J.P. Prezzavento - The Bits and Bytes of Education:

In case you haven't heard, this week the good folks over at YouTube released a new mobile app called YouTube Kids. YouTube Kids takes advantage of Google's voice activated search tool, OK Google in conjunction with traditional keyboard searching to help younger YouTube viewers find age-appropriate videos with a very kid-friendly user-interface. I donwloaded YouTube Kids app on "my iPad" (I use the phrase my iPad very loosely since my daughter uses it more than I do) right after its release to give it a try. . The first time my two-and-a-half year old Giuliana used YouTube Kids she wasn't very interested in it.  She noticed that she it had less content to view compared to YouTube. In order to try to get her more interested in the app,  I showed Giuliana how she can utilize the "OK Google" voice search to find the videos about the characters she wants to see. After a few demonstration and countless times running around the house yelling "OK Go...

Kaizena (Voice Comments) is a Google Drive application that allows teachers to leave audio feedback on their students' Google Documents.  Kaizena is a great tool for helping teachers to maximize the time they spend leaving feedback for students.  The video and PDF below demonstrates how to use Kaizena.

This school year I embarked upon a new journey in my teaching career:  serving as a cooperating teacher to two of my department's three student teachers.  At first I was reluctant to take on student teachers because I wasn't sure if I was cut out for job of helping two pre-service teachers in what will be one of their final preparations before they get their own classrooms.  However, after a colleague and close friend reminded me serving as a cooperating teacher is one of the most valuable forms of professional development , I realized that this was an amazing opportunity for me not only to offer PD to the students assigned to me, but also this would be an opportunity for me to grow as a professional. Throughout the semester I have or will do the following activities with my student teachers: I introduced the student teachers to everyone they need to know in the building including principals, secretaries, department chairs, and custodians. I created a structured ...

This week I have the opportunity to give a brief presentation to my school district's teacher technology team on tech tools to make teachers' lives easier. I am excited for the opportunity to speak to a new audience.  My presentation is below.  Please use the comments section to share some of your favorite tech tools.

For the past two years, I have maintained Facebook pages for both my Language Arts 1 and Language Arts 2 classes.  While I don't have 100% participation from my student and parents, the students and parents who do use the pages have found them to be very useful communication tools.  Like any tool, it took some experimenting for me to make the most of my page, but once I got familiar with the some of the features of Facebook Pages, my class pages have become very beneficial to me as a classroom teacher. Here are my 5 best practices for maintaining a classroom Facebook. 1.  Fan Polls One of my favorite features of Facebook Pages is the polling options.  I like using polls to get feedback on activities and to let students vote for future projects.  Not only does this let me get student opinions and feedback, but also it increases traffic to my Facebook page and gives students an opportunity to be engaged with the page. To use the poll feature on F...

Every time I attend a tech conference I always attend a session or two during which the presenter shares his or her favorite tech tools.  As I have been reflecting on #METC13 , I have been thinking about my favorite tools, the ones that make my life as a teacher so much easier.  Here is my list of 5 tech tools to increase teacher productivity. 1.   Dropbox Dropbox is great for me because I am forgetful.  I have forgotten my flash drive in my pants pocket, in my car, in my desk, at home, at Starbucks, well, everywhere.  My trusty flash drive walked out of my life for good at the beginning of last school year.  At that point, I was forced to find a new way to take files from home to work.  Then I met Dropbox.  Dropbox looks and works just like a file folder on a Windows PC.  However, when you save a file to Dropbox it syncs to every device on which you have Dropbox installed. Dropbox gives users 2GB of free storage, but  users can am...

One of my favorite type of activities to do with students in my 9th and 10th grade language arts classes is to incorproate social media into lessons.  I like to have students make Facebook pages for characters in stories, create Twitter feeds for characters and write blog posts that allow them to compare issues in a text with issues that are faced in our society today.  While this all sounds great in practice, I quickly learned that making my dream of seamless socian media integreation  into a reality was a little harder than I thought it would be. To combat the lack of technology and firewall issues that  have stopped me from incorporating Twitter, Facebook and blogging into my classes, I have come up with low-tech paper-and-pencil replacements.  Below are three sample low-tech activities I do with my students in place of their web-based counterparts.  Click on the name of each project to view the handout for each project. R+J 140 http://goo.gl/Q...

