Category: Technology

Storybird Literacy Project

This project encourages students to write their own children’s book using the STORYBIRD website. They don’t even have to be artistic as templates from a variety of artists are available for use. After they write their book they create a VOKI to encourage others to read it. VOKI is also a free website where student create a talking avatar. Students can create books on any themes or you can assign a specific theme. The possibilities are limitless.

Sandwich Glog Project

Tired of messy physical posters? Introducing Glogs–virtual, interactive posters that don’t take up physical space and are a blast to create. Use this new virtual poster technology with any subject! This lesson is a fast, fun way to teach students about sandwiches and incorporate technology all at the same time!

Edmodo: A Classroom Community Network

Good, free educational technology is a great thing. Create a private Facebook-like community for your specific class. It’s free to sign up and easy to use especially if you have used Facebook before. Keep your class engaged in learning beyond the classroom.

Food Borne Illness Animoto Project

This is an investigative project for students to research specific food borne illnesses in more depth and then visually showcase them through Animoto, a free site that turns photos and video clips into professional video slideshows in minutes.

Mint.com Personal Finance for the Technologically Savvy Generation

Teaching personal finance can be a challenge especially if you have all the old, outdated resources that emphasis doing just about all your budgeting, check writing, goal setting, etc on paper. Students start the eye roll as soon as you hand out the “how to write a check” worksheet. Granted, they should know how to fill out a check even if they only use their debit card now. The world is changing and we want students to be turned on to being good financial stewards. This means we need to help them find technologically advanced ways to keep track of their spending, budget, and set goals. One of my personal favorite free personal finance websites is Mint.com.

Where to get free clip art

With so many things needing pictures these days, I thought many of you would appreciate a place to get free clip art. These are some of the best photo and image sites. Use clip art to enhance your PowerPoints, website, and worksheets!

Family and Consumer Science Apps

We have come to a critical place as educators–to embrace technology or try to beat it down by forcing kids to keep it in their lockers or not bring it to school. While technology should not distract from learning it can enhance it if we let it. Here are some Apple App’s to aide in teaching Family Consumer Sciences.

Penzu- Have your Students Journal Online

Cross “journal” off your list of school supplies -the world’s going paperless and so should you and your classroom! The newest way to journal is online. Online journaling has been around for a while but Penzu is a little different…

Picture My Diet

A picture is always worth 1000 words and in this case can reflect your health. Inspired by the IPhone app called dietSNAPS, this unique lesson for visual learners allows students to track and assess their diets. The dietSNAPS app for the IPhone is a photo journal that allows users to take pictures of everything they ate and drank even pictures of themselves exercising and even send it to someone else for accountability. The app is fairly cheap at $1.99 and has generated a social following on Twitter and Facebook.

Personal Finance Resources

“Many young people fail in the management of their first consumer credit experience, establish bad financial management habits, and stumble through their lives learning by trial and error” states the Jump$tart Coalition. From this reality many programs have emerged all with one goal- to financially educate our young people. On this post I tried to list many of the notable programs, games, and websites that provide resources for financial literacy.