Winner of Day 6 & Technology Thursday - {Bloglovin'}

What y'all have been waiting for... an announcement of the final winner!

Congrats, LaKeita!! Boy... am I JEALOUS of all those goodies she's getting!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who helped make my one year blogiversary SUCH a great experience. I met so many new people in such a short time and I hope that y'all will stick around to next year's blogiversary - Year 2! :)

So.. I know, it's all the rage and I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

Google Reader will be going kaput... disappearing... vanishing... SHUT DOWN.. on July 1st. Yep, this July 1st.

So, if you read your blogs through Google Reader (some people did, some people didn't... just depends on how ya like to read your blogs), you're going to need a new method.

And I'm here to tell ya all about this new method for our TECHNOLOGY THURSDAY post!

So, a lot of us bloggers headed on over to BLOGLOVIN'.

What is Bloglovin'?

Bloglovin' is a reader, similar to Google Reader. You can see all your blogs in ONE place simply by giving them a "follow" on bloglovin.

Everyone is moving their readers over to other sources such as Feedly or Bloglovin'. But personally, I think Bloglovin' is one of the best choices. I have been on Bloglovin' for the last year (ever since I started blogging) and have thoroughly been impressed. It was the only way that I read blogs... I never used GReader.

BUT, say you follow hundreds of blogs... that's going to be a LOT to import one at a time by hitting the follow button on each.and.every.blog.

HAVE NO FEAR!

There's an easy peasy way to transfer all your followings that you have to Bloglovin' in a few easy steps, which I'll show ya below.

FIRST - Sign up for Bloglovin'. You can do so with your e-mail address or your Facebook profile - whatever you wanna do! But know that if you do with your Facebook profile, it will pull your information from your Facebook. 

THEN - You'll be prompted to import your blogs from Google Reader. Follow the simple steps to do so. 

Choose from which area - likely Google Reader.

Click accept when this pops up. It's just accessing your blogs that you follow on Google Reader

THEN you get this lovely status bar. I follow far more blogs than I thought I did.. so it may take a bit to import.

Enjoy reading your blogs in the same way you would have on GReader!

Cool thing about Bloglovin' that I like is that you can see how many unread posts you have at the top in the name of the website OR along the right side.

As you can see from my number of unread posts (3853), I'm a BIT behind on blog reading BUT I read a lot of posts by going directly to the blogs.

The other cool thing about Bloglovin' is you can see some details of the blog post without going. If something catches your interest, click on it! If not, click "mark as read" and move on.

You can also see how many people "like" a blog post or you can "like" blog posts to come back to them later... kind of like repinning something on Pinterest in a way!

OR you can share directly from Bloglovin'. Find a post you like? Share it with some friends!

Want to find out more about Bloglovin'?

MANY bloggers have posted their version or take on Bloglovin' - some have tutorials for setting up your profile, some have tricks of the trade (that I have yet to learn), and some even have tutorials for adding your own blog to Bloglovin'!

Check out some of these posts:

The Brown-Bag Teacher: The Death of Google Reader

A little more indepth of what I did above!

Ideas By Jivey: For the Classroom: Bloglovin' Update

Jivey gives us some hints, tricks, and some more details about Bloglovin' - check it out!

Once you've done all that above... make sure to follow me on Bloglovin' so you don't miss a thing!! I'd hate to have y'all miss some posts :)

TO FOLLOW: Scroll back up and look for my "+Follow this blog with bloglovin'" button on the upper right, directly below my other Social Media icons. 

REMEMBER: You have to click that blue FOLLOW button once it takes you to my blog's Bloglovin' page. It's easy peasy!

I hope this helped out some people and I hope some of y'all might have learned something new!

See y'all tomorrow for the second week of Feature Teacher Friday!! :)

Winner of Day 1 & Technology Thursday!

Day 1 of the Miss V's Busy Bees One Year Blogiversary Giveaway bash is done and I am so happy to announce...

Congrats, Shanon! An e-mail has been sent to Shanon so she's going to have LOADS of goodies being sent her way and I am so excited for her!

Days 2 through 6 are still going strong, so make sure to get your entires in!!

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Time to gear up for...

I love technology. I would use it day in and day out (I already do... really), but I do believe it has a place in education. It shouldn't be ALL that is used throughout the day, all day, every day, but when it is used, it can be one mighty AND powerful tool!

