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

Busy, Busy, Busy, BOX!

I know I've talked about Drop Box before, but sometimes a resource comes our way and we're not quite ready to use it, or have a need for it.
Now that we're all pretty much back at school, you may find yourself busy creating files to enhance your teaching. If you're like me, you could easily have files at home, school, and a few places in between. Drop Box is a GREAT resource that allows you to save and share your files on the Internet. You can access the files from any computer, or your iPad as long as you have an Internet connection. If you're working on a project on your own or working collaboratively, DROP BOX can help. Simply email your link and access to your files can be share with anyone you choose.
 We're just starting the school year, but I have found Drop Box to be EXTREMELY helpful. If you don't have an account there, you really should consider opening an account...it's FREE and you will save yourself time and energy by knowing where you stored your files! ;-)

Click image to get your own  Drop Box account

Online Storage Option

There's an on-going discussion with some of the TBA authors about organizing the plethora of fabulous files that are created by so many talented teachers.
One option is Drop Box. This is an online resource that allows you to save your files and have access to them later from any Internet connected computer, phone, iPad or iPod. No more emailing files to yourself, or searching for a zipdrive with space for your files. You can share files and photos with co-workers, friends and family by simply giving them the link. And you don't want to worry what you would do if something nasty happens to your hard drive. If you haven't discovered DropBox already, click on the image below to sign up and start saving files online:

PS...they are currently offering additional storage for FREE. Simply refer your friends and you can get up to 8GB for free!