Software Recommendations

By Jeanine Heaton

To all my Computer Using Educators, I would like to recommend some software applications for general use in the elementary computer lab or classroom.

As a Computer Assisted Instructor, I have over the years found some very good applications for Elementary Students. I work with students kindergarten to 6^th grade levels.  The following programs I find fill the needs of all those grade levels.

Super Star Phonics and Games of Math by the HelpMe2Learn Company has developed a series of programs to help students learn to read with phonics skills in a very cute format that allows the students to earn silver and gold stars for their achievements while earning their way to play sports activities.  Because the games are self-motivating the students work harder to achieve the ultimate goal of earning a Golden Star. Further practice for speed and understanding comes in in the Speed Rounds.  Pre and posttests are available for teacher tracking.  I motivate the process by offering oversized Super Star Student Stickers for those who complete the star level, speed round and pre and posttest.  As students complete a level they progress to the next level adding more complex skills.  If you need remedial skills you have students assigned to multiple levels

Teachers like this program because the students can work their way through the levels for the most part independently.  Super Star Phonics can be used for remedial skills and ELL students as well and Spanish versions are available.  Super Star Phonics meets State and Common Core Standards.  For more information and pricing go to the website:  http://helpme2learn.com/

Super Star Phonics has the following levels: Pre K-2:  Letters and Numbers, Phonics 1a (Vowel Sounds), Phonics 1b Consonant Sounds, Grades 1-5:  Phonics 2 & Phonics 2b (Intermediate), Phonics 3a & Phonics 3b Advanced Levels. 

Games of Math Skills also by Help Me2Learn Company has 4 levels. 

Games of math 1 has Addition, Number sense and Money, 

Games of Math 2  follows Common Core Standards for Subtraction and Time, Measurement and Shapes.

Games of Math 3 Multiplication facts, Decimals, Negative Numbers Algebra

Games of Math 4 Simple Division, Word Problems, Long Division, Fractions,

MoreStarfall is and online subscription Program for grades Pre K -3 http://more.starfall.com/m/welcome/index/load.htm    

Morestarfall is a great program that offers a variety of levels for beginning readers as well as challenges for students in 2nd and 3^rd graders and remedial skills for struggling readers with additional Math Skills as part of the paid subscription.

The enhance Morestarfall is a subscription program offering enhanced programs added to the free Starfall.com.  Cost for a one-year school subscription is $247. Morestarfall is a great value for the content of skills provided.

The menu above shows the variety of skills available: Math skills from counting and numbers to the Number practice in Adding, Subtracting, Multiplication and Division. Geometry unit has a number of skills, puzzles, weight and measurement.

Reading skills from Alphabet letters and sounds to reading skills, blending and sight words, poetry and plays. Talking Library provides a selection of fiction and non-fiction books that can’t be read to the student.  Holiday and calendar skills allow students to manipulate the stories and change outcomes.  Teacher options allow teachers to have access to pintables and lessons.  Black line masters are available for letters, words and stories.

Songs and Rhymes has a variety of nursery rhyme songs and animations.  Motion Songs allow students interact with the song,  Folk songs has a variety of American Folk Songs. The song portion makes an excellent activity for whole class participation.

MoreStarfall is a very popular program for my kindergarten to second graders.  They work independently and can maneuver the menu by themselves.  Students enjoy the activities and practice is a valuable for reading and practice. I highly recommend this program for primary students and remedial reading practice.

From CTAP

By Jenny Thomas

The California Technology Assistance Project of Region 10 (RIMS CTAP) is a public organization that provides educational technology support and professional development.  RIMS CTAP has a staff of expert educators who train teachers and administrators in the use of educational technology to improve student learning.

CTAP is excited to share with Inland Area CUE our current professional development offerings. Flip Your Classroom includes specific recommendations for ways in which your flipped classroom can support student success with the Common Core State Standards. Teaching and Learning with Technology in the Common Core will give teachers the opportunity to explore a variety of technology tools and resources, examine strategies that support student learning, and create products and lessons they can immediately implement with their students.
For more information on these workshops and more CTAP services visit ctap10.org.

Google Voice - Give your school a voice

By Hector Murrieta

In my years as an administrator I've noticed that one of the things that takes up a tremendous amount of time is the phone. I return every call and make every attempt to provide the best service. However, when you think about it, every call that an administrator receives means that someone had to transfer that call; and the amount of time that the person took to take information and offer assistance will vary. Now, multiply that by several administrators if you're at a large high school and now multiply it by the number of teachers at a school... big or small! With such a high call volume, you inevitably end up getting the visit from the unsatisfied parent that someone was rude on the phone or that messages were never passed on, etc. 

