Sipping Through the Summer

Your nerd is taking a summer hiatus!  Coffee With a Nerd will return in September!  Have a great Summer!

Have you had your Beens today?

Been is a new website that I was fortunate enough to discover this week thanks to Discovery Education.  Been is a great way to bookmark websites, share those bookmarks and even browse collaboratively!  It is a fantastic way to share websites with your students for research projects.   I am in love with this new tool and I think it could be a great addition to the classroom or even your personal life!  I'm already making Beens, for example, to share with my children at home so they don't have to search the internet looking for games to play!    

Been has great videos of their own which are included, but I also did a short one to show what it looks like in action.  Be sure to check out all 5 videos below to learn more about this great resource!

NOTE: If you're doing CEU credit, count this post as 3!  

My video on using Been

1. This is a Been from Been on Vimeo.

2. Create a Been from Been on Vimeo.

3. Gather Together from Been on Vimeo.

4. Surf Together in Class! from Been on Vimeo.

A special thanks to my Been Buddies, Dave and Sang for allowing me to help test the product.....and fall in love with it! Y'all are awesome and have really created a fantastic tool!  Best wishes to you as you continue to grow!

Google Voice for Teachers

Google Voice is a great tool for teacher communication.  Here's why:
1.  You get a special Google Voice phone number so that you don't have to give out your personal cell # anymore
2.  It will save (and sometimes transcribe) all of your voicemails so you have a record. 
3.  It will save a call and chat history of all of your communications.  Easy call logs!!
4.  You can make it ring your personal phone so you can answer and even send calls using your personal phone without sharing your number!
5.  You can block phone numbers or even force all calls to go to voicemail for special time periods like weekends and breaks!
6.  There's an app for it!  Use the app on your phone to send and receive calls and texts with no hassle! 
7.  Don't want to use your phone? No problem.  You can also send and receive calls via the google voice dashboard on your computer!

Sold yet?  Here's a video to get you started: