KySTE 2014 Spring Conference

From March 5-7, 2014 the KySTE Spring Conference will take place at the Galt House in Louisville, KY.  For my money, the KySTE Spring Conference is the must-go conference of the year (at least in KY).  This year I'll be leading 3 presentations at the conference, so if you're attending the conference, please come see me!

It all begins Wednesday afternoon at the Pre-Conference TRT/TIS thread where I'll be talking to Technology Resource Teachers and Technology Integration Specialists about Edmodo and their role as a TRT/TIS.  This will be my first statewide opportunity to share what I learned in the Edmodo Certified Trainer training.

Bright and early Thursday morning (8 am), I begin the day leading an Edmodo Birds of a Feather session.  After an opportunity to attend a session, I'll be right back at it leading a session on Simple K12's Teacher Learning Community (TLC).  The TLC offers a chance for teachers to receive PD in their PJs.  In fact, that's their slogan!  Since the addition of their free option, I don't mind advocating the site now.

If you're attending KySTE and any of these sessions interest you, please come by and learn more!

FlipQuiz: Free Gameshow Style Boards for Teachers

Have you been using Jeopardy templates in your classroom for years?  Many of the existing templates are cumbersome and difficult to use.  However, FlipQuiz changes all of that. 

FlipQuiz is a FREE Gameshow style board for teachers.  The template is easy to navigate and easy to edit.  The gameplay is smooth and user-friendly.  FlipQuiz also allows you to save all of your Games to edit later.  Did I mention it's free?

Create your free account today and start playing games with your students.

CometDocs: Online Document Management System

CometDocs is an online document management system that allows the user to convert documents into other formats such as PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or vice-versa.  You also get the capability of storing and sharing documents on their site.

Just like most freemium sites, CometDocs offers a free account with several subscription options.  This chart illustrates the current subscription prices, and if I were to move off of my free account into a subscription, I would likely choose the lifetime payment of $129.95.  If you're going to use CometDocs more than 13 months, it's definitely worth the lifetime payment.

If you're wondering about the features you get with free versus subscription, this next chart will show you exactly what you get.  

The conversion actually looks pretty decent, especially if you need to convert a PDF into a Word document.
This service would be useful for teachers who want to edit a PDF document to fit the needs of their class.

Vimeo: Movie Storage Site

I've seen people post videos in Vimeo before, but never really thought about creating an account there.  After our district switched from GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to Microsoft Lync (as part of the Office 365 package), I needed a place to store all of my self-produced professional development webinars (for the teachers in my district) from last school year.  I tried YouTube, SchoolTube, and TeacherTube, but it felt like something was missing, or I was concerned about privacy of the videos.  Then I remembered Vimeo.

I nosed around Vimeo and created myself a free account.  With the free account you get to upload 10 videos a week up to a maximum of 500 mb of storage space.  Each week, your account will refresh and you'll be able to upload another 10 videos.  For about $60 per year, I could upgrade and get unlimited uploads and remove banner ads for myself, or for about $200 I can upgrade to premium and remove banner ads for everyone.  I'm not sure I need to go that far.  It will take me 4 weeks to move all of my webinars over to Vimeo, but I think in the end I'll be happy with what I end up with.

I encourage you to give Vimeo a try.  If you like, you can even follow me, or like the videos that I don't password protect.