Ravings of a LunaTIC

It's Time for a Little Chat

2010-11-12T11:02:00.000-06:00

How is it that those words can sometimes strike fear in your heart when you hear them? I can recall many times when I was teaching and my principal would stick her head in my door and say something as innocent as, "Drop by my office on your plan time. There's something I want to talk to you about.", which would leave me in a state of panic for the minutes, or sometimes hours, before my plan time finally got there. Then walking with trepidation to the office...how did the building suddenly grow so large? The office was never so far away before.
Entering the office with heart palpitating, I could only imagine that I was going to be fired on the spot. Heaven forbid if she asked me to close the door before sitting down! Nine times out of ten (or more, actually) I would be greeted by her with a smile on her face, and right away, my nervousness would melt away. Often, I would find that she just wanted to know if I would serve on a committee, stay late to help with a building function, or even if I wanted to take a look at some clothes that her sister had grown out of.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when a principal and staff member must have hard conversations, but most of the time, conversations are about the business of school. I guess it's just human nature to question yourself when someone lets you know they "want to talk" without providing information about the nature of the conversation. Luckily, all the "little chats" I have ever been involved in, have ended on a positive note or helped me become better at my job, a better colleague, or a better friend.

Chatzy
Chatzy is a free private chat room that can be utilized without registration. Email invitations will allow others to join the chat room.
On their site, Chatzy advertises:

Chatzy is a good alternative to Facebook, Skype, Windows Live, and other messengers because:

*Chatzy has no registration steps - your friends can join instantly

*Chatzy is free and has no popup ads

*Chatzy does not require Flash or any installation on your computer (= no spyware)

*Chatzy works on all major browsers, with any language and through corporate firewalls

*Chatzy is simple and easy to use

Other reasons I like this mode of communication and collaboration for students:
1. It is more up-to-date than email. Many kids think email is only for grownups.
2. Students do not need to register.
3. If the teacher registers (free), there are levels of control that allow for more privacy, such as creating a
password to enter the room.
4. Registered users may also set up multiple rooms...for various reading groups, etc.
5. Students may be given the url in lieu of an email invitation.
6. All conversations are monitored by the teacher.
Although it took me a few minutes to become familiar with the environment, I feel this tool is worth taking a look at, especially for elementary and middle school teachers.

21 Signs

2010-10-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

I ran across this blog post today 21 Signs You’re a 21st Century Teacher. I like this list and can think teachers in my district who are doing, or have done, most of the things on it. Just last week I was invited to a school to present on wikis and blogs to the staff because they were looking for alternative ways to get information to students and parents about assignments (#3 on the list). Monday a teacher asked about getting Skype installed on laptops so students could meet with students in another state (#1). I caught wind of this post via my Google Reader (#19).
On reading the list of 21 signs, I'm sure you can think of other things you and your students are doing. Why not add to the list and possibly win a prize for doing so? Even if you aren't the winner of the EdTech Unconference pass or the I ♥ EdTech t-shirt, you will be a winner for helping others to discover fun engaging ways to help students learn.

Simplek12
Simplek12 is a blog I have been following on my Google Reader for some time now. I find the posts relevant for staff in my district. At the site you can also find professional development, student curriculum and other valuable resources.

New Year = Not-So-New Tools

2010-10-18T13:43:00.000-05:00

After taking a year-long foray into the world of middle school library, I am back in the technology integration game. I learned a great deal about the Dewey Decimal Classification and reference materials last year, but it feels so good to be here again, talking technology and learning.
Today the kids are out of school enjoying unseasonably mild mid-October weather, while we teachers are spending the day making sure that we are taking the right steps to help our students grasp content. I am doing a late afternoon session on wikis, blogs and Google Docs at one of our middle schools. In preparing for the session that will introduce (or reintroduce) teachers to these tools, I stumbled across a matrix that I have found quite helpful! I don't know who created it, but it is going to be my guiding tool for today. Thanks to the person who put their time and effort into preparing this chart.

Blogs, Wikis, Docs: Which is right for your lesson? A Comparison Table

Summer, I <3 U!

2009-06-17T15:01:00.002-05:00

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

2009-05-27T09:07:00.002-05:00

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?

2009-05-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

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

2009-05-05T14:45:00.005-05:00

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

2009-05-01T15:59:00.001-05:00

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.

Virtual Note Board

2009-04-28T14:45:00.000-05:00

How many of you use a note board at home to organize your life, leave messages for your family, remind yourself of appointments, etc? I really need something like that for my house. I currently just use a calendar tacked up in our laundry room. There are several appointment cards paper clipped to it. Not very effective, as sometimes the cards fall down and slip under the washing machine.
I wish I could be better organized. It always amazes me when somebody says that I am. Just like it amazes me when somebody says I can draw well, or that I have a good voice. Oh, they just don't know! I have been working on organization for a couple years now, and have been successful in some areas (my closet) and not so much in others (my desk). Today's site would be very useful for organization, and much more!

Wallwisher

Wallwisher is a virtual note board that you can attach stickies to for many purposes. It is a simple app to use and doesn't even require registration, unless you want to save a "wall". If you do want to register so that you can create and save several walls, it is so easy because you can make a wallwisher account, or use your Google or OpenID information. Walls can be kept private or shared, can be edited by only you or others. The only thing I have found a bit annoying is that you have to create a name, subtitle and choose a picture for each wall you build. This could cause a loss of momentum if you were building a wall as part of a brainstorming session.

I have created a wall to list a few ways to use this app in your classroom. Check it out and add ideas of your own! http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/classroomuses

Microsoft: My "No Surprises" Friend

2009-04-23T20:36:00.007-05:00

What was the very first Microsoft product you used? Paint? Excel? Works? Chances are if you first used a computer in the 80's like I did, it was MS-DOS. Surprised? Microsoft first made it's operating system, MS-DOS, available in 1982. If you are a bit younger, your first OS was most likely Windows, introduced in 1985.

I can't really recall using computers at all in my school days. I graduated from high school in 1983. I remember taking a class called office machines, but all I really remember about the class was learning how to use a 10-key by touch. The school library had a card catalog that was a series of drawers holding index cards. In typing class, we typed on typewriters.

In college, I took a class called "Introduction to Computers". While I don't really remember too much about the course, I do remember using a computer and thinking that it wasn't that hard.

What sticks out most in my mind is my first teaching job. I was hired in November, well after the school year had begun. I was hired as a math improvement teacher in a Title 1 school (at the time called Chapter 1). I will never forget the very first group of children that came into my math lab on my very first day. They were a group of energetic sixth graders. They entered my classroom much less nervous than I had on that day. One boy asked if they could "get on the computers". My heart sank! I couldn't believe they were asking the one thing I had prayed they wouldn't. What was the reason for my despair? I didn't know how to turn the computers on!!

Luckily, I got caught up in their energy. After questioning them about how often they were allowed to use the computers, I let them sit down and I began to watch their every move!

