PhotoPeach

Many teachers I encounter in workshops have one desire for professional development,

"I want it to be easy to use, and I want to be able to remember how to use it after you're gone."

It's a tall order to fill sometimes. Effective use of some technology tools can take time and practice. However, it's nice when I can give them a resource that is both useful and easy to use. Photopeach is one of those resources.

PhotoPeach is a tool for creating online slideshows and basic quizzes without a lot of hassle; think web-based Photostory with a quiz feature.

There are really only two steps:

• Upload and arrange your pictures.
• Select background music from their catalog.

After the slideshow has been created you may choose to add multiple choice questions for each slide. That's it. I've heard some positive feedback from several teachers who work with a variety of subjects and ages groups.

Check out my basic Photopeach slideshow quiz below:

Where are we? on PhotoPeach

Photopeach could be a great addition to your tech resources, without investing a lot of time learning the program.

Call for Administrators at NCTIES

It's less than two months until the NCTIES 2010 conference in Raleigh, and I'm already looking forward to the event. I've been fortunate to attend and present at this statewide technology conference in past years. And there are several educators from around the state and speakers from around the country that I look forward to seeing. I've always left the conference with excitement and ideas about how technology can help educators and students. It's always a great experience.
That's why I'd love to see administrators from our district attend this conference. I think they would also be energized by the ideas they'll hear and the kinds of technology they will see. Administrators play such a key role as the head of their schools. The schools I've seen that seem to have the best technology integration have great teachers and tech facilitators, but they also have leadership that has a vision for technology and how it will be used in their school.
So I'm calling on the administrators (many of whom were in the Nothing But NETs Conference last summer) to look at attending at least some of the NCTIES conference this March in Raleigh and seeing some of the ways technology can impact our classrooms, teachers and students.