Mapped historical photos, film, and audio |
VocabSushi: The better way to build your vocabulary | Contextual Examples From the Daily News
fractions, decimals, and percents
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Websites You Should Check Out 04/30/2010
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Wallwisher
I was reading something last week about wallwisher and decided it was time to finally try it out. I'm very pleased with the results and the ease of quickly putting a page together. If you haven't heard of wallwisher, it's a digital wall where you can poll your students, get comments from students, or find out what they are thinking about whatever questions you pose to them.
To create your own wallwisher, you start by creating a url. I just used the subject area I was doing and used that in mine. Then I decided who gets to see my wall and who gets to post on it. Then I chose my background. After that I set up my question and send the url to anyone who needs access to my wall. Super easy!
Can you help me out in trying this tool by going to my wall and leaving a comment?
To create your own wallwisher, you start by creating a url. I just used the subject area I was doing and used that in mine. Then I decided who gets to see my wall and who gets to post on it. Then I chose my background. After that I set up my question and send the url to anyone who needs access to my wall. Super easy!
Can you help me out in trying this tool by going to my wall and leaving a comment?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
FETC Virtual Wrap - Up #2
As I was saying yesterday, I didn't get much farther than the blogs at the FETC Virtual Conference last week. I will need to catch up in the archives.
Someone mentioned a webinar on Innovation in Education: Aligning Teacher Effectiveness to Greater Student Achievement by Kathleen Fulton. I couldn't find this on the schedule, so I'm not sure it was during the FETC conference, however, I mention it because the post had some good thoughts on students and PowerPoint usage. We all know PowerPoint can have a bad rap because people read straight from them, but that's a presentation problem, not a PowerPoint problem. What some mentioned is that they are using Presentation Zen, Slideology, and Sliderocket as ways to get their students to stop reading their slides and be more interactive with their audience.
In one class, a teacher has given his students time to write a short reflection paper about what they have learned during the unit and then they create a PowerPoint with 10 slides and under 10 minutes to tell the class what they have learned. Someone else stated this is similar to PechaKucha, which I had to look up. It's an event held in Japan for designers, which draws from the Japanese term for "chit chat", with the idea of 20 images in 20 seconds. The idea is to make presentations concise and keeps things moving at a rapid pace. Another poster said they have found telling their students to think of each slide like a road map as a way to get slides with not so much information.
Some interesting thoughts!
There's a history teacher I work with where we've done a lot of PowerPoint presentations in her classes and we like to give her students a little bit more of a template to work from, creating slides with key points for them to remember to talk about on their slides. For example, we just finished a 1920's digital scrapbook. One slide was about the Harlem Renaissance and on the slide were clues to help the students such as, who was a famous musician during this time period? Why were they famous? or we included a text box saying insert a picture or movie here. Then the students can design it how they want, moving text boxes and changing fonts, etc.
What kinds of projects have others done with PowerPoint? How do you keep students from putting too much on it or from reading it word for word?
Someone mentioned a webinar on Innovation in Education: Aligning Teacher Effectiveness to Greater Student Achievement by Kathleen Fulton. I couldn't find this on the schedule, so I'm not sure it was during the FETC conference, however, I mention it because the post had some good thoughts on students and PowerPoint usage. We all know PowerPoint can have a bad rap because people read straight from them, but that's a presentation problem, not a PowerPoint problem. What some mentioned is that they are using Presentation Zen, Slideology, and Sliderocket as ways to get their students to stop reading their slides and be more interactive with their audience.
In one class, a teacher has given his students time to write a short reflection paper about what they have learned during the unit and then they create a PowerPoint with 10 slides and under 10 minutes to tell the class what they have learned. Someone else stated this is similar to PechaKucha, which I had to look up. It's an event held in Japan for designers, which draws from the Japanese term for "chit chat", with the idea of 20 images in 20 seconds. The idea is to make presentations concise and keeps things moving at a rapid pace. Another poster said they have found telling their students to think of each slide like a road map as a way to get slides with not so much information.
Some interesting thoughts!