I have come a long way since that first day in November of 1988. All the way from learning how to use a computer from 12 year olds to teaching community classes on Windows and MS Word. All the way from a math lab to technology integrator.

I have learned much along the way, but I always go back to my humble beginnings standing in that math lab peeking over the shoulders of those sixth graders. I now have a great deal of knowledge, but I can always learn more. Each bit of knowledge is returned back to my students, be they children or adults. If I think about all that I have learned and then returned (through teaching) with technology, Microsoft products would top the list.

Besides Windows OS, Microsoft's Office products such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been invaluable in teaching and learning. I love using these with students and helping them create digital representations of their new knowledge. The geek in me loves the idea that none of these products were created with students in mind. Between my thirst for learning, and ideas shared at http://www.microsoft.com/, I have been able to stretch the limits of my mind and others when thinking of uses for these programs.

In addition to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, I can not leave out the tried-and-true Paint. I can't really remember the first time I used it, but the last time was just yesterday to "erase" part of an image. A few weeks ago, I spent a day in an 8th grade Science room introducing MovieMaker. Students took a 42 minute overview and turned it into several wonderful videos that showed their understanding of the science concepts they learned.

And then there is IE, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past decade and a half, I am referring to Internet Explorer. This browser has been my loyal companion as my world has expanded through the vast network. I can't IMAGINE teaching and learning without it. It is my dictionary, thesaurus, advice columnist, telephone book, encyclopedia, stationery, cookbook and more.

As I have been typing this blog, I have been considering why I have such a fondness for all things Microsoft. The answer was easy. Microsoft IS easy! If you learn one program, you have essentially learned them all. For example, I can depend on using ctrl + c to copy no matter what product I am using. The continuity from OS to program to browser makes my job as teacher and learner a piece of cake.

Thank you, Microsoft, for being my "no surprises" friend.

A Few Things Google

2009-04-21T11:00:00.006-05:00

If I were to rank Google in a list of things I need to use each day, it would be higher than a telephone, blow dryer, and washing machine. It would be right up there with toilet paper, toothpaste and soap. A curling iron, vacuum, and microwave don't even come close!

Yes, I admit I need Google. I need it like I need my grandma when I have a cooking question. I need it like I need fingernail polish when I have a run in my panty hose. I need it like I need a lasso when I ....oh, you get the point.

The great thing about my need for Google is that it keeps growing as Google grows its resources. Today, I will be highlighting some of the cool Google features I love. Some are new, some aren't - but may be new to you. What are your favorite Google features and tools?

iGoogle

iGoogle is a personalized homepage for lovers of Google, or anyone! Here's what I love most about it:

*I can have my favorite resources, such as Twitter, come to me rather than having to go to them.

*I can add widgets and organize them on the page any way I want

*I can see my emails and calendar on my home page

*I can create multiple iGoogle pages and easily switch between them

*I can add cool themes to fit my interests or mood

Get an overview of iGoogle here, and also check out how to create your own iGoogle page.

My iGoogle page

Google Image Search and Similar Search

Google's image search isn't anything new, but there are new features. Once you type in a search, you can filter the results based on image size, type of image such as clipart, faces, line drawings, and photo content, or color. I have found this feature to be invaluable and know students and teachers alike will too.

Another tool, which is all "a Twitter" today is Google Labs' Similar Images, which allows you to refine your search with similar images. Just type in your keywords and then click the similar images link under a picture to see similar images.

Google Labs News Timeline

A new way to search the news is to use Google Labs News Timeline. Go to the timeline, choose your content such as news, newspapers, videos, sports scores, etc., and type in your query. The results will show in a timeline with a few features that you can modify to your liking. Result sources can be modified as well. This one is worth checking out.

Earth Day 2009

2009-04-20T20:06:00.003-05:00

"Every day is Earth Day" is a phrase we have come to associate with a Wednesday each April when we suddenly are conscious of the eco-footprint we leave on our planet. Imagine if we only concerned ourselves with protecting our planet and its resources one day a year? Luckily, many of us adopt habits that help us continuously give back to our world by doing things such as recycling, planting food gardens, buying in bulk, and carpooling. There are many, many ways to preserve our resources, first and foremost being education. Let's make sure our children don't suffer from "little ol' me" syndrome by educating them that every person needs to do their part, without fail, because "every day is Earth Day". What will YOU do?

Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator
Work through this simulation to find out what footprint you are leaving on our planet. Then find out ways to reduce your footprint and learn more about our planet's resources.

Eco Bunnies 2: Earth Day Escapade
Cute animated video that introduces the idea of "carbon footprint". At the end of the video, viewers are directed to a carbon footprint calculator. This calculator needs annual usage figures, so might be best as a project for students to do with parents.

EcoKids Games
EcoKids Earth Day Canada site provides several games to help student learn how to be eco-citizens. Games include The Great Garbage Caper, Yard Sale and Errand Run, a game about alternative transportation.

The Greenerator
Check out Scholastic's Act Green site to learn how to be green by playing games, joining the Green Team, printing reminder tags and door hangers, and much more!

Writer's Block

2009-04-15T08:30:00.003-05:00

I haven't written a new post in a week. I am blaming it on being busy at work and home and writer's block. Sometimes, I have trouble finding a resource to write about. Sometimes, I have a resource I want to share, but the words to introduce and describe it just won't come. I have empathy for students who suffer either of these forms of writer's block when they have been assigned a piece of writing. Hopefully, today's sites will help!

911 Writers Block
911 Writers Block is emergency help for those who suffer from writer's block. Writers punch a telephone key to get ideas for everything from setting, characters, and ending, to how to kill a character, and calisthenics.

Plot Scenario Generator
Archetype Writing's Plot Scenario Generator provides students with the plot to get a story going and the conflict to keep the story rolling!

Imagination Prompt Generator
Imagination Prompt Generator, from Creativity Portal, is just what it claims to be, a writing prompt generator that generates short prompts to inspire the imagination. If you don't like the first prompt you see, simply click the button for a new prompt.

Abby Who?

2009-04-07T15:38:00.000-05:00

I love that scene in Young Frankenstein when Igor is sent to get a brain. He is supposed to get the brain of a scientist/saint. However, he drops that brain and picks up another brain.

Later, Dr. Frankenstein questions him, and he tells him it is the brain of Abby Normal.

Those, and many other scenes in that movie always crack me up!

Today's site is a fun little beta site that will have your students making their own memorable movies.

Xtranormal
Xtranormal is a site where students type in text that is converted to an animated movie scene. Students pick the characters, scenery, actions and extras, then type in the dialogue. The scene is converted to a movie in seconds. A movie can be made and viewed, but not saved, without creating an account. Accounts appear to be free, at least while in beta.
This could be used in every subject area, for character ed, bullying prevention, careers...the possibilities are endless!

