What About Me? Infographic

Are your students concerned about their social media footprints? Are you concerned about your own?

Be sure to check out What About Me?, a fun infographic-creator from Intel. During the process of creating it, you grant access to your Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts (you don't have to have all three!) and it compiles your most recent posts, your friends' responses, and even the time of day when you post most often. The result is a full infographic just about you. Pretty interesting! 

At the risk of being ridiculed, I've included my very own Infographic in this post. Click on it to see the full-size version. (You may even need to resize the new window. My favorite way to do that is press Control and + (plus) on the keyboard to enlarge the image or Control key and - (minus) to minimize it.)

Dollar Days at Scholastic Teacher Express!

It's that time of year again ... Dollar Days at Scholastic Teacher Express! Better hurry though, because the sale is only good through Wednesday, 3.28.12.

These downloadable "e-books" and "e-pages" are PDFs and can therefore be read on a computer or most mobile devices.

You will need a Paypal account to make your purchase, but as soon as you do, you will be redirected back to the Scholastic site to download your items (including the items you downloaded last year if you took advantage of their Dollar Days then!)

I just downloaded two books ... what about you?

Yummy Math

YummyMath is a site designed to provide teachers with an easy way to bring real-life into their math classrooms. They provide multiple activities a week, so be sure you check it often.

Want a general idea of some of their great real-life problems? Try the Bird's Eye of Activities! Looking for something specific? Take a look at the "Browse by Category" links on the left side of the page.

Although I couldn't find a suggested age range for YummyMath, it's probably a little advanced for many of our elementary classrooms. However, if you just read through some of these ideas, I bet it will spur on all sorts of ideas you can use with your students!

"Learning Excel"

Whenever I ask a group of people what types of Technology Trainings they would like to have, one of the most popular requests is "Excel."

"I need to learn Excel."
"I just don't know where to start with Excel."
"Excel scares me, but I need to use it."

First, don't spend too much time beating yourself up over not "knowing a program". That's not what it's all about! Instead, if there are specific tasks you'd like to accomplish with Excel, you can tackle those! Generally speaking, Excel is an electronic spreadsheet program that can be used for storing, organizing, and manipulating data. There are some pretty powerful functions built into the program, but don't let that scare you.

If you have specific questions, please leave a comment below with your request. If I can't answer it, I'll find someone who can! =)

There are several "Excel" resources available online right now if you'd like to spend a little time getting more familiar with the program. Whether you prefer to learn by following written instructions (with screenshots), watching educational videos, or playing "games" that walk you through different tasks in the application, there are several options available to help you "learn Excel."

Written/Illustrated Instructions
Microsoft.com and many other sites offer easy-to-understand explanations (no Geek-Speak!) and images that walk you through all of the different functions of Excel.

• Basic Tasks in Excel 2010 (from Microsoft - they should know, they created the program!)
• Excel 2010 (from GCF Learnfree.org) - excellent resource! Walk through 21 different sections with clearly written description and great illustrations; This site also has several Interactive features!

Video Tutorials
Other sites like YouTube, host videos that will demonstrate basic, intermediate, and advanced tasks in Excel. (Warning: If you search YouTube for "Excel 2010", you will get more than 115,000 results! That's a tad bit overwhelming!) Here are a few of my favorite Excel 2010 videos:

• Excel 2010 Tutorial: Creating a Basic Worksheet (from TheWebucator) - this is a really good, general overview of Excel 2010
• Microsoft Excel Tutorial for Beginners (from MotionTraining)
• Excel 2010 Tutorial HD (from gcflearnfree) - be sure to view their other videos about Excel too - they are TOP quality!

Interactive Resources
If you learn best when you're clicking around or "playing a game", check out the following:

• Excel 2010 (from GCF Learnfree.org) - click on the Interactives button to access these really cool resources
• Ribbon Hero - download this free add-on and you'll be playing (and learning) in no time!

If you have specific questions, please leave a comment below with your request. If I can't answer it, I'll find someone who can! =)

Grammaropolis

Grammaropolis is a fun site that's been around for quite some time. This recently upgraded site provides lots of great ways for students to learn about nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections! Some of the content of the site is only available to Passport subscribers ($3.99/month or $29.99/year), but there is quite a bit that is available for free. Be sure to check out the Nouns section - the whole section is free!

Looking for more information or specific ways you can use Grammaropolis in your classroom? Be sure to check out this fantastic post from one of my favorite blogs, ilearntechnology!