Free Technology for Teachers: 10 US History Google Earth Tours
Great set of virtual history tours through Google Earth.
Magnoto is a little like glogster. It's a nice little project tool. It is in beta and may not be stable enough for mass use, but it is pretty user friendly and can allow 5 people to work together on the same project. Each person can have their own page or can work together to create one page.
Connecting Students through Video Project « Engnology
Connecting Students through Video
Welcome to the iPod & iPad User Group Wiki
We welcome you to our wiki and blog for supporting iPod & iPad devices in education. Although our focus is K-12, many of the techniques should work for you at any level and with any number of devices. On the wiki side of this site are the deployment and management articles, and on the blog side, you will find the classroom activities (written primarily by teachers) where iPods are supporting achievement improvement for our students. We are posting as many help and how-to articles here as we can and as quickly as we can so you can continue to be successful using iPod devices in your classroom. Please let us know if there are more or different things that you would like to have included here.
Great app for having students create an educational product. I know Apple says it's a business app, but it has the kinds of multi-media tool compilation that makes for great education tool.
Students can easily capture/create an image on the iPod, annotate or draw on it while they narrate, and most importantly of all students can then email it to the teacher.
Not only can they create, they can share!
Katherine Burdick shared this on the iPod discussion in Classroom 2.0.
TEACHING|chemistry» Blog Archive » A great way to start the year - Annotated
What started as a desire to know what technology access my students had turned into a great opportunity to get to know them, and what they thought about grades, learning, and their interests. Here’s a copy of the survey that I gave my students this year on the first day.
Some of the responses to the questions were interesting enough to put in wordle form
wchsread [licensed for non-commercial use only] / WCHS READS
Washington County Library/reading wiki. Lisa Burkhead has done a fantastic job of integrating the wiki into her literature course and her library work. There is lots of student voice and apparently a lot of reading going on at Washington County High School!
Blog about Chris Geeen's iPod touch project at his school. Has some very interesting ideas about how students can create quick products from research on the iPod touch. Worth looking at if you have access to mobile learning tools not just iPod, although some of the apps are specific to the iPod.
My StoryMaker : Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Annotated
y StoryMaker lets you control characters and objects - and creates sentences for you! Once you are done with your story, you can print it out. You cannot go back and edit a story once you have ended it but, if you click "yes" when asked to share it with others, you can print it out again by entering the magic number it gives you in the box on the right. Since lack of space forces us to delete story files older than 1 month, please save the .pdf file that prints to your own computer.
How the arts deepen students thinking | The Compass Point
Interesting blog post based on an article in the Boston Globe.
REDU stands for rethinking, reforming and rebuilding US education. Powered by people and technology, REDU is a movement designed to expand and encourage the national conversation around education reform by providing information and resources to learn, a community platform to connect, and tools and initiatives to act.
expertsinliteracy [licensed for non-commercial use only] / FrontPage
Jill's Eminence Middle and High School wiki about her coaching and instruction in content literacy
Google taking advantage of its own video network to share ways of using its own products.
Photovisi - Collage photo effects
Great Simple Online Collage Maker
MSP:MiddleSchoolPortal/Teaching With Trade Books - NSDLWiki - Annotated
...benefits of using trade books is increasing student engagement. High quality trade books are written as to spark interest and create a desire to read. Many contain colorful, interesting illustrations, photographs, and diagrams, all of which draw students into the text and improve comprehension.
Thousands of Free Lesson Plans and Educational Resources for Teachers | Verizon Thinkfinity.org
iLearn Technology » Blog Archive » Um-bloom-ra Bloom’s Taxonomy
ast week I blogged about my Bloomin’ Peacock, a new Bloom’s Taxonomy visual I made to share with teachers in a training. Over the years, I have created a number of Bloom’s Taxonomy pictures to hang in my classroom for students to refer to. My Bloomin’ Peacock was such a hit with you all, I thought I would start sharing the others I’ve made. Today I revived one that I created for my classroom and added the digital version (again the digital tools displayed relate directly to the Treasures reading curriculum). This is my Um-bloom-ra Bloom’s Taxonomy:
Educators - Population Reference Bureau - Annotated
Distilled Demographics Video Series
Distilled Demographics, PRB's new video series, highlights key demographic concepts such as fertility, mortality, and migration. Through these videos, each under 10 minutes, you can learn demography's real-world application and impact.
In these videos, Carl Haub, PRB's senior demographer, talks about:
Deciphering Population Pyramids
Addressing Population Myths
The Birth Rate: What It Is and Why It Matters
Distilled Demographics, PRB's new video series, highlights key demographic c
Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com - Annotated
In one of his own experiments, Dr. Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, also of Washington University, had college students study science passages from a reading comprehension test, in short study periods. When students studied the same material twice, in back-to-back sessions, they did very well on a test given immediately afterward, then began to forget the material.