Next Stop: Scripps

2009-04-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

I was in a classroom spelling bee in second grade. I was one of the final two. We had to spell several words because we both kept spelling the words correctly. Finally, I got the word that means "purposeful forward movement by moving arms and legs in a body of water". And I spelled, "S-W-I-M-I-N-G". OK, the double consonant got me. Maybe I should have asked for the teacher to use the word in a sentence; or perhaps, the origin of the word. Still, not bad for an 8 year old.

Interactive Spelling Bee

Spelling Bee, from Anneberg Media's Learner.org, helps students practice their spelling, just like an old fashioned spelling bee. Students choose their grade level and listen to the short passage. The passage is like a cloze passage, with words missing. Students click in a blank to hear the word repeated, then type correct spelling of the word in the blank. Once all the blanks are filled, the student checks their answers, then has the option of reviewing the words or moving on to the next level. Tips and suggestions for becoming a "Top Notch Speller" are also included.

There's No Place Like Homepage

2009-03-30T10:54:00.000-05:00

Growing up in Kansas, I have always been a big fan of The Wizard Of Oz movie. I can remember watching it even as a little girl. The flying monkeys used to terrify me. However, being a Kansas native, tornadoes do not scare me. I love the thrill of hearing the sirens go off and stepping outside to look for funnel clouds. Of course I respect their power and know when it is time to seek shelter. When my husband and I were first married, we lived in a mobile home in south Wichita. We weathered a tornado or two in the storm shelter provided by the park. Luckily, our little trailer survived each twister event while we lived there.

As tornado season approaches once again in Kansas, (the sirens actually did go off a few weeks ago...you never know in Kansas!), I will look forward to the excitement, and hope for the best for myself, neighbors, family, and friends.

Schoolr

Schoolr is a one-page resource source that could certainly double as a very useful homepage for students and adults alike. Organized on this single page are search fields for:

Google

Wikipedia

Dictionary.com

Thesaurus.com

Acronym Finder

Urban Dictionary

Also, you can convert units of measure, translate text and create citations using Citation Builder. This very convenient packaging of many useful sites could leaving you saying, "There's no place like home(page)."

Cool Tool for Podcasting

2009-03-25T09:15:00.003-05:00

I haven't really gotten into podcasting, at least the creation of podcasts. I always have good intentions of creating something in a podcast, but never do. I think it is because I don't like the sound of my voice when I hear it. It has that Midwestern twang to it. I can't imagine what my colleagues or students think of it!
Nevertheless, I think podcasting has a strong place in schools, especially student-created podcasts. I have seen, rather---HEARD---many wonderful examples of podcasts created by students. It takes on a whole new realm of learning for the student when not only do they speak, but they hear themselves speak. Volume, rate, inflection, not to mention the use of "like" and "ummm", all play a big role in podcasting. Most of these skills are taught when students are reading, but not taught for presentations.
A podcast really isn't any different than an oral presentation. Students still prepare in the same way. The podcast can be kept forever, where an oral speech is saved only in the audience's memeory. Today's resource will help students prepare for creating a podcast so that they can focus more on the skills necessary to make them sound professional.

CuePrompter
CuePrompter is a free online teleprompter that can help students when practicing for an oral presentation or speech, podcast or vodcast. The application is a snap to use and free for all commercial and noncommecial purposes. You can select the speed, screen size, text color, and even mirror the text. Check this out if you are delving into the world of podcasting with your students!

Something Cool - Close to Home!

2009-03-23T13:59:00.003-05:00

I found a cool blog today, thanks to @hci, a fellow Tweeter from Wichita. The blog, which is highlighted below, was created by the Wichita Eagle's copy desk. The Eagle is Wichita's local newspaper. They have had an online presence for a long time now; a site that I regularly visit if I need to refer to an article that I had recently read, to get funeral information, or many other bits of information. I had missed this wonderful blog, called Grammar Monkeys, until today. Each blog entry features a grammar tip in the form of a podcast. I like that each episode gives a grammar tip in a short and concise way. This could make a wonderful intro for writing a paragraph based on the tip, to add to a teacher's class blog or web page, or as a bell ringer activity. Any other ideas?

Grammar Monkeys
Check out Grammar Monkeys blog that gives short and sweet grammar tips in the form of podcasts. The tips are suitable for upper elementary through high school students, as well as life long language learners and lovers. I would love to see a post on the use of lose/loose - a pet peeve of mine! Thanks @hci and Wichita Eagle for opening my eyes and ears to this blog!

The Art of Relaxation

2009-03-12T15:04:00.000-05:00

Once when I was teaching fifth grade, a parent told me that I was ADHD. He told me this in the hallway. I think he was in marketing, but he sure thought he was medical practitioner of some sort. I really took offense to his statement, mostly because it is true. I prefer to say that I "don't relax well".
In about three minutes, or however long it takes me to finish this post, I will officially be on Spring Break. I hope that I can work on relaxing during the next 10 days off work. The sites I am sharing today are two that I find very stress-relieving. Hope you find them to be as well.

Auditorium
Auditorium is a flash game that combines light and sound. Players manipulate the sound waves to make the music play. While listening to soothing music, players can use problem solving skills to advance to new levels. What a unique experience!

Boomshine
Boomshine isn't new, but it is definitely like a favorite blanket for me. I play this game when I am stressed, and the relaxing music always melts my tension away. Click your mouse to hit as many of the floating bubbles as possible with your "boom". The bubbles burst creating a chain reaction. If you burst enough bubbles with one "boom", you advance to the next level. Many websites offer this game. Make sure you have your speakers on when you play.

Fiddlesticks

2009-03-09T07:53:00.004-05:00

On this first Monday of Daylight Savings Time, I am sitting at my desk watching the sun rise in a painted sky. Usually DST affects me, but I was able to get out of bed before the crack of dawn this morning. I love to "spring forward" because it means longer days are coming and that Spring is just around the corner. I look forward to the budding leaves, the tulips' pop of color, toad stools, and even the lion's roar of the tornado sirens. Mostly I love Spring because after it slides right into summer!

Phrasr
Phrasr is a Flickr application that pairs words with Flickr photos to create short slideshows. You choose the words, then Phrasr suggests photos for each word. Once you have selected the pictures you want, a slideshow is created. Each show is saved and can also be emailed. Imagery, idioms, rebus stories, oxymoron are just a few ways to incorporate this fun app in your classroom. Check out the one I made here.

Everyone's an Artist

2009-03-06T14:43:00.000-06:00

So I suck at art. I always have. When I taught 5th grade, once a week I was supposed to teach art. Ha! Once a week, I taught crafts. There is hope for me though. I might not ever learn about the elements of design and lines, shading and hue, but at least the Internet provides me with a way to create something that is somewhat artistic. Today's site came to me by way of @AaronPotsick, an educator and tech lover, that I follow on Twitter.

SUMO Paint
SUMO Paint is a free online image editing software that is incredibly easy to use. The environment is similar to other image editors and allows for you to create, share, and comment on other's work. This is so cool that even I can make something eye-catching. Check this one out!

