Extension for Reading and Writing Support

This was stolen from the JCS Tech Leaders Blog:

A wonderful Chrome extension called Read&Write for Google is now available with all advanced features for FREE to teachers! Read&Write works with Google Docs to provide additional supports for students including highlighting, vocabulary help, read aloud features, translator, and access to talking and picture dictionaries.

To unlock the premium features of this Chrome extension:

1. Install it from the Chrome Store by clicking HERE and clicking on the +Free button. 
2. You must register at http://rw.texthelp.com/drive/home/RegisterTeacher with your school email to unlock the premium features.

(Written by: Pam Batchelor)

Chalkup

This post was taken directly from freetech4teachers.com written by Richard Byrne:

Chalkup - Distribute & Grade Assignments in Google Drive Without Using Scripts

Chalkup is a neat service that combines the concepts of Google Drive and Edmodo into one slick package. In Chalkup you can create classes to which you distribute announcements and assignments in the message board style that you find in Edmodo. Your students can sign-in to see what you post, reply to your posts, and submit assignments. The best aspect of Chalkup is found in its Google Drive integration.

Through Chalkup you can distribute Google Drive files to your students and they can submit Google Drive files to you. Rather than running a script like Doctopus when you want to distribute an assignment template to your students, you can simply select a file from your Google Drive account and share it through Chalkup. When students submit assignments to you in Chalkup you can comment and draw on their Google Documents as well as give them a numeric grade for their assignments. Watch the video below to see how easy it is to distribute and grade assignments in Chalkup.

Go Social Studies Go

I found this site through freetech4teachers.com. (You probably could have guessed that!)

This site is great for 5th grade. It is created for middle school kids, but has a section on US History. The section on US History has every historical event of importance that 5th graders would study. (In my opinion, but I could be wrong.) The text is easy and interesting to read and some of the sections include videos. 

I thought it would be great to use in a center or as a whole group introduction to a topic. 

Stick Around

Stick Around is a great app for your iPad that allows you to create and play sorting, matching, and labeling puzzles. To get a better idea of what the app can do, click on the picture above and watch the video!

Reading Bear

Reading Bear is a great resource for helping kids learn to read! They have instructional videos for students to watch that will help them with their letter sounds, blends, and also with how to read whole words. After each instructional video they have a quiz the kids can take. This would be a great resource to link to your website for parents to use at home!

ClassDojo Messaging System

For those of you using ClassDojo, this came from freetech4teachers.com!

ClassDojo has added a service that allows teachers to message parents about student behavior from the app. This messaging service hides the contact information of the teacher and of the parents. You can send individual messages or whole group messages. "Direct Messaging" is for individual messages and "Broadcast Messaging" is for whole group.

This would be a great tool to use to send parents positive messages about their kids! You can also use the app to send out due dates or homework announcements. It is very similar to remind101. Parents do have to decide to be a part of this messaging system.

Common Core Explorer

So this is really exciting! There is a common core explorer! This website has found the best digital tools to match each common core objective in math and language arts. Science is coming soon!! Go to http://www.graphite.org/standards/common-core and explore!!

When you click on your subject and grade level, the standards will show up. Under each standard is a list of websites that match the standard. When you click on the website, you will see reviews!

Google +

The JCS Digital Learning Team have begun playing around with Google +. They have created communities and started doing Google hangouts. I started looking through all the features of Google + and it is pretty awesome. You can join communities of topics you are interested in. You can also create your own circles of friends. We could start our own ECES community!

Click here to learn more about what Google + has to offer!

Educational Maps in Google Maps

I was looking at freetech4teachers.com today and he was sharing how you can find educational maps in Google Maps Gallery. This is GREAT! Looking around the school we don't have maps in our classrooms anymore, however we can find maps and pull them up on our Smart Board. One example Richard Byrne showed was this one about internet usage.

Here is another one that was featured in Google Maps Gallery on Lewis and Clark.

Feedly

Feedly is my new favorite thing! I have a lot of blogs that I follow and this site allows me to put all of the blogs in one location! When I go to feedly.com, the most recent posts of the blogs I follow are up on a homepage. It is great! No more going from blog to blog. If you like to read blogs, I highly recommend you use this great tool!

JCS LiveBinder

JCS LiveBinder is a great place to look up curriculum information.They have a tab labeled Math CCSS Parent Information. This information is great to show or talk to your parents about. It will help explain to them why the new way of teaching is good for their children.

To get there go to http://www.johnston.k12.nc.us/elemdocs and click on LiveBinder.