Teacher's Back to School Supply List

Before you sigh the BIG sigh....I know....it seems school just ended and many of us are already facing Back to School. The local sales papers are quickly filling with school supplies and clothing. I wanted to share with you a few items teachers should have on their personal back to school list. The first is DROP BOX! If you are constantly downloading files to a jump drive and carrying it between school and home, then DROP BOX is a great solution to issues associated with leaving the jump drive at school, or spilling coffee on it, or pulling your hair out because you can't find the jump drive ANYWHERE! DROP BOX is a FREE online storage site. You can store everything from files, to PowerPoint presentations, photos videos ...anything that you can put on a jump drive, you can store at DROP BOX.  You place your files in your DROP BOX at home....make your way to school and the files are there. Open the files at school, edit, print, save and when you get home, the file will be waiting there with all the new revisions in tact. Your files are available from any device that has an Internet connection. Beyond you having access to your files, you can share files with friends and colleagues. You can share ONE file or an entire folder of files. Your friends can only see the files you share, the rest of your files are private. Click here to open your own DROP BOX and set the jump drive aside! ;-)

Drop Box

Another item to add to your list is REMIND 101. How would you like to be able to send a TEXT message to remind your students/parents about important information or events in your class?
I know, you may worry about students/parents returning text messages or calling your personal cell phone. Well, with REMIND 101, you never have to be concerned about exposing your number. Once you open an account at REMIND 101 you'll be given instructions for setting up a class (or up to 10 classes). REMIND 101 generates a specific sign up code that you pass along to your students/parents. They will use their cell phone/email to sign up to receive your messages. You don't see their cell number/email address and they don't see yours. The messages are one way...parents can't respond/reply....they can only receive messages.
When you have a message to send, simply login (via the Internet or the Remind 101 app). Select the class you want to receive your reminders, press send and the message goes out immediately, or you can schedule it to go out on the day/time you specify.
I LOVED using this with my students/parents. I used this app to remind parents about Picture Day, Library Day, Gym Day.....Snow Day....and many other classroom related reminders. It's a FREE service that you'll turn to over and over again! Click on the phone image to open your account today. I plan to hand out this info to parents at our Curriculum Night.

Remind 101

One more item for your list is an app to help you level and keep track of the books in your classroom. BOOK RETRIEVER is available in iTunes and costs .99! You get sooooo much for your money....
This is the Classroom Library Company's app for managing book borrowing between teachers, parents and students. It allows you to scan, level and inventory your entire classroom library, giving you leveling data such as Guided Reading Levels, Lexile, Accelerated Reader, Reading Counts, DRA and Reading Recovery. There is a label printing function that allows your to print the leveling data wirelessly and easily attach the labels to your books! Over 178,000 titles are loaded and they're adding more every day. You can enter student's names into the app. When a student borrows a book from your classroom library, scan it and the app keeps track of who has which book. When the student returns the book scan it again and the app checks the book back into your library. You can search the app for titles in your library. There's even a book within the app called The Classroom Library Book: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Building, Organizing, and Using a Classroom Library!
OK....so what are you waiting for? Click on the photo-link below to purchase and download the app to your device.

Book Retriever 

I hope these items help make your school year go a little smoother! I'll keep searching for more items for your list...so check back soon!

Record your iPad Screen

****Update to this post: I received a comment that my link didn't work. As it turns out Apple removed the App from their U.S. site. Here's what I found that begins to explain why:
Apple does not allow screen capture apps on its devices because it mimics the native screenshot capabilities on iOS. “Display Recorder” appears to take a series of screen caps to convert to video, so there is a good possibility that the app could be removed from the store in the near future. So, if this is something you are dying to have, you had better act fast.


