LEX Talk Tech- Mrs. Hall's Technology Blog

This week on his blog, Richard Byrne introduces a PBS game called "Plum's Creaturizer". It never fails that as soon as I finish up a particular unit I find an awesome resource that would have been a great addition to my plans. This app is definitely that. I have enjoyed playing around with it and am already eager to show my students and collegial partners this resource next school year. PBS offers many fun activities (on their website and as apps) that help students learn. This particular app focuses on adaptations and how animals adapt to their environment. This app is free and although it is primarily geared towards elementary school students, most of them do not have their own device so I can definitely see how this app would be beneficial in the early middle grades. The only downside would be convincing students to delete other apps in order to make room for this one :) (thanks goodness it's only 26.4MB). Plum's Creaturizer and allows students to use augment...

AutoCrat is an add-in for Google Sheets. It is an easy-to-use tool that merges PDFs or other documents from spreadsheets.    Before you begin, you need to decide what you want the document to look like. For example, here is the guide (google docs) I give my students when we complete lab reports.  Once this is set up, I then go in and create my Google Form for students to complete.  https://goo.gl/forms/WEd412d7xqNBQmfp1 Once students have submitted their forms, I can then transfer their answers to a Google Sheets. When the Google Sheet appears, it will include all of the questions as column headers and then student answers underneath those headers. Next, I will convert my Google Docs into an AutoCrat template. This gets a little tricky so it may be best to refer to a how-to video versus me trying to explain it in text :) This is a great tool for science lab reports, meeting minutes, meeting agendas, writing pieces, etc. At the beginning of the school year...

As my grad school class is working on their literature reviews I wanted to offer some advice on how to use Google Scholar. I began using Google Scholar in June thanks to Richard Byrne and one of his older posts I happened to come across when writing a literature review for a different class. Google Scholar is a great search tool that works best when you start off broad and then narrow your search down a bit. It is also a great tool to use during the beginning stages of your research because it reaches into various databases and provides an overview of your research topic. To begin your search, you would type in words just like you would into Google. To get a little more specific, it is suggested that you type in Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) in order to find relationships if you are searching for multiple terms. You can also put phrases inside of quotation marks if you are wanting to focus on that exact phrase. For example, I am researching methods of implementing blended learning ...

In my classroom I use the occasional video to reinforce skills and flip lessons during various units. Edpuzzle allows you to incorporate videos into your lessons in a new and exciting way. Videos can be imported from almost any platform including locally and via YouTube. Once imported, you can begin to modify the video by adding narration, questions, text, photos, and more. Videos can even be divided in sections to allow for chunking of content. Edpuzzle easily integrates with google classroom making assignments extremely manageable and fluid. After complete, you can easily check for viewing completion on a student by student basis. Grading for participation or for understanding is also a breeze. There are a few negatives to this application. Edpuzzle is somewhat limited to video production only. This may be a hurdle for schools with a low tolerance for video instruction. Also, Edpuzzle is not entirely free.  There is a paid subscription available for the all inclusive package. Ove...

This week on his blog Richard Byrne introduces six task management tools. As much as I love technology, I do like my simple, although old fashioned, paper and pen planner that functions as my calendar, gradebook, lesson plan book and also where I keep information for my small business. If I were to lose this planner I would literally be lost. Because of this possibility, I have been looking at other options to help me stay organized and out of his list I only have experience with one of his tools. I am going to briefly summarize these six resources and then explain the benefits of the one that I use most often. I have also shared these with my students and their parents. About 75% of my students have a device and most students struggle with organization. 1) Todost. It is a free resource that allows the user to keep track of a digital to-do list. It's a website and not an app and the neat thing about this tool is that you do not have to remember any type of log-in information. You...

This week my accelerated class has been dissecting fetal pigs (TGI {almost} F). In order to prepare for these dissections, I first had to get parental permission. I could have sent home paper copies of a permission slip and beg my students for days to return those, but instead, I designed a Google Form that I sent to parents via their e-mail. By using Google Forms, I was able to gather necessary information from my students in a quick and convenient way. In my form, I had an introduction to our activity along with my personal safety concerns. I also used a combination of short answer, long text and multiple choice in order for parents to answer my questions to the best of their knowledge. I asked for a parent emergency contact number along with any contact allergies their student may have. In one section, I also asked parents to explain any concerns they had for the assignment. Prior to our dissection, I was able to gather this information, print it off and have it for easy access in...