There's a history teacher I work with where we've done a lot of PowerPoint presentations in her classes and we like to give her students a little bit more of a template to work from, creating slides with key points for them to remember to talk about on their slides. For example, we just finished a 1920's digital scrapbook. One slide was about the Harlem Renaissance and on the slide were clues to help the students such as, who was a famous musician during this time period? Why were they famous? or we included a text box saying insert a picture or movie here. Then the students can design it how they want, moving text boxes and changing fonts, etc.
What kinds of projects have others done with PowerPoint? How do you keep students from putting too much on it or from reading it word for word?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Websites You Should Check Out 04/28/2010
Make the Most of Your Interactive Whiteboard
EDTECH: Focus On K-12
K-12+, Elementary, Middle School, High School, AP, IB, SAT, College, Trivia, Interactive vocabulary practice!
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
FETC Virtual Wrap - Up #1
I didn't get a lot of time to check the FETC virtual conference last week, but I did get a chance to go to the blogging area and see what educators were talking about. One of the topics that caught my eye was the idea of having online clubs. There's a school in Florida that has found more members are getting involved by having clubs online instead of face to face: "We currently have 10 online student clubs. Some have over 150 members, some meet weekly, some monthly. Students love the flexibility of time and we get many traditional school students that can't participate at their school due to time constraints." I find this idea to very interesting!
Some of the ways these online clubs are meeting are through Elluminate, blogs, wikis, Nings, Blackboard, and Moodle. Elluminate can be fully moderated and supervised; blogs and wikis also can be set up to be moderated before posting, as can the Ning. Some of their activities include club happenings, book discussions, and a virtual health club.
I've toyed with the idea of having a student video club, where I would teach students how to make all of kinds of videos and movies and eventually doing something with a school video contest. I think it would be awfully hard to pull off entirely online, but it might be a good way to get more students involved because they could make their movies and just upload them on their own time.
The original poster, who I neglected to get a name for, said they would be interested in collaborating, comparing notes, or sharing ideas can be contacted at http://www.flvs.net/areas/studentservices/clubs/Pages/default.aspx.
What are your thoughts about online clubs? Would this be something you would do at your school?
I saw another post on John Kuglin's session where he talked about clouds and the free tools available with Google (the docs, apps, calendar, Google Earth, etc.) What I didn't realize is that Google gives free 1 gig online storage for students. What a great way to get projects from home to school and back, to the library, or to a friend's house! Apparently, he also talked about Schoolfusion, which is what my school district uses, and the importance of teachers needing websites. I, too, think this is important so that students have a way to go back and see what was done in class if they need extra support. With the use of electronic files, a scanner, or an interactive white board, teachers can save their lessons from the day and then upload to their site for those students or for students who were out sick. It's also a great way for teachers and parents to have ongoing communication as parents know what is going on in class by seeing announcements, projects, worksheets, calendars, class notes, or study guides and being able to send email or post messages on a blog or a message board when they have questions.
Does your school have something similar to Schoolfusion or do you use a website with your classes? What are ways you like to use it?
Some of the ways these online clubs are meeting are through Elluminate, blogs, wikis, Nings, Blackboard, and Moodle. Elluminate can be fully moderated and supervised; blogs and wikis also can be set up to be moderated before posting, as can the Ning. Some of their activities include club happenings, book discussions, and a virtual health club.
I've toyed with the idea of having a student video club, where I would teach students how to make all of kinds of videos and movies and eventually doing something with a school video contest. I think it would be awfully hard to pull off entirely online, but it might be a good way to get more students involved because they could make their movies and just upload them on their own time.
The original poster, who I neglected to get a name for, said they would be interested in collaborating, comparing notes, or sharing ideas can be contacted at http://www.flvs.net/areas/studentservices/clubs/Pages/default.aspx.
What are your thoughts about online clubs? Would this be something you would do at your school?
I saw another post on John Kuglin's session where he talked about clouds and the free tools available with Google (the docs, apps, calendar, Google Earth, etc.) What I didn't realize is that Google gives free 1 gig online storage for students. What a great way to get projects from home to school and back, to the library, or to a friend's house! Apparently, he also talked about Schoolfusion, which is what my school district uses, and the importance of teachers needing websites. I, too, think this is important so that students have a way to go back and see what was done in class if they need extra support. With the use of electronic files, a scanner, or an interactive white board, teachers can save their lessons from the day and then upload to their site for those students or for students who were out sick. It's also a great way for teachers and parents to have ongoing communication as parents know what is going on in class by seeing announcements, projects, worksheets, calendars, class notes, or study guides and being able to send email or post messages on a blog or a message board when they have questions.