I apologize but I am keeping this post here just in case things get worked out and the App becomes available again!  In the meantime, I'll keep searching for something similar! Sorry!*****

I am so excited to share my latest App discovery with you. The App is called "Display Recorder". It allows you to record what you see on your iPad/iPhone. Display Recorder is a screen capture App that creates a movie, complete with audio, of what you're doing on the iPad. This has potential! ;-)
This is exciting to me because I have been playing around with Keynote (which is Apple's presentation program... much like PowerPoint). However, Keynote doesn't allow for sounds/voiceovers....CRAZY right?
So while I had some fun animations, there was no audio. With "Display Recorder" I was able to take my presentation and add a voiceover.
Once I was done capturing the screen, I could preview it, edit or delete it. After the movie was done,  there are options to upload the video to YouTube...that may not be a good choice for school because many schools have YouTube blocked. Besides, I couldn't get that feature to work (I'll keep at it though). Other options include: opening the movie in  Photo Library, Open in other Apps which include iMovie, ePrint (WHY would you print it???) or DropBox.  I ran into a few problems with importing it into iMovie but will keep playing around with this App. Has anyone out there tried it yet?
Display Recorder is for sale at iTunes for just under $2.00. My mind is racing with the possibilities. Take a peek at how I used it to give voice to my Keynote on COLOR WORDS:

Display Record from Cindy Blakely on Vimeo.

I also see potential for using Display Record as a tutorial for students on Apps that may not be intuitive. Or if you have parent volunteers working with students and the parent is a tad tech shy...you could use this App to model for her how you want students using the iPad apps.
I don't know...what do you think? What are some ideas you have for recording what you are doing on the iPad? Note: Before you mention YouTube...From what I understand it doesn't allow for recording FROM YouTube....so we'll have to think of something else. ;-)
Can't wait to hear what ideas you have!

Display Recorder

Pete the Cat Rockin' the iPad

There are times I find things online and have no CLUE how I stumbled upon them....and late last night....when I should've been sleeping, I found the PETE THE CAT APP.....Wait until my students see this on Monday!! At the beginning of May, we got the newest book Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons and now we'll have the Pete the Cat App for our classroom iPads! Right now it's only .99 cents at the iTunes store. It will work on  both the iPad and iPhone!
 In the App, Pete is searching for his guitar. The player has to help Pete search the bus stop, classroom, lunch room  and playground to find his guitar. Once it's found, Pete invites the user to "rock out" with him. At first I thought the game was a little tough to find all the items....I wondered if my kids would be able to find them all.....but then I got my reading glasses!! LOL! Now that I have actually SEEN the game, I am sure they can handle it! ;-)
iTunes also has Pete the Cat books available for download as well. Click on the image below to learn more about the App and to download it for the Pete the Cat fans in your life! ;-)

Get the book here!

iPad Fun!

I have really been enjoying exploring new ways to use the iPad in my classroom. The other day I came upon an App called Doodle Buddy. It reminds me of a child's toy called Magna Doodle, where the kids write on the board and erase with a swipe. But Doodle Buddy is like a Magna Doodle on STEROIDS! ;-)
 I have been working hard to teach my students about the concept of using tally marks to count. Some of them have a difficult time remembering WHEN to use the diagonal line across. Sometimes when we work whole group, I see little eyes peeking over to copy from a friend. There can sometimes be 8 tally marks and THEN the diagonal line...as if they suddenly remembered one was needed. ;-)
Bring on the iPad!
I downloaded the Doodle Buddy App from iTunes, and put it to work to help. I also purchased a VGA adapter from the Apple store that allows me to connect the iPad to the projector and we can see the Apps on the big screen.  The first time we used it I got goose bumps as I watched nearly everyone of my kids "get it" when it came to tally marks. We'll keep practicing of course..but what a great moment for me in class.  Every child was engaged in the activity!
I also plan to use it to practice sight words, CVC words, number concepts and more.. Take a peek at Doodle Buddy in action...(I recorded it with my iPhone)
;-)

Click image to get App

Click image to see VGA adapter for projector, it works with  iPad, iTouch & iPhone

Everyone is a winner!

Congratulations....if you left a comment on my most recent Apps Give-Away, then you're a winner! The last comment was from CindyL so if you got your comment in ahead of hers...then you WIN! (You did too Cindy!) ;-)
  If you didn't hear from me already, please contact me so I can send you the codes. Please note the codes are time sensitive, so don't delay!

Common Core Standards? There's an App for that!

If you find yourself searching through pages and pages of documents or websites looking for the right Common Core Standard to plug into your lesson plan book, there's an App for that....better yet...it's FREE!! Click on over to the Apple iTunes store to check it out. I have used it often and LOVE IT!! No need to carry extra papers around, just open your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch and you literally have the standards at your fingertips!

Click image to go to iTunes