My Favourite Digital Tools

Josh Winestock, Tyndall Park, Cluster 1871
In my last post I mentioned that as a millennial I am quick to adopt any tool regardless of whether it meets any personal or educational outcomes. I am the one who searches for ‘lifehacks’. Most of these tools, apps, and technologies come and go, but some remain useful to me everyday. Here is a list that I have found helpful. In some cases, the connection to education may be a bit loose, but in making my life easier/more organized/flow better, these tools help me focus on my most important instructional goals.

Evernote
Evernote, a cloud-based note-taking application, is where I store EVERYTHING from my life. It flexibly works with different formats and filetypes, and it synchronizes across platforms. In it I store resources, assessments, sheet music, music files, business cards, presentations, media and lesson plans. You can search for notes by any contained text, and email documents to the program using an Evernote-specific email address (E.g. joshwinestock.9471942@m.evernote.com).

A few ways it has helped me teach:
​-Until it’s time to print and distribute, all of my resources are paperless.
​-I can play media files straight from the application (including those I needed throughout the winter concert).
​-It stores my report card comment bank.
​-All of my blog subscriptions (including My ITLL Blog) are sent to my evernote email address, keeping my real inbox clear.
– For our drama performance THIS week, a colleague of mine created a note where she placed music files throughout the script so she could easily read the script and launch the music at the same time.
I recommend partnering Evernote with Scannable – a high quality scanner for your phone.

Followupthen (Followupthen.com)
Followupthen is an email reminder program that lets you send reminder emails to yourself or someone else at specified times. Sending an email to the address thursday@followupthen.com will bring the email back to you on Thursday. Everyweekday7am@followupthen.com will bring a recurring email back to you at 7am every workday.
How I used this application: Our school sends out a weekly bulletin for staff called Monday morning jazz. The optimal time for me to read it is every morning at 8:45am. I don’t want to print it or leave it in inbox where I will forget it, so I send it to the email address everyweekday845am@followupthen.com.

Microsoft Sway (Sway.com)
I was introduced to this presentation application when the WSD sent out an email newsletter using it in September or October. Sway is a highly intuitive online presentation application (similar to Prezi). Teachers can create lesson plans online for students to access at home. Students can create presentations at home and link them to their teachers. In addition to lesson plans, I use Sway to hold all of my choir lyrics (http://bit.ly/1rmfWyy)

Planboard (Planboardapp.com)
I haven’t been using this application much in the past school year. This application, created by chalk.com, is an online planning notebook. You can include links and media throughout your lesson plan. Chalk also hosts Markboard, a site to record classroom assessments.

Other applications I find helpful:
1. Say it Mail it (iPhone) – take audio notes and immediately mail it to yourself or (bonus points) to your Evernote account.
2. The Email game (online) – quickly move through email.
3. Workflow (iphone/ipad) – Create apps within this app.
4. WolframAlpha (everywhere)- Find and compare anything quantifiable on the internet.
5. Substitute Alert (iPhone)- Notifications to your phone for Aesop jobs (for all the substitute teachers out there).
6. Duolingo (everywhere)- Language learning app.
7. Dropbox (everywhere) – Filesharing
8. Figure by Propellerhead (iPhone/Ipad) – Music fun!
9. Quick Graph – my favourite graphing app

Josh Winestock
Music/Math Support
Tyndall Park School

My Favourite Digital Tools

My Favourite Digital Tools

In my last post I mentioned that as a millennial I am quick to adopt any tool regardless of whether it meets any personal or educational outcomes. I am the one who searches for ‘lifehacks’. Most of these tools, apps, and technologies come and go, but some remain useful to me everyday. Here is a list that I have found helpful. In some cases, the connection to education may be a bit loose, but in making my life easier/more organized/flow better, these tools help me focus on my most important instructional goals. 

 Evernote

Evernote, a cloud-based note-taking application, is where I store EVERYTHING from my life. It flexibly works with different formats and filetypes, and it synchronizes across platforms. In it I store resources, assessments, sheet music, music files, business cards, presentations, media and lesson plans. You can search for notes by any contained text, and email documents to the program using an Evernote-specific email address (E.g. joshwinestock.9471942@m.evernote.com). 

 A few ways it has helped me teach:

-Until it’s time to print and distribute, all of my resources are paperless.

-I can play media files straight from the application (including those I needed throughout the winter concert).

-It stores my report card comment bank.

-All of my blog subscriptions (including My ITLL Blog) are sent to my evernote email address, keeping my real inbox clear.

– For our drama performance THIS week, a colleague of mine created a note where she placed music files throughout the script so she could easily read the script and launch the music at the same time. 

I recommend partnering Evernote with Scannable – a high quality scanner for your phone.

Followupthen (Followupthen.com)

Followupthen is an email reminder program that lets you send reminder emails to yourself or someone else at specified times. Sending an email to the addressthursday@followupthen.com will bring the email back to you on Thursday. Everyweekday7am@followupthen.com will bring a recurring email back to you at 7am every workday.

How I used this application: Our school sends out a weekly bulletin for staff called Monday morning jazz. The optimal time for me to read it is every morning at 8:45am. I don’t want to print it or leave it in inbox where I will forget it, so I send it to the email address everyweekday845am@followupthen.com.

Microsoft Sway (Sway.com)

I was introduced to this presentation application when the WSD sent out an email newsletter using it in September or October. Sway is a highly intuitive online presentation application (similar to Prezi). Teachers can create lesson plans online for students to access at home. Students can create presentations at home and link them to their teachers. In addition to lesson plans, I use Sway to hold all of my choir lyrics (http://bit.ly/1rmfWyy)

Planboard (Planboardapp.com)

I haven’t been using this application much in the past school year. This application, created by chalk.com, is an online planning notebook. You can include links and media throughout your lesson plan. Chalk also hosts Markboard, a site to record classroom assessments.

