Tech Savvy Teachers » Resources

This is a great video on a general overview of how a teacher can use technology to revolutionalize how students access and interact with information. Instead of a text book, students are expected to create their own text book, and interact with the creators of the writers of the various blogs and sites that make up the body of information they create.

Perhaps you’ll see a lot of things that you are already doing in your classroom in this video. Hopefully this video will inspire you to take technology in your classroom to the next level. Instead of adding a little technology in, let the technology completely change the way you “do class”. It’s not about requiring students to create a powerpoint every now and then, it’s about introducing them to a global, constantly changing body of knowledge that hopefully, they’ll utilize for the rest of thier lives.

Keyboarding Sites that Your Kids Will Love

Jon — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:19:05 +0000

photo credit: Extra Ketchup

Have a site that your kids love? Leave it in the comments!

Bringing Web2.0 into the classroom (dispite a filter)

Jon — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:18:54 +0000

Edutopia has a great article on how many teachers are finding ways to use web2.0 sites that are often blocked in the classroom. This goes along well with our recent article on how to bring youtube videos to class dispite filters.

Using YouTube in the Classroom – without filter hassles

Jon — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:14:37 +0000

YouTube is often blocked at schools due to the inappropriate content that is hosted on the site. However, there is a great wealth of educational content as well that you might wish to show to your classes.

We will be downloading a copy of the video that you can bring into class. You’ll find that while downloading the video does require some planning, it offers some great benefits:

The file you bring in can’t be blocked by the filter
You have the video for years to come in case it’s taken down from youtube
You can show the video anytime, no longer dependent on an internet connection
Students won’t be exposed to the little thumbnails and links to other videos on the youtube site, which might not be appropriate.
No more loading or buffering waits!

In order to make showing a youtube video a smooth experience for your class, please follow the following steps.

These steps will be preformed at home (or somewhere where youtube is not blocked)

1. Copy the youtube video’s URL (web address). Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4s9V8aQu4c

Zamzar

2. Go to zamzar.com. Click Download Videos. Paste the URL for the youtube video in Step 1. Choose the format to convert to. AVI is a good choice. Step 3 – Enter your email address. Hit Convert and wait while the video is converted.

3. After you file has uploaded, you should get this message. In a few minutes you should receive an email

4. When you view your email from zamzar, find the download link below the pitch for you to sign up

5. Click on the download link on the web page. You now have a copy of the video that you can copy to a USB drive or burn to a CD to bring to school.

At School

6. Open your video file with a video player, such as VLC or Windows Media Player.

Note: There are many different services that will allow you to download a youtube video. A quick search on google for “youtube downloader” will give you many other sites to use in case zamzar goes down or isn’t working for some reason.

keeping kids safe online – issue #3 – spyware

Jon — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:55:50 +0000

Note: This is an on going part of a look at six issues that we face in keeping our children and students safe online. We’ll be looking at the issue, discussing some solutions and recommending some free and commercial software that can help protect the children you work with online.

The issue: Spyware

Spyware is software that can be often installed while the user is unaware. Spyware often displays popups, records your computer use for marketing and can even be used to capture passwords to gain unauthorized access to your accounts.

Solutions:

- Have a spyware remover/scanner installed and running on your computer. Keep it up to date. Some good spyware scanners are Ad-Aware Free and Spybot.

- Set a policy for your family on downloading and installing software. Many parents might find it necessary to restrict installing software. If you allow your children to install software, be sure to teach them how to recognize software that they should stay away from.

-Never install software designed to exchange music, movies or software illegally. Limewire and other peer-to-peer software can often be riddled with spyware.

-Google is your friend! Run a quick search on the software followed with spyware to see if it’s been identified as something to stay away from!

Keeping Kids Safe Online – Issue #1 – Pornography

Jon — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:14:21 +0000

As a parent, one of your many responsibilities is to monitor your child’s media habits. The end goal should be a fully mature adult who can discern right from wrong with or without guidance. It’s very important to lay down some ground rules, as technology has a great amount of potential to effect our lives positively or negatively. Here’s a few areas to be concerned with, and how to help monitor or filter those areas.

The issue: Pornography

Steps need to be taken to protect children from both accidentally discovering pornography during innocent surfing, as well as those children who might be actively searching for it. It’s quite easy to accidentally access a porn site during a search for a report or for an image during a google image search.

Solutions for parent concerns:

General Tips:
- Place the computer in a family area. Children shouldn’t have access to a computer in a private place.
- Be sure to keep your password confidential and to turn off your own automatic logins. Children can run up quite a bill accidentally (or purposefully) after going to a site that you have left yourself logged into.

- Pornography
- If you suspect your child is purposely searching for pornography, talk to them about the issue. It can be a difficult discussion, but it can save your child from a lifelong addiction.
- Set up a filter that can protect your family from stumbling across undesired content.
- Just know that no filter is perfect. Always, always, know what your kids are doing while surfing the web, because a filter never takes the place of a curious and caring parent.

TeacherTube – A Safer, Educational Youtube for the classroom?

Jon — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:24:55 +0000

Youtube has plenty of educational content, from Photoshop tutorials to great speeches from history, just about ever content area can be found on the site. Unfortunately, a ton of inappropriate content can be found too. How can you keep the good yet protect your students from the bad?
TeacherTube may be the answer. It’s a youtube-like site that has many of the same features yet has some protection built in to keep out the bad. In the past, educators have found that no matter how stringent a site is on content, it’s always possible that something could sneak through and make it to your students. Evaluate the site, see if there’s good content and if you feel comfortable using it in the classroom.