Express Yourself

2009-03-04T11:18:00.001-06:00

As teachers we often look for ways to make an assignment more appealing to students. We try to get into their world so they will perform well for us. The Jeopardy Labs site I shared in my last post is one such example of making a lesson more appealing to students. A few days ago, I ran across a site that allowed students to create a short newspaper article that generates an authentic looking picture of the article. I thought that would be a way to entice students to complete the task of writing a paragraph or two, which would otherwise seem boring. On further investigation, I found a blog that highlight such sites; so many, in fact, that you could practically make every single lesson of the year more appealing!

The Generator Blog
The Generator Blog is a blog that highlights generator sites. The list is long and distracting! I could spend a few good days looking at all the generators listed. Everything from a dog tag generator to a site that allows you to generate a virtual spatula are listed here. A virtual spatula???? Anyway, I won't spend any time telling you how these generators could be used in your lessons. If you are a teacher, your head will be swimming with ideas once you start looking at the list. Have fun with this one, folks!

Our Love's in Jeopardy

2009-03-03T10:38:00.005-06:00

Where were you when I needed you?
Well, you could not be found
What can I do?
Oh, I believed in you
You're running me around

Remember this old song by the Greg Kihn Band? It came out in 1983, the year I graduated from high school. If you only knew the drama surrounding my boyfriend and me then, you would understand what the lyrics of that song meant to me.
Or perhaps you prefer the Weird Al Yankovic parody

Be honest, how many of you sing that version in your head when you catch Jeopardy the game show on TV? Or are you like millions of others who get the famous

Doo doo doo do

Doo doo do,

Doo doo doo do

Do...doo doo doo doo do

stuck in your brain? Either way, most of us have watched the game show hosted by Alex Trebek at least once in our lives. Some of us think we could be the next Ken Jennings, and others of us have miserably failed.

Interestingly enough, the Jeopardy format continues to be popular in classrooms as a way to review material. Today's site has an easy template to create your own Jeopardy game.

Jeopardy Labs

Jeopardy Labs is a super-easy site to play or build an online jeopardy game. No registration is required to create a game that has a game board that looks very much like the TV show. Simply create a password to be able to edit your game at a later date, and fill in the board with categories, answers and questions. Once finished, a unique URL is created for your game. You can go back and edit by going to the edit-version URL and typing in the password. There are over 2000 games already created on the site, but because of the super-simple nature of building, why not just create your own? I created this game for a 6th grade Science teacher in my school. With the science textbook in front of me, it only took about 20 minutes. This will be great for him to use with his classes on the Activboard in his classroom.
My Jeopardy Template

Who's On First?

2009-02-26T08:30:00.003-06:00

Who doesn't know about that famous Abbott and Costello skit "Who's On First?" We've heard it, or tried to repeat it, many times in our lives. Did you know that it was first a part of their stage act and then was featured in the 1945 movie, "The Naughty Nineties"? It is a classic! We get caught up in the tongue-twister-like dialogue, but it does illustrate a very elemental math concept: ordinal numbers. Wouldn't it be fun for students to watch the short clip when learning about ordinal numbers?

Mathematics in Movies
Today's site was shared with me by @maggiev, a fellow Twitterer. The site has several short movie clips that deal with mathematics. Mathematics in Movies was created by Oliver Knill, from Harvard University. His site says that he will continue to add movie clips as he finds them. What a fun way to introduce a new math concept, or to spur a math journal entry. Thanks Oliver and @maggiev for this awesome site!

Sickly Sweet Romantic Crap

2009-02-25T11:51:00.003-06:00

I love the old television series Seinfeld. I love the themes of love, acts of kindness, humanity and humility that are portrayed each week by the characters Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. Take, for example, this episode where Jerry shows his affection for his girlfriend by calling her a pet name.

How sweet is that? I looked up the word shmoop, sometimes spelled schmoop, on the Urban Dictionary site. It defines it as

Lurve. Sickly sweet romantic crap.
To be schmoopy is to make others vomit with your cavity inducing displays of affection. To want schmoop is normal, don't be alarmed. Submit.

If you don't have schmoop in your life, watch some Seinfeld and feel the love.

OR!

Shmoop
OK, this is one of the coolest sites I have seen all week, if not all month! I feel much shmoop about (towards?) it. Shmoop is a beta site put together by PhD and Masters students at Berkley, Stanford, Yale and Harvard that offers wonderful help for middle/high school students to make a lot of sense of what their literature and history teachers are trying to teach them. At Shmoop, students can get help figuring out what to write on a paper, read summaries of those great literature titles they are asked to read, get an overview of a historical period is a concise, understandable way. Some really good poems are covered too, if you are a lover of poetry, or need to analyze a poem for an assignment. There is already a lot to choose from, but being so new, they have many topics/books/poems in the works. Check out all the shmoopiness and fall in love with literature and history!

Telephone: The Game

2009-02-16T11:56:00.003-06:00

Remember that game you used to play called "Telephone" in which you would whisper something in someone's ear, then have them whisper what they heard in the next person's ear and so on until the last person had to state out loud the message they heard? The fun of the game was in laughing at how garbled the original message became. When my grandma was alive, it was like playing that game every time you had a conversation with her. Her hearing had gotten so bad that she often repeated what she thought you said, and most times, it wasn't even close to what you said. Luckily she had a great sense of humor and we could laugh about all of her "mishears".

Dial2Do

Dial2Do is a service that will help you with a plethora of tasks. Register for a free account, call the telephone number given and simply tell the automated voice what you would like to do. When I was trying it out, I decided I wanted the service to add an event to my google calendar. I dialed the number, said "calendar" and named the event, time and date. The service added the event to my calendar! Ok, it wasn't that simple. My son was sitting with me when I was trying it out, so for the event, I said, "kick Derek's butt". What showed up on my calendar was "pick derick butt". For most events and purposes, I think I would know what "pick derick butt" meant. However, if I am creating an event far into the future, I might just want to go to my calendar and add it.

Other features include sending texts, sending or listening to emails, listening to the weather in a chosen area, creating a twitter or other blog post, sending yourself reminders, and much more!

Four Contests - Pt. II

2009-02-16T10:31:00.004-06:00

So how many of you are coming back because of yesterday's teaser? Hopefully you just want to know what the other two contests are, but if you are truly interested in what (significant) contests (ok, maybe they should be qualified as sweepstakes)I have entered and won then DON'T skip to the bottom.

The first big contest I entered and won was back in 1992. A local travel agency was promoting the 20th anniversary of Disney's Epcot center. My daughter, who was 5 then, and I were planning a trip to Denver for a wedding. We stopped in the travel agency to discuss the Denver trip. While there, I quickly signed up for the "grand prize" which was a trip to Disney World. Now for the witty part of the story: After we left, I told my daughter that I was sure we were going to win, because I wrote "Pick me" on the entry form. She asked me if I also put "please" because that was the polite thing to do. Of course I hadn't, but knew we weren't going to win anyway. We continued with our errands for the day and then went home.