Does your school have something similar to Schoolfusion or do you use a website with your classes? What are ways you like to use it?
Friday, April 23, 2010
Websites You Should Check Out 04/24/2010
Technology Night Wrap-Up
The first Technology Night at my school was a success! Teachers and students got to showcase their projects with parents and members of the community and everyone seemed to have a great time. We had about 20 families present, which was more than we had anticipated, so I'm very happy with the turnout.
There was a large cloud of people visiting Ms. Poole's class project on persuasion movies, and the Qwizdom and Smartboard demos seemed to be very popular with parents, as well. I had some parents ask about our equipment and why we use macbooks. I'm always eager to answer this question! I get a lot of people asking me about PC's being easier and why we spend money on the macbooks. Having both PC's and mac's available was one of the reasons I took a job in this school system. I think it's INCREDIBLY important for our students to learn both systems, because you never know what you're going to run into down the road. As a student, I ran into both and had to know how to use them and now I'm very lucky to be so versatile-having that really helps in the job market too.
The only thing I would have changed was more student participation. Some teachers told me they had a hard time getting their students to come. The booths that had more students there to discuss their projects had more people around them and more interest than the others. I think having some kind of student initiative would be helpful, such as extra credit, or free ice cream in the cafeteria for participating.
The night was small, but hopefully, will be the first step in addressing more awareness about technology in our schools. Way, way, down the road, I would love to add a video component to this night and have a school video contest and make it a red carpet event!
There was a large cloud of people visiting Ms. Poole's class project on persuasion movies, and the Qwizdom and Smartboard demos seemed to be very popular with parents, as well. I had some parents ask about our equipment and why we use macbooks. I'm always eager to answer this question! I get a lot of people asking me about PC's being easier and why we spend money on the macbooks. Having both PC's and mac's available was one of the reasons I took a job in this school system. I think it's INCREDIBLY important for our students to learn both systems, because you never know what you're going to run into down the road. As a student, I ran into both and had to know how to use them and now I'm very lucky to be so versatile-having that really helps in the job market too.
The only thing I would have changed was more student participation. Some teachers told me they had a hard time getting their students to come. The booths that had more students there to discuss their projects had more people around them and more interest than the others. I think having some kind of student initiative would be helpful, such as extra credit, or free ice cream in the cafeteria for participating.
The night was small, but hopefully, will be the first step in addressing more awareness about technology in our schools. Way, way, down the road, I would love to add a video component to this night and have a school video contest and make it a red carpet event!
DEN Spring Virtual Conference Tomorrow
The Discovery Educator Network (DEN) is once again offering their Spring virtual conference tomorrow from 9 am - 4 pm. All sessions are free and jam packed full of great ideas! You can register here.
Here's the schedule:
9 AM
Connections, Conversations, and Collaborations: Creating a Personal Learning Network That Works For You
Lee Kolbert, DEN Guru, Palm Beach County, FL
10 AM
Homework Gone Digital
Matt Monjan, Discovery Education, Silver Spring, MD
11 AM
When You’re Not the Smartest Person in the Room
Dean Shareski, Digital Learning Consultant, Prairie South School Division, Moose Jaw, SK, Canada
12 PM
Cell Phones, Internet and Oprah: How the US Presence in Iraq Has Affected Women’s Lives
Christina Asquith, Author of “Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family and Survival in the New Iraq”
1 PM
Connecting Language Learners to the Curriculum through Digital Media
Lindsay Hopkins, Discovery Education, Los Angeles, CA
2 PM
Rock OUR World!
Carol Anne McGuire, STAR Discovery Educator, Anaheim, CA
3 PM
DEN in Ten
Lance Rougeux, Discovery Education, Mechanicsburg, PA
See more details on each session here.
