10 Minute Mail

Are you tired of getting all that spam (unwanted email) in your inbox or even in your junk mail folder?

10 Minute Mail is a site that will issue you a temporary (and I do mean TEMPORARY) email address. 

Why would I ever need this???

I'm glad you asked! There are a few different reasons you might need a temporary email address. Maybe you want to sign up for a site which sends a validation email. Give them a 10 Minute Email address, grab the validation email, then check out the site. If it's not something that interests you, no worries ... they don't have your real address!

You can also use this to sign up for an online service without committing yourself to all kinds of updates, newsletters, and emails that start, "Here's something you might find interesting ..."!

Okay, now that you're convinced that you need it, here's how easy it really is ...

Go to 10 Minute Mail

You will see your new (temporary) email address

As long as you keep the window open, you will be able to see any new emails that come to this address (like the validation emails, etc.)

If you need more time, you can easily request an additional 10 minutes by clicking the link

Tech Tip Tuesday ... Thanksgiving Resources

Crisp morning air, colorful leaves falling from the tree, students and teachers skipping through the halls ... yep, it's nearly Thanksgiving!

If you're looking for some great Thanksgiving sites or activities to share with your class this week, today is your lucky day! I've listed many of the educational Thanksgiving sites I've seen. If you know of other great resources, please comment below!

The First Thanksgiving (from Scholastic) is amazing! There are several short video clips and still images from the Plimoth Plantation. (This isn't a misspelling - this modern day museum chose to spelling Plimoth the way many did in the 1700's.) You'll find the following topics on this site:

• Voyage on the Mayflower - learn what it was like to live and work on a 17th-century sailing vessel - take the journey and tour the ship
• Daily Life - compare and contrast the housing, clothes, food, chores, schooling, and games of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags
• The Thanksgiving Feast - see a slide show and participate in the Webquest where students can learn about the history of the Thanksgiving Feasts - not exactly the turkey and dressing most of us are anticipating next week!
• Teaching Resources - be sure to check these out! You will find lesson plans, Readers Theater scripts and read-along stories, all of the multimedia resources (short Plimoth Plantation videos, slide shows of the Plantation, etc.)  You will also find craft ideas, Thanksgiving printables, and clip art.

WAIT, that's not all ....

BrainPOP Jr. has a great Thanksgiving that your students will love - check it out! Annie and Mobi share lots of facts about the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag, and the first harvest feast.

Don't forget that we already have a district subscription to BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr., and BrainPOP Espanol. When you click to watch the video, select "log in".  If you don't know the usernames and passwords, check with your CTI or email me!


Let's Say Thanks is a website that allows anyone - students, teachers, administrators, parents, anyone! - to send messages of thanks to our troops serving around the world. 

Scroll through lots and lots of hand-drawn post cards, choose your saying, and submit - it's easy as that! Be sure to check out the Photo Gallery where you will find pictures of our troops receiving the post cards. Your students may even want to do this at home with their families too!

If you liked any of these resources or know of others, please leave a comment! Happy Thanksgiving to you all! 

Tech Tip Tuesday ... Word Clouds

Word Clouds seem to be all the rage right now. If you haven't used them yet with your students, you'll definitely want to start!

Wordle is the first online site I knew about where one could create a word cloud. You can read more about Wordle on one of my previous posts here. 

Another one that looks really promising for our younger students is at one of my favorite sites, ABCya! After entering your text, it's super easy to delete a word, change the font, color, style, etc. One real plus for this site is that you can then save your Word Cloud as jpg to be used on a blog or on an assignment or wherever! Here's a simple one I did with some of the text from this page!

Another great word cloud generator is Tagxedo. There is a great deal more creative freedom with Tagxedo, as you can tell by some of these examples. The other important difference between Wordle and Tagxedo is that you can actually tag the words in a Tagxedo word cloud so that students can click on the individual words and search for their meanings.

