Washington State Geologic History Activity

I left the classroom in 2010, but every year it seems I get at least one request for more information about an activity that I did back then.  Full disclosure, I got this activity from a colleauge, Dave Cruz, who taught 7th grade with me at Snoqualmie Middle School. Isn't that what we do as teachers, take the best of what we see from others ? Anyway, I think what happens is that teachers are searching for activities related to the Geology of Washington and they come across this video that I put on YouTube in 2009:

Mr. T explains how to cut and tape colored paper to mimic the formation of Washington.

It seems that teachers have a desire to try this activity but don't have all of the materials.  Well, in an effort to make these materials more available, here they are! 

You can view them embedded below or click here to download.

Microsoft Sway: The "Swiss Army Knife" of Digital Storytelling Tools

Just as with the Windows 10 videos that I wrote about here, I recently had the opportunity to create another set of training tutorials, this time on the topic of Microsoft Sway. Sway is a fairly new tool from Microsoft that can be used in a plethora of ways, from classic presentations to flipped classroom lessons to company newsletters.  Built completely for online use, Sway also works great as a real-time collaborative tool as well.  

These videos are designed specifically as training modules for the Microsoft Educator Community, where teachers can earn badges for completion of the course. This opportunity arose thanks to Kim West (@kiwestify), whose  company insight2Execution focuses primarily on offering training to educational institutions around Microsoft products.  And once again, I teamed up with the fabulous Becky Keene (@BeckyKeene) to create the scripts and videos.

Click here watch the videos and/or take the course yourself!  And let me know what you think in the comments...

I Redesigned my Website...What do you Think?

Since my old consulting biz website was centered around the now shuttered Google Helpouts infrastructure (RIP, but what a cool idea that was!), I figured it was time for a redesign. And thanks to Squarespace, it was easy to install a new template, make a few tweaks and have a clean, modern site up and running in no time!  Check it out at http://justintalmadge.com and let me know what you think in the comments.