Here's the schedule:
9 AM
Connections, Conversations, and Collaborations: Creating a Personal Learning Network That Works For You
Lee Kolbert, DEN Guru, Palm Beach County, FL
10 AM
Homework Gone Digital
Matt Monjan, Discovery Education, Silver Spring, MD
11 AM
When You’re Not the Smartest Person in the Room
Dean Shareski, Digital Learning Consultant, Prairie South School Division, Moose Jaw, SK, Canada
12 PM
Cell Phones, Internet and Oprah: How the US Presence in Iraq Has Affected Women’s Lives
Christina Asquith, Author of “Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family and Survival in the New Iraq”
1 PM
Connecting Language Learners to the Curriculum through Digital Media
Lindsay Hopkins, Discovery Education, Los Angeles, CA
2 PM
Rock OUR World!
Carol Anne McGuire, STAR Discovery Educator, Anaheim, CA
3 PM
DEN in Ten
Lance Rougeux, Discovery Education, Mechanicsburg, PA
See more details on each session here.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Playing with Animoto
I have an upcoming math project using Animoto and I haven't really played around with this site yet, so I decided to give it a try this morning. If you don't know what Animoto is, it's a site that makes videos out of your pictures. When I logged in, they also told me I could now use short video clips; not sure how long they've had that feature. I used pictures from our Technology Night on Tuesday, so you'll get a peek at what it was like (it went very well, I'll post more in a bit!).
Here's the video I created:
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
I am really, really impressed with how easy this is! You're finished in about 4 steps: upload, edit (if necessary), select music, and hit create. Animoto does the rest for you! The hardest part is being patient while the photos upload. I had 3 photos that seemed to be taking forever and I hit refresh on my browser thinking I would probably have to start all over again, but all the pictures popped in, including the ones I was waiting on. I may have just gotten lucky on that one though!
The music is also very hip for today's students. I hear lots of complaints from students when doing a project involving music; that it's not music they like. There is the option to upload your own mp3's, but the stock music they have is good enough that I want to go look up some of the artists on itunes.
I'm not sure why I waited so long to try Animoto, I really like it! Now, I'm intrigued in how else to use this! Has anyone else used this yet? What did you like/dislike? Please comment below!
Here's the video I created:
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
I am really, really impressed with how easy this is! You're finished in about 4 steps: upload, edit (if necessary), select music, and hit create. Animoto does the rest for you! The hardest part is being patient while the photos upload. I had 3 photos that seemed to be taking forever and I hit refresh on my browser thinking I would probably have to start all over again, but all the pictures popped in, including the ones I was waiting on. I may have just gotten lucky on that one though!
The music is also very hip for today's students. I hear lots of complaints from students when doing a project involving music; that it's not music they like. There is the option to upload your own mp3's, but the stock music they have is good enough that I want to go look up some of the artists on itunes.
I'm not sure why I waited so long to try Animoto, I really like it! Now, I'm intrigued in how else to use this! Has anyone else used this yet? What did you like/dislike? Please comment below!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
FETC Virtual Conference Tomorrow!
It's the week of virtual conferences, it seems! Tomorrow is the Florida Educational Technology Conference's turn from 10:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. (The DEN's virtual conference is Saturday!) I love virtual conferences, because it gives you a chance to listen in when you want and if you aren't able to, then you can hear the archived sessions. That's smart thinking!
This should also be a great opportunity to hear about educational technology issues on the national level. I'm most looking forward to the sessions in the afternoon/evening on computer safety and web 2.0.
You can register here.
Here's the full rundown of the schedule:
This should also be a great opportunity to hear about educational technology issues on the national level. I'm most looking forward to the sessions in the afternoon/evening on computer safety and web 2.0.
You can register here.
