On my You Tube channel I curate and collect videos from You Tube into specific playlists or collections for teachers to use when helping them learn more about specific products or technology for their classrooms.
I have such a playlist for SMART Response software and hand-held devices. This playlist is constantly being updated any time I find more quality video associated with SMART Response.
Be sure to check out my channel for other playlists that may be of your interest.
Since I have grown to love Google+ more and more, I am using it more and more. I use this microblog to spread the communication on new content, idea, resources, and tutorials for technology integration in the classroom. Be sure to fine me and add me to your circles in Google+. Even if you do not have a Google account or use Google+, bookmark my Profile page or my education page and frequent this site for some very useful resources to assit your classroom environment and professional development. You'll find much more content on my Google+ education page (also, titled Ratkacher Station) since it is a microblog and much easier to send out new stuff; and quickly.
Since this blog is devoted to spreading information and content to my school district (though, not restricted to this), I only post during the school year and school days. You will not find any new content during holidays or vacations (well, you may find something from time to time). Though I have been using this blog for about a year and a half, I feel that I am still very new to this mode of communication. In the past year my blog posting frequency was about one per week. I intend on increasing that frequency this year to a couple a week depending on how busy my week is.
Through my posts you will find helpful tutorials, useful online tools and information that will assist educators in being better at what they do.
As we begin this new year, I am excited again about working with my teaching staff and helping create solid curriculum through technology. We have a couple of new products that I am excited about - i.e. SMART Technology's new integrated SMART tools and the new PowerTeacher upgrade. I will be posting some information on these as well as some tutorials.
I would like to reiterate what a Technology Integration Specialist does. The video below is something I had posted last year, but does a great job at explaining what my goals and desires are as a TIS.
I am a jack-of-all-trades, but some of the areas I do specialize in are any of our SMART Technology's products (i.e. SMART Notebook, SMART Boards, SMART Response, and more), Moodle, Google Earth, using a Personal Learning Network and many of our MLTI Macbook applications from Noteshare to ComicLife to iMovie.
Some of you at the High School are already aware that I have relocated my "office". I am now in Rm 213 and will be available for anyone to stop by at any time for a visit. I will also be available to stop by your location if you have any questions.
Durring these next couple of weeks I will be available all week until harvest break. After harvest break I will be available at the high school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I can be flexible, though, if these two days are not accommodating for you. Just let me know what would work best for you and I will see what I can do to help.
Please contact me any time if you have any questions, ideas, feedback or want to discuss how we can work together:
I was talking with a colleague of mind this morning about using Twitter hashtags to find more content and contacts and I thought it would be a good idea to publish a post about this great tool for others.
I will always sing the praises of how much of a resource Twitter is not just for content, but for connections with other people. In Twitter's main stream of tweets in your home you have your customized flow of information form those that you follow. Just like most other social networks. This is a nice resource to access when you want it. However, if you want to get out there and discover new content or even new contacts beyond your regular stream of tweets in your home, Twitter uses hashtags. For more information on hashtags, visit my Google Site page Hashtags.
This blog post will focus more on the basis of how to use a hashtag to search in Twitter.
Once you find a hashtag that is associated with your specific area of interest, you can use it in your Twitter search bar.
The results of your search will show in your tweet stream, as viewed below.
As shown here you can save your search for later access and return to that specific search by clicking on your search bar. Below is a list of saved searches that can be accessed at any time.
For more information about Twitter, there are thousands of education blogs and sites that help with this. However, feel free to visit my Google Site page about Twitter. Go to Ratkacher Station (the Google Site version)
SlideShark is an online service that hosts your PowerPoint presentations and allows you to share them via social networks or email and allows you to access them from any internet connected computer. SlideShark also has an iPad app. This app could serve as a very useful tool for those educators who like to use their iPads in the classroom as their teaching tool.
SlideShark's iPad app let's you access your uploaded PowerPoint slide presentations and present them on your iPad, either alone or on a projector via VGA cord or Apple TV. SlideShark has easy controls when presenting your PowerPoint presentation and (I like this) allows a "pointer" simply by pressing and holding on the slide; which presents a very visible red dot which you can move around on the iPad and presentation view to assist in creating focal points.
The web application as well as the iPad application are both very easy to use. Best of all the account and app are both FREE. You are limited to 100MB of space with your FREE account, however I think that is plenty of space for the casual user. For the heavy user, upload only your critical presentations.
"IWitness is an online application that gives educatorsand students access to search, watch, and learn from more than 1,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses." - IWitness As mentioned above in the excerpt from their site, there are over 1,000 video that you can use for you classroom. The videos are individual interviews with actual Holocaust survivors explaining some of the things they went through. You can browse through their categorized library (categorized by camp location and topic) for instant viewing of small 4min clips, or you can register for your own account and get the full interviews. It may take up to two days for IWitness to review your request for registration. To check out this rich library, go to IWitness.
