Are you resolved to expand your tech-savvy in 2014?  Let’s get started this weekend!  One of the tools that I recommend to all teachers of all levels is Evernote, one of the most productive and versatile tools available to you and your students. What is Evernote? Evernote is like a digital brain: Why Evernote? I know there are literally hundreds of tools that collection information, however, I like Evernote as one of the best options for a variety of reasons: Cross-platform: There are Evernote clients for nearly all modern devices, including devices like the iPod Touch, iPads and other popular classroom devices.  It also works in a simple web browser, so, you can use Evernote with a laptop, desktop or ChromeBook without installing any software. Multimedia:  Evernote not only captures text and images, but, you can also use it to capture audio, full webpages and even PDF documents. Free: Although there is a premium edition of Evernote (and it is worth every penny), you can access all of the main functionality for free. Get started this weekend! Getting started it easy!  Download the desktop app for your desktop or laptop at http://www.evernote.com.  An account is free.  You should also download the mobile app on your smartphone and/or tablet (available in the iOS App Store, Google Play Store, Blackberry World store and Windows Marketplace). There are two great resources available for those looking for some Evernote basics.  This excellent video from the University of Wyoming Extension services gives a great introduction to the platform: For those looking for a written reference, Mark O’Neill has posted an excellent "Unofficial Manual" at MakeUseOf. Are you using Evernote to be more productive as a teacher?  Are you using it with students?  Hit us up in the comments and share your great Evernote tips! Want to Learn More? I am offering "Hands-On with Evernote: The Swiss Army Knife of Digital Tools" as one of  hundreds of learning opportunities at the Northwest Conference for Computer Education in Seattle, Washington, March 14-16, 2014.  For more information or to sign up, go to the NCCE website!  Or, you can have this content customized for your district and delivered to you either online or face to face… contact us for details!

Scanner Pro is a $6.99 app that is currently Free in the iTunes store.  This is one of those handy utility apps ever teacher/student needs.  Scanner pro lets uses an iOS device’s camera to scan documents, complete with real-time border detection for perfectly-sized scans, and stores them as PDFs in a variety of cloud services, including iCloud and Google Drive.  Great app for scanning writing, artwork, or other paper based student projects.  The app has the ability to send the scan as a fax through an in-app purchase.  Grab it while it is free and let us know how you are using it in your classroom. Scanner Pro by Readdle for iOS

Typing is one of those skills that takes practice.  If you have ever tried to teach typing you quickly find that the greatest challenge is keeping students engaged in the practice process.  The absolute best site I have found for typing engagement is NitroType.  NitroType is a fast paced, multiplayer game where users "power" their race car by their typing speed.  Players can earn up to three nitro’s per race (used by pressing the enter or return key) to skip over a word.  Winning races earn the player virtual money to spend on new cars and customizations.  While the individual cars do not have any special abilities I have been impressed with how motivating collecting the different cars are to students.  In addition to collecting new cars, NitroType uses achievements as well as any game on the market.  There is a great balance between easy to very hard achievements.   Achievements have virtual money and the occasional collectable car to add to your garage.  Students can sign up for an account to save their progress through registration on the site or connecting their Facebook profile.  NitroType gets an A+ for signup as it does not require students to have an email address to acquire an account.  (As I have mentioned in other articles, this is a HUGE deal to classroom teachers).  Students can race against their friends or anyone around the world through a friend matching system.  Students must first approve a friend request to to add another user to their "friends list".  As with any online game, a discussion about safety and only friending people you know is important.  Being able to "race" against your friends is the second big motivating factor with this program.  Students can race against computer controlled cars and the AI is tuned perfectly to push typist without crushing the fun.  You can experience the whole game for free, but there is an option to become a "gold" member by paying a one-time fee of $10.  Gold status gives you an exclusive gold car and $5,000,000 in cash to purchase many of the available cars.  This is another area that Nitrotype really does well.  You can work your way through the game for free and through leveling and achievements earn enough cash to purchase everything in the game.  If you choose the gold option, you still have to level up (by participating in races) to unlock new cars. Like anything there are always improvements that can be made and Nitrotype is no different.  The game can freeze up your web browser occasionally due to all the scripting that runs in the background powering the site.  I have found this is the most problematic running in Firefox.  The best fix is to completely close out the web browser and relaunch to start racing again.  I would like to see the game tweak the cars so that they have a unique ability.  Things like ability to hold an additional nitro, a one second head start, etc.  This would add another layer to the game that would help some of my slowest typist complete with my better typist.  The last thing to be aware is Nitrotype does not have a practice or instruction section.  This site is intended for students that have had basic instruction in typing. Nitrotype is a well balance game that completely engages students.  About 85% of my students choose to work on Nitrotype at home on their own.  That is probably the best measure of a sites popularity.   Nitrotype pushes students to improve their typing speed while maintaining the importance of accuracy.   If you have been looking for a site to move your students typing to the next level, Nitrotype is the place. As always, share your comments below.  

