stephen reck - technology&education

file dropper.

a few weeks ago, i stumbled upon a great web application called file dropper. file dropper allows you to upload & share files with anyone. simply upload your file & file dropper provides a url so you can find your file in the future, or share your file with collaborators. your classroom can now easily collaborate on projects, or you can easily distribute digital worksheets/rubrics/activities/etc online. & it is free.

wikispaces.

although not the only tool for creating your own wiki, in my experience it is the most popular (& alexa statistics back my opinion). wikispaces is a simple application for publishing information & collaborating with others. currently wikispaces hosts over 2,500,000 members on over 1,000,000 individual wikis. private, ad-free wikis with unlimited users & edits are $50 a year for most consumers, but wikispaces sees itself as an important education tool & provides teachers with a free private wiki for classroom use. in my opinion, wikispaces is the best choice for wiki development.

discovery streaming.

discovery education streaming is one of my favorite resources. the service is a paid subscription, although every school i encounter has access either paid for by the district or intermediate unit. if you are unsure if your school has an account, you can email discovery education directly to inquire. upon initial log in, you will be required to enter a school passcode & create a user account. you will use your user account name & personal password to log in every subsequent visit.

summer.

during the summer months i return to the classroom & teach social studies during summer school. this is my third year participating in summer school. it is something i always enjoyed. this year, since my new position at school has removed me from the classroom, i've been relishing every moment i can spend with students. one of the great things about my position is that it is my job to discover new resources for classroom use. i spend nine months of the year collecting tools & ideas. sometimes i get to work with a teacher & team-teach, but i still have a great desire to use my collected ideas & resources in a classroom on my own, with my content, with my own students. summer school, for this reason, is a great chance for me to implement all of my technology integration knowledge & skill.

glogster.

what is glogster?

glogster's slogan is poster yourself & poster yourself is exactly what glogster allows students to do. through glogster, you can construct interactive posters on the topic of your choice.  posters can contain written content, audio, video, & link to outside resources. the formatting & style of glogster posters, or glogs, are determined by a series of available images, text boxes, frames, & backgrounds. you are also able to upload your own photo, audio, & video content. glogster is also extremely easy to use. students will have its simple interface mastered within 15 minutes of use & soon show you new features of this full-featured web 2.0 tool. with customization, the ability to link to outside resources, & upload homemade content, glogster allows students to create a very rich, deep, product.