Summer, I <3 U!

Ah, the lazy days of summer! If you are an educator or student, that is. At the end of the school year, I had every intention of writing posts all summer long. I actually wrote one just after school let out. However, a couch potato thwarted my attempts. She made me watch nine episodes of the first season of HBO's True Blood in one day. She forced me to lay in the sun reading books, not once, but three times! She cajoled me to take several long walks with my dog. Couch potato, if you and I were not one-in-the-same person, I would julienne slice you and fry you up with some sweet yellow onion.
But hey, isn't having the summer off one of the perks of being in education? I may not have to go into school each day during June, July, and August, but I still work all summer long. I spend a great deal of time surfing for good resources on the Internet, read books and education articles on the web, spend time networking with other educators on Twitter and Plurk, and occasionally play games on my computer to keep my brain sharp. You won't see me losing a half year of learning over the summer, nosiree!
Next week, I am conducting a workshop for teachers in a neighboring district on blogging, using wikis and podcasting. I have had force myself to put down the remote and hold off watching the last three episodes of True Blood in order to plan my session. The planning hasn't been a pain in the neck at all! It is also nice to focus without being interrupted.
What blog hosts and wiki hosts do you find best lend themselves to K-12 teachers and classrooms? What do you use for podcasting? What are some of the most innovative ways you have seen each used by teachers and students? All suggestions, links to great examples and tutorials welcome!

That's A Peach, Hon - Positive Feedback

I love the movie Caddyshack. I went to see it on one of my very first dates in the summer of 1980. I chuckle when I remember my date, Carl, calling me to ask me to see the movie. I told him I would go, but I had seen it the night before. He told me it was ok, because he had just seen it earlier that day! It was a fun date, and a hilarious movie that I still love to quote today. One quote that I use often is

I think that being a teacher, I tend to want to give people positive feedback when possible. It is a gift, or curse, that most teachers possess. In school, students thrive on positive feedback. It's purposes are many: to motivate, acknowledge, encourage,and reinforce, to name a few. Positive feedback need not only come from the teacher. Students can provide feedback to one another that can often be more powerful. Today's site shares a way for students to show their creativity and provide positive feedback to each other.

PhotoPeach
PhotoPeach is a very simple slideshow application that allows you to share photos in a story or spiral format. Simply upload or find photos on Flickr or Picasa, arrange them, and choose music. The slide show is automatically created for you. I really like the layout for adding subtitles to each slide. Once created, others can easily comment on the show. Free registration is necessary to create a show, but none is needed to comment. Check out my story and spiral below. They're peachy!

All in the Fam on PhotoPeach - Story




All in the Fam on PhotoPeach - spiral

What Was Your Name Again?

How do teachers learn the names of their students? When I was teaching in the classroom, I always managed to get each student's name correct after two or three days. I am not sure how I did it; maybe it was the personal connection that was made with each child. I taught fifth grade and teamed with another teacher, so I usually had close to 50 names to learn. Now I work in a middle school where teachers see about 150 students a day. How can teachers quickly make connections with that many students? How do they possibly learn all the names?
What about other things we have to learn? Like states and capital? How does a person learn these things if they can't make, or don't care to make, a personal connection? What are the tricks to learning new vocabulary? Today's site can help when you are facing such a challenge.

Vocaber

Vocaber is an online vocabulary learning tool. It uses spaced repetitions to help you retain vocabulary you have already learned. The idea is that too much or too little repetition is ineffective. At this site, you can find or create vocabulary lists, practice lists, or share your list with others. I tried out the World Capitals list. The lesson was thorough and lengthy. I spent about 20 minutes and didn't complete it. Even though I have no personal connection to these places, I now know that Valleta is the capital of Malta, and Windhoek is the capital of Namibia.

Nothing Fancy Here

Chances are, if you come to my house for dinner, you will eat off paper plates. Nothing fancy here. If you had walked into my classroom when I taught 5th grade, you would have been able to concentrate on your reading because there wasn't much to look at on my walls. Nothing fancy there either. I don't like to focus on appearances, I want to focus on what matters. If it is dinner, I want the food to be delicious and satisfying; if it is my classroom, I want the environment to lend itself to learning.