Once home, my husband told me that the travel agency called and said they had my "travel certificates" and that I was supposed to call back. He didn't know anything else. I told him that I think I had won a contest and he told me I was crazy.

Well, I did win that contest, but for some reason, he still calls me crazy once in awhile!

The second contest I won was a lot bigger than the one I entered at the travel agency. This contest was a part of a cruise I took to Alaska last summer. The cruise line had teamed up with Alaskan Brewing Co. in Juneau to offer a fishing trip to Alaska. We went on the cruise in June, and I submitted my entry not long after we got back. Four days after Christmas, I was notified that I was the grand prize winner!

I had really forgotten all about the contest, and had only entered because they were sending t-shirts to all entrants. I do remember writing "pick me" on the entry form, as I now do on all entry forms since 1992. My hubby and I are looking forward to our Alaskan fishing trip this summer and also to enjoying an Alaskan beer or two!

World Math Day Video Challenge

The World Math Day Video Challenge is a contest for students in grades 3-8 to create a video for World Math Day. Entrants upload their video to TeacherTube to be voted on by friends, family and the world. Contest rules here, and videos must be uploaded by February 20th, so hurry up folks!

Winning Ideas Contest 2008-2009
Here is an ongoing contest for teachers that is easy to enter. Each month Scholastic gives teachers the opportunity to share their best teaching ideas with others through their Winning Ideas Contest. Simply share an idea from the month's topic. If your idea is considered the best one, you win $50 in Scholastic products. Easy-peasy!

Four Contests

2009-02-16T10:00:00.004-06:00

It has been way too long since my last post. I have no excuse other than that I find it hard to do this part of my post, the writing a witty, insightful narrative, before sharing a cool resource or two. Therefore, I have made the executive decision to not feel guilt about not feeling witty or insightful. I am committing to sharing resources even if my brain is set to dull mode.
Kudos to my favorite bloggers who seem to always have something relevant, if not entertaining to say. Double points to those of you who make me think or laugh. I can only aspire to become a part of your class some day!

Today I am sharing two of four contests that I have learned about recently. Tomorrow, I will share the other two. (Aha! I have already found a way to post twice this week without having to turn my brain on overdrive!) One of the contests is for students, two are for teachers, and one is for anybody. The deadline is quickly approaching for a couple, so speed is of the essence, if you are interested.

Doodle 4 Google
This contest, which is promoted by Google, is for students in grades K-12. Students simply design a Google logo that matches the contest's theme "What I Wish for the World". A teacher must register their school in order for students to compete. Check out all the rules on the site. A few students from my school participated last year. None of them won, but it was fun for them and an easy assignment for the art teacher! Schools must be registered by March 17, so don't delay!

SAT Vocab Contest
The folks over at BrainyFlix have created a contest to teach vocabulary from the SAT test. This fun contest has entrants creating videos that teach SAT vocabulary words. This contest is open to anyone, but would be a great assignment for middle or high school students. The best part - the prize money goes to a middle or high school of the winner's choice! The contest is open for submissions until March 16, 2009....hurry!!!!!

Teaser for tomorrow: two more fabulous contests to enter, and the two contests that this blog author has won!

Baking a Cake and Wrapping the Gifts

2009-01-27T08:41:00.004-06:00

In two days, the Sunflower State will celebrate its 148th birthday. On January 29, 1861, Kansas became the 34th state in the Union. Kansas' birth as a state in the Union was very significant because it entered as a free state. At this time in history, just before the Civil War, states were declaring themselves as either free states or slave states. Because abolitionists won out over pro-slavers, Kansas was a place of great turmoil during that time.
After the Civil War, many people made Kansas their home where they farmed the rich soil. Kansas also holds a rich history consisting of, pioneers, the cattle towns, cowboys and outlaws, the railroad, and business and industry. Today, Kansas is much more sophisticated than in the days of gunslingers at Boot Hill. The aircraft industry provides many jobs for Kansans. Our cities, while not large, are comfortable and family-friendly. Kansas is home to the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Wichita State University (Go Shockers!), and many more respected colleges. Kansas, in the heart of America, also has four beautiful and distinct seasons. When we celebrate the Fourth of July, it is hot as it should be, and there is usually snow on at least one of the twelve days of Christmas. Our springs boast trees and flowers awash with color, as well as the fall, where the colors are quite lovely in their array of gold, auburn and mocha.
Happy Birthday Kansas! I am proud to call you my home.

Sites about Kansas
Here are a couple of sites to learn more about Kansas, its people and its history. The first site is the Kansas State Historical Society. There are many links to information about the 34th state. Another useful site for finding information about Kansas is Kansas History Websites, a listing of sites related to the state.

Digital History
Check out Digital History to learn about the history of America. This site is a collection of primary sources with lesson plans, active learning ideas, multimedia and an interactive timeline to provide a look into the events and people who shaped the nation.

Blog This and You Can Win

2009-01-21T10:09:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I learned about a contest that Promethean is putting on. The contest is to try out their new software, Inspire, and then blog about it. How easy is that? The prizes include:

1st Prize - A complete Activclassroom:
Activboard+2Activexpression or Activotes (your choice)ActivsoftwareActivslateActivtabletActivpens
2nd Prize
$3,000 credit to spend in the Promethean Store.
3rd Prize
$1,000 credit to spend in the Promethean Store.

There are two things I especially love about this contest. First, it inspires (pun intended) teachers to stretch their boundaries and try something new. This should be easy because the stakes are really low. If the teacher doesn't like the new Inspire, they can continue to use Promethean's tried and true products.
Secondly, the purpose of my blog is to share resources with teachers in my district and model blogging for them. This contest gives teachers the excuse to jump on the blogging bandwagon. I think a prize of a complete Activclassroom will be just the lure!
The contest details are below. Good luck to everyone...especially Maize!

Promethean's ActivSoftware Blogging Contest
Click here to view the details for this contest. Entry deadline is February 13, 2009, so don't delay!

What Makes a Hero?

2009-01-20T11:13:00.005-06:00

Last week I wrote a post about Chelsey B. Sullenberger, the now famous pilot who saved many lives by his quick thinking and doing his job well. In my post, I called him a hero because that is how I see him because of his actions. The local newspaper in my community has an Opinion Line column. People can call in an anonymous opinion the the paper that will be published in this column. Sunday I read one such opinion that said Captain Sullenberger was not a hero because he was just doing his job.
I beg to differ! As I write this post, I am watching the inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th president of the United States. I am overwhelmed by his speech of overcoming adversity and of hope. I think back to Abraham Lincoln and what he did for this nation. He was doing his job.
I am proud to say that my husband serves as a lieutenant for our city's fire department. Each time he enters a burning building in search of people stranded inside, he is just doing his job.
My dad gets up and goes to work each day while enduring prostate cancer...to do his job.
The lunch ladies who give free food to those students who have forgotten their money, or don't have money to buy lunch are doing their jobs.
They are all heroes, as are so many people who make a positive difference in the lives of others while "doing their job".
I shudder to think what would have happened if Chelsey Sullenberger had called in sick to work that day, or had decided not to do his job right at that crucial moment. Job or not, it is a person's actions and willingness to put other's before them that makes them a hero. If a person had to run a punch a clock before they could scoop a child out of the path of an oncoming car, nobody would be a hero.
Thank you, heroes, for doing your jobs!

