blog.classroomteacher.ca

We run several classroom blogs and professional sites, including this blog on using educational technology in the classroom. Mostly we use WordPress, but lately we’ve been experimenting with bulleting boards (phpBB) for our online literature circles.
You can only go so far with free accounts, whether they’re with Blogger, WordPress.com, Edublogs, or Wikispaces. Eventually, you want [...]

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If you’ve spent any time on the internet, you’ve already been indoctrinated into the world of Making Money Online. Just do a search using one of the big 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft), and you’ll see ads beside your results.
When we were growing up, we made money as teens by mowing the lawn, babysitting [...]

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We’re just creating our new classroom website for the 2009-2010 year. We had it up and running in about 15 minutes by setting up WordPress 2.8.4 (3 minutes to create the site; 12 minutes to cut and paste the content from our Meet the Teacher newsletter.)

How to Make a Class Website
Should I use Google Sites or [...]

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At the end of June, our Grade 8 Language Arts (English) class experimented with using Twitter in the classroom.

What is Twitter?
Why use Twitter in the classroom?

Examining Twitter in the classroom to see how social media tools are changing the way the world communicates.
Using Twitter in the Classroom as a collaboration tool

Review of using Twitter in the [...]

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Windows 7… touch-enabled? Will I be able to do digital ink in the classroom with it? #
New wiimote controller is coming out…Will we be able to still use Johnny Lee’s wiimote software to create an… less than 5 seconds ago #
Will students use bing or google in the classroom? (I wonder why they generally don’t [...]

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You can’t share folders in Google Docs which means if you have a large number of files to share, you have to do it individually. #
(You also have to upload a large number of files separately in Google Docs – you can’t ctrl or shift select multiple items to upload.) #
If you publish your Google [...]

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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 [...]

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We haven’t posted recently because we’ve been busy experimenting with educational technology for the classroom, instead of simply writing about it.
It turns out that one of our colleagues has a kindergarten student who has his own free blog. Apparently, he reports on the classroom activities and uses exclamation marks quite liberally in his writing.
So, to [...]

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Many teachers are blogging in the classroom. It’s authentic writing that hooks struggling readers and writers, especially boys.
However, there is one huge flaw with using WordPress or Edublogs in the classroom. Students can read unmoderated comments when they are logged into the edublog or class blog before the comments get moderated and published online. They [...]

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Our Google pagerank has dropped to a rank of two and we’re not sure why.
Pagerank is Google’s opinion of how important a website is. The higher the pagerank, the more important Google (and apparently the world) thinks you are, and the higher you show up in a search listing.
In a nutshell, Google is a popularity [...]

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