There are a many well intended educators that provide their personal cell numbers to the class, group of students, or to everyone. For some it works and for others it creates obvious problems and ends up backfiring. There is always email of course, but a great many of us work in communities where email is not always an option and/or parents don't know how to use it. However, cell phones are everywhere and practically everyone sends text messages. According to a 2012 article by the Huffington Post, there are about 6 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide. It looks like the phone will continue to be an important communication medium. 

A practical, easy, and free resource to help with this issue is Google Voice. In short, Google Voice gives you the opportunity to select a phone number a phone number and you can make and receive calls and send and receive text messages...all for free. There are rates for international calls but many of us won't have to make those in our line of work. You can modify your settings to do any of the following:

• Forwarding calls and texts to your cell phone without callers seeing your mobile number

• Making calls and sending texts from your cell phone without exposing your mobile number

• Making calls and sending texts directly from your computer with an internet connection

• Allowing callers to leave voice messages and sending texts only (do not disturb function)

• Forwarding calls and texts to your email account

• Transcribing voice messages

• Customize the greeting callers hear

• Create an anonymous hotline

• Create an anonymous feedback hotline

• Have each teachers, counselors, parent group, etc. establish direct lines

• Create a student and parent contact list and send mass text announcements (especially for Domain users)

• Have ELD teachers establish a class line where students can call and practice their language production by having them leave messages in English

As you can see, Google Voice affords you many options to customize the level of privacy you want and still increase your exposure to students, parents, and the community. I have set up my Google Voice number to forward all calls and texts to my email which in turn is synced to my mobile phone. I work in a high poverty area with over 90% English Learners, and this has proven to be highly effective as I have a personal greeting in Spanish and English and I notice that our Spanish speaking parents feel much more comfortable calling and leaving a message directly or sending me a text. Please remember, I stress the high poverty because cell phones are ubiquitous, even in high poverty areas, and parents have easier access to a phone than a computer. When I receive a call or text, I don't respond from my mobile phone, I send texts directly from my computer or bounce into the office to return the call. Just to illustrate a recent example to how powerful this is I'll mention that I received a text from a student during Spring Break and she was inquiring if the computer lab was open (we open our credit recovery lab on Saturdays); she woke up early and had gone to campus. I reminded her that the lab would open on Saturdays during the break. This was all happening while I was on my computer three hours away and she received immediate assistance using the phone she borrowed from the friend she was with. 

As I reflect on the power to increase communication that Google Voice can provide, I can envision schools using it to:

CUE Conference Review

By Terry Loftus

The 2013 CUE conference was a real hit this year. With CUE's best attendance in 10 years, an abundance of great sessions and some incredible keynote speakers (including Sir Ken Robinson) this year was one of the best. Now that all of us are back to our sites, and settled in to our campus routine, it's a good time to look back on the exciting information and best practices learned during the conference. I made it to 11 informative sessions this year, our packed IA-CUE affiliate meeting and was in the second row, center for Sir Ken's keynote. What a trip. Though all the sessions provided their own morsels of great information I thought I would share 4 that stuck with me in different ways. Hopefully all of you were able to attend CUE this year and made it to some of these sessions. If not, here is a quick overview with some notes and takeaways:

InstaGrok Visual Search Engine & Interactive Learning Tool

www.instagrok.com

I myself am a visual learner and therefore loved that this great website was showcased in a session. InstaGrok is "an intelligent visual search engine and interactive learning tool that collects educational content and displays it in the form of a cloud of related words". This website was demonstrated by teachers who use it's interface to enhance student research. Searched items are presented in an engaging visual map which can be clicked on to then drill down into more detail. The information is also displayed in the form of text, images, videos and web links. Quiz questions are also included for the student to complete or for teachers to cherry-pick and use in other formats. One of the interesting features that made this site stand out for me was the built-in 'Difficulty Slider' which allows for the information to be presented at different levels of sophistication. An easy way for a teacher to tailor the content to their level of learners.

Enter a search term on the instagrok front page to generate a word cloud where the system collects an assortment of useful and related content that is displayed on the screen. As users navigate the information they can use the push pin functionality to add relevant content directly to the word cloud, allowing them to create a custom view for the content they care about.

