So, full moon the week before winter break...oh, what a sense of humor you have Mother Nature!!
I have about eleventy billion things to do besides actually be a full time teacher this week, but I didn't want to let My Truth Monday slip past me. I hope you all enjoyed the ridiculousness I shared last week. I know I'm not alone in my misheard lyric wonderland, which makes me a feel a tiny bit better...

So, in case I didn't embarrass myself enough, here I go again. This week, I thought it would be fun to share a favorite app. It goes without saying that my real favorite apps are Facebook and Instagram. I'd also have to say Kindle, Groupon, Paypal, and when I'm in the zone - MyFitnessPal. I don't play a ton of games on my phone (although there was a time when I counted down the days waiting for the Farmville app! #nerdalert  #formerfarmvillefarmer  #dontjudge) So today I planned on sharing an app that I found out wasn't really an app! It's just a website, so since I make up the rules around these parts, I shall now include websites along with apps for today's My Truth Monday. To further mess up my plans, I found out that the free non-app, website only I wanted to share with you isn't free either! I think at this point most people would turn around and just share something else. But people, my brain is so full with to-do lists, to-buy lists, to-decorate lists, to-bake lists, and try-not-to-freakout-lists, that it was easier for me to just pay and be done with it.

So, the free app I'm sharing today is neither free, nor an app. {Where's the freakin eggnog??}
But in hopes that it will at least bring you a laugh, here it is. Me and some of my best blogging buds dancing our hearts out for you. Now to up the fun factor, I'm throwing a little challenge your way. Leave a comment here correctly naming each blogger in this video AND link up with your own favorite app or website and I'll choose one winner at random to pick any product they'd like from my store!

So, click on the picture below to see my favorite non-free, non-app app. If you're linking up, be sure to grab the button below. If you want to enter the contest, link up AND correctly name each blogger in the video with me! Adios muchachos!

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I'm back from the big ISTE conference! I'm still not sure I've processed everything I've seen. I met some incredible people and I fell in love with the city of San Antonio. It's kind of amazing how many bloggers I met while I was there. I'll be posting more pix from those meet-ups really soon.

I have to start blogging about everything I learned before I forget it all y'all! <---like that little Texas twang I added there? Don't worry, it won't last. And really, I didn't hear it all that much while I was there.

I'm starting with something easy to use and share. It's called FutureMe.org. 

Future Me is a way to send an email to yourself at a pre-determined time in the future. So, I could email myself right now all the things I did and saw in Texas and a year or five years from now I'll get an email from myself in the past!

The concept is cool and all, but how can you use it in your classroom right? Well, I have come up with a few ideas:

In the interest of full disclosure, I can see two potential hang-ups with using the site with early elementary kids. First, they can't type! It's almost painful to watch them hunt and peck to write a simple sentence, let alone compose a lengthly letter to themselves. A parent volunteer might come in handy here. You can have your students write in their writers' notebooks and have a parent, older sibling or student needing service hours type for them at some point.  You can even have the students write their email using any email program to you and you can cut and paste the letters into Future Me for them. Just be sure to have students date the letters so that you can choose an appropriate date to send it to the future.

Secondly, the site isn't specifically designed for children and users can choose for their letters to be displayed randomly on the site as "public but anonymous". Most of those letters are displayed on a separate page though. Any of the above options would help out with that concern.

Despite some of the concerns above, I think the idea is a pretty cool one that can have many educational uses. I emailed them about adding a kid-friendlyversion of the site. Maybe they'll see the potential too!

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Anyone who knows me knows that I loooooves me coffee.  I drink copious amounts of it at home and at school, but getting to actually drink a latte at one of my favorite Starbucks (and yes, I absolutely have my favorites all up and down the state of Florida) is a definite guilty pleasure. I love to sit down in a comfy chair, open my laptop and read blogs or work on projects with the fun little hum of the coffee shop in the background. Most of the time my hubby is there with me or I'm cracking up and making a fool of myself with Gina.

If that sounds good to you, you are going to LOVE this find! It's a website that makes it sound like you're at a coffee shop, when in fact you might be in your classroom after hours or in your living room with a pile of laundry on your pool table reaching epic heights (eek!).

It's called Coffitivity. You just open the site and you're instantly surrounded by the sounds of other people drinking, clinking their plates and chatting in hushed tones! There's some brain research on the site about how their specific blend of sounds aids productivity. I just like it because it sounds like I'm at one of my favorite places! You can even adjust and mix the volume with your own music. Pretty nifty little site for a coffe lovin' computer nerd, such as myself.

Click here to visit the virtual coffe shop. Maybe I'll see you there!

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Three day weekend on tap for this girl! How about you guys? My big plans include lots of coffee and snuggling up with the hubs. It's supposed to get COLD here this weekend. It's going to dip down into the low 40's. My friends, that is headline making news around these parts. I'm not even kidding.

So, when I was at FETC last month I saw some really amazing things that I fully intend to share more about as soon as I play with them enough to know what I'm doing. But there is one thing that just cracked me up that I have to share. If you're the person lots of people come to for help, you'll appreciate this one.

Now don't get me wrong. I love talking to people and helping them learn new things, but lots of times the things that people ask me to help them with could be answered by a simple Google search. Sound familiar to anyone else? If so, then you are going to love this as much as I do. Imagine this scenario, which usually doesn't involve coffee, but you get the idea:

Friend: Hey Denise, can you help me for a second?
Me: Sure, what's up?
Friend: Oh, I was just wondering if you could help me. I know you drink a lot of coffee and stuff.
Me: I sure do. What do you want to know?
Friend: Well, I was just wondering, can you tell me if coffee has caffeine?
Me: Well, check out this link. It's pretty helpful.

