Make custom animated banners for Moodle, Websites, or Blogs

Want to make your Moodle, Blog, or website banner stand out to your students? This is my preferred method to have custom animated banners and pictures. Follow these simple steps to create a banner similar to the one above. 

1. Use Keynote, PowerPoint, or any other program that allows you to insert a picture and type over it. Design how you want it to look with text and pictures.

2. If using a Mac cut out that picture by pushing Command+Shift+4 all at the same time. This will give you a cursor and allow you to select the part of the screen you want to make into a picture. If you are using a PC try this link from Lifehacker.

3. Now that you have your picture go to Lunapic. Upload your picture and then play around with all the 100's of effects they offer. Once you find one you like download your custom animated gif and upload it to your website, moodle, or blog. 

4. Sometimes a site won't read your gif image. In that case I like to use Use.com to host my picture. This allows me to get the HTML of the picture and post it on my website.  Below is another example from one of my co-taught classes. 

Visual Bookmarks ANYWHERE!!

If you are not using Symbaloo shame on you!  The days of sifting through endless bookmark lists on your browser should be over. Symbaloo is a web based visual bookmark tool that allows you to access your bookmarks from any computer in the world. Best of all you can have multiple screens or "mixes" as they call them. Put any bookmark wherever you want it, upload your own picture cover, and even share it with friends. I have created a webmix that should be very helpful for teachers at Greenville but should also help any one else who wants a one stop place for the best of web 2.0 sites. So go to Symbaloo and subscribe to my webmix by using this URL

http://www.symbaloo.com/shared/AAAABuvrEXcAA42ACoeoNw==

My First Post

I know the end of the school year seems to be a weird time to start a teaching blog but this is about the first time all year I have finally been able to breathe.  I would first like to thank Richard Byrne for keeping me informed on all the latest technology and inspiring me to share my knowledge and experiences when it comes to teaching. If you do not follow him at his blog you are truly missing out.  The second person who has greatly inspired me to become a better educator is Matinga Ragatz. I had the great fortune of working with her for a summer to develop a social studies blended learning model for GRPS. Matinga was teacher of the year in Michigan for 2010-2011; I ran into  her at MACUL this year and she is now working on starting schools in Africa. Worst case scenario this blog will be a way for me document my experiences and growth as a teacher for myself. I hope to use it as a way to share my lessons and technology ideas with my colleagues  at Greenville. But perhaps, just perhaps some other teachers out there may find it useful and informational to better help them improve their educational delivery. Only time will tell!!!!