-Text and Images courtesy of www.subtext.com

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Digital Citizenship Skills & Inspire Creativity with Creative Commons

creativecommons.org

My school site is currently in the process of formalizing our student curriculum relating to Digital Citizenship so when I came across this session in the program I knew this would be one to attend. The presenter, Jane Lofton of Mira Costa HS in Manhattan Beach, outlined how she tackles teaching one specific aspect of Digital Citizenship: helping students respect intellectual property. Teaching students about Creative Commons and respecting the laws and ethics of intellectual property is a key ingredient to modeling good Digital Citizenship. The session was informative and below is a brief list of resources and thoughts.

Resource Sites:

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• http://creativecommons.org
• http://ecitizenship.csla.net
• http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/definitions.html
• http://librarycopyright.net/resources/digitalslider/

Teach students the basics:

====================

• Creative Commons: It's simply a refinement or alternative to Copyright. Creative Commons helps teachers and students share their creativity with the world by allowing others to use (and in some cases augment) creative work.
• Students and teachers should understand that copyright is AUTOMATIC and happens as soon as something is created (a photo is taken, a picture is painted, a song is written, etc)
• Copyright lasts a LONG time (author's lifetime + 70 years)…but not forever

Why do I care (teachers and students)?

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Because we are all becoming creators and publishers of digital works. It's a different world now for students and teachers. Creative Commons licensed works make using and sharing creativity easier.

Quick tips for modeling good digital citizenship:

==================================

A good digital citizen gives credit to everything (even Public Domain content, which does not require it). Also, students and teachers should credit themselves for their content (photos they took, audio created, etc) when creating presentations as it helps make this process second nature.

Videos:

=======

Fair Use:  http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2007/03/fairy-use-tale

Creative Commons overview:  http://creativecommons.org/videos/wanna-work-together

Here is the link to the full Prezi presentation from CUE this year:  http://prezi.com/_ewnpdztkqju/build-digital-citizenship-skills-inspire-creativity-with-creative-commons/

-Images courtesy of www.subtext.com

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Subtext iPad App

www.subtext.com

In an exploding environment of educational apps for iOS and Android there seem to be more 'average' apps than anything else. I initially stopped by this CUE session when I noticed it was being delivered by my cousin's wife from the Poway school district in San Diego. I had not heard of Subtext but thought it a good opportunity to say hello. It turns out that the app she and her colleague were presenting was incredibly interesting. This app offers the most feature-rich reading group reading experiences I have yet seen for the iPad.

I'll start by sharing the brief description of Subtext from their site:

===============================================

"Subtext adds new dimension to digital books in the classroom. We make it easy for classes to explore a text together and for students to close the loop from reading to analysis to writing. Our unique features give teachers the tools they need to tailor the learning experience to each student—and maximize results for every class."

"Subtext is the only reading service focused exclusively on K12 classrooms. From closed reading groups to helpful teacher controls, we’ve created every element of Subtext to make it easy (and fun) for you and your class to read together and exchange ideas."

Click here for the video overview: http://vimeo.com/39460409

What it can do:

===========

Add notes, discussion prompts, quizzes, images, maps and more to the digital books your students are reading. The students are made part of a private reading group that the teacher can manage. The app even provides built-in reporting to provide relevant feedback to the teacher.

-Text and images courtesy of www.subtext.com

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Blended Learning

What is a blended learning classroom?

As an administrator I've asked myself this very question. In today's environment there seems to be a growing number of definitions related to blended learning. By definition 'blended' is a mix of some values or components so it's easy to see how like-minded educators may have different views on what blended learning really is. To confuse the topic some definitions use 'hybrid' and 'blended'

synonymously while others use keywords such as 'e-learning' and 'web-enhanced' to describe the learning continuum. While there may never be concrete agreement on these definitions this CUE presentation provided a clear and approachable framework. It was interesting to see that even classrooms within my single K-12 environment could be classified very differently (though none fall into the online classification). I will use this document in the future when having discussions on this topic and to share with fellow staff.

Linked here is a PDF of the framework created by Dr. Rob Darrow. Take a look and see where your classroom, team, site or district falls within this structure:

http://robdarrow.wikispaces.com/file/view/ContinuumFromTexttoOL.Darrow2012.pdf

"Google Calendar" Your Lesson Plans

by Garrison Daily

Once you have a Gmail account,  you have a free, ginormous toolbox.

The biggest teacher timesaver of all, in my opinion, is simplifying the beloved lesson plans. I have been putting/creating my lesson plans on Google Calendar for a couple of years now, and I cannot rave about it enough.