Heroic Activities Celebrate Heroes
This article from Education World discusses heroes and offers links to activities, resources and lesson plans for the study of heroes for grades K-12.

U.S. News

2009-01-16T12:50:00.004-06:00

Interesting US news for this week and next. What a wonderful story about a new American hero, Chelsey B. Sullenberger, who landed a US Airways plane in the Hudson River saving 155 lives. While in no way would I ever want to have been on that flight, I would love to shake hands with this hero and tell him "thank you" for reminding me that there are great people in America. I can't imagine that there is anyone in this country who hasn't yet heard about this story, but if not, you can read about it here, or watch video footage below. Or simply do a search for Chelsey B. Sullenberger or Hudson River plane landing and choose from the thousands of results.

Coming up next Tuesday is an historic event that makes me wish I didn't have to work that day. Of course I am referring to the inauguration of Barack Obama as our nation's 44th president. History will be made on Tuesday when he becomes the first African-American president in US history. Luckily, our middle school has cable television access and I hope most, if not all, teachers will take the opportunity to view the inauguration with their classes.

My biggest hope is that our new president will celebrate our Sullenberger's feat on this day. What a joyous occasion it would be to see our newest president recognize our newest hero on such a momentous occasion!

Ideas for Active Viewing by Students While Watching the Inauguration

Check out this post on The Innovative Educator blog for some ideas on how to help students actively view the inauguration. Thanks to a post on Twitter, I found these ideas "just in time".

On the Road for Learning

2009-01-13T19:06:00.004-06:00

I have to write this quick so I can get to bed early tonight. Tomorrow I have to get up at 3:45 to head to NE Kansas for an instructional coaching training. This year the other Tech Consultants and I are spending the year learning about coaching. Although technology is ever-changing, many of our teachers are able to use it in their classrooms without day-to-day help from us. As we strive for "true integration" by our teachers, whatever that means, it is time for us to expand our bag of tricks and help teachers in another way.
Instead of continually trying to show them how to incorporate technology into their existing curriculum, perhaps it is time to help them change the way they teach so that technology use occurs in a less contrived way. It is a learning curve for us all. My focus for the past several years has been technology alone. Now I need to spruce up on curriculum, strategies and all of the other buzzwords that come along with coaching. I look forward to stretching my mind for the next two days and then spreading the enthusiasm on to my coworkers!

Museum Box
This is an incredible site that has been all the buzz on Twitter lately. If you haven't already read about it on another blog, check it out here. Students can use the tools to create a virtual box of items, audio, images, video and text to support an argument, illustrate an event, add depth to a character - historical, fictional, or living, to name a few ideas. A school can register so that students can identify their boxes with it. Registration is free. One of the coolest integration sites I have seen in awhile!

Clips
Like Museum Box, Clips is a another tool from E2BN, a National Education Network (UK) provider. Clips is a video publishing host for students who want to put their videos on the Internet. Teachers can rest assured that when students visit Clips, they won't come across any videos that are questionable in nature because the site is moderated.

More Photo Fun

2009-01-06T14:42:00.006-06:00

I have highlighted online photo editing sites before, but lately I have run across a couple that I wanted to share. These two sites are really photo manipulation sites, rather than just editing. I think of editing as cropping, fixing red-eye, smoothing wrinkles, etc. Today's highlighted sites do have some editing features, but also are unique in that they allow the editor to alter reality quickly, easily and for no cost.
While these sites are fun, photo editing and photo manipulation can be incorporated into classrooms. A variety of lesson ideas such as editing a photo to place a person in a different place or era could be a part of a history or geography lesson. Adding different features, such as bunny ears, to a photo of a horse could inspire a narrative story. Cropping a photo of a student so that the face could be placed on another photo could be a visual for a report on what the student would like to be when they grow up.
Looking at photo editing and manipulation from another viewpoint also lends credence to studying photos and images to increase understanding. In a report in the CITE Journal by Mark Hofer and Carol Owings Swan, the authors state the importance of students learning how to "read" images to create a better understanding of curricular material. Read the report here http://www.citejournal.org/vol5/iss3/socialstudies/article1.cfm.

piZap
With piZap's online photo editor, you can add cool things to your photos like stickers and text bubbles. You can paint on a photo or add an effect like sepia. The site requires no registration.

PhotoFunia
PhotoFunia is a funky little site that allows you to upload a photo of someone and then alter it's reality. Using face recognition technology, you can turn yourself or a friend into a WWII fighter pilot, Santa Claus, or even a tattoo on David Beckham's washboard stomach. Some of the choices in the gallery are pretty racy, so use caution if sharing with students. No registration required.

Looking to a New Year

2008-12-31T20:19:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year all! Technically, it isn't a new year yet in the Central Time Zone, but it is close enough to create this post. For me, 2008 brought relief from back pain, an Alaskan adventure, not one, but TWO visits with my best friend Kirsti, lots of renovations to my home, the beginning of a transition in my job role, the college graduation of my daughter, and new and continued friendships which I value greatly!
I look for more great experiences in 2009. I know that 2008 hasn't quite yet ended, but as a teacher, I tend to plan ahead. Today's sites are devoted to those planners, or at least calendar watchers.

Read*Write*Think Calendar
This is an interactive lesson idea calendar produced by the esteemed Read*Write*Think, a site created by International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Simply view a month and click an event to view an interactive lesson about the topic. Great lessons for grades K-12 related to national standards and completely free.

EDSITEment Calendar
This calendar is brought to you by the National Endowment for the Humanities on their EDSITEment site. This calendar also shows topics by date which are linked to site features or lesson plans for grades K-12. All lessons are standards based and free as well.

TeacherVision Calendar
This calendar has linked topics, similar to those above, but as a subscription site, each day's topic provides multiple links to related web sites, lesson plans for grades K-12 and printables. The site allows for three free previews, then you must sign up for the free 7-day trial. Subscriptions run $39.95 a year. I couldn't find standards information, but maybe it is provided with a subscription. This site is part of the Family Education Network from Pearson Education.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T09:52:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I can't believe it is here already. This year, I did most of my shopping online so I don't have to get out today, on Christmas Eve, and fight the crowds. I plan to mail some packages...I know they will be late, but I also know I will be forgiven for that...take some Christmas treats over to my friend Marlon, bake a cake for my hubby to take to work tomorrow (firefighters have to work on Christmas-bah!), and then go to my mother-in-law's for our family celebration. What a great day!
May each of you find the joy of the Christmas spirit enter your home this holiday season!

