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Welcome to my first Technology Tuesday post!  Based on your votes, the majority of people wanted to learn how to create a talking avatar!  Before we get started, check out my talking avatar below:

Sometimes explaining technology over the internet can be difficult, so I decided to lay out the directions step by step using pictures!  Let me know if I should go forward with this format for future Technology Tuesday posts! Now, enough talk, lets start having fun with technology!


First things first, visit Voki so you can practice along with the following directions! (Creating a Voki account allows you to create your own avatars for free.  A Voki "Classroom" account gives you accounts for all of your students and costs money.  For now, just create a regular Voki Account.)  
 

I hope you enjoyed my first "Technology Tuesday" post!  I really mean it when I say that Id love to see you Vokis, so be try to post one as a response in the comments! Be sure to vote in my sidebar to pick what I will blog about next week! This post is linked up with the following Linky Party!

I just love all of the silly things my kids say!

<div align="center"><a href="http://blogspot.com/" title="What Did They Say!?"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OIhmtxluCS0/ULwEfazkl1I/AAAAAAAADpM/MMMzxm23B0Y/s320/What+Did+They+Say+Wednesday.png" alt="What Did They Say!?" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

My class is heading out on a field trip next week, and it reminds me about a funny story from last year!


They watch way too much TV!


Rules for the Linky Party:

1. Share a story that one of your kids said on your blog!  If you dont have a blog, leave a comment with your story!
2. Use the HTML code at the top of this post to link back to the post!
3. Comment on the two blog posts before yours!

);

I recently realized that its been a while since I posted a tutorial on how to make a specific product, so it was no surprise to me that this was a winner on the poll!  So, here it is... how to make a one page folding book!


This took more than half (and nearly 3/4) of the votes on the poll... wow!

Now for the tutorial:








For next weeks poll, Im actually going to gear towards middle/high school students and teachers, as well as even college students by adding the option "How to easily make a bibliography (MLA -or- APA)."  I hope I can blog about this option before teachers start year end research projects with their students!!!!

PS: This was a request from my "Technology Tuesday" request form.  I read it over every week and try to pick from those options for upcoming tutorials, so be sure to leave me a note if theres anything you want to learn how to do!!!

Do you know those ideas that evolve from a passing thought? This is one of them!

My principal got us us poly spots to do some exercise and movement in the classroom, and I used them occasionally, but not too often. One day at a staff meeting, my principal asked how we could use poly spots to teach across the curriculum.


Off the top of my head, I could think of a few ideas for math but ELA?!  It took a bit of thinking but heres what I came up with!

I print our current sight words on index cards in all different colors, and I print enough so that each child has five cards.  It ends up for a lot of cards!  I only print one set for each month so Im not printing them too often!



When I do the lesson, I give each student a poly spot and five cards (the cards are stored with 5 cards together of the same color together for time/organization purposes).  I make sure that each student has five cards in a different color than their partner.


I have the students hide their five cards under their poly spot and put some music on the smartboard in Smart Notebook.  I link each speaker with a different upbeat, kid-friendly song and let the kids pick which song they want to play.  The kids love the bright speakers!



Anyway, back to the game.  Each child has their five cards under their poly spots and when the music starts, the kids dance around!  When the music stops, they have to stop dancing and pull a word out from under their poly spot.  I play two different variations of this game:

1. Reading - Show your partner the word you picked and have them read it.
2. Spelling - Read your card to your partner and have them spell it for you.


Once the partners read/spell the words, they trade cards with their partner and put them at the bottom of their pile.  (This is where it is helpful to have the two different colors... I used to give each pair the same color but they some students kept picking the same two words!  The different colors help students find a new word quicker and helps keep some variation with the words!)


At the end of the game, I collect the cards in groups of five to store for next time.  The kids absolutely love playing this game and ask to play it all the time!

My favorite part of this game (aside from the music, dancing, and excitement!) is its versatility.  A 3rd grade teacher at my school had the kids write their own word problems on index cards and answer their partners word problems.  You can literally use this for any sort of review... my kids even asked me if we could do this for number order before our math test! 

Come check out some other great sight words ideas at the linky party hosted by April over at Wolfelicious:


Also, be sure to visit the sight word/spelling ideas visit the linky party going on at The Lesson Plan Diva!

Let me know how you could adapt this idea to use with your kids!  Or let me know any other fun ways you use poly spots in your classroom!

Its Tuesday again... which means its time for another technology tutorial!  The winner for this week was how to make an outline of any text!


This option won the poll its first week!


So you know, the tutorial has three parts:

1. Outline of Any Font in Microsoft Word (Mac or PC)
2. Outline of Any Font in Microsoft PowerPoint (PC)
3. Outline of Any Font in Microsoft PowerPoint (Mac)

I hope that makes it a little easier for you to find the option that works best for you!






For next weeks poll, Im going to add how to make any picture into a coloring image.  I really hope this comes up before the holidays!  I think it would be so cute to make a coloring book with pictures of the students and give each student a copy as part of their holiday gift!


This definitely works better with pictures of people rather than little furry dogs... but thats just an example!