Article on myself and Selwyn House in Ludomag

I had the chance of being interviewed by Ninon Louise Lepage for Ludomag, a french education online magazine. Here is a link to the interview: http://www.ludovia.com/2016/01/jean-pierre-trest-votre-reve/

January 2016 Tech Tips

Here is your January 2016 Tech Tip

Historypins - Look up locations to see pieces of history, or take a historical tour of well know landmarks in time. Built with Google Maps as a back end, this simple navigation can show you images from the past layered on top of recent street views. http://www.historypin.org/en/

New-York Public Library Digital Collection of 672,186 items is free for everyone to use http://digitalcollections.nypl.org

Draftback - this cool extension will take any Google Doc and make a video out of all the edits. You can see the process of the building of the document, along with any big copy and paste sections, easily to view the thought process or plagiarism, its also a cool effect. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/draftback/nnajoiemfpldioamchanognpjmocgkbg 

Coggle - an online collaborative mind map tool, sort of like a shared inspiration. login using your Google account and to work collaboratively and keep track of who does what, have your students keep a specific color for the items they contribute. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/coggle-free-collaborative/hbcapocoafbfccjgdgammadkndakcfoi?hl=en-GB 

http://www.timer-tab.com/ - A Cool and simple Timer, Alarm and Stop watch, you can also under the setting gear, add a Youtube video to launch when the timer hits 0, I like the Final Countdown by Europe.

Opinion Casts - An iPad & iphone app that allows you to record, edit and publish podcasts with ease. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opinion-podcasts-record-edit/id926260308?mt=8 

In honor of David Bowie, he is an cappella version of Under Pressure with another legend Freddie Mercury https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMQb9LCNGxs 

December 2015 Tech tips

Here is a few more tech tips to try for the holidays.

1.Google Docs Voice Typing feature located under Tools, can now work in 40 languages, try it out.

2. I was connected to Billy Corcoran @MisterCMaine by Beth Holland @brholland and he is a great teacher of a grade 3 class who has embraced ed tech as well as learning spaces and experiential learning.

Here is a great project he did that helps the community, uses technology and even a Wood workshop with cross curricular work with older students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-69w6LC3y0s&index=1&list=PL7Kkhrn4tsETEjABM4ZT8YhTAINupRE8I 

Web site created by students 

 http://millikenmillstrails.weebly.com/ 

Teachers web site

 http://www.mistercmaine.org/ 

Class Site

 http://mistercloranger.weebly.com/ 

3. Code.org and hour of code with Star Wars https://code.org/ could be a great activity for students or even adults if you want to try coding.

4. Google Apps for Education training Handbook

 https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/pdf/guide/professional-development-handbook.pdf

Everything you ever wanted to know about Google Training, products, certifications, community...

5. Ninite.com Ninite allows you to download a whole bunch of popular apps at once and keep them updated.

6. Ed Tech Teacher has released Vol 2 of their Awesome Activities for the classroom series of ebooks, you can get both after signing up http://edtechteacher.org/awesome/

7. We all know that modifications, adaptations, and accommodations useful to reach different students, but different subjects have different techniques, here is a collection of ideas on how to differentiate your teaching style to reach more students.

http://archive.brookespublishing.com/content/blog/modifications-and-supports.pdf

November 2015 Tech Tip

November 2015 Tech Tips

Go Formative - www.goformative.com Free live quiz app that is web based and can be used on any device and its FREE. You can build your quizzes, distribute them and see them filled out live. You students also don’t need to sign up so it's super easy to implement.

Intro Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cu8F6gMshg

EdPuzzle -https://edpuzzle.com/  Similiar to Go Formative you can have a video lesson and layer your voice on top and ask questions at certain intervals. You also get great reporting tools. Your students need to create accounts and you need to build classes so setup takes more time but this tool is very interactive and great in a flipped classroom environment.

Google Chrome Extension - Permanent Clipboard http://bit.ly/1KBVv2m

Create a list of clipboard items, that you can right-click and choose from, quickly writing sentences without having to type them out. Great for Commenting in Google Apps Documents.

Book Creator - New Update Comic Book Stips - Book Creator on the iPad has just gotten a nice update, you can now build comic books and add stickers. Here is an intro video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxm_sW0PBkk

This is a tutorial on how to animate your comic books with explain everything and then add sound effects in iMovie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HCSIABQNp4 credits go to the Book Creator Team for making the tutorial videos

September 2015 Tech Tips

Hi Everyone,

I know I have not posted in a while but with the start of the new school year, I am sure I will have loads of  amazing tips and tricks that can help you in your classroom.


Book'In A free program to organize your book collection and track who has what

http://www.2025exmachina.net Online Interactive Game that is available in both in English and French on Digital Citizenship and the dangers of online and Social Media

Pixar in a Box A collaboration with Pixar and Khan Acamedy to show all of the jobs and steps that go into making a Pixar Film


https://plickers.com/ Cool way to poll and ask questions to your students with an iPad or iPhone


https://www.thatquiz.org/ A free collection of quizzes, mainly on math but on many other subjects.

ISTE 2015 Review

This was my first time going to ISTE and let me tell you its CRAZY.

