Show and Tell, Technology Style

I have three apps that I would like to share with the blogger world (and my class). I was doing a little thinking about some of the struggles or maybe things in class that we used or did that could be enhanced by technology. So the first thing I thought of was writing. Students struggle with ideas about what to write about whether it be in their daily journal or for writers workshop. I found an app that has thousands of writing prompts on it. You click on it, give your phone or Ipad or Ipod a shake (I downloaded it on my iPhone) and BOOM a writing idea that's a little bit out of the ordinary but should spark their imagination.

Another idea that came up when I was looking back on my student teaching experience, and some classes that I took last semester that used the smart board was a lot was surveying or polling of information. Surveying the class is a good activator and its interesting to see the different ideas in the classroom, and since its private there is no peer pressure so you kind of get an honest answer. I know there are some good polling applications on the smart board that involve a "clicker" but a cool one I saw on a fellow Internet for Educators blog was one that was online and the class could use their smart phones and text  in their reply. Very Cool.

The website is: http://www.polleverywhere.com/. Give it a look if you can.

Another interesting tool is called DropBox, anyone heard of it?

Well you send out an invitation to receive a certain folder and you download the program or "Box" to your computer or smartphone and whenever someone adds something to that folder in their box, whether it be an assignment or music or something everyone that got the invite for that folder will also receive the same information. It is also an easy way to share large files. I was introduced to it a couple of months ago, and I use it to share new music with friends!

I am sure you could apply it to a classroom setting as well!

That's all for my show and tell technology style!

-LB