After attending my first edcamp in Kansas City, MO about a year and a half ago, I immediately began to see how the edcamp model could be applied to PD on a building level.  As I prepare for EdcampSTL on February 9th, I have started to think about what I have learned about PD from attending both EdcampKC and EdcampSTL. 1.  Everyone is an expert. The great thing about attending an edcamp is that discussions can be started by anyone in attendance.  I have been a part of professional discussions led by brand new teachers and other sessions led by veteran superintendents who have been in education longer than I have been alive.  The common bond all of those sessions and "presenters" have shared is that they are there to learn just like everyone else. No matter what one's area of expertise, experience level, or passion, there is room for everyone to facilitate a session at an edcamp. Don't look too far when you need presenters for building or district-le...

Last night I locked myself in the guest bedroom to wrap my wife's Christmas presents.  I didn't think this would be a difficult task since I have been wrapping presents for many years.  I wrapped her "main" present easily; it was a standard box shape, so I didn't have to put much thought or effort into it.  Her second, smaller gift was slightly more complicated, so I had to think about how I was going to wrap the present before I started, but in the end I used the same basic method I did for the box.  When it came to her third gift, one of those travel cups that has a built-in straw (sorry for the spoiler alert, Kim), I decided to use the same process that I did for the other two gifts, but low and behold, I wasn't successful...at all.  I tried to wrap it several times before I had the stroke of genius to use the gift bag you see to the right. After I put her gift in the bag and admired my handiwork (or lack thereof), I started thinking about some of my cu...

http://goo.gl/t6QgJ This past spring, I prepared my first group of students for the Missouri End of Course exam, and I have a confession to make:  I taught to the test.  That's right, I did it.  I was that teacher that all the good teachers complain about.  Now that testing season is over and I've had the summer to reflect on my last school year, I feel like I'm on a perpetual walk of shame.  Did I let my students down by focusing too much on test preparation and not enough on what really matters  in education?  Was I focused too much on the big picture and not enough on the little things that make up a school day?  Of course none of these thoughts crossed my mind while I was worried about 3s and 4s, but the day after my testing sessions ended, something amazing happened... My first child, Giuliana, was born April 26th, the day after my students finished testing.  The birth of my first child has helped to  put a lot into per...

Does the talk of professional development in your building make teachers cringe and hope to plan their next root canal on a PD day?  Professional development doesn't have to be painful or boring for teachers.  Under the guidance of a forward-thinking principal, @MrGrimshaw , and with the help of an awesome present and past PD rep, @thompson_SHS and @justintarte , respectively, at Seckman High School , we have been able to add fun and interactivity  to our PD days. Now teachers are getting more out of professional development and more teachers are getting involved with PD.  Here are 5 strategies we have used to increase teacher engagement and enjoyment of our professional development days. 1.  Make sure each activity is part of your PD plan. The first step to a successful PD day is to have a long-range professional development plan.  Scheduling random sessions with no rhyme or reason to them will leave teachers unsure of what to expect on professional d...

For a few months, my wife Kim and I have been discussing adopting a dog.  After a lot of careful thought and reflection we decided to adopt Molly a 3 year old puggle.  Between the time we decided to adopt Molly and when we brought her home, I did a lot of reading about how to welcome a new dog into our home.  While reading information from the web and talking to employees at the Open Door Animal Sanctuary I realized that bringing Molly home for the first time wouldn't be all that different from starting the school year with a new group of students. Here are five ways that adopting Molly has helped me prepare for the upcoming school year...and vice versa: 1.  Each day will not go as planned.  After we got home from the animal shelter, we decided to take Molly for a walk.  We tried to put her new harness on her, but no matter how hard we tried, Molly wouldn't put on her harness.  After about 20 minutes of trying to put on her harness and...