Workshop Prizes!

If you attended one of our 9 workshops at Resource Training and Solutions this is a post for you! Thank you so much for joining us! We hoped that you were able to take away resources and information to help you integrate technology into your teaching. We had an amazing time and really enjoyed working with over 170 people from over 40 different school districts throughout Minnesota!

We are in the process of finalizing all of the prizes that we gave away during our workshops. If you received a code for an app please redeem it soon as they will expire after 28 days and many were issued on August 1st.  If you were to email us to receive a voucher please do so within the next few days as I will be sending the winners to the app developers to issue the vouchers next week.  Our email is normoff13@gmail.com.  Don't forget to include your name, session attended and what app you won.  Below is a short video that demonstrates how to redeem a code in the iTunes app store in case you need a reminder!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ1m3FHlSGM

We wanted to say THANK YOU so much to the developers that we contacted who sent us free app codes for our workshop participants!  We already loved their apps and we were so glad that many of you had the opportunity to win a code and try them out for yourself! Don't forget to give them your feedback and a shout out as we wouldn't have been able to have such great prizes without them.  The following is an alphabetical list of the apps that we showcased and gave away during our workshops. They are all hyper-linked to iTunes as we highly recommend that you check them out!

abc Pocket Phonics

ABCya Math Bingo

All Here

Bugs and Buttons

Coin Math

Confer 

Drawing Pad

First Words Animals I Mix

Futaba Classroom Games

iWriteWords

Kids Reading Comprehension 1

Kids Reading Comprehension 2

Levelbook: Running Record Stopwatch Calculator Gradebook

Monkey Preschool Lunch Box

Monkey Word School Adventure

Monkey Math School Sunshine

Montessori Numbers

Pick Me

Read Me Stories 30 Book Library

Scribble My Story

Smiley Sight Words

Stick Pick

StoryWheel 

StoryWheel Story Teller

StoryWheel Space

StoryWheel Pirates

StoryWheel Knights and Princesses

Teach Me: Toddler

Teach Me: Kindergarten

Teach Me: 1st Grade

Teach Me: 2nd Grade

Teach Me: 3rd Grade

TimesTables (Multiplication Tables and Drills)

Toontastic All Access

Toontastic Jr. Shrek 

Word Wizard

Many of you won a great looking t-shirt from Sophia. Check out their FREE online learning community with many great courses--a few were even created by our very own Angie Katlhoff!  http://www.sophia.org/

TechSmith also provided us with FANTASTIC prizes---some sweet Chalkstar to Rockstar t-shirts and 1 Camtasia Studio Recording Software per session! WOW!!! We love Camtasia-it is a perfect tool for all teachers looking to make engaging interactive videos and a must have for flipping your classroom! http://www.techsmith.com/

Again, thanks to all of the participants from our Resource Training and Solutions workshops and the amazing developers who provided us with great giveaways! Remember that we are able to attend your back-to-school professional development days with customized technology and teaching courses that will provide you with technology CEUs! Have your staff development coordinator contact us today!

Class Codes

Today we had our last day at Resource Training and Solutions and we are grateful for everyone who attended! Some people took our classes for credits and were wondering about the course codes that you need to include on the title page. Below is a link to a Google Doc with the name of our classes and the class code you need in order to submit your assignment.
Class Codes

Are You Ready to QR?

Utilizing QR codes in the classroom is an easy and engaging way to combine teaching and technology! We blogged about it here a few weeks ago where we demonstrated how to use QR codes to make learning independent in lower elementary grades.  We are super excited about our course tomorrow at Resource Training and Solutions where we get to share many more reasons why we love QR codes in the classroom! 

As back to school time is upon us, QR codes can be very beneficial in welcoming back students and families.  A few ways that we think you could utilize QR codes at the beginning of the year:

1. Create a QR code that parents scan that will directly import your contact information into their phones (Angie has one on her business cards and as her lock screen on her phone!) Take it a step further and create a 'Meet the Teacher' or 'Intro to 2nd Grade' video, QR code it and then post it in your classroom. A fun way for families to pass the time as they wait to speak with you on the always busy open house night!
2. Place a QR code at each important stop on a school tour (places like the office, nurses office, library checkout, computer lab, cafeteria...) Have students in older grades or from the year before describe what happens where.  What a great way to introduce the school to new students!  Another way to utilize QR codes is for the benefit of your EL families.  We are in the process of having our cultural navigators create short informational videos about each stop on our school tours in different languages. We then create a QR code to the video, so when someone scans the QR code they are taken directly to that informational video. Thus allowing our EL families to hear important information in their native language, increasing understanding and establishing a welcoming environment for everyone!
3. Add QR codes onto all that paperwork! Creating short how-to-fill-out-this-form or what-to-do-with-these-papers videos and linking them to the mass amounts of paperwork being handed out to families can decrease parent anxiety about getting everything to where it needs to be. Not to mention that you could  translate any information into different languages so all parents can understand what is happening or have it available if someone isn't able to read.  Having audio can be extremely helpful to all families!