Not only do they have loads of sessions, keynotes ,poster sessions, hand-ons sessions,etc... but they also have the Expo, 500 exhibitors with 4500 industry reps. My only complaint would be thats its too big, and the distances to go from one session to the poster session to the show floor is quite a marathon, I averaged 20 000 steps a day. Oh and this conference is not 8 to 4 but rather 6am to 10 or even 11 if you want it to be. 

My days would start with a 6am CoffeeEdu(a 1 hour meetup for coffee organized in a sort of Edcamp model) hosted by @alicekeeler (who just released a book 50 things you can do with Google Classroom). 

Then I would end up in the Bloggers Cafe, imagine the best resource people from twitter in EdTech all in one place, that you can talk to or exchange ideas. Then you could go to the keynote, sessions, poster sessions, etc... you get the idea. After the conference, vendors or groups organize gatherings, etc... until you go to bed and start again the next day for 4 days.

I got to present on QR codes and Aurasma, and while in the room their were only about a dozen people, but I was live streaming to 147 people, just to show how connected this conference was, their was a online version for many of the sessions.

The amount of content I saw was quite massive so I separated it into two sections, an overview of what I thought was cool and a list of resources. I will also list names of people I met that you may want to follow on twitter.

I had the chance also to visit parts of the String Theory School in Philadelphia http://stringtheoryschools.wix.com/ppacs-vine really impressive setup and vision. The School was hosting a gathering of EdCamp organizers from around the country as well as the founder of the movement.

Just wanted to give a shoutout to Google and the Ed Tech Team and AmplifiIT, they seemed to be everywhere delivering great content and having great discussions.

ISTE 2016 is set for July next year in Denver, and I highly recommend going to see how huge it is, at that conference I was also recommended a few others iPadpalooza and Miami Device, so be sure to check these out.

Resources : All of this content was not created by myself, and I would just like to acknowledge all of the great presenters from the conference.

First off the annual Horizon Report K-12 was released and outlines a timeframe for what is coming in EdTech http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf 

Arizona Technology Integration Matrix or TIM, is a collection of lesson plans that can help integrate technology from beginners to experts and on multiple levels. http://www.azk12.org/tim/

Think Before You Link - a full courseware on digital citizenship developed by Intel and Discovery http://www.thinkbeforeyoulinkinschool.com/students

Tinkering, Making & Learning https://tackk.com/u1prv3

A nice intro to the maker movement which is the big topic this year at ISTE

continuing on the same subject https://sites.google.com/a/pgcps.org/arts-integration-and-technology/iste15 a collection of projects 

App Smashing with iPads, this is a breakdown that explains app smashing and a few simple examples https://www.smore.com/gbepx-smashing-apps-for-app-smashing

Badging which is a form of Gamification is getting really popular this site allows you to start using badges and setup your own http://openbadges.org if you want to earn badges for technical prowess or http://classbadges.com if you want to integrate it into your class.

A collections of lists of Apps built by teachers http://www.appitic.com

Futureme.org
If you want to send yourself a email but only at a future date, you can use this for reminders but its purpose is too reflect and then receive your thoughts from a month or even a year ago. Its good for reflection and remember what you were thinking in the past and how that view may or may not have changed. 

Specific Products that you should check out

Plickers, need to poll students electronically quickly and easily without having a computer or tablet, use Plickers, its free and easy to use https://plickers.com

Mindmup is an online mindmap tool that allows multiple students to edit at the same time online 

https://www.mindmup.com/

Crayola Stylus pens, pretty cool http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QFTKLQI/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_kLyEvb1HJPHWH

Shadow Puppet Edu - Easily create videos to tell stories, explain ideas, document ideas,etc... https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/shadow-puppet-edu/id888504640?mt=8

Seesaw - Online journal for students, that is managed by teachers but also viewable by parents 

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/seesaw-the-learning-journal/id930565184?mt=8

Chromville - Print out drawings scan them and have your drawings come alive, really cool for young kids and art. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chromville/id748017957?mt=8

Photosphere - Google 360 spheres http://www.google.ca/maps/about/contribute/photosphere/

Classkick - A Free app / service that allows you give students instant feedback, allow them to help each other and monitor their work. You can convert your paper work into electronic work very easily http://www.classkick.com/#home

Google Lit Trips, use google maps to follow the adventure of your novels http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Home.html

Kaizena - Feedback platform for Google Drive, you need an account - track skills or rubric criteria, voice comments, etc..

https://kaizena.com/

Code Combat - a medieval game to learn how to code

http://codecombat.com/play

Earth, get a 3D reprensentation of earth, tempeture, water and air currents,etc... Click on the word Earth for the menu options

http://earth.nullschool.net
on a related note, Google Sky http://www.google.ca/sky/ a look at loads of space objects

Presentation - QR Codes and Aurasma

I just wanted to do a quick post for my presentation on QR Codes and Aurasma.  Here are my slides and here is the link to a detailed explanation of the "Dragons" project.

Slides:
http://bit.ly/1RS5lS2

"Dragons":
http://jpedtech.blogspot.ca/2014/05/augmented-reality-project-dragons.html