calendar and my website is automatically updated.

Google Sites has been another user friendly tool.  My classroom website has given me the opportunity to create a more comprehensive web presence for my students and parents.  I am continually making changes and updating it meet our needs to better communicate.  Google sites makes it easy to create a site to fit anyone's web presence needs.  There are many components to Google Sites, what I would describe as back or side doors to access the different management tools to create a site.  Taking class where someone was available to help me troubleshoot was most effective for me.  However, there are some quality tutorial videos on the web to help people get started with Google Sites.

Google has created an abundance of free, user friendly tools available to anyone. I am currently in the process of teaching my dad how to access and use Google Docs, so he can access his documents and other files when he is on his yearly trip.

NetSmartz

In teaching cyber safety to my 8th graders, we have come across a great online resource.  NetSmartz is a website that is dedicated to educating students, parents, teachers, and community members on the importance of cyber-safety and the potential consequences if we do not take the given precautions.

This website is very well laid out, easy to navigate through and has quality lesson plans and resources for primary through high school aged children.  The lessons can easily be modified to best meet the needs of your students and curriculum.  The lessons are engaging and meaningful.  My 8th grade students have expressed their positive opinions on the lessons.  They enjoy the activities and discussions that netsmartz suggested and outlines for the teacher in the lesson plans.  We have had many quality and eyeopening discussions due to the resources from this website.

I would encourage other educators who teach cyber safety, along with parents, to utilize this quality website.

Class Makeover & Science of Motivation

As I was looking at the titles of the TED videos for one of our class assignments.  The two that jumped out at me were "Math Class Needs a Makeover" and "The Surprising Science of Motivation".  When I first saw these titles, I almost became a little giddy, thinking ohh maybe these videos will give me some great insight on how to best reach my underachieving math students. These are my students who are capable of being successful in math class but choose not to be engaged, not do their practice, and therefore are not successful in math.

Both of these videos have a similar message in that overall as humans we function better when we are motivated intrinsically to find a solution.  When the problems we are faced with truly have purpose people/students perform, think, and problem solve better.  Life problems/questions do not come to us with all of the pieces neatly layed out for us to plug into a given equation.  The piece we are missing in our math curriculum is the problem solving piece.  Dan Meyer does a great job of taking a math problem from the textbook and turning it into a real-life problem, where all of the needed information is not given, students have to figure out what information is essential and find the needed pieces of to solve the problem they are presented.  These real world problems make math class purposeful therefore engaging and intrinsically motivating to the otherwise unengaged student.  Ideally, this is fantastic.  Both videos touch base the importance of letting the employee/student have a significant role in the problem solving and creativity piece.  I would love to teach this way all of the time, which would produce society members that would help solidify our future community.  

However, as an educator and some employers have the reality of the "real world" staring them in the face.  Not all facets of life lend itself to the lack of time restraints.  There are many jobs in the "real world" where we can not say, show up when you want, get the job on your own terms and timeline.  In the business world, there are some jobs that require employees to be present at a certain time and to be sure that particular tasks get accomplished in that time frame.  I do believe that some flexibility can be initiated to build moral and trust among employer and employee.  If the employee does feel they are a significant part of the automony of the business they work for, they will perform better.  However, changes need to begin transpiring from the owners/leaders of the company on down.  Business owners should be in seminars like this.

The reality of my "real world" in the classroom are the expectations of standardized testing and its timeline confinements.  I would love to "rewrite" my curriculum to teach my students to become problem writers and solvers.  However, one I don't have enough time in the day and two that is not the expectation of my administrators.  So we are torn between what is truly best for student learning and what we are told we need to teach by a specific date.  

These two videos overall are a great discussion and eye opener to what needs to happen to begin to create true problem-solving, creative, engaged, successful students in our classroom. This is a discussion that needs to be taking place far above me.  However, I am going to begin incorporating these types of problems solving situations for my students.  I still have to teach the specified curriculum but I can enhance it with these "real world" problems.  I will use the available technology to assist me.