And We're Up and Running!

We've completed the first 5 days of school.  Students have learned their schedules, begun working on assignments, and even had a few quizzes.  Everything is going well.

Today, I finished setting up my phone, computer, and tablet to use mysms.  This SMS messaging app allows me to send out one text to all of the parents of students in my class.  I can do this from the phone itself, from my desktop, or from my tablet (in WiFi).  It has been a really neat experience so far.  I sent out a reminder this morning and have heard positive responses so far. Check it out if you have a chance.  You can leave me a comment below if you like.

Study Blue...Flashcards!

I've been looking for a way to get kids digital flashcards so they can review their science and reading vocabulary.  In my search, I came cross StudyBlue.  This site says you can create flashcards, share those cards and access them on a variety of mobile devices.  So far, I've not been able to get it to do anything but allow me to create some cards.  I'll keep taking a crack at it, but I'd love to hear of other options you all have come across.  Leave me a comment. Thanks and God's Peace.

One Day Is Done

We have completed our first day of school!  What an exciting experience for all of the teachers and students.  I can safely say that it went well.  Students were on their best behavior and most things worked...sort of.  My speaker system (Lightspeed) didn't work for more than a few minutes and I couldn't get my Prezi to work super well, but overall it was a good day.  Today, I showed the students who had their AUP's turned in now to login to the computers and get to their desktop.  We also had the chance to use our Renaissance Learning site to take some STAR tests.  Overall, it was successful.  Hopefully, I'll get the AUPs from the rest of the 7th and 8th graders so I can begin going into detail on Google Drive.  I'm also going to get them set up with TypingWeb.com so they can start working on their keyboarding skills.  Keep praying for us!

God's Peace!

2012-2013 School Year Begins Tomorrow

It has finally come, the start to the 2012-2013 School Year.  This year's theme is Serving Our Savior based on Joshua 24:15b.  I've been working hard to get my room ready to serve this year's class of eager 8th graders.  The desks are arranged, posters are posted, and announcements are displayed.  One new thing for me will be the use of a classroom blog.  I'm hoping that this blog will be a blessing to my students, their parents and myself.  Thus far, I've created a few posts that are 'waiting in the wings' until we actually begin classes.  I'll be using Prezi to draw the students in for our first activity and helping them get the 'lay of the land' regarding logging in for the first time on Windows with their new user accounts, using Google Drive, and getting acclimated to using the new computers in the computer lab which are running Windows 7. Besides all of this, I'll be working with the students in grades 3-8 to get them up and running with our typing program TypingWeb.com.  It should be a fun, exciting, and eventful first week.

Besides getting things ready for my students, I'm dropping my little guy off for his very first day of school tomorrow.  I'm such a proud daddy.  Blessings on your school year and God's Peace!

Fantastic Place to Find Free Kindle eBooks

I was checking out the data from our Home Technology Survey and was pleasantly surprised to find that of the families that have taken the survey so far (73) about 51% have some kind of tablet or eReader in their home.  Many of them have more than one.  And I also saw that of these people, over 93% have a device that handle the Kindle eBooks from Amazon.com.  This is exciting news since I've been using a site all summer that has given me TONS of material to read and enjoy.  That site is eReaderIQ.com.

When you go to the site, you will find that it has thousands of free books for you to download to your device.  Simply click on Free Kindle Books and you can start choosing what you would like to look for.  If you select a particular genre, you can apply a filter to choose a specific area of eBook to search in.

Now, I will say that you need to weed through a fairly long list of some questionable quality, but if you are patient, you just may find that diamond in the rough.  It also helps that Amazon.com has a 'list price' that is slashed to $0.00.  My first day accessing this site, I picked up almost $100.00 worth of books for nothing.  If only I had all the time it will take me to read them.  Oh well, I guess that's what weekends are for.

Have you used eReaderIQ yet?  What do you think about getting 'free' books on Kindle or Kindle enabled devices?  Leave me a comment below.  I'd love to hear your thoughts!

God's Peace.

Learning How to Blog Correctly

This morning, I've had the opportunity to watch a webinar put on by Discovery Education entitled Fear Factor Taking the Fear Out of Blogging.

What a wonderful video.  I have learned several points about beginning my own classroom blog, my professional blog, ways to get my blog noticed, and the process of teaching kids digital citizenship through their comments and blogs.  Here's the list they made of resources throughout the video.

About 6 years ago, I took a course through Concordia University Wisconsin to help me learn how to use Blogs and Wikis in the classroom.  Between then and now, I've dabbled here and there with some attempts, but never really sank my teeth into the idea.  After watching this video, I think have a much better grasp of what it means to blog, to share content, and to provide students with an opportunity to write.  

Look for my continued use of the classroom blog at http://stpaulbonduelgrade8.blogspot.com/ and posts here at St. Paul Tech Coach.  I am planning to create my own version of paper blogs too as a get-to-know you piece for students (16:00 in the video).  Keep following to see how that goes.  God's Peace!