Grammar Grater
Grammar Grater is a weekly podcast produced by Luke Taylor and the Grammatis Personae Players from Minnesota Public Radio. The podcasts are fresh and lively, focusing on interesting topics related to grammar. The coolest thing about the applying them in the classroom is that the script is posted on the website for students to read along while listening. This allows lower ability readers to have that audio-visual connection. Thanks to Twitter friend skipz for the tweet about this great site!

Cooperating Through Twitter

2008-12-17T10:44:00.003-06:00

This morning I was reading a few posts on Twitter and saw a couple of opportunities to help Twitter friends. This is not an uncommon occurrence. Often I will read Twitter posts that are requests on how to do a particular task in an application, what the best brand of (dvr, mini pc, wireless router, etc) is, or to shout out a hello to new Twitter users. It is great to have such a diverse community of friends to help with these types of questions.
Twitter can help with another type of request as well. This type allows for collaboration. This is the type of request I responded to this morning, and will always respond to if I have the opportunity, because it is such a valuable contribution.
One of the requests was made by cscribner, a Twitter friend and fellow Maize technology integration consultant. He and several students from his school are working on a VoiceThread about Christmas traditions around the world. His request was to add comments to the VoiceThread about how Christmas is celebrated in the poster's country. What a wonderful way to complete a global project in a short time. In the past, students (or the teacher) would have to write letters or emails. These two methods require efforts that are unnecessary today.
The other request was from mrmayo, another educator I follow on Twitter. His students created podcasts for book reports. He was asking for people to visit his blog, listen to the podcasts and comment. What an easy thing to do! Each podcast was under two minutes long, and picking a few of them I got the gist of the assignment. I listened and posted in under 10 minutes. Back when I was fifth grade teacher, I would have loved having my students receive feedback from people around the world. Unfortunately, back then I could only go down and bribe my coworkers with a day free of recess duty to respond.
So while I joined Twitter to learn new ideas and be a "requester of information" I am pleasantly surprised to see how I can contribute!

Mathway
Mathway is a site that shows step-by-step how to solve a math problem. The problem types range from basic to calculus. Students (and their parents helping with homework) can see the steps of the problem if they forgot how to do it once at home. Teachers can use the site to reinforce the steps of a problem or to show student an alternate way to solve. Graphs can even be created from the equations. Finally a glossary of terms is available for refreshing your memory of math vocabulary.

Buying on a Budget

2008-12-11T11:11:00.002-06:00

With the economy in the dumps, tightening of the purse strings is uber-important. This holiday season, I have been checking my favorite "deal" sites daily to buy Christmas gifts for just a little less. I have shopped Graveyard Mall, Woot, Shirt Woot, Deep Discount, and Amazon's Gold Box recently to save a few bucks on gifts for some of my favorite people. The best deal I got was from Deep Discount...2 bars of soap, one says "butt" and the other says "face" for $2.98 with free shipping. This for a $5 gift exchange that my 15 year old son will participate in. A $2.00 savings!
What about when schools need to purchase new technology? How can districts, especially small ones, save money? It isn't as simple as shopping at a deal of the day site. First, most sites only allow you to buy three of an item. Also, who is going to get that requisition approved TODAY because the deal ends at midnight? Finally who wants all of those different brands and models floating around because each laptop was purchased from a different discount site. There has to be some way of cutting costs while obtaining quality products.
Today I noticed an add at Deal News for a Dell M109S Ultraportable LED DLP Projector. The price was right: $499. Plug in the coupon code and it brought the price down to $399.20 with free shipping. Sounds great, huh? But what about quality? Can a district afford to cut the price of projectors by 1/2 or more if they will have to replace them twice as often? Should a district compromise picture quality for budget savings? On the other hand, should a district continue to buy projectors that need bulbs replaced often at exorbitant costs?

My request today is responses to the following questions:

-How does your district approach finding quality technology at affordable prices?
-Have you used the Dell M109S projector? If so, what is your opinion?
-Do you have any favorite "deal sites"? Share and I will post them!

Rule of Three

2008-12-11T10:27:00.003-06:00

In our district it seems that we often follow a "rule of three". We usually use a three year implementation plan for new programs, it takes three years for a new teacher to become tenured, some of our technology has a three year warranty and a three year rotation. Less apparent is that it usually takes three years to "get it". What I mean by that is that when teachers are introduced to a new technology, it seems to take three years before they are fully integrating that technology.
Example: Three years ago, we transformed from an elementary school to a middle school. With the new middle school curriculum came a class on broadcasting. The brave teacher that took on this new class had really no experience with it. The first year there were many foibles on his part and on the part of the students. The next year, it ran smoother, but there were no extensions of the program. This year, the daily broadcasts are full and rich and enjoyable to watch. Students have incorporated video, audio, mobile reporting, and a variety of other strategies to produce a fun and informative program each day.
This is just one example of technology use that take about three years to integrate or internalize, but there are many others. Today's featured site was emailed to the entire staff by one of the special education teachers. This is the first time she has sent out a site and her third year in our school. Coincidence?

NCES Kids' Zone
The NCES Kids' Zone is hosted by the National Council of Educational Statistics. The Kids' Zone provides information to help you learn about schools; decide on a college; find a public library; engage in several games, quizzes and skill building about math, probability, graphing, and mathematicians; and to learn many interesting facts about education. Resources include a search tool for schools, libraries, and colleges; a graph creation tool; "Dare to Compare", a fun quiz to see how your knowledge of different subject areas compares to students nationally and globally; a grab bag of games, quizzes, data, and videos; and an interactive probability activity. All resources are free.

Training for Blogging

2008-12-05T09:13:00.005-06:00

Today the other Technology Integration Consultants and I from our district are meeting to discuss implementing blogging in our district. Our idea is to have administrators model Web 2.0 for the staff by utilizing Web 2.0 tools for district communication. We think that if administrators begin simply by blogging their newsletters, we can grow the usage over time. We have to begin by growing ourselves.
Only three of the TICs currently have a blog. This morning, we are showing the others how to set up their own blog. The discussion has been lively and it is fun to watch comprehension and "ahas" wash over their faces. Once each TIC has set up their own blog, we will practice with them before we devise a plan for administrators. Any ideas for administrative or teacher blogs out there? I really would appreciate hearing how other districts have approached blogging by administration and teachers. What guidelines did you use? What blog host? Any information will be helpful!

Cutest Blog on the Block
This site was shared this morning by a TIC in one of our elementary buildings. The Cutest Blog on the Block is a site that offers backgrounds, animated .gifs, and blog tips to jazz up your Blogger blog. You can also get a face lift for your blog or create photo cards for a fee.

I Feel Loved!

