Free online formative assessment tool that works with smartphones, tablets and even computers!

Socrative.com is easy to learn...in just a few minutes you can register (it's free) and make a quiz...students sign in from their device...there are multiple choice, short answer and true and false questions...teachers get a live feed of student responses and you also get a class report as a spreadsheet...

I'll be happy to sit with you for a few minutes and get you started...just send me an email (with dates and times that you are available)

Thanks to Janice McGuire for the information.

Umteen iPad resources and tools

http://gettingsmart.com/cms/blog/2012/12/ipad-resources-sources-tools/

Thanks to Bridget Fariel for the link!

Vermont E-Cycles Electronic Recycling Program

click to locate a Vermont E-Cycles collection location Vermont’s new electronic waste law bans the disposal of certain electronic devices and provides for convenient collection of computers, monitors, printers, computer peripherals, and televisions for consumers, charities, school districts, and small businesses that employ 10 or fewer individuals. The FREE Vermont E-Cycles electronic recycling program established collection locations that are located statewide and operate year-round. All computers, monitors, printers, computer peripherals and TVs - regardless of brand, age, or condition - are accepted for FREE recycling. Other electronic devices are also accepted at these locations, however, there may be a fee to dispose of those items.

iPad followup workshop; January 9, 2013 (afterschool)

Do you have questions about using your iPad?  Would you like to learn how to both read and create Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on your iPad...or how about about printing directly from your iPad?  Additionally, I'll have handouts for all of the curricular areas with over 1300 free, vetted iPad apps.  No question or concern is too basic.  Everyone is invited.  This workshop will be held at the Weathersfield computer lab.  If you plan to attend, please download and install the following apps...DropBox, CloudOn and Breezy. If you can't attend, or need help installing, send me an email and I'll pay you a visit at your school.  

(Dropbox should be installed on your smartphone, iPad and computer.  Breezy will require you to install the app on your iPad and the Breezy Connector on your work and or home computer.)

Links in a Google Spreadsheet????

If you'd like to include a link to a URL in your Google spreadsheet, simply enter the URL in the cell. Whenever this cell is selected, a small pop-up dialog appears. Click the URL from the dialog. If you want a cell to include a URL without a hyperlink, click Remove in the window that appears when you point your mouse to the link. If you want to add the hyperlink again, right-click the cell and select Show hyperlinks.

If you'd like to include a link to a specific URL, but you want this link to be indicated by text (for example, instead of "https://helpdesk.wsesu.net/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk" appearing in your cell, you want the viewer to be able to link to the phrase WSeSU HelpDesk ), enter this hyperlink formula into the cell:

=hyperlink("www.xxxx.com";"search the web")

Replace "www.xxxx.com" with the URL of your choice, and "search the web" with the text of your choice. After you've done this, only the text linking to that URL appears in the cell. Click the text to open the pop-up dialog again with the URL.  

This is what would be entered into the cell.
=hyperlink("https://helpdesk.wsesu.net/helpdesk/WebObjects/Helpdesk";"WSeSU HelpDesk")

Little Bird Tales

I just received this email from Julie Burchstead: ...Just found out  about this very cool resource via the new VTED group Larry shared. It is called Little Bird tales and allows teachers and students to create virtual books with voice recordings to read aloud the text. Maybe you already knew about it...but I will be sharing it with staff here.

If you like Little Bird Tales, visit my handout entitled Web Sites for Younger Children...there are five pages of sites keyed to curricular areas.

Introducing the Google's Save to Drive extension, plus enhancements to images

The new Save to Drive Chrome extension gives you a few new ways to capture content from anywhere on the web and store it neatly in Drive. After you install the extension, you can click on the Drive extension icon to save:

·         an image of an entire page or an image of the visible page
·         the HTML source code 
·         a Web archive (.mht) 

Or you can right-click on images or links to files and save them directly to Drive.

After you save using the extension, you’ll see options to immediately open the file in Drive, rename it, or view it in your Drive list, where you can do things like add it to a folder or share it with others.

There are also a few new ways to work with images you’re already storing in Drive. You can now zoom by scrolling or using the new ‘fit to page’ and 100% buttons. And if you have something to say about a specific part of an image, you can select a region and add a comment to it.