The end of the school year is in sight and the last thing you are probably thinking of is signing up for summer classes to continue your professional development in the area of educational technology. Yet the deadline for our summer classes is this Friday, June 5th so if you are considering signing up you’ll need to do so by Friday.

We have several options available this summer. First you can take our summer accelerated classes in Traverse City, East Lansing or at the Kalamazoo RESA. The Traverse City courses are Monday – Friday for just 4 weeks and the KRESA and East Lansing classes are Monday – Thursday for 5 weeks. You can earn 9 graduate credits by taking one of these summer accelerated options.

We also have weekend classes being offered in Birmingham and Durand. The 810 course has already been offered but participants can take 811 or 812 in this weekend format.

Last but not least we have our online summer series beginning June 16th. You can take both 810 and 811 during the summer for a total of 6 graduate credits. You can finish up 812 in the fall or spring semester depending on what works best for your schedule.

If your summer is already booked and you are unable to take classes until the fall you may want to check out our fall lineup of classes at http://edutech.msu.edu/timeslocation.asp. We have classes scheduled for Birmingham, Durand, Pinckney, Traverse City and Wayne RESA.

We are always looking for new site locations. If you don’t see a location that will work for you and are interested in getting the courses offered right in your own district you can complete our Suggest a Location form at http://edutech.msu.edu/suggestalocation.asp.

We wish you a very relaxing and much deserved summer vacation.

Have you wanted to find a way to share PowerPoint presentations with others and have them comment on them? Perhaps you would like students in your class to be able to upload their presentations to receive feedback from others in their class or outside of the classroom.

Well VoiceThread can help you do that. According to the VoiceThread site, “A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways – using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) – and share them with anyone they wish. They can even be exported to an Archival Movie for offline use on a DVD or video-enabled MP3 player. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.”

If you are concerned about privacy and only want your VoiceThreads available to the students in your class you can make your VoiceThreads private. Only those that you invite to view your VoiceThread will be able to see it and comment on it.

VoiceThread offers free accounts for K-12 educators. You just need to register by clicking on the Sign In or Register link in the upper right hand corner. After signing up for a new account you then need to click on the Go Pro! button at the upper right hand side of the screen. In the next window click on the link at the bottom that says K-12 classroom educators. You will then need to provide more information regarding your classroom and you will need to register your school email address. (This is the email address you have been given by your school). They will send you a verification email to this address so you will need to be able to access it.

VoiceThread has a special edition of their web-based application for educators called Ed.VoiceThread. Unfortunately this version is not free and will set you back $60/year to register your classroom. There is also a school version that costs $300 plus $1 per user per year.

To learn more about how VoiceThread works you can view this VoiceThread.

To learn more about how VoiceThread may be used in education you can visit http://voicethread.com/#q.b3352.i28616 and see VoiceThread at work.

Web 2.0 has brought about many wonderful free web-based tools that have been very useful in classroom instruction. I would like to highlight two new tools that are available for teachers to use as learning management systems for their classes. Both of these tools are web-based and are free to use.

The first tool is Google Sites, another great web-based application offered by Google. Google Sites allows you to create a website without any HTML knowledge. However unlike Google Pages (also a free way to create your own website) you can incorporate all types of additional web-based applications into your pages such as RSS feeds, file sharing, announcements, calendars, and much more. You will need a Google account to use this application but signing up for one is free and easy. To learn more about Google Sites you can watch this 3 minute video tutorial. About one minute into the video they describe how a teacher might use this application.

The second learning management system that is available for teachers to use for free is Edu 2.0. This web-based application tool was specifically made for teachers and students. It provides you with all the necessary requirements to put your course online such as an electronic gradebook, assignment drop box, attendance tracker, quizzes, and so much more. Best of all you can make your course private so only your students can access the course site. It is free and easy to sign up. To learn more you can watch this short 3 minute video.

As always, we would love to hear from you if you try out these sites in your classes.  Leave a comment below and tell us about your experience.