Teacher Tech Tidbit of the week

Sharing technology ideas and innovations with elementary teachers at /\IS in Ho Chin Minh City, Vietnam has prove to be a bit of a challenge at times. I work at two locations and administration has not been keen on giving me time during our PD days to share resources and the like with our staff. So I created an Edmodo group to share resources and ideas with the teachers.

Every week to ten days I post on my Edmodo Teacher Tech Tidbit Group a new teach item, e.g. website, app, or program that I have used (and deemed beneficial to share with others). Or that have learned about and think it might be just what someone is looking for to push their technology integration to the next level. I have even shared info-graphics here as well when I deemed them beneficial to my fellow teachers. In addition I also share these on Twitter #teachertechtidbit, I have strayed from this very long hashtag at times and used #TTT as well.

Here is a list of all the resources listed in the above screen-cast made with Jing, next I converted the file from swf to mp4 using Online Converter.

• Our School Technology Pinterest board. (American School in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
• Pureview: This site lets you watch and project YouTube videos without seeing the sidebar content that you usually get with YouTube.com.
• blog post from Free Technology for Teachers about using Dojo with older students.
• BoomWriter a collaborative writing site.
• What should I read next? Here's a website that you can use to help those who struggle to find their next book.
• This is an infographic I came across quite sometime ago I cannot determine the original creator. I think it makes a very important point that we all need to be reminded of in this technology filled world we live in today. Just remember not to use technology simply to be able to say that you're using it.
• Storyline Online: a wonderful website that has a small but good collection of picture books that are read by actors.
• Duolingo: was shared with me by a grade 4 teachers and the music teacher at the ES. Duolingo is for helping to learn another language. It starts of easy and gradually builds in difficulty. 
• A Fair(y) Use Tale: Fair Use, Copyrights and Creative Commons are a complicated subject for all of us. This video is a great resource to help us as teachers become more comfortable with copyright, fair use and creative commons. 
• Block Posters: Here's a great site that you can use to create posters from smaller images. This works great for printing our infographics that we find and want copies of for our classrooms! 
• Microsoft Mobile: since we are supposedly a Microsoft Showcase School this some interesting news for us.
• Class Photographer- Each day, one child is in charge of photographing an important moment and writing about it for the class Edmodo page! The link below explains the use of this idea for class blogs.
• Jen Simon's new web address. Same site-new location!
• Thanksgiving Time: here's a great Virtual Field trip you could take your class on!
• 7 Edmodo Ideas and Edmodo Questions answered by Edmodo!
• In Early December the much anticipated arrival of MinecraftEDU was upon us.  So I shared a few resources to help some of our teachers learn more about this wonderful educational piece of software. A Beginner's Guide, Ideas for Using MinecraftEDU and A Pinterest Board where I had compiled a whole bunch more resources to help the teachers get started.
• Frog Game -  At the time I shared with app it was FREE but is has since returned to it's normal price. it focuses on improving auditory processing through phonological awareness skills that are essential for the development of reading, comprehension and spelling.This site has a list of FREE apps for both Android and iPad that you might want to take a look at and possibly suggest for your students (who have devices at home) to try out over the vacation!
• Browser-based Noise Meters that might help our students understand how loud they speak. Bouncy Balls, Calm Counter, and Too Noisy.
• ABC@2Learning: Leave it to Canada to create such an awesome data base of online resources! I discovered it has countless online (mostly FREE) resources for all grade levels! 
• PD opportunity at a low cost look no further then the Vietnam Tech Conference! It is here in HCMC this year on March 7-8, 2015: (yes that is a weekend, sorry but hey at least you won't have to write lesson plane! It is sponsored by SSIS & UNIS Hanoi. The conference will be held at SSIS campus in HCMC. this conference is open to all educators!
• Turtle Diary: "Online Games for Kids At turtle diary, child experts and educators design interactive online games for kids. Our learning games for kids help in building skills needed for success in school. While playing our fun educational games, kids learn to read with phonics, build skills in math, language, social studies, science and much more. Our educational videos encourage children to keep learning, even after school hours."
• Perspective Meme- what if...
• blog post from Free Technology for Teachers: with are Four Ways to Create Digital Records of Physical Items Your Students Create!
•  The Amazing World Atlas from Lonely Planet Kids is normally $3 and right now it's free! At the time this app was free, it is now back up to it's normal $2.99 price tag.
• Flash card ninja: at the time this app was free, it is now back up to it's normal $1.99 price tag.
• A Great little write up from Sunday on Free Technology for Teachers! Featuring some neat Mapped writing options for you all!
• Going Creative with Arts related technology items today! The Getty Museum has put more than 250 art books online for FREE! As has the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection of nearly 400 FREE art history books! They are all available on Google Books for FREE as well!
• Udemy is platform for on line learning they have some great FREE courses and other that you have to pay for.
• Connect Fours: A fun new FREE game to review with created by @RusselTarr.