But if they studied the passage just once and did a practice test in the second session, they did very well on one test two days later, and another given a week later.
Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com - Annotated
Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com
Free Technology for Teachers: 47 Alternatives to Using YouTube in the Classroom
Free Technology for Teachers is an award winning blog. Here is his post on alternatives to youtube. I like most in fact bookmarked almost all of them. Great resrouce and if you don't subscribe to this blog you should
Hulu - Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free.
There are extensive libraries of some great shows on Hulu, including NOVA, and several news shows.
From Free Technology for Teachers, "Big Think is a video website containing expert commentary on a wide range of issues and ideas. The experts featured on Big Think really are experts in their fields. Harvard Professors, editors of major news publications, politicians, and other recognized authorities offer their commentary on various issues and ideas. Registered users of Big Think can comment on and discuss the videos or post an idea to have others discuss."
Enough said!
Absolutely love this site. All the video from C-Span, ever! Great source of primary source documentation for lots of different government studies.
It's from CNN a respected news source and it is geared toward students. A quick look around found topics ranging from politics to sports to hurricanes.
They are accompanied by discussion suggestions. There are also daily podcasts that can be downloaded or better RSS'd so students can get easy access to news!
I love Blip.fm and I like the idea of sharing favorite videos from TV as well. I think it's a stretch for extensive use in the classroom, but it is an option in some cases.
Viddler.com - Grow your brand with online video
What you can do with us
Upload as many videos as you want—you get nearly unlimited space with ViddlerRecord videos directly to the site using your webcam!Post comments and tags at specific points in the videoShare your videos with RSS and iTunesKeep your money! We are 100% free!
Educational Videos | Teacher Videos for Students | SnagLearning
Videos from Snag Video that have been identified as educational in nature.
Documentary Films | Watch Free Documentaries Online | SnagFilms
Site for sharing video covering many topics, not just for educational purposes.
Video sharing for students and teachers.
Lesson Study Toolkit Samples
You will need Adobe Reader to view and print many of these documents.
NOTE: The password for the video clips and any protected article is lessonstudy.
Lesson Study Group at Mills College
n Lesson Study teachers:
Think about the long-term goals of education - such as love of learning and respect for others;
Carefully consider the goals of a particular subject area, unit or lesson (for example, why science is taught, what is important about levers, how to introduce levers);
Plan classroom "research lessons" that bring to life both specific subject matter goals and long term goals for students; and
Carefully study how students respond to these lessons - including their learning, engagement, and treatment of each other.
Scientific American: 60-Second Science
Great weekly 60 second podcast that can be used as an incredible starter. I just listened to three podcasts that involved solar power, Mars, laughter and morality, and regressions to liars. If you can't start a conversation or class with those topics you aren't very imaginative!
Another site to access already made charts/graphs or to have students create and share their own visual displays of information.
Problem Based Learning Academy is a well designed wiki with lots of interesting links/resources if you are interested in learning more about problem based learning.
Free Technology for Teachers: 11 Techy Things for Teachers to Try This Year
11 Techy Things for Teachers to Try This Year
The new school year is here for many teachers. For those who haven't started school yet, the new school year will be here soon. If you've set the goal of trying something new in your classroom this year (shouldn't that always be one of our goals), here are eleven techy things teachers should try this year.
Common Core State Standards Initiative | The Standards
The Common Core State Standards focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades, thus enabling teachers to take the time needed to teach core concepts and procedures well—and to give students the opportunity to master them.
Diigo V5: Collect and Highlight, Then Remember! on Vimeo
Uses for Diigo as a classroom research tool.
10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain | LiveScience
Interesting article on the brain. Worth reading, it is insightful that many decisions we make are influenced by what we think is brain research. Always interesting to get more information.
Bibliography for Mathematics Knowledge of Middle School Teachers — University of Louisville
Bibliography for diagnostic for teacher mathematics from UofL
The New CCSSO Mathematics Standards are Here! « Co-Creating Solutions: A Blog by CTL
Reading is a Problem–Solving Process. Why Not Try the Thumb Method?
New blog post by Denise Finley about supporting students while they learn to read scientifically!
How Important is Teaching Literacy in All Content Areas? | Edutopia
Edutopia is just confirming what we all know and believe. Why is it such a hard thing to implement well in the classroom?
We need to continue fighting for the chance for every student to have opportunities and expectations for communicating in class everyday as a regular/routine part of their learning.