1. Create the introduction, expectation, standards, and objectives on a Google Doc, which is akin to a WORD doc “in the cloud”.
2. Share that document with “Anybody with the link” and “Can View”.
3. Copy that link and paste it into the description area of an event on the Google Calendar.

In a nutshell, your plans can be altered at any time (on the document) and the viewers (students, parents, administrators with the link) will see the newest version whenever they click on it.

The Calendar comes with your Google account. You get a default calendar which will automatically appear when you go to Calendar. It will be named with your email name. I use this one for my own things (conference period, meetings, etc.). For lesson plans, I follow these steps:

1. Create a separate calendar for each period or subject (If your classes ever vary, this is the only way to go.)
2. Create an event for each class either in a time block, or the All Day feature. (We have a rotating schedule, so I use the time blocks.)

Ultimately, you can post individual calendars on each class website, send the link to your students, or just keep it for yourself. Think of the calendar as a box of links. Since we rarely have a week go exactly the way we planned, the greatest advantage to using the Google Calendar is that teachers are able to drag the events (lessons) to new dates, copy them to other calendars (classes), or duplicate.

Want to chat about using this Google tool? Come to the next Coffee CUE in Redlands! Check for the latest details at: http://tinyurl.com/iacoffeecue  or Twitter #coffeecue (IACUE).

Flipping Out!

By Mike Brewer

Late in October or 1012, my principal came to me and asked me to consider flipping my 4/5 combo class. At the time it was already a challenge and the thought of adding one more dynamic to my room was overwhelming. However after speaking to several teachers that were already flipping their classrooms for math I decided I would look into it a little further.

The idea of having students watch me teach the lesson from the comfort of their own home on the computer the night before the work would take place in the classroom seemed intriguing. I knew from my own experience with this type of learning that it can make the learning process more user-friendly. The more I thought about the idea the more excited I became. With a little reluctance, I began to make the arrangements to flip my classroom when we returned from the Christmas holiday. I spent many hours and several full days prior to break getting materials and more importantly the letters that would go out to parents explaining my rationale for Flipping ready to go.

I knew that in order to make this happen I would need the buy in of my parents. The funny thing was my student’s bought in right away. The biggest reason they mentioned was that now they wouldn’t have any regular math homework. I explained to them that they would still have homework to do but it would be more listening, rather than actual hands on homework. The parents were skeptical, but were willing to try it based on the excitement of their children.

Before going out on break I spent a few days explaining to my students exactly what I wanted them to do with each video and how a video would make the learning process work more in their favor. They were excited to learn that they could freely go back and forth during the lesson to make sure they understood the material. There was however some apprehension about filling out the WSQV (Watch, Summarize, Ask a Question, and Verification) form, but that concern quickly disappeared as we discussed the importance of the form.

It’s been two months since the program was instituted and the feedback has been more positive than negative. The students seem to really like the ability to watch the lesson on their computer the night before and for the most part have been coming to class prepared. They have confided in me that they prefer to watch a video that I have personally made rather than a video from Khan Academy or another educator. Parents seem to have been the biggest surprise so far. They love the videos because a lot of them are watching the videos with their children, which in turn, is helping them understand the material as well.

I will say that the flipping process does demand a bit more work in the beginning, but the idea of being able to use some of the videos already made this year for upcoming years does help with the workload.  Students tell me that they have enjoyed the process because it provides them more one-on-one time with me during class. Even though I was “Flipping Out” in the beginning, my students and I have really “Flipped” over this new way of learning and teaching.

Blogging in the Classroom

By Alissa Blackburn

As a high school English teacher, I wanted to infuse writing without my students shutting down on me. I was striving to find something that would tap into my students’ fixation with social media. I turned to blogging. For the last six weeks, I have been running my class through KidBlog. I have found creative ways to be a contributor/facilitator to their writing, and it is a non-threatening environment and very conducive to the quiet, more inhibited student.

KidBlog is user friendly, free, and requires just a little investment of your time. You create your class, select your theme, upload your picture/avatar, adjust your privacy settings, and add your students. You choose whether to approve, delete, reply publicly, or reply privately. You are able to post videos, pictures, add tags and categories, filter posts by student, give instant feedback, and even link posts to another one of your class blogs if you want to use the same assignment.

You can now be the master of your blogs or be brave and allow your students to create their own blogs. Of course, all of this starts with some serious lessons in Netiquette.