The edTech Ninja is back in school. School started August 12. The Ninja always likes to do a getting to know you activity on the first day or week of school. This year, the little ninjas worked in pairs on a SmartBoard Notebook file that was designed to get students to share about themselves. All About Us has students filling in answers to questions about some of their favorite things, or about their...

The Ninja’s favorite new video sharing site is edublogs.tv. Created by the same people who created edublogs, this is a site similar to TeacherTube or YouTube that allows teacher share their educationally related videos with the Internets. Bonus, there is no advertising on the site and if you embed the video into a blog, when the video is played, there isn’t a selection of other videos you...

The Tech Ninja frequently gets questions about how he gets video from popular video sharing sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Google Video, Eyespot, GodTube, Internet Archive – Movies, or teacher related video sites like TeacherTube, and SchoolTube and then embed them into Notebook. Before we get into the nitty gritty of the how, there are a few issues that the tech ninja would like to touch on. First,...

Today (April 22) is Earth Day! May the Tech Ninja humbly suggest the website Meet the Greens: A site for kids about looking after the planet. The Greens are a family who are looking for ways to help out planet Earth. Different “Green” topics are covered in “episodes” that is a collection of links from Flash cartoons about the Greens (very humorous) to links to online quizzes...

While searching for video resources for the Pledge of Allegiance on YouTube I came across a song that explained the meaning of the Pledge in a fun and educational way. The song was by Teacher and the Rockbots. Currently they have four albums out. One about American, on over multiplication, one on Science and one covering the World. The Ninja’s students love them! Additionally, they have worksheets...

Smart has released Notebook 10 for download. You will need a serial number from a Smart device to register and unlock the software for more than a 30-Day trail. Once registered, that activation code can be used on multiple computers and multiple installs of Notebook. The first 10,000 to register can a free 60 MB trail to the Smart Learning Marketplace. Also, the Lesson Activity Toolkit has come out...

In an age of multiple formats for different types of media, it can get confusing even for a Tech Ninja. There’s .wma, .wmv, .mp3, .mp4, .flv, .mov, .doc, .txt, .htm, and the list goes on. It always seems to be the case that the format that you need in isn’t around. That is why it is nice to have some bookmarks to some media conversions sites. The Ninja has two for you. The first has a pay...

Spelling City is a website that the Ninja’s class has been using for quite a few months. Teachers can add their spelling lists and then students can play games or even take tests online. There are a few things that the Ninja would like to see, like the ability to link to a specific spelling list, but the Ninja likes it as do the ‘Lil Ninjas.

Deal or No Deal? What’s the likelihood that $1,000,000 will be in the case that you picked? This game will encourage students to think about probability in relationship to the popular game show Deal or No Deal. (You might want to watch a show online to brush up on your Howie Mandel impersonation). This Notebook file includes the Theme Music, several versions of the Think Music, the Banker’s...

Throughout history people have told and written stories about their heroes. A tall tale is a special kind of hero story because the heroes of tall tales are “larger than life.” They are bigger and stronger than real people, even when the tall tale is based on a real person. Tall tale heroes solve problems in funny ways that are hard to believe. Tall tales are a way people can express their...