by Krissy.Venosdale | Feb 18, 2015 | Reflect
Irony. Struggling to find the words to explain how much I love this quote. And reading it just reminded me of this wildflower photo I took last year on a random summer afternoon.
This flower? It was along side a tan brick wall at a gas station, growing in the midst of ugly cracked pavement. I think it struggled just to be there.
But wildflowers don’t wait for invitations, make apologies for their struggles, or hide their colors.
They just grow. Out loud. With a quiet strength.
Struggling upward.
Relentlessly.
Because it’s their message to the world.
by Krissy.Venosdale | Feb 17, 2015 | Reflect
I’ve freshened up the blog a little. I needed to clean things up. I mean, after several years, revolving passions, interests, and stuff. And my general category of “learning” had over 750 blog posts. Isn’t everything learning? So, I broke down every thing that is important to me. You know, the things that keep me awake in the middle of the night. The things that I can’t stop reading about, learning about, or thinking about.
Imagine: Reimagine learning that’s right for all kids. Challenge gifted learners, support struggles. Imagine PD that’s better for teachers. Imagine the kind of support that helps all learners. Make it all authentic. Imagine is about dreaming big.
Reflect: Sometimes all that’s left of me at the end of the day is a rambling thought that spins into a blog post. This category should also be titled, read with caution, this might not make sense. Sometimes in learning, it’s the struggle we need to blog about, not just the success. I don’t like to edit posts, I just want to share what’s real.
Make: I consider this category the hub of STEAM, the gadgety goodness of hacking, coding, robotics, and maker spaces. Make stuff and look for things that inspire the maker inside us all. I don’t think every school should have a maker space, I think school should BE a maker space.
Create: Tutorials. People always ask, ‘How did you make that?” I’m going to try to share more often. I consider creativity as necessary as breathing. But, I didn’t want to call the category “Breathing.” But if I don’t take time to create each day, whether it’s a quick Instagram photo, or a huge mess on my kitchen table after school, it has to happen in some way.
Integrate: Tech embedded learning. Tools are great, but it’s the outcome we should be concerned with. Not the icing on the cake, the eggs and flour in the mix. Not an “extra” but something essential. From the details of Google Apps to the bigger picture of tech in the classroom, it’s all about integration.
Connect: PLN’s, global projects, Twitter, and ways to reach out and connect with others, as well as connecting ideas. It’s the connections with others than inspire us, change us, keep us growing, and keep us mentally alive when we most want to quit. People and relationships are the heart of education.
I’m also working on a page of JUST posters. I want anyone who’s looking to print a poster to be able to download it for FREE. I’m going to make that easier here. I’m also setting a goal to blog every day for the next 30 days. No pressure if I miss, but sometimes when I feel confused, or stuck, or excited, or overly passionate or even completely insane, blogging is like opening a little door inside my head and making sense of it all. And now there are even categories that make sense to me. 🙂
by Krissy.Venosdale | Feb 16, 2015 | Google Apps for Edu, Integrate
It’s always fun to find out what other people use as their “go to” tech tools. That app you can’t live without? That website you have bookmarked? The best way to learn new tools is to ask other people what their favorites are. I’m not saying these will be your favorites… but they were good enough when I gave them a try that I just keep on using them.
Chrome Bookmarks Bar: If you use Chrome, be sure to click “Bookmarks” and “Turn Bookmarks Bar On.” You can drag any address to this bar and create quick links. I love storing quick links to Google Docs I’m using for the week, or sites I need to access daily. With a rightclick, you can easily cut things from the bar, too.
Open Clipart Online
It’s no secret that I love a great graphic. However, when creating quick document, there’s no time to PhotoShop up something to match the walls in my office. So, OpenClipart does the trick. A great standard base of over 50,000 images that you can add into your documents.
MindMeister
I love the ease in which MindMeister takes a bulleted list and turns it into a graphic web right inside your document. Bulleted lists are so… nineties! This is a great tool for organizing information visually.
Save to Google Drive Sometimes you find a great resource on the web that you know you will want to take a look at or share later. This add on to Chrome places a tiny drive icon that you can click and save to your drive in the blink of an eye!
PicMonkey When you need to quickly edit a photo, add some text, or spruce up a pic for your class blog, PicMonkey will do the trick. While I love the full-fledged power of PhotoShop, PicMonkey has plenty of power without all the complicatedness.
SaveFromNet: A built in tool for Chrome to download YouTube videos for classroom presentations or sharing. Excellent for those presentations when you just don’t know if the Wifi is going to hold out.
What are your favorites? Google Drive Add-Ons? Chrome Extensions? Please share. We can never have too many in our tool-box, right?
by Krissy.Venosdale | Feb 12, 2015 | Make, Reflect, Thoughts on Learning
If we don’t see the value in play, we’re missing the point of learning. If we don’t believe that a four year old’s experimentation with sand box sifters and water has value, we’ve lost our way. If we think that young children should sit still, for hours, prepping for exams to raise points on a government test, we’ve sold our souls to the test-makers.
Or, we can stop. We can open the doors and roll in the duct tape. The robots. The circuits. The wires. The parts. The glue. The cardboard. We can make a mess. We can make exploration paramout. We can make passion come alive. We can make mistakes. We can make our imaginations find places we didn’t even know existed. We can make opportunities out of authentic experiences. We can make this right.
We can make hope.
by Krissy.Venosdale | Feb 11, 2015 | Integrate, iPad
Yes. Love is a strong word, but it’s almost Valentine’s Day. And these apps? I DO love them so much I kind of want to marry them. They are great. Why? Because they are not about consumption. They are about creation. Open ended apps that put the power of the iPad in the hands of the students, encouraging the REAL power of learning to come from their own thinking. What will your students create?
Easy Blogger Jr.
Easy Blogger Jr. is an interface for Blogger. It allows you to use a basic Blogger site for students to upload and share content to. The apps is also available to work with WordPress and Edublog. This app encourages students to reflect, share, ask each other questions, compare their thinking to other students thinking, and practice being responsible global citizens. Students can post photos, videos, and record voice overlays.
Book Creator
Such a simple app. It does just what is says… create a book. But there is so much more here. Add photos, videos, drawings, creations from other apps, text, sounds, and even pictures of projects. This app could be the start of student portfolios, weekly journals, creative poetry books, a place for students to write stories, and even non-fiction books to teach others. Even better? The books can be published to iBooks, enhancing students ability to see how their content can be authentically shared with the world in iTunes.
Drawing Pad
I have tried every drawing app out there. My own iPad is filled with apps that I’ve tried to find to rival my Sharpie and paper doodling love. Then? I tried Drawing Pad. I love it because of the options. An array of supplies to inspire students in various paints, markers, and more. Text can be added, or the drawings can be exported to other apps as photos.
PicCollage
The iPad is a great classroom camera, but we typically don’t print those photos or have an easy way to display. Here comes PicCollage… a great way for students to display their photos, add text, and even put a video clip. It’s a great introduction to digital media for young learners, and a flexible tool for the tech savvy kiddos looking for more.
Popplet
If I had Popplet when I was a kid, I would have loved taking notes. The visual delight of the little bubbles, organized in web form to break down information, makes my heart sing. Popplet can be used to organize story elements during creative writing, taking notes during research, creating a simple timeline, and even organizing a project into parts.
Is this every app I love? Nope. But you know what? When it comes to apps, less is more. There are millions of apps available, and it’s easy to think of them like Valentine chocolates… you can’t have to many. But the really rich, delicious truffle apps that feed your brain and creativity? Just a few of the right ones, and your students creativity will make your heart sing!
