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Podcasting Resources

Here are two links to help you with podcasting in your classrooms:

Podcasting with GarageBand--Movie tutorials for all aspects of podcasting with this Apple program. Covers all the bases, for beginners and advanced users alike.

Podcast Examples--A great way to get ideas for you own class is to check out what other teachers are doing with their kids.

Other Resources--Check out these links for more help and other ideas.

More Resources

Here are more resources compiled by the secondary cohort.

http://www.livejournal.com/ is online journaling.

brainpop.com offers videos, quizzes, readings, projects, and extension activities about all school subject areas for all grade levels. This is a great tool for engaging lower level readers and students with low motivation and engagement levels. Fee required, however they offer a free trial that can be shared among a group of teachers.

http://www.bristolvaschools.org/mwarren/SBActivities.htm has many resources and tips for SmartBoard use.

http://www.zweigmedia.com/RealWorld/tutindex.html has online math tutorials to help kids who have been absent or did not understand the concepts when they were presented.

www.engrade.com is a great online gradebook.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/09/aviary-audio-editor.php might be useful for podcasting without downloading any software.

Elementary Cohort Forum Question

Elementary Cohort members:

Please log on to our edu2.0 course (link in the blog's sidebar) and post your answer to the newest forum question, Forum Question 3.

Reminder: To get there, click the "Learn" tab, click "Elementary Cohort," then click the gray "forums" tab.

This activity will allow us to see what everyone is doing with their wikis and how they're "making it work."

Please have this done by our next meeting: October 8 from 4:00-7:00 in Room 302 at the Ellen Thompson campus.

UPrep DA Secondary Resources

On Monday the members of the secondary cohort met. We brainstormed some useful resources that we currently use. Our homework was to find new resources to share for next month. Listed below are links to some useful web pages.

4teachers.org (collection of tools...rubistar was highly recommended)
readwritethink.org (lessons tied to standards)
learningtogive.org (volunteering and civics lessons)
number2.com (ACT / SAT prep)
donorschoose.org (simple grants)
education.smarttech.com (smart board tutorials)
homework411.com (simple homework posting web site)

Enjoy!

Wiki Resources

Our goal for our first meeting will be to develop a project (or projects) to use with your wiki. You may have ideas of your own. But here are two places to look for inspiration:

50 Ways to Use Wikis

Educational Wikis

Using your wiki for student web pages or for posting student work is good. But some of these ideas will allow you to kick it up a notch. The best things about a wiki is that it lends itself to collaboration. See if you can use it in a way that gets students to work together on a project.

Your goal today is to design a wiki page to use with students in the next few weeks.

Checking on Subscribers

A lot of us have been posting frequently to our blogs. I hope you're finding this to be a useful tool. It really works wonders with your parent communication. An informed parent is a happy parent. I think.

Talking to some colleagues today and this question came up: "But does anyone ever read them?" Well, there's a way to find out, but it's a bit tricky. Follow these steps after you've either taught parents how to subscribe, or have manually subscribed for them...

1. Log on to feedburner.com using your Google (a.k.a. GMail) account

2. Click on the name of your blog

3. Click the PUBLICIZE tab

4. In the sidebar on the left click "Subscription Management"

5. If you have any subscribers, they'll be listed toward the bottom of that page (beneath "Total Subscribers). You might have to scroll down to see this.

6. If a person has confirmed the email that feedburner sent them, they are listed as "active." If they haven't, you'll see "unverified."

Hopefully this makes sense and hopefully you've got a number of subscribers already. And here's a good idea: set up a computer in your room during Back to School night that parents can use to subscribe and confirm. Remind them that taking a few minutes to do this will pay off big time in the long run.

Let me know if you need any help with subscriptions or blogging.

Mac Tips for Newbies

I found a site with some tips that might help you get used to your new Apple laptops.

It's called "On Windows I Used to..." and it covers some common tasks, showing you how to do on a Mac what you used to do with your PC.

Let me know what you think.

Oh, and don't forget about the Command+Shift+4 trick for making a screen capture!

New Laptops!

Hopefully, you've received your new laptop and are getting used to it. If you're used to PCs, the switch can be a little daunting, but luckily, you're a Digital Academy member and we can support each other.

If you have problems or questions, please be sure to send an email or leave a comment on this post. Sometimes things come up that aren't exactly matters for the help desk. Hopefully, I'm not opening myself up to a flood of emails here, but if you need help, definitely let me know.

Now that the school year is underway and we have our computers, I'll be posting some tips and helpful sites. The topic of our next meeting will be wikis, so don't forget about those.

And don't forget about your Google Reader and Delicious accounts. Good luck!

New at Our Edu 2.0 Site

Recently updated on our Edu 2.0 site...

I've uploaded handouts for Blogger and Delicious. They are there, along with handouts on RSS and Google Reader, in case you need a refresher.

To find them, log into the UPrep DA course (the link is in the sidebar), click "Elementary Cohort," and click the "Resources" tab. You can find them in the Handouts folder.

Welcome!

Welcome to the official UPrep Digital Academy blog. Here you'll find announcements, links, activities, ideas, and more.

Here's a task to get you started:

Subscribe to this blog in Google Reader using the link in the sidebar.

I know you're busy, but keep checking your Reader for awesome posts like this one. And remember to share posts and send links with Delicious.

And, of course, good luck with the first days of school!