Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Check out some of the ways our community is reaching out and saying "THANK YOU" to teachers this week:

• RaceTrac: FREE any size coffee or fountain drink all week long, limit one per day, scan key tag in store to receive offer
• Chick-fil-A: Tuesday, May 7, 10:30am-close, one FREE Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich for all Educators, Teachers, Faculty & Staff (must have valid school ID)
• Chipotle Mexican Grill: Bring your school ID to any Chipoltle on May 7th from 4pm to close and get a buy one/get one free burrito, bowl, salad or order of tacos.
• New York and Company: all nurses and teachers can receive a 30% discount in stores through May 8, 2013 (must have valid ID - business card, badge, pay stub, etc.)

I know there are more deals out there, right? If you know of any, add them in a comment below!

Keep in mind that teacher appreciation discounts are available throughout the year from businesses like Microsoft, Apple, Office Depot, Staples, Barnes and Noble and more. So don’t limit your rewards only to this week of recognition. Check out this list of 90+ everyday discounts for teachers!

10 Top Time-Saving Tech Tips

I love sharing tech tips, and I also happen to love reading (and listening to) David Pogue! Don't miss this 5(ish) minute tech talk. I promise you'll learn something new!

Tech columnist David Pogue shares 10 simple, clever tips for computer, web, smartphone and camera users. And yes, you may know a few of these already -- but there's probably at least one you don't.

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!

Jeopardy Labs

A few years ago, one of the "big things" was to create a Jeopardy-like PowerPoint to use with your students as a creative and "techy" way to review for any and all curricular areas. I created quite a few. I even conducted professional development sessions on exactly this topic. I loved it. Kids loved it. Teachers {sorta} loved it. Two big complaints about these were the crazy amount of time it took to set one up, and all of the detailed action links from one slide to another slide, etc. Even the most basic of templates could have 50+ slides for one game!

Jeopardy Labs is a site that makes it super-easy to create Jeopardy-like games. Quick Build allows you to create a free Jeopardy-like game. You will need to create a password for each game, and as soon as you create one, it will be available for anyone to use. You can also become a Jeopardy Labs Member, which gives you a fancy template manager, privacy control, and delete control (you can't delete templates you create with the free version). The LIFETIME membership fee is $20. If you really like Jeopardy Labs and think it's something you will use for a while, this might be worth the cost. If you're not sure, then stick with the free Quick Build version for a while.

One of the things I like BEST about Jeopardy Labs is the "browse" feature! I was going to create a game about weathering, erosion, and deposition. I decided to browse for one first, and I found TONS of them already made and ready to use! (Give it a try!) You will want to be sure you've gone through the entire game and checked to make sure that it's accurate information and it supports your curriculum, but I bet you can find some good ones!

Check out Jeopardy Labs today and let me know what you think!