If these three sites aren't enough for you (and you know who you are), be sure to check out some of these great resources:

• Tagul - read Becky Burnett's previous blog post about another great word cloud generator
• 48 Interesting Ways (and Tips) to use Wordle in the Classroom (these ideas could be used with the Word Cloud generator of your choice!)
• 19 Word Cloud Resources, Tips, & Tools - a great blog entry from the Teacher Reboot Camp blog that shares many Wordle alternatives and Tips
• I Can Back Off My Blogging, Turn Down My Tweeting, and Even Wrap Up My Wiki, But I Can't Wane My Wordling - great, blog post about "all things wordle"

And last, but CERTAINLY not least, is an exciting site that you can use with your kids tomorrow! Guess the Wordle is a site created by Jen Wagner. She creates and uploads a different Wordle each day. Each Wordle has a TOPIC, that your students can try to guess.

     Monday - these are easy Wordles, and all of the words have ONE thing in common

     Tuesday - the topic of these Wordles will be the date of a famous event in world history

     Wednesday - all of the words in this Wordle have TWO things in common

     Thursday - the topic of these Wordles is the title of a book, poem, song, fable, etc.

     Friday - the topic of Friday Worldes will be a famous location

One more hint for teachers - If you hover over the Wordles on the Guess the Wordle site, you will see the answer!

Regardless of how you decide to use the Word Clouds, have fun with them and see how excited kids can get about the "wordy" projects. As always, comments are welcome - let us know how you're using one of these Word Cloud Generators or if you know of any others that should be listed here!

ITS Meeting in Birdville ISD

My colleagues and I had the pleasure of attending the first ITS (Instructional Technology Specialists) Meeting for Regions 10 and 11 today. What a great group of people who all do the same thing, and what a great opportunity to share some of the things we do in our district and [even better] hear about great things happening in our neighboring districts!

Becky and I presented today about one of our favorite and most popular inservice classes - Tips, Tricks, and Freeibes ... OH MY!!! And yes, we did the "hand motions" each time we said "Oh My", and we got almost all of the other 80-something people in the room to join in the fun! =)

I learned about so many things today that I can't wait to play with and share with you all! Here are just a few ...

• Wiffiti
• Today's Meet (I loved how we used this during the meeting today to keep up with weblinks, extra tips, and comments from the group!)
• Cam Studio
• Learn Central
• Xtranormal and Goanimate
• Issuu

Oh, and just SO MUCH MORE!

Tech Tip Tuesday ... YouTube Videos in the Classroom!

What is YouTube?
Quite simply, it is is one of the most used, most visited and most popular video sharing sites available on the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, if you've spent much time at all on YouTube, you've probably found some inappropriate content. That doesn't mean it's all bad! If you've been wondering how you can use YouTube videos in the classroom, this post is for you!

The Educational Video Library is a new tool that we are using in Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD. It allows teachers to show videos from YouTube without the concern about other viewers' comments or recommendations for other videos. All you see is the video!

When you find a YouTube video that is just perfect for what you're teaching in class right now (of course, which means it is aligned to your curriculum!), all you need to do is submit the video's URL to the Video Library. As soon as it is approved by one of the Instructional Technologists in the district, it will be available to view in district - by you and by any other teacher in the district! 

You can submit the video directly from the Educational Video Library, but you have to be logged in to a district computer to view the Library. The easiest way to submit a video to the Educational Video Library (and the only way to do this from home) is to use this form. Videos will not appear in the Educational Video Library until they have been approved by one of the ITs in the district, so you may want to email me if you submit a video.


Download the Video 

You can also download the video directly from YouTube and save it to use at a later time. In order to use it in the classroom, you will need to save it to a removable flash drive or even save it into your Dropbox folder. Here are a couple of options for saving videos from YouTube:

ConvertFiles

• Go to ConvertFiles.com, enter the YouTube URL in the "Download from" field, choose an output (I would go with whatever it suggests!) and click Convert.
  
  
• As soon as it's finished, you will get a message with instructions on how to download your video.

Another option ... Kick it!

I can hardly believe this works, but it does! When you're at home and find the absolute perfect video, just simply add in the word "kick" in front of "youtube" in the URL.

The page will re-load, this time with the KickYouTube toolbar towards the top of the page. From the toolbar select the format you want. Next, just Click the Go button on the right side of the toolbar.  When it  changes from "Go" to "Down" right click it and select "Save as.."

Original YouTube URL was  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-vV1lYlP0 
KickTube URL is http://www.kickyoutube.com/watch?v=cg-vV1lYlP0

There are tons of other video converters or ways you can use YouTube clips in the classroom. If you have a favorite, please let us know!