Technology Blog.ClassroomTeacher.ca

• Trying out the Twitter Tools plugin for our Classroom Technology blog #
• Testing the SMART AirLiner tablet – how good is the digital ink? #
• When we teach media literacy, we create media as an assignment. If we explore making money online, is it wrong to try to make money online? #
• The SMART AirLiner tablet might have potential. It’s the first digital ink tablet that doesn’t make me look like a Grade 1 student… #
• Those side buttons on the SMART AirLiner tablet make life easier – switch between pen and eraser with the tap of the pen #
  
• Touch the screen on the SMART AirLiner and the mouse jumps to that part on the real screen. Apparently, I don’t have hand-eye coordination. #
• Google Analytics is cool – you can track which page your visitors clicked your ad from. Our post on running records is popular. #
• If you run multiple wordpress blogs, it’s easier to manage wordpress and plugin upgrades all at once by using the wp-hive plugin. #
• Bluehost: 1 click wordpress installation for your classroom blog. 1 click wordpress upgrade when necessary using simple scripts. Ahhh. #
• Google Analytics for WordPress plugin lets me track the adsense clicks on our blog. Just installed it on our other money making blogs. #
• Google AdSense is blocked by our school board’s firewall. I wonder if Google Analytics is? Could you see your adsense earnings this way? #
• If you used a live twitter feed in your class to have students identify the main idea, 140 characters would force them to be concise. #
• I want to buy one of those laptop lap thingies. Laptops get hot. #
• It’s amazing how many good free themes there are for your classroom blog (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes). #
• Just use the one click plugin updater to install new themes on your wordpress powered classroom blog. Quick, easy, no geekiness required. #
• I wonder if there is a way to twitter offline and then just upload all of your tweets when you connect #
• Good bye free web stats with statcounter.com, Hello free web stats with Google Analytics. Creepy what you can do with Google these days. #
• Think global classroom and then use the Geo Mashup wordpress plugin to add geographical data to the student posts on your class blog. #
• “Autofocus” is a neat wordpress theme for your class blog. You can show a large image on each post that gets cropped onto the home page. #
• What’s the difference between Google’s Webmaster tools and Google Analytics? #
• Mimio interactive boards vs SMART boards. Which one is better? #
• Mimio interactive bar: an infrared/ultrasound sensor that mounts on your whiteboard. How does it compare to SMART boards? #
• Toronto District School Board trustees voted 13 to 5 to allow FutureShop to donate $100,000 (but the lab will be painted in their colours.) #
• What’s your take on the corporate branding of our learning spaces: $100,000 in computers = FutureShop colours in the computer lab. #
• Trying to set up Google Docs / Apps on our balanced literacy domain name #
• Apparently the keyword “balanced literacy” costs between $0.20-$0.40 on Pay Per Click (PPC) contextual ad networks #
• Interesting. Scholastic.com is running an ad campaign on the keyword “Balanced Literacy”. Must be localized to people in the US. #
• Why does the term “balanced literacy instruction” charge $0.43-$1.14 per ad click (PPC) when “balanced literacy” alone is $0.20-$0.40? #
• Nevermind. Scholastic.com is a SEARCH result for “balanced literacy instruction” – Some entrepreneur is buying traffic to run Amazon ads. #
• The keyword “School Resources” costs $0.42-$1.11 to run contextual ads. Google.com is running an ad campaign: Google for Educators. #
• http://spyfu.com – great way to find out how much the google ads on your site make. Not completely accurate, but gives you a relative idea. #
• “Reading” costs $0.53 – $1.56 per click, but the ads don’t seem appealing to me: Sylvan tutoring, and college prep courses. #
• I guess keyword research is a good way to see what ads would be running on your website. #
• “Student” costs $1.04 – $6.24 but teachers visiting our sites don’t want credit card financing ads directed towards students. #
• “Reading Instruction” (costs $0.43-$1.14 per click). 6 advertisers on various reading programs. #
• “Professional Learning Communities” ($0.42-$1.08 per click): 3 advertisers, 2 of which are actually about PLCs. Teachers might click on that #
• PLC (Professional Learning Community) apparently also stands for Programmable Logic Controllers. Teachers won’t be interested in the latter. #
• “elementary education” (costs $0.80-$3.24 per click) but runs ads on teacher accreditation programs which isn’t our target audience. #
• Twitter in the classroom: each student gets their own account. A class account follows all of the students so we get a live feed of ideas. #
• Is there a version of twitter that you can run off your own domain (i.e. wikispaces.com, wordpress.org) #
• WordPress has BuddyPress and various twitter-like themes. Maybe we could do “Twitter in the classroom” with a self-hosted WordPress? #
• Note to self: look into BuddyPress #
• (I do like how twitter limits us to 140 characters. That would force student responses to be short and concise.) #
• Taking jot notes on twitter is cool. I wish Kurzweil 3000 could be provincially licensed for all students.They have a jot note feature. #
• “Elementary education resources” ($0.57-$1.73) also “teaching resources” online ($0.46-$1.25) – 4 advertisers with lesson plan websites. #
• Tweeting is like stream-of-conciousness. Imagine students tweeting as they read: instant running record of their thinking processes. #
• If we run a “Make Money Online” club at school, how do we prevent students from clicking their ads and committing click fraud? #
• We could use WordPress plugins to show ads based on set criteria – ads for search traffic only – but students could just google themselves. #
• Is there a way to stop showing ads based on geographic location? Ban the city where you teach so the students don’t click their own ads? #
• Can you set Google Adsense to not show ads based on geographic location? #
• 3 advertisers running “Guided Reading” ads (cost $0.36-$0.89 per click) for websites with leveled readers. #
• ads about “teaching english” ($0.78-$3.02) primarily target the teaching English overseas crowd. #
• “literacy” ads cost $0.43-$1.13 per click. 4 advertisers with links to webpages about learning strategies and resources. #
• Looking for a WordPress plugin that allows you to show google ads to certain visitors only (search engine traffic outside of your city). #
• I think Ozh’ Who Sees Ads WordPress plugin will let you show Google Ads to Search Engine traffic only. #
• Ozh’ Who Sees Ads WordPress plugin (in advanced php mode) combined with the IP to Nation plugin should let you restrict ads by country. #
• Does the Ozh’ Who Sees Ads WordPress plugin work with the WP Super Cache plugin? #
• Who Sees Ads doesn’t work with Super Cache but here’s a hack: http://bit.ly/hlEzh #
• Is there a WordPress plugin that will identify the city based on an IP address? That way Ozh’ Who Sees Ads could geotarget cities as well. #
• MaxMind offers a free GeoLite City database linking IP address to cities. We could probably use this to create a simple WordPress plugin. #
• MaxMind offers a free GeoIP Javascript Web Service that could be useful to geotarget Google ads – http://bit.ly/WYnrv #
• Ozh’ Who Sees Ads can use php rules but MaxMind’s city location is javascript (client side). How do I use AJAX to hide ads based on city? #

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