Christmas Goodies

Some of you have asked me for the Carmel Popcorn and Popcorn Cake recipes that I made for Christmas.  So, here you go...

Carmel Popcorn

5-7 quarts of popcorn (put it in a roasting pan)

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter (I use the real stuff)
1/2 cup brown syrup (Karo Syrup)
1 tsp salt

Melt the butter.  Add brown sugar and mix well with the butter.  Add syrup and salt.  Bring to a boil stirring intermittently.  Boil 5 minutes & continue stirring so it doesn't burn.  Take off the heat and stir in 1 tsp baking soda.  Pour mix over the popcorn and stir it so the sauce gets distributed on the popcorn.

Bake at 250 degrees uncovered for about an hour - stir every 15 minutes (you'll end up stirring it 3 times).  After the last 15 minutes, stir making sure to scrap the sides and bottom.  let it stand for 5-10 minutes & then put into your containers.

Popcorn Cake

12 cups popped corn (put in a big bowl)
1 1/2 cups M&Ms
2 cups salted peanuts

40 caramels
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup butter (the real stuff)
5 cups mini marshmallows (or 50 regular marshmallows)

In a pan over low heat, melt the caramels into the butter & oil.  Add and melt the marshmallows.  Be sure to stir constantly so the mix doesn't burn.

Pour the above mix over your popcorn & stir.  Add in the M&Ms and peanuts.  Stir into the popcorn mix.  Press your popcorn cake into a buttered angel food cake pan or a rectangular cake pan.  If you use the angel food cake pan, let it sit for about 10 minutes and then remove your cake from the pan.


Enjoy!

Interesting Year in Review

What things did you search for over the year?

What the heck is a tech integration specialist?

When I was first asked about becoming a Tech Integration Specialist for the school district, I thought that could be an interesting challenge and adventure.  However, when I thought about what I would be doing during the course of the day, I had no clue.  So, like any librarian, I started doing some research.   According to Edutopia, technology integration is the use of technology resources -- computers, digital cameras, CD-ROMs, software applications, the Internet, etc. -- in daily classroom practices, and in the management of a school...Technology integration is achieved when technology tools support the curricular goals, and help the students to effectively reach their goals.  (I'll talk more about technology integration in another post.)  Based on this description of technology integration, a technology integration specialist is someone who assists with technology integration.  Of course to me, that definition meant as much to me as the definition of density (the quality of being dense).  After some additional research, I found a better answer.  Basically, the tech integration specialist assists teachers, staff and students with technology for class projects and school management.  During the course of day, you might see a tech integration specialist assisting an administrator with the school Facebook page, teaching a class how to set up blog, providing one-on-one technology training with a teacher, showing a new tech tool to a teacher and presenting ideas on how they could use it in their class, researching more tools for generating vocabulary games, and more.  I know as I continue to work as a Tech Integration Specialist, my understanding of the roles and responsibilities of this position will grow.

Getting Started With SlideRocket

This video provides a great tutorial for getting started with SlideRocket.  Hit play and get started!



Demo: Getting Started with SlideRocket from SlideRocket on Vimeo.

Blast Your Presentations With SlideRocket!

Your Google account has a new feature - SlideRocket.  SlideRocket is a presentation maker similar to PowerPoint and Keynote, but with a few extra perks. 

SlideRocket at a Glance

SlideRocket Player for iPad

Bookmarking Woes

As I've been meeting and working with various teachers, one common theme I hear is "I found this great site I wanted to use in class, but I can't remember where I found it."  When I was teaching high school English, I encountered a similar problem.  I would bookmark the site in Firefox, but when I got to school I couldn't remember which one it was on the long list of bookmarked sites I had accumulated.  Sometimes, I couldn't find the link because I had bookmarked it on my home computer and those weren't accessible once I got to school.  Then when the computer crashed, I lost them all!

So what can we do to avoid these bookmarking woes?  Well, there are several options, but I won't bombard you with them all.  Here are the 3 I've been using this year:

Google Bookmarking - Google bookmarking is a feature that comes with our school email.  You can either use the above link and then enter your school email username and password OR go to your school email, click on the MORE button - then EVEN MORE and click on Bookmarks.  You can create labels, which are similar to tags, for your bookmarks and export your bookmarks.  However, you cannot import bookmarks or organize them except through the labels.  You are probably wondering why this is on my favorite list.  Well, when I first started using this bookmarking tool over the summer, they had the option of creating lists for your bookmarks.  You were able to share the lists with other individuals.  Sadly, they recently eliminated this feature and I'm not as keen on Google Bookmarking as I was when I started this post.

Linkable - I was introduced to this site at my Tech Integration meeting at Essdack this fall.  This has become my all time favorite because of the clean organized look.  Linkable allows you to create pages and categories for organizing your bookmarks.  You can share bookmark categories with your friends, other teachers or students.  Here is an example of a shared category:

Some other features include importing/exporting bookmarks, adding a button to your browser to easily add links to new web pages and explore the bookmarks of other users.  I use this bookmarking site on a daily basis.

Diggo - I have just started using this tool myself, but I'm liking it way better than Delicious.  Here are a couple of videos introducing Diggo and showing how to use them with your students.

Who knows where my exploring will lead me with this new bookmarking tool.  Perhaps it will become my new favorite tool!