Nerdist, one of our favorite podcast networks (including both irreverent and informative programs like the Alton Browncast), is releasing a new podcast today that might be of interest to those interested in getting girls connected to STEM content. Danica McKeller, former child actor and UCLA-trained mathematician, is the author of four books on mathematics that are aimed at girls, like Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail. Today, she releases a new video channel called "Math Bites," which promises to bring the Nerdist irreverence to math topics, like this video which sings pi out to 75 places: With McKeller’s solid academic credentials, I am hopeful that this channel can provide interest bits (or should I say bites?) of mathematic content to help amuse and inform. Check out the release today on Nerdist’s YouTube channel here.

Many NCCE members have received training through NCCE’s training on the Library of Congress and Teaching with Primary sources.  The Library of Congress is offering a 5 day summer institute to take your training to the next level.  In this five-day program for K-12 educators, Library of Congress education specialists facilitate sessions modeling strategies for using primary sources to engage students, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge. Participants then consider, discuss, and develop applications to their students, their classrooms, and school libraries. Participants draw from among the millions of digitized primary sources from the Library’s collections to design and refine a specific primary source activity to implement in the fall. While the emphasis is on teaching strategies, participants also have opportunities to meet experts within the Library and visit the Maps; Manuscripts; Prints & Photographs and other Reading Rooms to gather information and resources to use in developing their activities. 2014 Institute dates are listed below: June 9-13        Institute session #1 July 7-11         Institute session #2 July 21-25       Institute session #3 The complete 2014 Summer Teacher Institute Syllabus: 2014LOCSummerTeacherInstituteSyllabus For more information and application go to: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute/about-teacher-institutes.html Explore more resources on the Library of Congress YouTube Page: http://www.youtube.com/libraryofcongress

If you have used Evernote before, you can easily see the power of this tool in the classroom.  For those of you who haven’t seen Evernote, here is a quick overview: I am a big believer in allowing students to have as many field experiences as possible, but I think one thing many educators would admit is that often we don’t do a good enough job of tying that experience back to classroom study.  Many students miss the connection between the field trip and the course study because there isn’t enough overlap in activities.  How can Evernote help? Well, let me tell you how a few 7th grade teachers used it on a recent field trip up to Mount Helena.  This field trip supports their Science curriculum by requiring students to study the different types of indigenous plants in our area.  Using an iPod Touch loaded with the Evernote app, students have a list of different grasses, trees, and shrubs that they must take pictures of and save in their Evernote account. Technical How-to: One of the great benefits of using Evernote on an iPod touch with students is that Evernote will stay logged in and save information even when you are in Airplane Mode.  The key thing to remember is that you must have students login to Evernote while you are attached to a wireless network.  As soon as you login, you can switch to airplane mode and then work in your Evernote account.  When you turn airplane mode off and rejoin a wireless network, Evernote will sync the new data to the cloud and you are off and running.  This feature is obviously key when you are in an area (like a mountain) that doesn’t have wi-fi. The first thing I like about this use is that the teachers were conducting Authentic Assessment.  The other point that I like is that by using a digital tool for data collection (in this case pictures) students now have a depository of first person research to take their learning further.  That is exactly what these teachers did next.  After their field trip to Mount Helena, the science classes went to the library and used Comic Life to create a presentation of their findings.  By using Evernote, which syncs to the cloud, the teacher needed to only tell their students to login to their Evernote account to retrieve their pictures.  Any of you who have had to deal with file management in the classroom realize this is a VERY big deal. By having students create their own accounts in Evernote, record their own information, and present their findings, these teachers are setting the stage for 7th graders to act like scientists.  In addition, there was no divide in the learning.  The field trip became an essential piece to the learning process. How have you used Evernote with students?  Please share your experiences in the comment section below.

