A few weeks ago, I read Paul Barnwell’s article about why Twitter and Facebook were not good instructional tools in the classroom. That article, combined with some recent experiences using classroom technology, really drove home the point about how we need to take classroom technology beyond the initial “wow” factor and how we need to […]
Google Docs Dictionary and Research Tools Can Help Your Students Write Better
Some students use assistive technology software as an accommodation to help them to write. For example, Talking Word Processor is nice because it predicts words as you type, and also if you double-click a word, it’ll give you the definition to help avoid homonym errors. But, not everyone needs assistive technology. Sometimes it can be […]
Using Google auto complete to help students write better
In today’s texting generation, a lot of students can’t spell properly. Some students may have an identified learning disability and have access to assistive technology such as WordQ or Talking Word Processor. Other students just can’t spell and rely heavily on spell check to catch their mistakes. Sometimes, you end up with a lot of […]
Why I’m Still Using Dropbox in the Classroom
It’s been a year since I signed up for dropbox and I’m happy to renew my premium subscription, even though it’s costing me $138 US per year. (That’s $99 for 50 GB of space in the cloud and $39 for the “pack rat” unlimited undo history feature.) Right now, I’m using 30 GB of 82.25 […]
How to e-mail MarkBook student reports to improve parent-teacher communication
One of the hardest things to do well as a teacher is to keep parents/guardians regularly informed about how their child is doing. Many families have a computer at home, and many parents/guardians use e-mail on a regular basis.This means that the tech savvy teacher can use classroom technology to send home electronic updates and […]