These are just 3 of the ways we utilize QR codes and technology in our schools at the beginning of the year! Join us tomorrow for Using QR Codes in Your Classroom to learn more! Not only will participants learn some of the many ways of what to do with QR codes, they will get to learn how to create QR codes--plus prizes! Always prizes!! And remember that we are always willing to join you at your school or staff development to help you integrate QR codes! Just check out our Events Page for more info!

We are also excited to have joined in The Secrets of the iPad link up! Click on the picture below to see what other great educators are talking about with all things iPad!! 

Day Four: iPad Apps for Kids Galore!

Sporting our Sophia T-Shirts! 

We had a fantastic time on Day 4 of our iPad courses at Resource Training and Solutions. This afternoon was devoted to iPad Apps with Kids which was filled with many great apps for literacy, math and creation in both primary and elementary classrooms. Normoff has tomorrow off and I think we will both be missing our terrific workshop participants!

Today many of the educators in attendance made note of how they'd like to learn more about creating higher level thinking activities for their students utilizing iPads and technology. A great way to do this is with the use of QR Codes! We have a class next week that isn't quite full yet and we will be discussing many ways to use QR Codes in education for all grade levels. Contact Resource Training and Solutions to sign up!

Here are a few blurbs from some of our wonderful workshop participants today:

Appreciated the laid back style and numerous apps that look to be of great quality.

Exciting presentation, very informative, hands on very useful, answers to many questions. Can go back and start to use.

They provided us with numerous apps that are of high quality and appeal for students.

This class was great because they took fun apps and told us how we can stretch them to make them work for us effectively in the classroom.

Here we are again! Don't forget to share with us your
pic of you rocking your Sophia T-Shirts!

Workshops Day 3: Fun For You and Me!!

Techie teachers give you a ride through technology that is enjoyable, fast moving and applicable. I love useful information, this is! ~thetechieteachers iPad Workshop Participant

We Love Our New TShirts!

Thank you to all who attending our 3rd day of workshops today at Resource Training and Solutions! We had a wonderful time looking at iPad Apps for Teachers and iPad Apps to use with  Daily 5  daily lesson plans! We really appreciate all who are repeat participants and we hope that you have been able to take away useful information from each session.  To those of you who joined us for the first time we hope that you enjoyed the workshops and we would love it if you joined us again! As always, contact us if you participated in any of the workshops and  you have any questions, concerns or comments.

Don't forget that we'd love to come do a techie teacher training for your school or school district!  Let your staff development coordinator know that you'd like to have us join you and they can contact us at normoff13@gmail.com to schedule a training! We can elaborate on any one of our sessions or customize it to your grade level, focus area, or really almost anything else teaching and technology related!

And another great big thank you to all of the developers whose apps we are showcasing in our sessions that provided us with a few free codes for teachers to redeem! They are a huge hit and generating a lot of interest in the apps--apps that thetechieteachers already love!

But by far one of the coolest parts of today was the unveiling of our new t-shirts! They are QR Code ready and techie teacher approved!!!  Woot Woot!

We still have room in both our QR Code sessions and iPads & Formative Assessment! Join us for some awesome prizes and great information!

Here is what a few participants had to say about today's sessions:

Great for any teacher looking to use an iPad for the first time or the hundreth!

This was a lot of information. I would love for you to offer an all day workshop specifically geared k-1 that let's us learn and dive deeper. You are both wonderful!

I am motivated to apply my learnings from today. All the apps will be very useful in my Daily 5 lessons. The organizing ideas are great.

Fabulous information that is not only useful but easy to use.

The information in the session was very helpful. The apps were presented in a very fun way. I loved the free prizes!

Wow! Great class! So many apps that I can start using right now that will increase my efficiency and effectiveness as a teacher using technology! Thanks!

Workshops Day 2:Maximum Capacity and Maximum Fun!

Whew! What a day filled to the brim-we had our greatest number of participants yet and we discussed a lot of great apps! We are super thankful for everyone who joined us today for iPad Apps for Teachers and iPad Apps for Kids. It was a whirlwind, with many people joining us for both sessions which we really appreciate!

We learned about some great new apps and a little more about how different school districts are managing and utilizing iOS devices. We hope that all participants were able to take away new apps to use and ways to utilize technology for academics and as teacher tools! Thanks again to the developers who provided app codes and/or vouchers for today's sessions!

Don't forget to email us with any questions or feedback! And we have some Normoff teacher tshirts to show off tomorrow so make sure to follow our blog to check them out!

Here is what a few people said about today:

"What a great use of my afternoon, apps that will keep on giving!"

