My Favorite Apps: Top Two for Notes

You can't go anywhere without hearing about iPads...they're all the rage at conferences, in some school districts, and more. Even when I go out to eat, you see kids (and adults) playing with their iPads at the table. Now I'm not here to judge whether or not that's okay (especially since I may have been guilty of pulling mine out once or twice), but what I would like to do is share some of my favorite apps. There are apps for everything it seems, and app lists aren't hard to come by at all. Sometimes it can even be a little overwhelming because there are SO MANY great apps out there. In our district, right now it is approved for administrators to purchase iPads, and we are in the beginning stages of running an iPad Pilot for students. I can't wait to share my favorite apps for student use, but in this post I'm going to stick with top 2 apps that have been invaluable to me at work and as a doctoral student for note-taking and organization.

PaperPort Notes (formerly Noterize)

An app that I first fell in love with last year when I first purchased my iPad (thank you Uncle Sam for that tax refund!) was Noterize. It was described as a "digital note taking tool," which doesn't even begin to tell you about the magic you could make happen with this app. Unfortunately, my favorite app became unavailable for a while, but now you can grab it by it's new name- PaperPort Notes. So what's so magical about this app? Well- you can create notes, obviously. And on those notes, you can add "sticky notes" or annotate using a pen and highlighter tool. Pair this app with a stylus and it's like having that legal pad to carry around with you everywhere. But what I use it for the most is annotating over pdf files. I can import my pdf files from several services such as Dropbox and Google. I could also choose to use Paperport to open the pdf when I first open it on the iPad. Then, I can use the same sticky note, pen, or highlighter tool to annotate on that pdf. When I'm done, I can choose to share it by email, or export it out to Evernote, Google, or Dropbox. And have I mentioned that it also uses Dragon Dictation's voice recording technology so I can talk instead of text if needed? Amazing. My favorite organizational, I need to do work App. I use it to store and annotate over research articles, mark up pdf checklists when I don't have access to wireless, and more.


Evernote

An app that is coming in to a very close 2nd place for me is Evernote. I admit that when I first tried it a couple of years ago, I was not impressed and I just didn't "get it." But a colleague recently shared some conference swag with me- and in that swag was a free premium month at Evernote. I rarely turn down free, so I of course went through the pain of remembering my login and vowed to give it another shot. Wow. That was my first thought, and my second, and my third...Before we even talk about the many features of the app, a big plus for me is that not only is the App great, but everything synchs to the Evernote website, meaning that even if I don't have my iPad with me (blasphemy!) I have access to my content. From this app, which you can see in the App Store here, I can view and create Notebooks, and then create Notes inside of those. Here's a pic of my Notebooks. On the left side, you can see a list of the notes that I have saved in this notebook. On the right, a larger preview of the Note I was looking at. Those notes with the nice bulleted list and the link you see there? All typed straight from the iPad. Oh, and that audio player you see? Did I mention that you can also record from the app as you are taking notes? Yep. Magical. And I can also add images, either using the iPad camera or from my Camera Roll directly into the Note.
Once I've created a note, if I wish to share it, Evernote will let me add specific people to the note (or Notebook) or give me a public link. Awesomeness. And honestly...the free version is just as good, you just don't have quite as big of an upload limit.

So although there are many many more apps I'd love to share, i'm going to save those for later posts as I think I've rambled enough for today!

What are your favorite note-taking or organization apps? Let me know in the comments.

MLK Day Resources

We just got back from Christmas break, and soon we will be celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. If you're looking for a way to incorporate a Social Studies lesson on this topic before break, hopefully you will find something of use in one of these resources!

I'm sure a lot of you have tons of MLK resources, but just in case, here are a few:

Scholastic's MLK Day Resources page includes lots of info, links, and a Notebook lesson: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=149

Remember you can get the full "I Have a Dream" speech transcript (print and audio) on American Rhetoric: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm or on Discovery Education

This school system has compiled a plethora (I just love that word) of resources, including background info, blackline masters, lesson plans, technology links, and a list of Discovery Education clips: http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/holidays/mlk/mlk.htm

Larry Ferlazzo is an ESL teacher who compiles list of website resources for different topics- this one is 2 years old, but has some good ones that would be great for EC, ESL, or lower level students. For example, the first site listed is a biography of MLK created by students that is text, but can be read to students. http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/12/21/the-best-websites-about-martin-luther-king/

Here are some resources from different government agencies http://www.free.ed.gov/keywords.cfm?keyword_id=954

And finally, if you search for MLK lessons on the SMART Exchange, this is what you'll get: http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?m=01&&q=martin+luther+king&tab=resources&sf=d

http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?tab=resources&q=MLK&sbj=

Hope there's something in here you can use in the next couple weeks! What's your favorite MLK Day resource?

Cool things in Anson County

Back in October I had a chance to visit Anson County Schools.....way down there on 74 from Gaston County. Although the purpose of the meeting was to sit in on a planning meeting between Anson County and Discovery Education, I ended up getting so much more than just that out of the meeting. After the meeting (at which very neat plans were made for implementation and training of Discovery Education's resources in the county) concluded, those of us visiting were given the opportunity to tour Anson County School's very own planetarium and science center.

All I could think was...wow! Not only does this school system have their own planetarium, but the connected science center is home to live animals, materials for every science experiment you can imagine, learning stations for a variety of units and topics, and awesome technology including 3 SMART Tables. Check out the pictures! Wouldn't you love to be a student (or teacher) who gets to be a scientist in this amazing lab? 

Check out this amazing center all about trees and soil!

Wouldn't you love to be student using all these supplies to do amazing science experiments?