Arcademic Skill Builders: Online Educational Games
The website says: "THE Place For Educational Games!Our research-based and standards-aligned free educational math games and language arts games will engage, motivate, and help teach students. Click a button below to play our free multi-player and single-player games! In the future we'll add features enabling you to save records, tailor content for differentiated instruction, and pinpoint student problem areas."
I think using the games in conjunction with a holistic approach to developing skills would make for a great way of getting students to practices some skills. Let students play, set goals, monitor those goals, reflect on their progress, and apply strategies/heuristics to specific problems they struggle with would create an environment in the classroom where learning was fun, self-monitored, and successful.
ISTE NETS e-Portfolio Templates
National Educational Technology Standards, Electronic Portfolio Templates
Some interesting things to think about collecting and organizing for an e-portfolio.
KELOLAND.com | Vodcasting: Education Of The Future
Interesting article that highlights teachers using vodcasting as a tool for extending instruction and working with students in a variety of media. I believe the model could work very well with the BMS iPod Touch project if teachers were interested in creating short videos of lecture that students could acces outside of class.
Mathematics is an easy course to consider. The teacher can model solving a problem, or applying an estimation technique that students could watch, create their own example applying the strategy, and turn in the product to the teacher.
the model produces a nice intersection of consumption of content, with using the tool for creation of content as well.
Set Up Multiple Twitter Accounts One Email Address | The Social Media Guide
How to Setup Multiple Twitter Accounts with One Email Address
Illuminations: Counting the Trains
In this unit, students will investigate a relationship between recursive functions and exponential functions.
Math Content
By the end of this unit, students will:
Represent data using tables, graphs and rules
Investigate patterns and make conjectures
Express sequences with recursive and exponential rules
Describe and interpret exponential functions that fit the patterns
Individual Lessons
Lesson 1 - Trains, Fibonacci, and Recursive Patterns
In this lesson, students will use Cuisenaire Rods to build trains of different lengths and investigate patterns. Students will use tables to create graphs, define recursive functions, and approximate exponential formulas to describe the patterns.
Lesson 2 - More Trains
In this lesson, students will use Cuisenaire Rods to build trains of different lengths and investigate patterns. Students will use tables to create graphs, define recursive functions, and approximate exponential formulas to describe the patterns.
Lesson 3 - Recursive and Exponential Rules
In this lesson make connections between exponential functions and recursive rules. Students will use tables to create graphs, define recursive rules and find exponential formulas.
Great set of lessons for modeling, recursive functions, real-life application from NCTM Illuminations. The lessons include not only context, but applets that help students visualize the situation and mathematical model.
This is a compilation of Karl's Transparent Algebra posts. He does such an incredible job of making his thinking visible for all of us in how he is planning his course for the upcoming year. I share it because I think it's a valuable example of a reflective practitioner and worth sharing. If you have any teachers who might benefit from reading some of his reasoning, I encourage you to send them to his blog!
Troovi :: Exchanging photos made easy
Great tool for sharing pictures from PC to PC. Doesn't work for iPods b/c guess what it needs flash (thanks Apple).
Here is where you'll find the course content for Spring, 2009.
Assignments are here.
Syllabus is here.
GEOGEBRA:
Throughout the notes, you will find many GeoGebra applets. These are interactive Java applets. To activate them, just click on them, and wait for the applet to load. If you're using Internet Explorer, you may have to click on the "Allow ActiveX control" warning bar at the top of your browser, for the applet to load. I encourage you to download GeoGebra yourself, or use the "Web Start" option, over at http://www.geogebra.org . It's very easy to use, and a lot of fun!
Interactive Mathematics - Learn math while you play with it!
Less about applets than a combination of practice, symbolic models, with some interaction via applets.
http://homepages.gac.edu/~hvidsten/gex/
Geometry explorer, worth downloading. Geared towards geometry constructions more so than Geogebra.
Perhaps the easiest Wiki I've ever scene. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can now create a wiki for use with their students or to share information with colleagues. I wonder what their business model is and how long they will be able to sustain this approach, but until then I plan on using orb.com with teachers as a great entry point tool.
Movie making site that has participants write scripts, draw characters, add music, and create movies.
Great ideas of creating student work products on iPod Touch and iPads. Great ideas that include apps as well as routines/suggestions for usage.
Critical Issue: Using Technology to Enhance Literacy Instruction
ationalatlas.gov™ contains a remarkable range of products and services to meet the diverse needs of people who are looking for maps and geographic information about America. Dynamic maps are innovative illustrations of geographic phenomena. We combine the science of mapping with today's multimedia to offer maps that are useful, understandable, and that stimulate interactivity.
