Personalized Mother's Day Gift and Freebie

The best Mother's Day gifts are those that are created by kids for their moms.  I absolutely love this idea merging creativity, writing, and technology.  

By using VocabularySpellingCity, your students can create fun puzzles and word games as gifts for their moms! Students can enter word lists right from VocabularySpellingCity's homepage, then print a custom Mom-themed Word Search (Free) or Crossword Puzzle (Premium). 

Better yet, VocabularySpellingCity is running a promotion from May 1-12 in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week next week.  They are offering non-Premium Member teachers a free 30-day trial!  Check out the banner on their homepage. The offer code is "teachersrock".   This way, you can print their crosswords for free.  

Happy Mother's Day!

~Cara

Dropbox: Say Goodbye to Jump Drives

If you are like me, you have problems keeping up with your jump drive. My biggest fear was always, "What if I lose it forever?" My life stayed on my jump drive until I discovered Dropbox. I have used Dropbox for over two years. Since then, I have never used a jump drive again. 


Dropbox is an online storage program. Everything is stored online, so you will never lose anything! I store class files, personal pictures and videos, important documents, etc. into my Dropbox. Dropbox holds all file types. You can access Dropbox from multiple computers and your iPad. You can even share folders with friends and colleagues. Your students can upload files into a shared Dropbox folder. There is a paid version of Dropbox, but I have never upgraded. You start with 2GB of free space, and there are multiple ways to upgrade that space.To get started with Dropbox, simply {click here}. 

~Cara

Insert an Excel Spreadsheet Into Word

While completing a grad school project, I was having a major headache! I was trying to insert an Excel spreadsheet with a lot of data into a word document. Every way I tried (thanks to Google), it came out wrong.  The margins were way off the page.  The spreadsheet only showed the first few rows.  It would insert as a picture and be so small that it couldn't be read.   It came to the point that I thought it was impossible! But, VIOLA!

I want to share with you what I did.  Maybe, it will be of use to you.  

1. Save your Excel spreadsheet as a PDF.  Go to FILE>SAVE AS>under SAVE AS TYPE change to PDF.  Be sure to specify the name and location where you want to save it.
2. Open PDF TO WORD ONLINE CONVERTER.  (I am in no way being compensated for sharing this site.  I simply found it in my struggle, and it is free!)
3. Select CHOOSE FILE.  Find where you saved your PDF, and click to open it.
4. Click CONVERT.  That's it! You will have to wait a few minutes depending on the size of your file, but it will open the file into a new word document.  You margins are perfect.  All the information is there.
5. You can keep it as its own document, or choose to copy and paste it into another document.  This is what I did.  To do this:
1. Highlight all the text in your newly converted document.  Press CTRL-C on your keyboard at the same time.  You don't have to hold them down.
2. Open the document you want to insert the table into, and press CTRL-V to paste it into this document.  

There you go! Simple and headache free!

~Cara

How to Read a Tweet

Twitter is a fantastic way to connect with others across the world.  As an educator, you will learn so much through your PLN (professional learning network).  The main reason many shy away from Twitter is that they just don't understand how to read a Tweet.  I am going to try to simplify that for you now.

The maximum limit for a Tweet is only 140 characters.  This includes all characters and spaces.  It is acceptable to use slang and abbreviations in your Tweets.

Followers are those who follow you and read your Tweets.  The only ones who see your Tweets are your followers unless you have been retweeted or searched.

Those following you will see all of your Tweets in their Twitter stream (the list showing all the Tweets).

# means hashtag. The hashtag is the subject of your Tweet.  You can include a hashtag to make your Tweets easier to search by others.  Here is a great list of educational hashtags by Cybraryman.

@ means a specific person. If you are talking to that person, the @ is at the beginning. If you are talking about that person, the @ is located in the Tweet.

RT means retweet. You are simply repeating what someone says.

MT means modified Tweet. If you want to use only part of a person’s Tweets, you included MT.

My Twitter handle (username) is @WhiteheadsClass. I would love to have you as a follower. 

~Cara

Alabama National Board Certified Teachers Network Hill Day

 

AL NBCTs, mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 17, 2013. We are holding a Hill Day to meet with our state's legislatures to inform them on what it means to be an NBCT and how it affects Alabama's students. We also want to thank them for our stipends. If you are interested in meeting with us in Montgomery on that day, please email alnbctnetwork@gmail.com.  More information will be provided as the time nears.

~Cara

Prepare Your Students for Standardized Testing With VocabularySpellingCity

   

Having trouble viewing our newsletter? View it online. Get Students Ready for Test Day! February 2013 Standardized testing season is nearly upon us. Use VocabularySpellingCity to prepare students for writing mechanics, vocabulary, and word study! WRITING PRACTICE Premium Members have access to writing practice activities. State writing assessments often require students to write a particular type of paragraph. Instructions can be customized to help students practice these skills. You can include instructional videos on descriptive paragraphs, narrative paragraphs, topic sentences, supporting details and more. In many states, spelling counts on writing tests, so be sure to have your students practice using our free spelling games! VOCABULARY PRACTICE Premium Members can enter vocabulary lists for their students to practice while playing engaging word games. Word-O-Rama alternates definitions, fill-in-the-blank context-rich sentences, synonyms and antonyms. Vocabulary tests taken by logged-in students on SpellingCity.com are automatically recorded for their teachers. Non-Premium members can have their students practice academic vocabulary including Math Vocabulary and Science Vocabulary. These word lists, available in Teaching Resources, can be used to play all 25 games and activities. WORD STUDY With conventions like spelling and grammar gaining importance in standardized tests, word study is critical to success. Teaching Resources contains lessons, games and specialized word lists on various topics that help students prepare. Create a word list and customize sentences similar to those in our Analogies games to help students practice this skill. Other Teaching Resources pages that help students prepare for standardized tests include Synonyms, Antonyms, Multiple Meaning Words and Homonyms, Homophones and Homographs. John, Mayor of VocabularySpellingCity info@spellingcity.com SpellingCity.com, Inc. 6300 N.E. 1st Ave., Suite 203 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33334 info@spellingcity.com

~Cara

Top Elementary Teacher on Twitter

WOW! What an honor to be selected as a Top Elementary Teacher on Twitter.  I am #32 among some great teachers.  

Twitter is a fantastic way to communicate and collaborate with teachers across the country.  So many of the things that I have learned, shared, and incorporated are because of my networking on Twitter.  If you are not a Twitterer, I suggest you give it a try.  My Twitter handle is @WhiteheadsClass.  Feel free to follow.

~Cara