ISTE Conference from the Comfort of Home

The ISTE Conference is coming up June 26-29, 2011. ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education and their yearly conference is a great way to learn about new technology, tools, and ideas on how to use those things with kids to engage and help them learn. Many of the Ed Tech “Gurus” attend and present at ISTE so it is also a great way to connect with people from around...

Easy As Pie Videos Using Animoto

The edTech Ninja likes to take pictures of his class when doing fun activities. By the end of the year the Ninja has collected many pictures to share. He keeps them available online using Picasa Web Albums. Some years ago the Ninja wanted to step and give my students a CD with all of the pictures. The next year Ninja decided to create a DVD for each of his students. The DVD would include a video...

Publisher How-To Guide

Publisher is an easy to use application that comes with many versions of Microsoft Office for PC. Teachers can create nice looking newsletters in Publisher. Teachers can also have students creating documents in Publisher to support their learning. Below is a How-To Guide on how to use Publisher. The docuement also contains ideas on how teachers and students alike can use Publisher in the...

Mail Merge

The Tech Ninja has many different weapons in his arsenal of educational goodness. A tool that the ninja frequently relies on is mail merge. Mail merge is the ability to take data (for example names and addresses) from a spreadsheet or database and insert them into some kind of printed document (a letter, catalog, etc.). This is a quick and easy way to make personalized letters to students or...

Storytelling

Two websites that I like to use for storytelling/story writing are Kerpoof and Big Universe. The first, Kerpoof, will allow students to choose a scene and then add characters to the scene. You can add motions and effects to the characters making for a really cool little “movie making” lite experience. The other allows students to create online books. Students can write story and then...