xtranormal- Kingdoms we need for our Planet!

Podcasting with fotobabble

http://www.fotobabble.com

fotobabble is a fun and free tool that lets you podcast a short message that is attached to a picture.  You can then embed it in your blog or on your wiki.

I think that I have found a new tool that will let me send messages to my parents.

 

 

 

Death by ‘Power Point”

From Arizona K-12 center: http://azk12.org/blog/

Most of the teachers that I know are still using power point to give lectures with and to have students produce projects.  It’s not that I still don’t use it but it is my starting point and not the end.  Recently I made a power point on cyber bullying for a presentation that I have to make to our middle school staff next week.  I made the power point, then I saved it as jpgs and put some of them into a glog.  I then made a video of them with photostory, and I made a slide.com presentations as well.  My goal was to show my fellow teachers how to take a simple power point and change it up.  Students could easily accomplish these alternatives once they have their power point, then they could get feed back from people outside of their own classroom.  Plus it just adds a lot of fun to working on a project.  At least I think so.

Plus I came across this at the Arizona k-12 site and found that it makes all the points that I wish I could have said so creatively.

Life After Death PowerPoint from EMT Media on Vimeo.

Classification Alphabet Project 2010

Classification Alphabet project 2010

The students were to make a poster that represented an animal that started with a particular letter from the alphabet. Then they were to find its classification from kingdom to species, plus add a picture, and a few other pertinent details.

Classification of organisms

Voice thread

The reason we should pay attention to detail.

from feedproxy.google.com

Glogging and Blogging

Okay, I think I have become a little wacko.  It is 5 a.m. and I am blogging about glogging.  I have been wanting to have my students do a project using Glogster.com.  After introducing to Tech221 and asking them to try it out I made a couple of glogs myself.  I am addicted.  I have spent all night dreaming up projects that my 7th and 8th graders can do. 

 

I have also decided on a new classroom mantra. Fun, Fun, and more Fun.  After listening to the teachers at my school that went to ISTC last weekend and their discussion of one of the sessions on the ‘reasons to have fun’ in the classroom, I realize that I am a closet ‘fun teacher’.  I do think that if students can equate fun and excitement with learning than we will have life long learners on our hands.  So when the statement was made in the lunch room that mass murderers come from households that did not have any fun time it home that even though none of my students will ever be mass murderers I need to make sure that we have fun in the classroom just because.  Therefore, even though I normally daily try to inject a sense of fun everyday with my general demeanor in the classroom I am going to find activities that allow students to have more fun.  Some of the ways that I do this already is to use smart board games for review, to make sure that in my chemistry unit we burn stuff up, and now I am going to include making glogs.  Glogster glogs are my new fun addiction.  I am old (over 50) and if I can have fun and be inspired by such a simple concept what will my students think.  I know.  They will LOVE it.

The first thing that we are going to do is to film ourselves doing chemical reaction experiments and then put them in a glog.  I can’t wait to share them with all of you.  I encourage everybody to become a glogger.

Lesson Plan maker and examples

One of your classmates asked for some lesson plan templates and examples.  With a simple 5 minute search this is what I came up with.

http://lessonplancentral.com/

http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Guide.shtml  Details what are good and bad lesson plans

http://www.lessonplanspage.com/WriteLessonPlan.htm  10 steps to good lesson plans

http://www.adprima.com/easyless.htm  Parts of a lesson plan

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/lesson.htm

http://www.tammypayton.net/library/lesson.shtml

http://www.northcanton.sparcc.org/~orchard/Templates4Teachers/wordtemplates.htm

http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/lesson_plan/

http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/intech/templatesresources.htm

http://www.wvschools.com/harrisoncounty/lpt/lptindex.htm

http://www.wordtemplates.org/school-word-templates/lesson-plans-template/

Examples

http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/lessons/lessons_teacherdeveloped.html

http://www.getworksheets.com/samples/lessonplans/

http://www.learningforlife.org/lfl/programs/samples.html

Great for kindergarten

http://www.poissonrouge.com/  Check this out.  I got this from my blogging group.  (http://digitaltoolsforteachers.blogspot.com) This has been the best PLN group that I have connected up with.  It is really the only one but I am thrilled that Ms. Tenkely has taken pity on me from ilearntechnology.  I am learning new things nightly.

tessellate

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/Tessellate/

twitter handbook for teachers

Should teachers use twitter?  Here is a twitter handbook for teachers.   Check it out and see if you learn anything that you can use in the classroom.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14062777/Twitter-Handbook-for-Teachers

News for tweens

http://tweentribune.com/

Another great resource.  Up-to-date news for tweens.  Easily accessible for students and interesting too.

Example of Using a glog

http://mckilloplibrary.edu.glogster.com/McKillop-Book-Reviews2/

 

This is a must visit glog.  Very interactive and well done.