Other applications I find helpful:

1. Say it Mail it (iPhone) – take audio notes and immediately mail it to yourself or (bonus points) to your Evernote account.

2. The Email game (online) – quickly move through email.

3. Workflow (iphone/ipad) – Create apps within this app.

4. WolframAlpha (everywhere)-  Find and compare anything quantifiable on the internet.

5. Substitute Alert (iPhone)- Notifications to your phone for Aesop jobs (for all the substitute teachers out there).

6. Duolingo (everywhere)- Language learning app.

7. Dropbox (everywhere) – Filesharing

8. Figure by Propellerhead (iPhone/Ipad) – Music fun!

9. Quick Graph  – my favourite graphing app

Josh Winestock

Music/Math Support

Tyndall Park School

My ITLL Reflection, Cluster 1871, Tyndall Park School

I am hugely grateful for the opportunity to take part in the Innovator’s Mindset workshops over the course of this year. I appreciate the change to invest in my own learning, and, as a new teacher, I feel that I am being invested in.

One idea that most resonated with me while reading The Innovator’s Mindset was that of the growth mindset vs fixed mindset. I believe that this attitude, when adopted by student’s and staff, has the greatest leverage in supporting other positive behaviours. Those who think with this lens are more likely to exercise the grit and perseverance when any challenges show up.

“What gets measured gets managed” – Peter Drucker

As we explore the use of the technology throughout this learning experience, I am interested in how we use it to enhance assessment. This year, Tyndall Park school has introduced the program Manga High (mangahigh.com), an online educational tool, in our grade 3 and 4 math program. I find it most helpful that through this program provides detailed feedback on each student every class. Without having to create an assessment, I can search the program to see how the students are doing with each module. This is so valuable as it gives us the ability to track student progress at a whole new level. I feel I am more effective in planning lessons as a result.

My one concern I have with my relationship with technology is that I often am quick to use tools without any idea of the outcome I want to achieve. George’s diagram in the The Innovators Mindset that showed the good and better reasons to use technology illustrated this point well. Being the millennial I am, I find myself incorporating new tools, apps, and technologies into my life, even when its not necessary.

Looking forward to continuing our ITLL sessions!

Josh Winestock
Music/Math Support
Tyndall Park School

Innovation

I must be honest, I was apprehensive when George Couros encouraged us all—primary teachers and up, to use Twitter. I myself did not have a Twitter account, nor did I think that it would be an appropriate tool to use in my classroom. I was mistaken. I have always been keen to use technology in my Grade 1 classroom, and have used various forms of it throughout my career—from creating digital portfolios, claymation, movies, readers theatre, interactive games, etc… however, I had never thought about getting my students to Tweet. After our Innovative Teaching day, I left feeling refreshed and eager to try something new. I have started to talk with my students and their families about what Tweeting would look like in our class and have received positive feedback, thoughts, and ideas from them. I hope to partner with an older grade to get us started (probably more for me than my kiddies!) and will progressively build on that.
​A colleague and I were also inspired by a video that we saw at the PD and have spoken about creating a similar type of video with our own students, teaming grade 1s with grade 5/6s.
​In my classroom, we are currently working on a cultural identity project which has my students connecting with family here and in the Philippines and India. We are using our families as references and translators to create a multi-lingual book to help us and others recognize and be proud/positive about who we are, our identity, language, and culture. Students have used digital cameras, email, videos, journals, and multimedia to help us build and create this on-going project.
​Now, I am still new to Twitter and have to remind myself to use it, and when I do use it I spend way more time than I really should thinking about what and how to say something, but I am no longer weary of it and can see what the advantages are to using it.

Amanda Borton

Grade 1 Teacher

Tyndall Park Community School

 

Focus

I am glad to see that so many educators had the same feelings about our day with George Couros. I had no idea what to expect on our first session. Twitter? Google Docs? Storify? All of these were new to me.
I was a computer/LWICT facilitator for 20 years and was comfortable integrating technology with all areas of curricula. Word processing, morphing, audio recording, animation, green screening, video editing and more, were used to show student understanding. I collaborated with teachers to plan “computer” projects. Students would come to the lab, complete their projects (hopefully), and move on. Now, after 20 years, my role has changed. I am a grade 5/6 classroom teacher and am loving having my own students to work with!
I have seen many changes with technology over the years and all have been innovative. Our first session with George was about Twitter and using it with our students. What? Social Media in the classroom? How can that be? Sites that were previously locked and blocked? Wow!
I teach my students about their digital footprint by creating Twitter posts that are displayed on our bulletin board outside the room, create “Fakebook” pages and video our Book Talks. All of these are contained within our school, but now students may share their work with the world through Twitter.
I came out of that session with many ideas. So many that I became frustrated with myself about where to start, and getting nowhere fast. Focus girl!
I made a personal and classroom Twitter account but have not made any tweets. I get inspired by all the creative things I see educators doing with their students. Focus girl and make that tweet! I introduced my class to Learn 360 to collaborate on an informational article. I also created a survey in Google Forms and bit.do for our grade 6 students to answer questions about ideas for their Farewell. The outcome was fantastic! I showed the students the site and they went with it. I still have many ideas but it is a start. I just need to focus!
Wendy Groot
Tyndall Park School
Cluster 1871
Participant