"I have been looking for good iPad app for school sessions and these two are the first who came to the concept with teachers in mind."

"Excellent source of information for classroom teachers wishing to use ipads in their classroom! There are so many apps out there,the instructors did the leg work for us to find great ones!"

"FABULOUS instructors with great suggestions and real classroom situations that tie to app usage."

Workshops Day 1 a Success!

Thank you to all of our participants in iPad Basics and iPad Apps for Daily Lesson Plans (Daily 5)! We had an amazing time today and hope you did too! We really enjoyed getting to share our thoughts about technology and teaching with over 40 educators representing over 10 school districts! Some of you even drove 2+ hours-we feel honored that you would come all that way! The best thing about these workshops is that we get to learn something new every session--everything from new apps to investigate to new ways to organize and manage your technology resources!

I think one of the most fun parts of the day for our participants were the prizes they won! A HUGE thank you to all of the generous developers of the great apps we are showcasing in our classes that donated app codes for teachers to explorer! We gave away more than $100 worth of apps today, not to mention $200 in computer software and some pretty cool t-shirts! If you received a free app voucher don't forget to email us and we will get that to you as soon as possible!

We always appreciate your feedback-here is what a few of today's attendees said:

This class gave many ideas for using iPads and usable apps. I have motivation to go from here and try several of them!

As a more advanced iPad user I was delighted to come to a course and learn new and useful things at a quick but easy to follow pace. There was no wasted time. These ladies know their stuff and openly share created items!

I've been to quite a few iPad classes and this one was BY FAR the best in organization and flow. Nicely done!

I thought this workshop was fantastic. I liked the movement between sessions and having both of you present. The amount of information was great.....now I need to find time to play and use it. Being a beginner, I appreciated the encouragement and support.

Sara and Angie were great presenters and well-knowledged on their subject matter. I left with great apps!

GREAT CLASS! Five stars!

If you still would like to join us for one of our 7 remaining courses check our Resource Training and Solutions for sign up information! Don't forget to follow us here and on Facebook and Twitter for all things techieteachers related!

Have you signed up yet?

We are excited that our Resource Training and Solutions Registrations classes are almost here, have you signed up yet?

Aug 5 at 8:30 iPad Basics

Aug 5 at 12:30 How to Maximize Learning by using iPads with Daily Lesson Plans

Aug 6 at 8:30 iPad Apps for Teachers

Aug 6 at 12:30 iPad Apps for Kids

Aug 7 at 8:30 iPad Apps for Teachers

Aug 7 at 12:30 How to Maximize Learning by using iPads with Daily Lesson Plans

Aug 8 at 12:30 iPad Apps for Kids

Aug 14 at 8:30 QR Codes

Aug 14 at 12:30 Formative Assessment

Here is a sneak peak at some of the prizes we will be giving away during the workshops.

We would like to thank Sophia.org, Tech Smith, Apps in My Pocket, Finger Print Play, Thup Games, and Drawing Pad App, for their quick response and willingness to partner with us! 

The Tides of Caribou

Angie's Yummy Tropical Tea

We are back at our 'office' space, our favorite local Caribou! We've been meeting here every week to prepare for our upcoming Resource Training & Solutions classes. Although today we weren't able to sit at our regular table---that kinda threw us for a loop! You'd think for the amount of time we spend here they'd designate us a Normoff table! We both managed to start walking toward the wrong table-sorry to those kind people who were probably wondering who we were & why we were looking longingly in their direction. I would say our relationship with that table is much like Sheldon's spot on the couch in the tv show The Big Bang Theory!


To help put into perspective of the amount of hard work & increased time we are doing we have now identified the ebb & flow patterns of Caribou Coffee. We are there for so long during the day that we see the breakfast rush come in, morning lull go out... midday rush come in, afternoon lull go out... after work rush come in, dinner lull go out.... We have yet to stay until close but you never know what the future may hold!

Why are we putting in so many hours?! Normoff is hard at work making sure that the content & presentations of our 9 education & technology focused classes this August are AMAZING!!! We are super excited to be able to share with Minnesota educators & families how to make the most out of incorporating iPads/iPods into students' lives. 

Angie's Tropical Tea after 5 hours!

 Our courses are: iPad Basics, iPad Apps for Kids, iPad Apps for Teachers, How to Maximize Learning using iPad in Daily Lesson Plans, QR Codes and Formative Assessment Apps.  Any of them sound intriguing? Good News! You can still register for our courses! Some of the dates have filled up, but please still contact Resource Training & Solutions to register. They may even add more sessions and dates. If the only date that'd work for you is full just contact us & we'll see what we can do! We've also had the privilege of presenting in local school districts; so if you, your grade level, your school or your school district would like to host your own private session just let us know! Technology & education is what we LOVE and getting to share that with others is the BEST!