'Remind' Rocks!

I want to tell you today about a tool I recently saw a presentation on that I think EVERY teacher should use. It's called 'Remind'... now I had heard of it a few times over the past couple years (it was formerly called Remind 101) but it wasn't until recently that I saw it in action when one of our district's best 4th grade teachers, Derek Burgette, demonstrated it at one of our Technology Talks. I was blown away with how simple yet powerful it is.

In this 5-minute video, I'm going to cover the following things:

• Why you want need Remind as a teacher, principal, etc.
• Setting up an account on Remind (www.remind.com)
• How simple it is to have parents/students sign up
• Basic navigation of the site
• Ways you might use Remind

I hope you enjoy the video. Please leave a comment if you have a question or want to share other ways you've used Remind.

save a tree... go paperless! (or at least close to it)

For my first official 54tech post, I'd like to show you how you can take steps to becoming paperless. You'll see how simple it is to share a document with your class or another group of people using QR codes and/or a URL shortener. In this 5 minute video I'll walk you through the following steps:

• creating your document
• sharing your document so everyone can see it
• creating a QR code using qrstuff.com
• creating a short URL using bitly.com
• easy distribution for all-access

This video moves through the process pretty quickly, but feel free to pause it along the way so you can follow along and do it yourself!

I hope you found this video helpful. You can leave a comment below if you have any ideas, questions, or would like to see me cover something else next time. I'd love to hear from you! My goal is to do a new post at least once a week so check back soon. 

Thanks for stopping by and taking FIVE FOR TECH!

It's About Time...

...It's about time I started a blog. My wife blogs. I've blogged before. Coached golf- had a blog for my team. Taught 2nd grade-had a blog for my class. Taught 4th grade- had a blog for my class. We have a family blog that chronicles our journey through adoption and the lives of our four precious girls... But it's about time. About time I started a blog centered around the two things I spend the majority of my time with: Technology and Education. It's my job after all as an Elementary Technology Coordinator to help teachers in FWCS integrate those two enormous entities. So it's about time I started this blog.

A little background on me: I spent 8 years in the elementary classroom before taking the role that I am in now. I got into teaching because I love children and I love watching them learn new things. I also have had a strong interest in technology since I was a little kid. I'm pretty sure I got that from my dad. When this position became available, I couldn't have been more excited. My dream job! I might be a geek, but this job combined so many of my interests and gifts...

Here I am now, a couple years later, sitting in my office (cubicle) on a quiet Thursday afternoon. I think we hit another record low today. Yuck! I really do love my job, but in all honesty, I do miss the classroom. I miss interacting with the students. I miss seeing the joy on faces as they learn something new. Over the past couple years, I've learned so many new things about how to incorporate technology into education. I wish I would have had these tools and this knowledge back when I taught! But now my role is different, my role is to HELP TEACHERS realize the potentially AMAZING things they can do with technology. My hope is that this blog will serve as another way to help get that message out.

The title for this post is two-fold... It's also "about time" because your time as a teacher is limited. I get it- You're busy. We're all busy... you don't have the time to sift through the WWW to find a couple nuggets that you might use-let alone the time it will take to learn how to make it work. Well, that's where I come in. I want this blog to be your nuggets! I want to provide you with the coolest ideas, apps, web tools, etc. that are out there and do it in a format that is quick and easy.

The name of this blog is 54tech as in taking 5 minutes for Technology... because that's all it takes. In just 5 minutes you can learn something new and then use your incredible TEACHER BRAIN to figure out how you'll incorporate it in your classroom. I hope this blog also becomes a forum for others to share ideas or ask questions so that we can all learn from each other. I'll be doing lots of short tutorials, screencasts, and hands-on demonstrations to make learning something new as easy on you as possible.

Thanks for stopping by 54tech. Please be sure to subscribe so that you can be notified whenever there is a new post!