And even get to wear a lab coat like a real scientist!

They didn't forget about technology...check out the SMART Tables

They have snakes....

And hissing cockroaches...

And iguanas oh my!

The Polar Express and Holiday Ideas

Every year as the holidays draw near, it seems like I see more and more great ideas to use in the classroom. Keep reading to see a few of this year's favorites!

My (P)Interesting Obsession with Pinterest

Have you checked out Pinterest yet? Pinterest is a site that basically lets users create virtual pinboards. You can create different boards to keep your pins organized, and you can also browse the boards of other users. So what is a pin? According to the Pinterest site, a pin is an image you add to Pinterest. It is super easy to install the Pin It button to your toolbar in any browser by following the directions here.

Pin It button

Once you've installed the Pin It button, you'll see this in your bookmark bar 

Yours most likely won't have a pink background...but that's how I roll in my browser themes :)

Once you have the Pin It button installed, you're ready to start pinning! Basically, anytime you see something you like on the web and want to remember for later, just click the Pin It button. As long as there are images on the page, Pinterest will pull all of those images and ask which you'd like to Pin. For example, the last page I pinned consisted of these images

I was able to click Pin This on the image I wanted to add to my board. The next step is choosing which board to add your pin to.

From here, I can simply choose the board I want to add to (or choose create a new one). You can see in the picture above that I chose to add this pin to the board called SMART Activities and Sites. You can also choose to add a description to your pins, and if you have your account connected to Facebook and/or Twitter, share your new pin with those followers as well.

Even if you're not into pinning, I have observed Pinterest quickly becoming my go-to place for finding great ideas and resources for the classroom. You can look through pins without having accounts- so you can search for a keyword you're looking for, or just look at pins in a certain category. The list below only show about half the categories available, but I wanted to make sure you saw that Education is there!

Here's a link to the education category on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/all/?category=education, and check out a small shot of what I saw when I clicked it a few minutes ago:

Right now, there may be a wait list for Pinterest accounts. If you'd like me to send you an invite, just post a comment with your email address.

So what are some of my favorite resources I've found so far on Pinterest? Check them out below!

Source: mrsnielson-2ndgrade.blogspot.com via Leslie on Pinterest

Source: our-cool-school.blogspot.com via Leslie on Pinterest

Source: whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com via Leslie on Pinterest

Source: makinglearningfun.com via Leslie on Pinterest

So, what are the best pins you've found?

SMART, SMART, SMART

We all remember last year's initiative that pledged to place a SMART Board in every classroom in Gaston County. As we enter the second year of this initiative for most teachers (and the first for others), I wanted to take a few minutes to remind everyone of a few resources that are available to you. Click through to read more!

How do I keep up?

Last fall, I wrote this post for the now defunct and re-purposed Gaston Digital blog. As I was thinking about what tools help me quickly find resources, especially as we get ready for a new school year, Google Reader is the what came to mind. So I'm stealing (from myself) this to share with you here! At the end of this post, I'll share some of the ideas I've seen for back to school and some of my favorite blogs to follow!

As I was collaborating with a few of my teachers earlier this week, one of them asked me a question I thought was quite interesting. The teachers were 1st grade teachers from one of my schools and we were meeting to discuss, find, and create lessons and activities for them to use on the SMART Boards they will all soon have in their classrooms (Yay for generosity from private donors!) I was teaching them about Diigo so that they could begin compiling all the interactive sites they were finding, and after everyone signed up for Diigo I shared with them one of my Diigo lists for SMART Resources. Of course since there was a SMART Board in the room, I had to spend lots of time playing, so I was showcasing some of my favorite activities to use for teaching math using SMART Boards (and why do they all have to be from the UK? come on, US we need to get on the ball!). So getting back to my point- the question that was asked as we were looking at all these resources was 

“Gosh Leslie, do you go home and sit with your computer all night to find all this stuff?”

 Okay, well honestly I used to practically have my laptop attached as an extra appendage all the time. These days I’m not quite as bad when I get home, and I’ve realized that sometimes I just need to power off (the laptop anyway, I seriously would have trouble breathing without the iPhone…or I at least couldn’t sleep, thanks to Sleep Cycle).  But really and truly, since I’ve figured out what the heck a PLN is, I haven’t HAD to spend hours and hours searching for the things I used to have to. It comes to me- kind of like magic!

Now, one huge component to my PLN is Twitter. But, since Twitter is blocked in our county right now, I won’t say a whole lot about it. What I will talk a little about is using Google Reader. Way back when I started reading blogs, I remember saving them to my favorites list and taking time to check them every once in a while to see what people were saying. I admit that in those days I was also following blogs of my friends to keep up with what their families were doing or blogs where people would post new recipes and things like that. These days though, following great blogs are a great way to keep up and find new resources without having to put hours and hours into searching for things (which is good to still do sometimes).  Once you have found educators or instructional leaders that you can learn from, one of the easiest ways to keep up is to subscribe to new posts in a reader- such as Google Reader. All you have to have is a Google Account, and it is super simple to set up. Once you have your reader set up, all you have to do is make time to read new posts that flow in! For teachers who want new ideas, teaching strategies, and ways to integrate technology but don’t have much time- finding good blogs to follow can be a great way to get started! So as you are at home relaxing this summer, take a few minutes to set up your Google Reader and subscribe to a few blogs. You may be surprised at what you find!

Once you’ve set up your reader, here are 5 great educational technology blogs to get you started:

Free Tech For Teachers

Technology Tidbits

Langwitches

The Nerdy Teacher

iLearn Technology

And here are a few of my favorite elementary blogs:

If you want to subscribe to several great elementary blogs, click here!