I wanted to show a video from the National Geographic YouTube channel to a World Cultures class. Typically, I just link to the video, and when it opens in a browser I launch the full screen option before playing. However, the comments that were associated with this video were not so nice and I did not want the students to see the language onscreen before I played the clip. I need to launch into full [...]

My lesson today focused on how history and outside influences have affected the Middle East. The focus was the modernization of three nations – Egypt, Turkey and Iran. In advance I created a presentation in PowerPoint that summarized the main ideas in the text. Finally, I wanted the students to reflect on the content and given a series of self-questioning stems, generate one question that they still needed answered based on the content. We were [...]

This week I tried something different with one of the assigned textbook sections. I created a Google doc with several main ideas and then listed a few bullet items beneath each. Students were asked to find supporting details from their text, the web, etc. for each of the ideas. In the end, we would have a single, collaborative document with lots of information. My original idea was to have only one computer for each question [...]

I have been using Google Docs with my students for a couple of things and have enjoyed the sharing and collaboration they provide. Today I shared a spread sheet and asked the class to enter some data on the document. It wasn’t long before I noticed the chat feature wan in use by some students. “Hooray!”, I thought. They can work together and coordinate a strategy for completing the task without getting out of their [...]

I was sorting through papers crammed in a shelf when I found an bingo sheet that was created by a teacher years ago. On the page was a 5×5 grid with random vocabulary terms in each block an image in the center square. For a moment I laughed at the document, but then got to thinking about how I might use this as a quick review with my classes. Since the start of the year [...]

I used a scanner recently to copy a document and turn it into a PDF. No problems there. However, when I went to use Adobe Acrobat 9 to copy some of the text for use in another document, I couldn’t do it. I was stumped. I tried several different means, such as trying to click and drag across the text, exporting the document as a Word file, text file, etc., but my efforts were fruitless. [...]

I like to think that am am pretty savvy with Google applications, but  after reading this post, it seems my illusion has been shattered. S.Pradeep Kumar has put together a list of more than 20 “awesome and unique” uses of Google Reader. I am sure that you can find some that would be useful for you. For example, if students are blogging, you can follow their comments by setting a specific comment feed. Tip #3. [...]

Are you using Google Apps? Personally? Professionally? Julia Stiglitz, from the Google Apps for Education Team, has shared 32 Ways to Use Google Apps. If you would prefer a PDF version, download it here.

Looking for another way to use Wordle in the classroom? Well, “Guess the Wordle!” The premise is simple – just create a wordle based on key words, topics, concepts, etc. and have the students analyze the construct to identify the relationships. This reminds me of the concept attainment model for instruction.

I just finished copying and pasting some text from a web site to a word document. Interspersed among the text were a couple of links that I wanted to remove, but not the text. Here quick way to remove all the links at one time: Select the entire document by holding CTRL and pressing A. While holding down CTRL and Shift, press F9