Today, we seem to have to "fancy everything up" so much. What happened to the birthday parties of our youth where you would eat cake and ice cream and then spend a couple hours in the back yard playing Freeze Tag? A friend of mine told me that recently, his four year-old daughter went to a party at a Spa. The little "glamour girls" got the whole beauty treatment, complete with cucumber slices to relax their eyes! I wonder if the girls really appreciated the day, or if they would have had just as much fun playing dress up or with dolls.

The baby and toddler toys of today all produce electronic sounds. What happened to the good ol' Fisher Price wind up television that I had when I was little? Now a days, everything has a computer chip in it.

Technology has come a long way. Thank goodness we aren't trying to create Wordle clouds using a DOS prompt. Our students can create "All About Me" posters complete with audio, video, and hyperlinks to sites that give a glimpse into their personalities.

All this is very cool, but luckily, some very un-fancy things still can still be useful, if not fun.

J.ot Down

J.ot Down is a simple Internet-based notepad. You very simply begin typing, and anytime you pause, it will save your work with a unique url. You can keep this url private, or share with the world. This could be a very useful students who are brainstorming ideas, partners collaborating on a project, or an entire class adding to a list of items learned about a topic or subject. The environment is nothing fancy, but the idea is brilliant! (Thanks to @SkipZ for sharing this resource)

Sporcle

The creators of Sporcle claim that the site is full of mentally stimulating diversions. The games here are created simply, no fancy flash videos or Internet stickies. Quick trivia games on topics from a wide range of categories from History to Television. Choose a game, click Start, and begin answering. It reminds me of the "red light challenge" on the TV show Cash Cab. You don't have to answer in order, just get all the answers. Sporcle could be used for review, or for a quick time filler in the classroom. (Thanks to @cscribner for sharing this resource)

60 for 2 Syndrome

How many people clean their entire house in one day? Read a complete novel in one sitting? Build a house without a break? Teach the Civil War in one lesson? Most of these ideas are unreasonable; however, one could read an entire novel in a sitting, if their eyes didn't get too blurry. Each project is more plausible if broken down into parts, such as cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms one day, and dusting, vacuuming and mopping the next. When broken down, each project becomes more manageable and meaningful.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to help a teacher find video clips to enhance a lesson she is going to teach to her American History class on Progressivism. This teacher takes care and time to write beautiful lesson plans. Beautiful, in that they are specific, detailed, and meet state standards. Beautiful in that direct instruction and activities are well thought-out so that the content becomes meaningful for the students. Beautiful because they are developed from the heart.

Back in the day, if such a teacher wanted to enhance a lesson with video, she would go into the school library and select a film off the shelf and set aside a class period to show that film. Picture the scene as the film is playing: Teacher sitting in the back of the classroom grading papers by flashlight. Some students appearing to watch the grainy, out-date-film with glazed over eyes, but most day dreaming or asleep with their heads resting on their unopened American History books, while the film rolls endlessly on.

OK, maybe it isn't that bad, but technology has helped cure us of the "60 for 2" syndrome. Although I am not sure if that syndrome actually exists, I am referring to watching 60 minutes of video for 2 minutes of pertinent information. Even if all 60 minutes of film have valuable information in them, chances are, that information that students need to learn will be spread out over several lessons. How many students will remember that particular part of the film two weeks later when the information is finally presented in a lesson. Much better to use video clips than an full length film.
So, back to my colleague who wanted to enhance her history lesson with video clips. We started searching for specific topics such as "the Grange" and the "Populists" and our search efforts returned a wealth of information resources. While there are many subscription sites out there that are wonderful, (our district subscribes to Discovery Education Streaming), one site stood out as a leader for free video clips.

How Stuff Works Videos
How Stuff Works has been around for quite awhile. So long, in fact, that I neglect to visit it much. In preparation for helping my teacher friend yesterday, I came across the videos section of the site and was pleasantly surprised at the size and variety of the collection. We quickly were able to find short, meaningful clips to enhance her objectives for both the Grange and the Populists. She was thrilled to have videos to fit in her lessons that wouldn't require her to spend an extra day to show them. I was thrilled to find a "tried and true" site providing extended content!
How Stuff Works videos is definitely worth checking out. The categories include Adventure, Animals, Auto, Computer, Electronics, Entertainment, Food, Geography, Health, History, Home & Garden, Money, People, and Science. Each category has a few to many subtopics. Searching is easy, and the videos are relevant for middle and high school. One tip: Math and English related videos can be found in the People category under the sub-topics of Education and Learning.