Great resource for developing a protocol for looking at student work with your PLC, staff, department. Offers not only protocols, but strategies for introducing the idea to your group, supporting the activity long-term to meet the needs of your staff/PLC.
Nine Interesting Ways* to use a Learning Platform in the Classro
Nice little PP for thinking about different ways of using a Virtual Learning Environment in your school, classroom, or PLC.
Digital Toolbox: Social Bookmarking - National Writing Project
Great explanation of social bookmarking from a GREAT source, National Writing Project.
Gizmos! Online simulations that power inquiry and understanding. | ExploreLearning
Gizmos are great applets for exploring math and science concepts.
Virtual Science experiences.
Freefall on Mars applet from University of NewFoundland
Free falling body applet that gives you the option of dropping from a height or firing upwards from the ground.
Applets are small, self-contained, interactive programs that can be run on your computer using code called Java (a free download from Sun Microsystems). All of the applets listed below are available for download from the web, but require Java to run. An Applet Search Engine can be used to find other available applets not found on this page.
Welcome to the Physlets resource page. Physlets, Physics Applets, are small flexible Java applets designed for science education. You do not need to become a Java expert in order to use Physlets. The links on the right contain tutorials, download instructions, and example problems to help you use Physlets in your teaching.
Fowler's Physics Applets.
Michael Fowler - University of Virginia Physics
Demonstration of PHYSics appLETS (PHYSLETS)
PHYSLETS were developed at Davidson University by Wolfgang Christian. They are java applets that can be called from some javascript code in a web page. The links below contain physlets written or adapted for use at LTU, Lawrence Technical Univ., by Dr. Scott Schneider
Math applets from Edinformatics.
More physics applets from Edinformatics. I don't know exactly who they are but they have their applets organized by content/level/topic which is a great way of helping people find applicable apps
Java Applets on Physics (Java 1.4)
More physics applets
Projectile motion applet. Easy to manipulate and set inputs.
Math, Physics, and Engineering Applets
Rather higher level than my understanding but some interesting applets that have lots of input capabilities.
Physics applets from university of oregon. department of physics.
11 Helpful Cheat Sheets for Popular Google Products | Freebies
Keep this article close by, so when you need it, it will be available. I wouldn't be able to memorize all of the information, but when I am working on or in anyone of these products the cheat sheet would be a valuable resource for expanding my shortcut repertoire!
As I read this blog, I immediately thought of the article Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say. It is a very similar set of lessons for students and teachers.
If a student can say it, then why am I? B/C I am the expert... but who is learning in that situation? Me of course b/c I am the expert!!
Also, if a kid says it, it builds their confidence/understanding and allows the teacher to probe to help the student develop their analytical skills rather than their passivity and incompetence skills.
This blog is worth a very long read and analysis. I also, think everyone should look for the article mentioned above and see if they couldn't learn a few things by saying less!
Nice set of applets that let students explore fraction understanding from multiple perspectives and models. I love that they use a variety of models for fractional development, including bars (multiple versions), sets, and linear.
From the site: "Why Fractions? Fractions are one of the earliest stumbling blocks for students in math. Our goal is building conceptual understanding in fractions as a basis for comprehension in all later topics."
Instructional Strategies Online
Instructional strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives.
Five categories of instructional strategies and explanation of these five categories can be found within this site.
No Pain, High Gain | Scholastic.com
Great article on looking at test preparation differently. It's not about answering a lot of questions similar to the ones on the test, but about learning processes that help students understand how to garner information from text/problems, etc.
Persuasive writing websites with lots of examples
Word of the day for 13th June 2010 - wordia
Great site for using the power of technology to add value to vocabulary instruction/learning: video, links, text, audio
Edistorm takes the metaphor of sticky notes on a boardroom wall and brings it online allowing anyone - anywhere to brainstorm with only a web browser.
Each user picks their favorite ideas and Edistorm brings the best ones forward.
Online Spreadsheets - EditGrid
Online spreadsheet tool. Always worth sharing. Decent graphics tools, but not as intuitive or as easy as Excel. If you don't have access to Excel, not a bad alternative.
BBC World Service - Documentaries
It's from the BBC (that's a good enough reason to share for me) and there are some great stories being told in the documentaries from social commentary, to war, to poetry.
I love the idea of students getting applicable content from multi-media sources on their own and incorporating it into their thinking. Also, a great way to introduce students to the nuances of digital storytelling.
Lapham's Quarterly, A Magazine of history and ideas. Great social studies source. I like the Friends, Lovers, and Family story/chart that shows the relationships between different artists across time. Always looking for ways to show how what one person does impacts others and not just in art!