Here's the full rundown of the schedule:
| 10:30 - 11:00 am | Dedicated Exhibit Hall Time |
| 11:00 - 11:45 am | Keynote Presentation - Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by TechnologyKaren CatorDirector of the Office of Educational Technology U.S. Department of Education Washington, D.C. |
| 12:00 - 1:00 pm | A Panel Discussion: How We Will Use the National Ed Tech PlanAnn McMullan, Executive Director Educational Technology, Klein ISD, Texas,Jill Hobson, Director of Instructional Technology and Media Services, Forsyth County Schools, Georgia Brenda Williams, Executive Director, West Virginia Department of Education Moderator: Geoff Fletcher, Editorial Director, Education Group, 1105 Media, Inc.. |
| 1:15 - 2:25 pm | The New 21st Century Classroom: Using the Cloud to Create Affordable Learning SystemsJohn KuglinRetired Associate Dean University of Montana |
| 2:30-3:00 pm | Dedicated Exhibit Hall Time |
| 3:00 - 4:10 pm | Computer Safety and Security Threats Teachers and Students Face: Deal with Them NOW!Brent WilliamsEducational Technology Center Kennesaw State University |
| 4:15 - 5:00 pm | Dedicated Exhibit Hall Time |
| 5:00 - 6:00 pm | Web 2.0 and EducationJulie EvansChief Executive Officer Project Tomorrow |
Oops!
So even technology resource teachers still get a few lessons on using technology! Laugh along with me, please!
Earlier today, I was adding some tips on using SMART boards to my wiki. For whatever reason, I clicked on my contact page, a google form I created about a year ago, so anyone who wanted to contact me could easily send me a message. I decided to update that form, went in and changed a few options, presto, done!
Hmm...I thought, let's check on the form I created for my blog. AND I had contacts in the spreadsheet. FROM a year ago. THAT I didn't know about.
Not quite sure what I was thinking when I set this up, but obviously some thought went through my head that I would get an email or some notification that someone had filled out that form. Oops! Luckily, the 3 or 4 people who have contacted me via that page weren't teachers in dire need of technology help and thought I had brushed them off. But I apologize to any of you still reading and didn't get a response back from me. I guess it just goes to show that there a LOTS of options in these amazing websites and widgets and web 2.0 tools that we have grown to love; learn from me and check all of them out thoroughly!
After looking around the spreadsheet a bit more, I found those all important notification settings. All is right again! Please contact me whenever you like or feel free to leave a comment!
Earlier today, I was adding some tips on using SMART boards to my wiki. For whatever reason, I clicked on my contact page, a google form I created about a year ago, so anyone who wanted to contact me could easily send me a message. I decided to update that form, went in and changed a few options, presto, done!
Hmm...I thought, let's check on the form I created for my blog. AND I had contacts in the spreadsheet. FROM a year ago. THAT I didn't know about.
Not quite sure what I was thinking when I set this up, but obviously some thought went through my head that I would get an email or some notification that someone had filled out that form. Oops! Luckily, the 3 or 4 people who have contacted me via that page weren't teachers in dire need of technology help and thought I had brushed them off. But I apologize to any of you still reading and didn't get a response back from me. I guess it just goes to show that there a LOTS of options in these amazing websites and widgets and web 2.0 tools that we have grown to love; learn from me and check all of them out thoroughly!
After looking around the spreadsheet a bit more, I found those all important notification settings. All is right again! Please contact me whenever you like or feel free to leave a comment!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Technology Night!
My school is hosting its first Technology Night tonight! This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time and it's finally happening. It's such a great chance to build a community for the students to share their work, thoughts, and receive feedback. Each teacher participating has picked student projects to show and the teacher and students will discuss how they went about creating the project and show examples and possibly teach a part of the project to viewers.
I think it's also important to celebrate the achievements students make and some of the projects I've seen this year have blown me away! I remember a teacher saying in one class that they've struggled to get a student to turn in assignments and was amazed to see the work they were doing on this particular project. There was another instance, where a student wasn't all that into the project and when we told them they could add pictures of themself using the camera on the computer and they were all for it! It turned into a great project about the student teaching how to balance chemical equations.
