PPS Instructional Technology

This tip goes out to all my elementary friends out there!  In our never ending quest to find "good fit" reading material for our students, we are always looking for new resources to engage our kids.  Many of you have already explored  Epic Books  with your students.  Even though physical books are still my favorite go to for reading,  Epic  is another resource to give your students a chance to read a wide range of books on their chromebooks and expand your classroom library.   NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC New this school year,  Epic  just announced that they have added over  400 National Geographic Kids books and Videos !  Great for supplementing our Non-fiction reading! VIDEOS Also, as I was digging around in Epic, I noticed that they also have some great short videos for getting our kids hooked into the learning target for the day.  For example, I really like this one on  Plot  for when we are teaching...

View Post as a Google Doc Okay, so, you're using YouTube videos in your classroom and you’re wishing for a couple features… I wish there was a way to remove all the suggested videos and other distractions so my students could concentrate. I wish my students could watch a couple of videos in sequence in a self-paced manner. I wish I could show just a portion of a video, starting at one point and stopping at another. Wishes answered! Solution #1 Here are a couple of solutions for this first wish. Visit our tech tip on YouTube: A Gift and a Curse , and scroll down to option number two. Or...Embed your YouTube video into a Google Slide from the menu, Insert > Video. Yep, that’s right! Put your YouTube, or Google Drive Video, into a Google Slide and the only distraction in the room will be that one bee that gets in the classroom that causes students to run and scream. Aahhh! And, embedding your video in Google Slides leads us to… Solution #2 Th...

Having students create videos and podcasts is a great way for them to demonstrate their understanding of a concept. Unfortunately, finding music tracks for these types of class projects can be tricky because you need to use songs that are not subject to some form of copyright. This becomes an even bigger problem if you want to share your project online, and it gets taken down by YouTube for copyright infringements. To help with this issue,  YouTube have just released a library of tunes that you can download freely and use in your multimedia projects. There are over 100 songs and melodies to start with from different genres and styles. You can access the library at www.youtube.com/audiolibrary This great tip was found at:  http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2013/09/youtube-launches-library-free-use-music/

Happy Friday All! Today's tech tip brings you a fantastic resource for spicing up your curriculum and engaging students in your content.   PBS Learning Media  has some wonderful videos that are short and on topic.  There extensive library of PBS videos can be narrowed down by grade level, subject, standard, or collection.  The best part about it?  You get quality PBS programming in bite sized chunks for FREE! Are you a middle school math teacher looking for an engaging way to connect with your students on the concept of integers?  Check out this video: Elementary school teacher looking for a way for your students to practice inferring and predicting?  Check out the Detectives Notebook Game . There are thousands of resources just waiting for you to explore.  These great games and videos are sure to help make a lesson go from bland to brilliant! Enjoy!

All too often our tweens and teens do not realize how easy it is for someone to find out about them online.  They think because they only share things with their facebook "friends" or use apps like SnapChat that supposedly delete photos after only a few seconds they are safe and aren't leaving a digital footprint behind.  This great video from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America really helps to illustrate how easy it is to find out a wealth of information about others in just 6 simple clicks.

Sometimes you want to embed a YouTube video directly into your PowerPoint instead of having to leave the presentation to view the video.  This can be a challenge, but here are the steps to make it happen. Like with 2003 you do have to edit parts of the code...here is what you need to do: Step 1 : Go to YouTube and click on Share, then Embed.  Make sure you check the box that says, "Use Old Embed Code" Step 2 : Copy the code Step 3 : Open your powerpoint.  Go to Insert.  Click on Video, then Video from Website. Step 4 : Paste the embed code in the box. Step 5 : In the code: find where it says "//www.youtube.com... and change it to "http://www.youtube.com...  You will need to do this twice. Step 6 : In the code: find where it says version=3... and change it to version=2.  You will have to do this twice as well. Step 7 : Click Insert. Now your video should play inside your PowerPoint.