Oh Gosh!

Yes, it’s been almost two months since I last posted! The blog was never far from my thoughts, but I never really got around to it either. There were plenty of ideas, but no time to write! However, the 2008 Edublog awards have inspired me to get back to my blog and share, share, share! I will try to post a few of my thoughts from November and December and get back to posting weekly. I am in the process of writing up my picks for the Edublog awards and should have that posted soon as well.

Now for today’s topic, let’s talk about Teqsmart.org. I found this website around Halloween as a way to help me in the training of using the Smart Airliners. What a large resource of Smart Notebook files! One of the first things I found was an airliner practice file in the "How To" section. What a life saver for all of us! I had previously watched our librarian use the airliner with 6th grade students one day and while most of them did well, a few struggled with moving objects and writing and I knew we would have more people struggling as soon as the airliners became available. This file gives you the chance to practice moving objects with the stylus. You can learn to move a basketball through a hoop, hit targets, guide a whale through a maze, move rocks to rescue a trapped dog, connect the dots, and move the bones from the guy on Operation. The idea is to help with your hand/eye coordination as you learn to use the airliner. I’ve seen a few teachers around the building using it, including Ms. Ivory, who used it with her math classes before completing an exercise on proportations. The kids had fun taking turns and trying the exercises and then gained skills they needed for using the airliner with the content.



Some of the other examples I found were graphic organizers and templates for Deal or No Deal and Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? I also found an interactive map for the Electoral College, that even helped me understand it a little better! For teachers in my building, all of these are also located on the staff shared drive under Teachers Resources, Technology Resources, and then Airliner. I started reading their blog too and enjoyed the details of how teachers are using this website too. I need to subscribe to it and see the updates, as well.

A review of this website from my November 5th Technology Newsletter is located on my wiki archives page.

Enjoy!