Creating Graphs Online

At the end of every math class I teach, I give out little quizzes to check for understanding. They're only two questions long and cover only the information taught that day. I started this at the end of last year, and I love doing it because it gives me such a clear idea as to how well I taught and how well they absorbed the information!

Right now in second grade, we're covering graphs, and my little quiz for tomorrow is on reading line graphs. Now, I am for sure NOT going to hand-draw a line graph for their little quizzes. That's just cray cray.

Instead, I remembered this sweet website I found last year - NCES's Create a Graph! If you just input your data, it makes a lovely little graph just for you.

You can print it straight from the website or save it in a variety of formats - PDF, JPEG, PNG... whatever you want!

Your students could use this also instead of hand-drawing graphs. I had my own students use it last year when we studied natural resources. It was a bit on the complicated side for my class (there are a lot of steps to make a graph), but if you modeled it and had them use it on a regular basis, I think it could really come in handy!

Wallwisher

For the first few weeks of school, we have been short a Technology teacher. I missed having my planning time, but I did value the extra teaching time!! Especially during the first weeks of school!!

Anyway, last week I took my class to the computers so that we could do something technology-related. I am (supposedly) getting an interactive whiteboard sometime soon, and I REALLY want to incorporate more Web 2.0 business in my classroom. :)

Here's what we started with - Wallwisher!

Wallwisher is essentially an online bulletin board. Anyone with the link can post ideas or thoughts to a pre-made board. Just to get started, I set up a Wallwisher page asking the students about their favorite colors. With two clicks and a bit of typing, many of us were able to get our thoughts published! As you can see, some of us didn’t quite get it in time (and some of us did our very best spelling those difficult color words!), but overall it was a success. If nothing else, it gave me a little heads-up as to who my tech-savvy students are! :)

It was a really fun and simple thing to do!

This was just a little intro to Wallwisher, but you could definitely use this for other things! Can you think of any cool uses?

Google Reader = Love

So the other day, I was on my way home from the Chicago blogger meetup with my buddies Laura and Krista when I found out that they didn't use Google Reader to read blogs.

This was crazy to me, because I really don't know how people can go though their lives without Google Reader. Seriously!

So let me tell you a bit about it. I actually started using it before I even read blogs. I was watching a technology webinar and they mentioned Google Reader. I don't even know what I was reading on it before blogs... but that is neither here nor there. :)

First, you have to have a Google account and be following blogs using Google Friend Connect. This sounds sort of complicated, but it's probably what you're already doing.

Next, if your Gmail window is open, look along the top of your window. You should see a "more" thing on the end. Click it!

Then you'll get a drop down. From there, pick Reader. It's right under Blogger!

Then it will open up Google Reader in a separate tab. All of your blogs should be there that you're already following using Google Friend Connect.

Here's what mine looks like right now! Only one unread. :)

If you want to read the post, click on All Items in bold on the left side and you'll see all of the posts in order of when they were posted by all of the bloggers that you follow. Kind of like the dashboard/reading list in Blogger, except Google Reader gives you the whole post instead of a snippet.

If you should happen to find a blog that doesn't have the Google Friend Connect following option, you can still use Google Reader to read their posts! Just click on the red Subscribe button and paste in the blog address. It will add it into the rest of your blogs!

If you want to comment on a post, you'll have to scroll back up to the post title. When you click on it, it will open the link in a separate tab or window so you can comment away!

What I love about Google Reader is that it keeps track of what you have read and haven't read. Also, if you are looking for resources for a specific topic or skill, you can just type what you're looking for into the Search Reader box toward the top of the page. For example, I just typed in "fact family" and I got 77 posts! Wow!

Also there's an app! So I peruse blogs when I'm just hanging out.

So it's pretty much awesome.

Do you use Google Reader and do you love it so much??

Cassettes into CDs Tutorial

Did you know that you can make a cassette tape into a CD??

Does anybody even have cassettes anymore...? Haha!

So I am working on building up a listening area for next year. Whether or not I can make Daily Five work for me, I definitely need a listening area so my chillins don't go off the deep end during reading time. :)

Anyway, I have found or acquired a number of books on tape, but I didn't think I really wanted to have to deal with the kids rewinding tapes or pulling all the tape out. This past year they all did fine with CDs when we would listen to our Reader stories, so I wanted to make my tapes into CDs, and my brother helped me figure out how to do it!

Here's what you need!

You can also use a tape player if you have one in your CD player! It just takes up less room if you do it this way. :) I got my auxiliary cable at Meijer for like $10; you can find them in the electronics area!

First, download and install the Audacity software. It is free and safe!

Then plug one end of your auxiliary cable into the headphone area of your Walkman or tape player and plug the other end into the microphone part of your computer.

Open up Audacity, hit play on your Walkman, then hit record on Audacity!

When you have recorded your whole tape, push stop. Then, click on File and then Export...

It should automatically come up to save as a WAV file. Name it whatever you want. I saved mine to my desktop. Then I added it to Itunes and burned it to a CD! Done and done.

I don't know if anyone will be able to use this little tutorial, but if you need it then hooray! Let me know if anything is unclear. :)

I'm off to find more books on tape!!! Happy Friday!

Using Natural Resources {Freebie}

Today was a crazy day. I taught so many things and I have no idea how we fit it all in. Strange contractions... Mother's Day writing... natural resources... fractions... comparing numbers... insect body parts... and the life cycle of a butterfly! I guess if I listed out my day every day it would look like that... haha!

But I want to tell you now about our natural resources lesson! After we read the pages in our social studies book about natural resources, we filled out a little graphic organizer just to review what we learned.

Afterward, the students grabbed any picture book and looked for things in the pictures made from natural resources, specifically, trees, metal, and oil. They listed the things they found in a table.

And after THAT, we went to the computer lab and used the NCES Create a Graph site. We inputted our data into the website and it cranked out a little bar graph for us!

Do you teach about natural resources? Because I put all of this fun stuff into a little pack for ya! Click on the screenshot to download it from Google Docs. Let me know if you can use it!

{frames by The 3AM Teacher and fonts by Creating Keepsakes}

In the midst of our crazy day, it rained and rained, so we missed both recesses. By 1:15, we just couldn't take it anymore. So we went outside and played Red Light Green Light!

Good end to a good day. :)