Tonight we are featuring projects on:
1. Persuasion movies created in imovie by an 8th grade Language Arts class
2. Six Kingdom Comics created in Comic Life by a 7th grade Life Science class
3. Victorian Era podcasts created in Garageband by a 7th grade Language Arts class
4. Making Music created in Garageband by an 8th grade Band class
5. Balancing Chemical Equation comics created in Comic Life an 8th grade Physical Science class
6. Invention podcasts created in Garageband by a 6th grade Social Studies class
7. 1920's Digital Scrapbook created in PowerPoint by a 6th grade Social Studies class
8. Digital Poetry Posters created in Glogster by a 7th grade Language class
I think it's also important to celebrate the achievements students make and some of the projects I've seen this year have blown me away! I remember a teacher saying in one class that they've struggled to get a student to turn in assignments and was amazed to see the work they were doing on this particular project. There was another instance, where a student wasn't all that into the project and when we told them they could add pictures of themself using the camera on the computer and they were all for it! It turned into a great project about the student teaching how to balance chemical equations.
Tonight we are featuring projects on:
1. Persuasion movies created in imovie by an 8th grade Language Arts class
2. Six Kingdom Comics created in Comic Life by a 7th grade Life Science class
3. Victorian Era podcasts created in Garageband by a 7th grade Language Arts class
4. Making Music created in Garageband by an 8th grade Band class
5. Balancing Chemical Equation comics created in Comic Life an 8th grade Physical Science class
6. Invention podcasts created in Garageband by a 6th grade Social Studies class
7. 1920's Digital Scrapbook created in PowerPoint by a 6th grade Social Studies class
8. Digital Poetry Posters created in Glogster by a 7th grade Language class
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Blog Posts to Check out!
Here are some links for your enjoyment!
1. Take Students Around the World with Virtual Field Trips
ISTE'S NECC '09 Blog
2. Virtual Field Trip Planning Kit
Free Technology for Teachers
3. April - National Autism Awareness Month
Talking Smartboards and Much More!
This post has some great tips on raising awareness for autism!
It's my spring break this coming week! I hope to catch up on writing some posts about the projects I've been working on and get those posted. So be on the lookout for those!
1. Take Students Around the World with Virtual Field Trips
ISTE'S NECC '09 Blog
2. Virtual Field Trip Planning Kit
Free Technology for Teachers
3. April - National Autism Awareness Month
Talking Smartboards and Much More!
This post has some great tips on raising awareness for autism!
It's my spring break this coming week! I hope to catch up on writing some posts about the projects I've been working on and get those posted. So be on the lookout for those!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
World Autism Awareness Day
I was in middle school when I first realized what autism was. It was in the early 1990's and I don't think much had been talked about it before then. We had a group of students in our school that would only join us for our elective classes such as PE and art classes. As sixth graders, we knew these students as "disabled", but didn't really know why they were the way they were. Several of the students acted much as we did, except that they didn't communicate with us. It wasn't until my art teacher, Mrs. Cumberland (wonderful woman!) actually talked to us in class one day, that I think many of us realized that our classmates were autistic. Having them in class with us was so normal; it was just another experience of the world for us.
It turned out to be a good experience for me. A few years later, our former neighbors moved in with their young son who was autistic. Having experienced this before I felt right at home with him, compared to my parents who were a little nervous about this child who made "strange noises". One of the things that fascinated him was water, which wasn't good considering a creek runs behind all our houses! On nice days, we would go on "lookout" as sometimes he would be able to open the door and run like mad past our house to the creek. If we didn't see another adult close behind, we were up and out the door chasing after him!
When my mom began working as a substitute teacher, she was asked to work in what they called at the time, the "severe and profound" room. Because of her experience with our neighbors, she said yes. She ended up loving it, something that surprised all of us! She would work in this area for six years.
Unfortunately, as many of us in the education world know, autism is on the rise. In December 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued their ADDM autism prevalence report, which concluded that the prevalence of autism had risen to 1 in every 110 births in the United States and almost 1 in 70 boys. Families who have children with autism have to provide for special child care and schooling. The Autism Society estimates that the lifetime cost of caring for a child with autism ranges from $3.5 million to $5 million. You'll notice that I've added an autism puzzle badge to my sidebar and if you would like more information or would like to make a donation, it will link you to The Autism Society.
Also, if you're interested, Autism Speaks is also sponsoring the Light It Up Blue Event on April 1st. According totheir site, “On the night of April 1, prominent buildings across North America and the world including the Empire State Building in New York City and the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada will be lit up blue to raise awareness for autism and to commemorate World Autism Awareness Day on Friday, April 2.” Please help spread the word!
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