The Problem Site isn’t really a problem at all. It is a great site filled with fun word games, math games and puzzles. You’ll also find links to other really nice educational sites that are perfect for the kids!
Google has announced an option for users to purchase extra storage space at a greatly reduced price. Google has always offered a generous amount of free storage for your Gmail and Picasa photos. And they’ve always offered extra storage for a price. But now, Google is getting extremely generous! You can now purchase an extra 20GB for only $5 a year. That’s enough for about 10,000 photos – depending on megapixels, resolution, and all that stuff. But it translates to a lot of storage for a little bit of money. And you can buy more…all the way up to 16 terabytes. To read the full notice from Google, check out the Official Google Gmail Blog.
I’m a Mac fanboy, no doubt about that. I love my Apple gadgets – iMac, MacBook, iPod, iPod Touch. And I’m always eager for a new Apple toy to play with. But I used to worry that one day there would be no Apple toys. In the black days of the 90’s, Apple was not doing well. Everyone knows this. And I feared for the demise of the company.
No more. I’m thrilled with the current success of Apple.
Steve Jobs has just been named the CEO of the decade by Fortune magazine. Seems well deserved. Joining Apple (again) on a permanent basis in January, 2000, Jobs has taken a company that was floundering and turned it around in ways that changed the tech industry. It is hard to believe that just during the past ten years we’ve had OS X, the evolution of the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, Apple TV, the iPhone, the Apps store, and the continued development of the iMac and the MacBook. Not to mention all that Steve did with Pixar. So yeah, seems like sort of a big decade for the man.
And his success has been Apple’s success. The iPod and it many variations (shuffle, Touch, etc) has changed the way we do music. The iPhone, combined with the Apps store, has dramatically changed mobile communications. Now the iPhone is closing in on the Blackberry in the smartphone battle for supremacy.
And Apple itself? Products continue to be upgraded and impress the critics. Stock prices continue to rise. And one CNBC report believes Apple could top Microsoft as the largest tech company within the next two years. Possibly. During the past ten years, Apple stock has risen nearly 900 percent while Microsoft’s has dropped 35 percent. Not a bad track record.
But I don’t own Apple stock. And I’m not friends with Steve. I just love my Mac. So I’m happy for Apple’s success and I can’t wait to see what toys they give me next.
Just 17 days till turkey time, so it is definitely not too early to start looking for good Thanksgiving activities for the classroom. And I’ll start you off with a link to one of my favorite sites – Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs. In this post, you’ll find links to more than 20 activities. These links include entire Thanksgiving units, stories, crafts, games, jokes and riddles, and more. And some of the links are to activities that are good with touch screens, switches, and Boardmaker.
50states.com is a great resource for the social studies class. If your kids need to do research on any state, they will find all the basic info on this site. Each state listing will include historical information, size, state bird, state flower, city guides, geographical info, colleges and universities, etc, etc. And if you are teaching about a state, you’ll get all the info you need plus some nice photos to print of the state flag, maps, and more.
That is their motto at Inkless Tales. A great little site with games, coloring pages, stories, downloads and more. Check them out! I especially like the Animated Alphabet!! 
Need a quick set of worksheets customized to the exact type of problem your students are practicing? Visit SuperKids and check out the Math Worksheet Creator. Very quick creation of addition, subtraction, greater than or less than, odd or even, and more.
Many of the web sites I’ve shared with teachers contain holiday resources. But here are a couple more that I’ve not shared and they have some great Halloween goodies.
The games and jigsaw puzzles on Teachers Love SMART Boards work great for all teachers and are lots of fun for kids during their free time or as a reward for a job well done.
Also, The Teachers Corner has enough Halloween activities and lesson plans to keep a classroom busy all the way to Halloween, 2010!
Check out both sites for lots of fun stuff.
Back at work after attending the statewide conference for educational technology folks. A very good day yesterday. And a few impressions…
First of all, I can’t believe how many good resources and tips a guy can pick up in a day! And I can’t imagine how everyone finds so many good things. I spend a lot of time online seeking out resources and I’m constantly amazed at how many good things are out there that I would never find.
Second, Google continues to amaze me. I’ve taught professional development workshops on Google. I’ve researched Google. And Google still comes up with new ideas almost daily. At least it seems that way. Some of the cool tools I saw yesterday already have me thinking about ways to change a lot of the work I do.
Finally, kudos to Kathy Schrock. Just like the rest of us, she was overwhelmed with the range of information coming into her life on a daily basis. E-mail, RSS feeds, blogs, tweets, social networks. How does a person keep up with it all? She told us! She actually took the time to analyze different methods for streamlining all the information and built an entire workshop around the hardware, software and strategies for making all this rush of information more manageable. Thanks!
This is just a simple online tool that allows you to create a practice page for students. Much like our “abc” fonts, these practice pages use large letters with all the guidelines on the page. The limitation is that you can only include one word/phrase per page…all the practice is a repetition of that word or phrase. But you can choose whether to have your page in traditional or modern print styles.
