October Reading List

From Twitter to Instagram to Bloglovin' and all the email blasts I subscribe to, I get a lot of resources in my inbox on a daily basis! Here are some of my favorites to start the month of October:

Back to School with Google Chrome: The Complete Guide

Thanks to Shake Up Learning for putting this resource together about my one and only browser: Google Chrome!

Richard Byrne from Free Tech for Teachers just blogged about Google Keep is a new app that lets you take your to-do lists on the go AND allows to you to have collaborative to-do lists! I just downloaded the app and am excited to start using it more, for personal and professional uses. I'll do a blog post once I get to play with it more and share what I learn!

Julie from The Techie Teacher wrote a few guest blog posts last month that she highlighted, including 5 Reasons to Love the iPad Camera and Learning to Program with MaKey MaKey in Elementary School. 

October is also Connected Educator's Month and Bullying Prevention Month!

Check out the Connected Educators website for resources to staying connected with other educators all month long - you know I am :-)

And how cute is this Kindness Bingo from Edutopia?! Perfect for spreading kindness during Bullying Prevention Month!

What are you reading lately? Share in the comments below!

Google Tone

Last week at the NICE Share-O-Rama, I learned about a Chrome Extension called Google Tone. This one is a life changer my friends!!

As a tech teacher, I often have limited time with students, and need to get them links and resources quickly. Especially for my younger kiddos, typing in a URL can take several minutes. Enter Google Tone!!

So here's how it works in my tech lab:

1) I installed Google Tone on Chrome on my laptop and on Chrome on all the laptops in my lab. {I made sure there was no one signed into Chrome when I installed on the laptops.}

2) I go to a URL on my computer I want the students to get.

3) Press the Google Tone icon.

4) Students get a popup message that looks like this:

5) Students click on the message and are taken to the website.

BOOM! Done!! 

I just tried it with a class of first graders and it was <<SO fast and easy>>. And when things are easy, its a beautiful feeling :-)