Copy Paste Character!

Do you use special characters (♫ ✄ ➲)  in your emails, documents for Facebook posts? What about an accent over the e (é) or a tilde over the n (ñ)? I know there's some crazy key combination, but I can never remember what it is! copypastecharacter.com means that you never have to look up those combinations or try to hold down the alt key while entering 4 digits, etc. 

When you need to use a special character, simply head to copypastecharacter.com  find and click on the desired character. It will automatically be copied to your clipboard. Go back to your email or document or wherever ... and paste! 

Yep, it's that easy. ☺

Thank you Tammy Worcester for reminding me of this great tool!

Blabberize

Blabberize is an online tool that allows students (or anyone) to create a speaking picture. The site itself is pretty easy to use, but here are a few step-by-step instructions:

• Go to Blabberize and create an account. (Ok, creating an account is technically optional, but if you are going to use it effectively, having an account is important!)
• Click "Make" and "Browse" to upload your picture.
• Crop your picture, if desired. Click the arrow on the bottom of the screen to go to the next step.
• Move the purple and green dots around on your image to identify the "mouth". The large green dot will identify how far down the mouth will move when your image is "talking." Click the arrow to go to the next step.
• Add sound by using a microphone and speaking or by uploading pre-recorded audio. (The call-in phone feature isn't working at this time.) Click OK when finished.
• You can add additional scenes, edit the scene you just made, or click Save to finish.
• Add a title, description, and tag words. I encourage everyone to mark these as PRIVATE, which means it will not be searchable. (Because it's not searchable, the tags are not terrible important. I typically use "blab" as my tag. :)
• Save your Blabberize.

Once you've created and saved your Blabberize project, you can click "share it" to share with others via URL or embed it on a blog or webpage.

Now to the fun stuff ... 

Mrs. Stephens' first grade students have used Blabberize a couple of times already this year. The Pumpkins were the first projects they did. After the success with the pumpkins, they read Run, Turkey, Run in class and talked about different ways Tom the Turkey could hide. The students took a blank "Tom the Turkey" home and parents helped them come up with disguises. The students brought them back to school and used Blabberize to create their Talking Toms.

It was REALLY hard to pick just one turkey to share, so be sure you check them all out on Mrs. Stephens' webpage!

How have you used Blabberize with your students?

Friday Favorites

It's Friday ... time to share more of my favorites!

Click here to see the full-size Smore. (If you are reading this via email, you probably don't see anything below. Be sure to click here to see the content!)



Happy Friday!

Friday Favorites

It's Friday ... time to share more of my favorites!

Click here to see the full-size Smore.

Friday Favorites

Today, I'm using a fun Smore to publish a new Friday feature - Smore is a way to publish beautiful pages instantly! (And I think it kinda leaves you wanting smore, right?)

What a fun (and easy) way to publish a class or campus newsletter! (I think I smell a new blog post coming soon ... like Monday morning, maybe?)

Click here to see the full-size Smore.

My name is Cindy. I am a Fontaholic.

I'm a Fontaholic. Always have been. Always will be.

Downloading fonts may not be the most techy topic to discuss, but it's one that most teachers love! Check out a few of my new faves (and yes, they are FREE!)

If you haven't gone into ultimate cuteness-overload yet, let's get serious for a moment. The font choices you make for documents of any kind (printed, presentation, etc.) should enhance your topic, not overwhelm it. Fight the urge with everything you've got to not use all of your fonts in the same document. Go ahead, pick out one that you like and stick with it. Remember ... sometimes your old standbys like Arial and Century Gothic are exactly what you need!

Another thing to remember is that these cutesy fonts don't work well for text on websites. It may look super stinkin' cute on your computer, but anyone that doesn't have that font loaded on the computer is going to see some super-ugly, plain font that the computer selects. It will also likely throw off the spacing around images, etc. It's a bummer - I know. The only safe way to use a special font on a webpage is to create a graphic with it and insert the image (which is exactly what I've done above!)

By now, I KNOW you want to know where you can get your hands on these adorable fonts (and so many more) for FREE! I found them at Fontspace ... happy downloading!