I bet the students loved doing this and the parents must

have been excited to access this to see what their students

were doing at school.

teachers that use technology in the classroom

These are blogs of teachers that use technology tools to enhance learning in the classroom.  Check out what they are doing.

http://misterpfoxford.blogspot.com/

Check out the following wiki for relevant guides on “How to’s”

http://area6ict.wikispaces.com/

Using wallwisher in history.

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/isthistory

Interesting Websites for Tech221 to investigate

I was reading through my favorite blogs this weekend and I came across these websites that I thought you might find interesting and want to add to you library of tools.

Have fun.

High School

http://www.ourcourts.org/play-games/argument-wars

http://www.absorblearning.com/en/Free_online_Absorb_resources/

http://www.arkive.org/

http://freezeray.com/

http://www.periodicvideos.com/  This site is amazing.

http://lgfl.skoool.co.uk/index.aspx

http://phet.colorado.edu/simulations/index.php?cat=Featured_Sims

http://www.kscience.co.uk/animations/anim_1.htm

 

Middle School and

Elementary

http://www.eduplace.com/tales/

http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/

http://www.storylineonline.net/ The stars read stores online to students.  Streaming video.

http://www.arkive.org/

http://www.stellarium.org/

http://illuminations.nctm.org/

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_menu.htm

http://www.signedstories.com/page/index.cfm

http://www.tutpup.com/

http://ecodazoo.com/

http://www.tes.iboard.co.uk/

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/

http://www.memorialhall.mass.edu/home.html

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/famouspeople/

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/flash/states_puzzle_lines2.html

 

Smart board Resources

 

http://annemarie80.edublogs.org/2009/07/20/smart-board-resources/

Music Resources

http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/

http://www.y8.com/games/Music_Match

http://www.kenbrashear.com/

http://www.helpkidzlearn.com/creative/making_music.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/cartoons/shaunthesheep/games/bleat/index.shtml

http://www.muxicall.com/

http://www.toytheater.com/music.php

http://www.poissonrouge.com/piano/index.htm

 

Just for fun

http://mugtug.com/sketchpad/  Sketchpad

http://www.sense-lang.org/typing/games/typingchef.php

http://www.nbcolympics.com/science-of-the-games/index.html  Olympic Science

PIMPAMPUM :: Phrasr .:.

PIMPAMPUM :: Phrasr .:.
http://www.pimpampum.net/phrasr/?id=22073

acapela.tv : be content

http://www.acapela.tv/Fish-1-211-104557842_c131c318b71df

Visit this site and see what you think of this.  Could you use this
in the classroom?

My periodic table glog

http://marilynwinter.edu.glogster.com/periodic-table/

Access my glog here.

Glogster

Below is an example of glogster.  An interactive poster.
It was fun to make and I think that students would enjoy
using this tool to create and publish with.

genetics

Try this quizlet vocabulary list.

Copy of Search Engines

Visit this livebinder to view alternative search engines.
Set up a livebinder account and make some binders.
Embed one in your blog.
View some binders and save them to your personal account.
Do you like this site?  How could you use it with students?

 What do you think?  How many of your classes are like this?

Math Review Jeopardy Template

Math Review Jeopardy Template

Games in education.  Does playing games in the classroom promote learning?  Can an activity like the following be useful for students?

Click here for full screen version

Using Smart Board to create Lessons

Last week in week 4 we looked at creating lessons in smart board using the gallery and the tool kit.   I am impressed with the lessons that you came up with and I think your comments on using the toolkit were valid.  It might have been overkill to ask you to look at premade lessons and to create 3 lessons with 10 pages each at different levels but if we do not practice using something how can we get a feel for it.  I appreciate that most you you were willing and able to accomplish this goal. 

My reasoning behind having you do this was to give you and authentic experience.  Most of you are not in a classroom yet and I am sure that the tools that I am sharing with you this term seem useless and pointless.  But I absolutely believe that the use of smart board in the classroom can enhance most lessons.

By creating lessons I find myself reordering how I want to teach something in the classroom.  I am able to see the flow of information that I want to present to the students.  It makes me present the information in smaller pieces, with constant review and reinforcement.  Plus I see the lesson from the perspective of the students and so I can hopefully see how they are going to be able to interact with it.  Not every lesson that I present in using the toolkit is exemplary and some may seem repetitive and tedious but I see the value of the lessons when I am able to engage my low level learners at the same time as my TAG students.  I know that I am on the right track when I see the student that never participates waving his/her hand to access the board or use a computer to complete a project.

I am reinvigorated as an educator when I know that I have engaged and promoted learning for a short time in everybody that day.  I know there are days that I am a boring, homework giving, droning, and another rule creating individual for some of my students so when they are smiling and engaged in learning (which is the norm in my classroom) then I am a ‘happy’ teacher.

profrofs.com/games sudoku

Sudoku » Brain Games

proprofs.com/games

genetics vocabulary word search game » word search maker