Tech Tips: AppsGoneFree

Tech Tips

Issue 6

This Tech Tip will look at an app that is worth much more than it costs (FREE).  Find great high quality paid apps for free each day. Go to the App store on your iPad to download.

iTunes Store Description:

Find great apps without spending a dime! Get high quality paid apps for free each day. Unlike other apps, we offer no paid listings - these are expert-picked top-ranked apps, for FREE! 

Every day hundreds of apps reduce their price to free for a limited time to try to stimulate excitement. AppsGoneFree finds ONLY the apps worth owning:

* Our AppAdvice.com app experts personally handpick ONLY the best apps. If it's on the list, it's worth owning. 

* These same experts write a quick summary to tell you about the app, and why you need it (or if you don't).  Not PR, honest personal advice.

* We filter out the junk. Don't waste your time looking at all the free apps generated by robots, scouring through them to find something worth downloading, let us do the work for you. 

* It's an honest to goodness human-curated list of the best free apps each day (about 5-10 each day). 

There are dozens of apps that provide long tedious lists of every single app that ever goes free or short lists of apps that paid a lot of money to be included.  But only AppsGoneFree gives you authored, handpicked recommendations from an AppAdvice.com app expert of apps that belong on your device.

**INTRODUCING APP BUMP**
Being part of the very large AppsGoneFeee community has its perks.  Collectively, you have the power to convince apps to go free.  With AppBump, simply nominate great apps that are not getting the attention they deserve because the price tag is standing in the way.

We'll approach the developers of these apps, and let them know we have a community of users who will all try their app if they go free for just a single day.  So it's your way to give back to the community, by sharing great paid apps with each other and getting them free.  Remember to nominate every paid app you love, and when you see a bumped app, give it a shot!  Our community vouched for it, and the developer did it just for us! =)

Visit the App Store to get started: http://tinyurl.com/czglld8

Tech Tips: Teachers Pay Teachers

Tech Tips

Issue 5

This Tech Tip will look at a great online resource:  Teachers Pay Teachers.  This is a site to find teacher created resources for novel studies, activities, calendars, workbooks, and a million other useful documents for your classroom. 

This is a great place to find useful documents for your classroom at very low prices.  Best of all, they are created by teachers just like you!. 

What is Teachers Pay Teachers?

Teachers Pay Teachersis an online marketplace where teachers buy and sell original downloadable educational materials, hard goods and used educational resources.  There are units of study for nearly anything (novels, sciece units, Common Core, assessments, behavior, and WAY more!).  The site is searchable by grade level and subjetc to make it easy to find the perfect resource you need.

So…What Does all this Cost?

As of the writing of this Tech Tip there are 59,692 free resources available for download.  Most other resources are very resonalbley priced and very usefull.  I have purchased a few things from the site over the last couple years (a few quizees, units for novel studies, and class management ideas).  Also, each week they send an email with a link to the 10 free downloads.  I have downloaded many of the free resources and shared with other teachers.  What a deal!

Money Maker for You?

Teachers Pay Teachers is not just for you buying resources; it also allows you to seel what you have already created.  Here is your chance to make a little money for the work you ave already done.  All you need to do is upload created documents and price them.  If you have something good, others will buy it.  Sign up and give it a try!

Visit Teachers Pay Teachers to get started:  http://www.TeachersPayTeachers.com

Create your account today to start downloading and selling! 

Fall 2012 Staff PD Sessions

Here are the Presentations from my Fall PD sessions.

Tech Tips: Socrative

Tech Tips

Issue 4 

This Tech Tip will look into a time saving assessment tool.  Socrative is a great way to engage your students while assessing their learning.  It can be used in many ways: formal assessments, quick formative assessments, or even voting for items.  This is available on the computer as well as the iPads or any device with Internet access. 

What is Socrative?

Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets.

Engage Students!

Socrative is an alternative to paper pencil testing.  Students are engaged while taking a student paced or teacher based assessment.  They are interacting with the ipad (or computer) and can see their progress (if you turn on this setting) as the assessment is taken.

Quick Overview:

Teachers and students can use Socrative on any device with a web browser (tablets, smartphones, laptops, iPod Touches, etc.).

1.        Teachers login at t.socrative.com by entering their email and password.

2.       Students login at m.socrative.com (or the iPad app) by entering the "virtual room number" provided by the teacher. Students will then see "Waiting for teacher to start an activity...".

3.      Teachers initiate an activity (e.g. Multiple Choice, T/F, Quick Quiz).

4.       Students respond on their devices.

5.      Students' results are visible on the Teacher's screen or sent in an email.

What Are the Benefits of Socrative?

For Teachers: This is a very easy tool to assess learning.  The program grades students’ responses and gives the teacher an individualized score.  Also, if teachers work with other teachers they can share created quizzes (as easy as sharing a number on the grade level Google Doc I shared with grades 1-5) and have access to many other quizzes.  Through this collaboration many assessments can be used without having each teacher creating their own.

For Students: Students are often more engaged with technology.  They can see in real-time how they are doing and there is istant turn-around in grading.

Create an account and get started:  http://www.socrative.com