"Give Me Five"

This post may not really fit with Thinking Thursdays but I hope it fits with  "Other Smart Things."

Have you wondered what technologies people are actually using and why? Well, maybe you haven't but I have. So, I thought I would talk about the five I am using at this time and a bit of why I am using them. Here goes:

Number One: Edmodo - This Learning Management System is one I use daily. I post daily blogs which are as simple as a short recap of the day's activities up to detailed instructions which may include a document, video clip, link to an Internet site, and or assessment tips. I am sure to post every day as my required homework is to check my daily blog. Students are given a group (class) code and their parents may join as well. Parents and students may check a notifications box in account settings that will send notes to their email inbox. I am still not sure what parents get in their email notifications. They may not get "notes." I will have to research this.

Format: Web Based, iPad

Price: Free

Vendor: Edmodo.com

Number two: PlanbookEdu - I use this web-based teacher plan book every day to lay out lessons and units. There are a ton of ways this can be used. You can plan very simply or as meticulous as you might want. I lean on the meticulus as I place video resources, assessment pages, standards, and resource links right on the daily planning space. Since it is web based, the links are live. There is a free version but the fee based ($25 - yr) version allows you to share your lesson plans with others. Jennifer and I create common assessments and common lesson plans so we share our entire lesson plans on PlanbookEdu. That cuts our planning nearly in half. There is an option to print and although maybe not ideal we have used print outs for sub plans. 

Format: Web Based
Price: Free and $25 yr
Vendor:  PlanbookEdu

Number Three: TeacherKit - I use this app every day. This is a classroom managment app for iPad and I have my seating chart on it. I can take student pics and insert them into the chart. One huge advantage for using this app as opposed to the seating chart feature on my desktop is that I can carry this around the room, if I choose. It is also avaiable for my iPhone but I have not taken advantage of that as it would be rather small for my old eyes. There are other features such as attendance, behavior charting, and general student notetaking that I really have not used yet. 

Format: iPad, iPhone, iPod
Price: Free
Vendor: iTunes

Number Four: Blogger - This web based application is the solution to my classroom blog (web page). For the last five years or so I have kept a third party web page. It did what I wanted but it was a huge hassle uploading content and blogs. Blogger is a dream come true for ease of use. Jennifer and I share a page and just call it DMS Social Studies 6. We share the page but in reality we copy/paste our Edmodo blog to this site. We also upload content such as videos and other resources we want to hang onto. I am not sure how necessary this is now that Edmodo is working so well and parents may sign up to receive Edmodo email updates through Edmodo groups. This is way easier than the PHM blog site (my opinion).

Format: Web based, iPad

Price: Free

Vendor: blogger.com

Number Five: Google Drive - Drive (formerly Docs) is an automatic for Discovery because most everything we do is compatable with Google Drive. I don't use this every day because I have not been able to kick some of my other word processing programs. You can simulate most Office Suite tools with this and tool I have use most is Google Forms. This web based program allows you to share anything you make easily and is possibly the easiest tool for going paperless with your students. I have used this to take polls, collect assessment data, and Internet hosting of documents. 

Format: Web based

Price: Free

Vendor: Google Drive

Sorry this got a bit long but these are the ones I am using most every day. With technology it seems that we use what ever is the latest so I imagine this list will change in time.

OK. Tag! Now its your turn. Using the comments box tell me what your top five are.

Your Discovery Literacy Leaders