Internet Tools for Teaching
EDIM 514
The shortened URL for my Wilkes blog site is https://goo.gl/yz3SN1. To be honest, I'm not sure if it's that much easier to share than angelawakewilkes.weebly.com. There are less strange characters and to me, the original site just makes more sense. However, I do see how shortening a URL would be helpful, especially for my younger students. Many times, I want them to access a website for research or perhaps some digital media, however, the web address is so long that my third graders inevitably enter something wrong. To solve this problem, I've used QR codes which generally work like a charm, but I like having different options. I'm truly surprised at how easy it was to use bit.ly and goo.gl. I do use QR codes regularly in my classroom and for a variety of reasons. It's a way I post student work on our bulletin board (my students have Seesaw accounts that create QR codes to link directly to their digital portfolio), a way to access a site, check their work in a game of Scoot, and more. One way I've been meaning to use QR codes is in my classroom library. There are SO many great book trailers available to students, but they don't always get the opportunity to view them. As you can see, I took the newest Raina Telgemeier graphic novel (always popular) and made a QR code for a short book trailer. This way, students can use their devices to scan the code, view the trailer on their own time, and determine whether or not it's a book they'd like to read! This was the first time I've used Delivr.com and I found it very easy! I typically use qrstuff.com, but I've been on the hunt to find a QR code generator that will create a code for images on my computer. I did find one at www.qr-code-generator.com. It worked out really well and used this generator for many of my beginning of the school year activities. What I did not realize (my own fault) is that I had signed up for a 14 day free trial and to continue to have my codes activated beyond that would be roughly $150 a year. RIGHT? I'm not going to lie, I've seriously contemplated biting the bullet and paying the fee...after all, I spent a LOT of time making those codes, but it's a lot of money for one year! If you know of any other QR code generators that link pictures, I'm all ears!
I was very interested in some of the Bookmarklets listed in this activity, so I played around with the first two and my jaw has pretty much been on the floor ever since! I wasn't quite understanding The Printliminator until I actually viewed the tutorial and...AMAZING! I jumped onto some sites that have so much background noise and in seconds, the noise was gone! I can't believe how easy it was to do, either! I print articles from Newsela or Wonderopolis fairly often and I'm always using white out or physically cutting or pasting pieces together to get rid of the background noise. The Printliminator took care of that problem. As teachers, we want tools that help us save time but not quality, and this tool definitely fits those two criteria! I also tried Quietube, and when I did, I started laughing. I've used SafeShare.tv for many years, but there are multiple steps to generating a new URL and then saving it, etc. Once I found a YouTube video I wanted to watch, all I did was click on the Quietube Bookmarklet, and again, in seconds, I was watching the video without any previews for upcoming videos or advertisements. There's also the option for saving the link for the future, which is really nice, but being able to use it on the spot is extremely beneficial, too! I'm looking forward to sharing some of these tools with my colleagues because I know they'll find them as beneficial as I do!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
![]() Angie Wake's Wilkes University Blog by Angie Wake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Based on a work at http://angelawakewilkes.weebly.com/. AuthorAngie Wake - 3rd grade teacher in northern Illinois ArchivesCategories |