Bwhahaha!! Is that a crack up or what? It's seriously called Let Me Google That For You. In their own words, it's for all those people who find it more convenient to bother you with their questions rather than google it themselves.

As funny as I think it is, I'd feel too mean to actually use it with someone who really needs help, but it might be fun to send to a friend. This article on CNET has a little more about it along with some pretty good techy April Fool's Day pranks. It's never too early to start planning a good prank!

In other odds & ends...
You might want to pick up this President's Day Word Work Freebie. Just click on the picture:

And, I finally bundled some things that people have been asking me to for a while, so click {HERE} for the 1st grade Weekly Word Wizard bundle and click {HERE} for the 1st grade Weekly Math Magic bundle. And lots of you will be happy to know (I hope!) that I'm hard at work on a 2nd grade CCSS aligned Weekly Word Wizard set! I'll be offering those in 9 week sets and as bundle to be released all at the same time. It's a lot of work, but I'm obsessed with it. I'm a nerd. I'm ok with it.

There's still time to enter the All You Need is Love Giveaway that lots of my friends are participating in. Visit this post to see the details. My prize is a $25 shopping spree at my tpt store, and there's lots of other goodies up for grabs too.

And in other giveaway news, Ashley P was the winner of the MeCorder giveaway!

Have a great weekend my friends!

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I'm back from the big conference, just in time for the big game! I'm not a big sports girl, but even I kind of dig the fanfare and fun that surrounds the Super Bowl. Am I allowed to say that? I'm afraid after seeing this video <--it's actually pretty funny. I'm trying not to think about Monday which will be my first day back after a week with a sub AND it's the 100th day of school AND I have an EP meeting first thing in the morning. I'm guessing a nap will be in order on Monday afternoon!

The conference was FETC in Orlando. It was amazing! 

That's me in the E, Gina from Beach Sand & Lesson Plans is in the F and our friend Melinea is next to the T.

As I'm reflecting on the bajillion things I saw and heard, I'm realizing that so many of the ideas were rooted in collaboration. Not between teachers, but between students. There are so many interesting tech tools that support students working together with technology in ways that I never even imagined. The Google Story Builder that I shared the other day is one of them. Besides the cool little video I showed you, you can actually have a few students working together in real time to work on a piece of writing together. Check out this page to learn more, it's worth it :)  I've got to plan a lesson using it. My kids would eat it up!

I've got so many other interesting things to share with you, from apps to other tech tips and tricks to new people add to your follow list on Twitter and Edmodo. I'm still trying to digest it all myself!

And...just in case you haven't heard, the big sale on TpT is today! There's one sale like this per quarter, so the next one will be in May for Teacher Appreciation. My entire store is on sale for 20% off today and tomorrow. You can get an extra 10% off that today only by using the code SUPER. (I thought that would be 30% off today, but somehow it works out to 28%. Math is hard!)

Below you'll find some other great sellers offering a discount today. If you're a seller, feel free to add your store to the list!

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I've been away for a week. Have you missed me? Wanna know what I've been up to? 

Just click on the picture below for a sneak peek of things to come :)

Click on the middle of the pic, not the red Pinterest button. Unless of course you want to pin it, which is cool too.

 (It's a fun video created with Google Story Builder)

P.S. There's a "SUPER" big sale this Sunday over at tpt! My store will also be on sale Monday as well. I'll be shopping while my hubs is watching the game and he won't. even. know! lol!

P.P.S (is that right??) Thank you to everyone who linked up to Show & Tell this week! I wasn't able to make it to all of your blogs and comment like I usually do thanks to some less-than-stellar wifi connections this week. I also really, really loved seeing those great comments! It's kind of time consuming to put together that post each week so I was super happy to see that you guys really like it!

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I had some great comments and questions on my previous Smartboard Linky Party post, so I thought I'd share a little bit of my know-how with those interested. One easy, fun way to jazz up your Notebook files is by creating backgrounds. First I must start with a disclaimer: Everything I'm about to show you I learned on my own through trial and error. If there is an easier, faster way to do this, please don't tell me because you'll break my heart. Just kidding, feel free to any tips you have in the comments :)

I know the pix are a bit small, but just click on them and they get much bigger.
First, open a notebook file or create a blank page.

Click on the properties tab - the one highlighted in blue below. You'll see the panel open. Now click on "image" fill and then the word "browse" under the little gray window.

Now, for this you'll need to have some files with background images. I get most of mine from Thistlegirl.com. (If you plan to sell these, you'll need to buy both of her reseller's licenses) Once you click on "browse" a window will open for you to choose your file:

Once you click on your choice, then click the "open" button, your page will fill up with that image!  (Im a Mac girl, so this part may look different for my PC peeps). Now, I think that's busy for a background, so I usually create a blank space in the middle and leave this image sort of like a frame.

 To create the frame effect, click on your page and go up to the shape menu and choose a square.

 Now, click on the square you just created, choose "properties" from the drop down menu, click on "solid fill" and choose a color.

 Now stretch and position the square to make a frame.

To make a border around the frame, click on the square again, choose "properties" and "line style". Now you can play with the color, size and style of your line (which is the outline of the square).

 Lock it in place and you're ready to create!

Play around with this a bit and see how it goes. Let me know how it worked for you. If you have anything else you'd like to know how to do ~ ask away & I'll do my best to help out!

*Check out Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business Interactive White Board Linky

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