VoiceThread is one of my FAVORITE technology tools to use in the classroom. The possibilities with it are endless... so many different areas of the curriculum can be integrated into presentation format, which is what VoiceThread essentially is!

So, what is it?

VoiceThreads are "conversations in the cloud." It's a collaborative video making service that is completely FREE. Yep, free (teachers LOVE free)!!! If you'd like, there are single educator licenses that can be purchased to where you can add up to 50 student accounts to your account but psh.. it's FREE!!!! And I like free... :)

Anyways... so when you're using VoiceThread, it's kind of like PowerPoint. You upload photos to some kind of program. But, with VoiceThread, you have a method of commenting over the photos. This commenting can be done by voice, by type (using your keyboard), or by phone. 

Then, during the presentation, others can make comments by text, too! Talk about collaboration.

But, you're probably wondering, how can I use this if I'm an elementary teacher?? 

Then, you may want your students to do a project using VoiceThread, but you're not sure how to have them complete a project... so, below are some examples! 

Compare/contrast. A teacher named Debbie and her class that wants to share the similarities and differences between first and second grade for incoming second graders. This would be a neat, end of year project! 

Inquiry projects - what students have learned - reflections in the form of voice overs on pictures.

Book reviews. This would be simple for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade students to complete in just a few slides:

This one was set to not be embeddable SO if you want to view it, click here.

Response to literature assignments. This can be done individually, in small groups, or large groups like this class did. What an awesome review activity!

This last one is goofy. It's ME!!

State study. I did this project for one of my undergrad projects and it had to be a project we would implement in the classroom. So I did mine on the study of the state of Ohio. I found out more about Ohio in this project than I knew about Ohio in my entire life... funny, huh?

So, as you can see, VoiceThread can be used in a multitude of ways in the classroom across a variety of grades! 

Where do you think YOU can use VoiceThread in your classroom? I'd love to hear some of your ideas!

Super Summer Schedule - Recruiting For Feature Teacher Friday! :)

Hello all! I'm here to tell you about something I plan to do starting JUNE 3rd here on the ol' blog! Summer is my favorite time of the year - and the most relaxing, so I figured I'd get back into blogging regularly! Read below to get a glimpse at my schedule and feel free to join in by using the button below, too! :)

{frame by Ashley Hughes - fonts by Jen Jones}

Monday Made It = y'all remember last year when Tara from 4th Grade Frolics started the FANTASTIC linky for Monday Made It? It kicked my booty into gear to create some things and well, this year, I'm participating again!

Teacher Product Tuesday = on this day, I'm going to feature either one of my new products OR another teacher product that I adore OR some kind of physical product that I think is fantastic for teachers. I have SOOOO many files on my computer and SO much stuff in my spare room that I'd love to showcase for y'all - never know, maybe you'll find a new product you like for your classroom, too :)

Wild Card Wednesday = on Wednesday, I'm going to blog about whatever - this is a WILD CARD post. It could be about Tucker (y'all know you love that boy), about something happening in my personal life, an update on my teaching job situation, etc. Never know.

Technology Thursday = exactly what it says... technology! Y'all know (if you know me) that I adore technology. I think it has so many fantastic features, but it's the USING it that a lot of people have trouble with. So, I'm going to showcase a website, a technology tool, an app, or anything else technology on this day!

Feature Teacher Friday = out of all the things I'm doing throughout the summer, I think this day is going to be my FAVORITE. I want to showcase YOU. Why? I want to feature some of the most influential people in my life on my own blog - I want you to tell us all about you as a person. I also want to learn more about those who I follow since I cannot technically meet you all in person. SO, if you are interested, please fill out **THIS DOCUMENT HERE**. I would LOVE to have as many people as possible :)

*Saturday is a ME day - a day to do my schoolwork, layout, hang out, whatever!*

Summer Reading Sunday = I plan to read as many books as possible this summer. Yes, I'm in school so I have lots of schoolwork to do, but on the days when I have nothing, I want to read read read! So, I plan to showcase a new book each Sunday that I've read that past week. It could be a YA book, a children's book, or an adult reading book. I have SO many on my "To-Read" list on Goodreads that I want to blow through the list.

SO, what do ya say? Wanna give it a go? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this new schedule and what you think about it.

Have a good day, y'all!