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Thank You for 20 Years.

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After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content.  The point of this post is to take a step back, take in, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them.  I don't take many yay me moments. But after 20 years, I think I'll soak this one in.
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Real Time Whiteboard

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I have spent a long time looking for a free, real-time, collaborative whiteboard that can be used on tablets, chromebooks, PCs, and Macs and have been let down again and again.  Until I ran across Realtime Board.  I wasn't sure at first until I discovered that they provide FREE accounts for educators.  I have been using it for a week and have been loving it.

1) It is web based sand works on my class iPads, student Chromebooks, and my teacher desktop.

2) It's easy to create a new board.


3) On any board you can upload a variety of media files or files directly from the web.



4) There are a variety of pre-made templates you can work from.




5) Drawing and erasing is very easy.  I love using a stylus on my iPad ( although Steve Jobs wouldn't approve) when showing work for calculations. 



6) Create shapes, add text, and link them. Great for mind mapping!



7) Realtime Board can be lined to your Google Apps For Education account so you can create new boards directly from Drive.


8) You can also add collaborators directly from drive.  Adding students using their GAFE account is easy and you can set permissions as well. That way we can all collaborate on the same board at the same time.


9) Once a board is finished, it can be exported in a variety of formats including image and PDF.  I just link the URL of a board into our LMS and students can get their directly.


After a week of use, I am really loving Realtime Board and look forward to dig deeper. Just had to get this out now.



Here's the link to apply for the free educator licence. 



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  1. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2016 at 6:50 AM

    WOW! This sound super cool! We can't wait to try it! Thanks for the tool suggestion! :)
    Team Togetherness

    ReplyDelete

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