I came across a great site to use with elementary or middle school students in all curricular areas.  Teach Kids News is the brain child of Jonathan and Karen Tilley and Joyce Grant.  Jon and Karen would present news stories to their son’s class and decided to dedicate a website to share news with children all over the world.  Daily articles are written with elementary readability in mind and every article concludes with discussion questions for the class.  I am very impressed with the range of content covered and see tremendous opportunity for integrating in every content area.  Even if this is a site you use once a month, it is a must to have in your "teacher toolbox". Check it out @: http://teachkidsnews.com/

Last week in Las Vegas, technology vendors touted their wares at the International CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show).  I am not a tech journalist, but, have read many accounts that the trade show is both amazing and a bit of a war of attrition.  There are thousands of vendors floating hundreds of thousands of project, both real and aspirational. Items introduced at International CES are not will not necessarily be released, and some (many?) don’t make it off the drawing board.  However, the most talked about ideas here can be next week’s or next year’s must-have gadgets.  That also means that the hot gadgets could end up next week at a school year you! There are hundreds of "summary" videos and articles, but, the best one I have seen is from Engadget, in this week’s "Engadget Show." Enjoy… click HERE.

For those that have a long weekend this weekend, we hope you enjoy your well-deserved time off!  If you haven’t heard the whole "I have a dream" speech before, it is worth your 20 minutes…

Google Drawing was added to the Google suite of tools in 2010, but I have found this tool has not made it into the mainstream for many users. The name may be part of the problem as many people assume it is just a "drawing" program.  Google Drawing can be so much more!  In fact, it can take care of most of your image needs. Often students and teachers want an quick and easy way to place text over a picture for projects.  There are many programs out there that can handle this task but many (like photoshop, illustrator, and gimp) are way too complicated.  Google Drawing fills this void.  To illustrate this let’s look at the graphic I used in my post about using Evernote on field trips: In this picture there are three things happening: The main picture of Mount Helena, the text overlay stating "Field Trips with", and finally the Evernote graphic logo.  This was all put together using Google Drawing in about one minute.  Let’s take a look at how this worked….         How To: First make sure you have a Google Account.  Once logged in, go to your Google Drive.    In your Google Drive, click on the  button and choose Drawing. In your Drawing, click the add picture button:   I already had saved my picture of Mount Helena to my desktop, so I just need to browse my desktop and open:   Now my image of Mount Helena has been added to my drawing area and I am ready to add text over the top by click the Textbox button:   As with any text, you can change the Font, Color, Style to achieve the look you want.  After I set my text, one more click on Add Image and I grabbed the Evernote logo that was on my desktop.  Under the "Arrange" menu you can send pictures forward or back to make your layout work the way you want.  Each picture can be resized or rotated by clicking and dragging on on of the corners of the image (use the circle to rotate the image)   You may have noticed the checkered background behind the images.  That is the canvas area and it needs to be resized to only be as large as my imported image.  If you don’t resize the canvas background your image will have a big space before or after that will cause you problems when you work with the image later.  To resize the canvas, click and drag the bottom right corner of the canvas to the edge of your picture.  This will make the saved image the size of the imported picture and the new image will act as expected when you use it with text.   After resizing the background canvas you can export the image as a .jpeg and use it anywhere.  Remember copyright implications when working with pictures. As always, share your thoughts in the comment section below…