2008-12-04T08:33:00.003-06:00

Yesterday Johanna, a colleague, emailed me to ask me why I hadn't written a new post in a week. The fact is, I have just been too busy. At least that is what I tell myself. However, it takes only one little email to spur me into action. Funny how knowing that just ONE person might be interested in what I have to say makes me feel loved!
It's really human nature, isn't it? As teachers, friends, family members, and human beings, we need to remember that all people want to feel appreciated. Taking time to remind a student of one of their good points, telling a relative you love them, complimenting a friend on their outfit - hairdo - cooking, etc, or even stepping outside your door when the mailman is filling the mailboxes and offering him a smile and a thanks, isn't really hard to do. And the gestures mean so much to the recipient. Just like a little message in my inbox. Thanks, Johanna. I feel loved!

Learning to Give
Learning to Give is the curriculum division of The LEAGUE, an organization to promote community service by students in the school setting. To quote from the site:

Students are often recognized for their achievements on the field and in the
classroom, but how often are they recognized for giving back? The LEAGUE is a
school-based system that combines state standards-based lesson plans with
community service events that teach students the value of giving and recognizes
them for their efforts.

The Learning to Give site has resources for teachers, students, parents, youth workers, faith groups and independent schools. Lesson plans are tied to state standards and designed for grades K-12 to teach students about philanthropy and the value of donating time to a worthy cause. There are games to play to increase understanding of community service, as well as many other resources.

Of 1:1 and Podcasting

2008-11-24T13:04:00.002-06:00

Today I am at a 1:1 Laptop Summit hosted by Holton Public Schools in northeast Kansas. Our district is looking implement a 1:1 program and are still in the research phase. In the library at Holton High School about 50 people are gathered from across the state. Some are from districts that already have a 1:1 program like Holton; others are like my school district, here to gather information.
I was very interested in coming to listen in because I was concerned that we might not be thinking of EVERYTHING we need to as we plan. So far, it looks as if we are doing OK. I am also relieved to know that the issues we are facing are being faced by those already involved, or planning an implementation of their own.
Some solutions have been offered. On our drive back home, I am sure we will discuss these in detail. One such solution is to create a "white list" of acceptable sites for use at school, as opposed to a "black list" of unacceptable sites. I am curious about how this works. Anyone out there using a "white list"? If so, I would love your feedback about how it works in your district.
Even with the ideas shared here, I know our district can not afford to rush into a program as big as this without thinking it through thoroughly.

Gcast
Gcast is a website that allows you to create a podcast by dialing a toll-free number from any phone anywhere. Alan Beam, principal of Holton High and presider of the 1:1 laptop summit, explained how he uses it for school announcements. Check out more information about how to use Gcast at November Learning. I am excited to use this free service and share it with my teachers!

Bringing Them Along

2008-11-20T09:47:00.005-06:00

Part of my job is to review websites and web applications for their potential use in the classroom. Historically, I have done this and then shared relevant content with my teachers via an email link with some explanatory notes. Often, I don't have a clue as to whether the teachers use the sites I send them, don't use them for whatever reason, or have a filter set up in Outlook to automatically delete any and all emails that come from me.

This year, I decided to promote the use of Web 2.0 tools by delivering resources through this blog. Now, the funny thing is, I notified the teachers of the existence of this blog by emailing them. However, I still have the same problem...not knowing if anyone is really reading it, or at least looking at the resources I blog about. I added a stat counter and a cluster map, but both of those record every visit that I make to the blog as well. Which means that if you look at my stat counter, divide that number in half and then again by 7, that is probably the actual number of visits by other people besides myself!

I decided to try a new tack. Recently, when I blog about a resource, I send the blog link to the teachers I think might be interested in the resource. Yes, I know I am being redundant, but sometimes you have to to bring people along. The payoff is wonderful when you have someone stop you in the hall and tell you they tried out the site with their students or when you receive emails like this:

Did this yesterday with the kids after we did Typing Pals for a
bit....THEY LOVED IT!! Some were more interested in the chatting, but at
least they were typing!

That from Lindsey, a 6th grade teacher, whom I had sent the blog post What You End Up With to through email. She was referring to TypeRacer, a keyboarding game that allows for private competition through the generation of a unique url. Thanks to Lindsey, I will continue to blog about websites and resources and hopefully next time I will hear back from at least two teachers!

All My Faves
This cool site is touted as a "top sites" search engine and is arranged in categories by icon. Ideal for visual people who remember a logo but maybe not a site name. You can sort alphabetically or by most popular. There is a tab for Weekly Faves to stay on top of what is "in" at the moment!

Boy Do I Feel Sheepish

2008-11-13T11:04:00.002-06:00

I am not usually a sucker. I pride myself on that. However, yesterday I had a giant red "S" on my forehead when I decided to find out my Twitterank. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Turns out all of Twitterland is abuzz about how anyone who made the same decision I did are now exposed to phishing scams, stolen identities, going home to find their house had been stolen, etc. OK, maybe not THAT bad, but still.
Last night I spent over an hour changing my password for all the sites that shared the same password as Twitter. Maybe I didn't actually need to change all the passwords, but still.
Luckily, the particular password that I used for Twitter wasn't one that was tied to any site that has really personal or financial information. In this day and age, who knows what a person can find out about you from a simple password connected to a seemingly innocuous web application? Who knows if there is anything they can't find out?
In the end, it is a good lesson for us all to change our passwords often. I had been using that particular password for several years. It might be an inconvenience for awhile to force my fingers to move to different characters on my keyboard until I get used to typing the new password, but each time I have to do it, I will remember the near-miss of Twitterank.
If you looked in the mirror yesterday or today to find a big red "S" staring back at you, read more on Adam Ostrow's blog post, or the post by Oliver Mark.

Strong Passwords & Password Security
After my near-miss yesterday, it got me to thinking about password storage and security. I did some searching on the web and found this article from Microsoft on creating strong passwords. About halfway down the article is a link to click to see if your password is considered "strong". There are good tips here for keeping your passwords secure as well.

What You End Up With

2008-11-10T10:28:00.003-06:00

I ran across a cool keyboarding game the other day while was searching the Internet. The game is a multiplayer game in which you can invite your friends by creating a unique url and compete against them in a private setting. I liked the privacy of it, so I began my quest to find other multiplayer games that were educational in nature, yet had a closed-environment. I came across one such other site that had math games. Both are highlighted below. I was disappointed that I could find no other sites that allow students to play without registering or to play against classmates in a closed-environment.
What I did find was a cool site that provides customizable flash templates for teachers and students that can be embedded into wikis, blogs, class websites, etc. Funny what you end up with when embarking on a web search!
If anyone knows of any educational games like those mentioned above, please send them my way and I will share them on this blog.

Arcademic Skill Builders
Arcademic Skill Builders is an educational game site that has a variety of math and language arts skills games (as well as one game on state capitals) in a flash format. Four math games are multiplayer games in which students can invite select individuals by providing them with a unique url. The games seem appropriate for students in grades 3-5, but older kids might have fun with them as well.http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/

Type Racer
This keyboarding game is in beta, but seems to run very smooth. You can register or play as a guest and invite friends by providing them with a code or a private url. The text comes from books or movies. I played my daughter yesterday and we had to type text from the movie Juno. She beat me every time! Players can chat with one another while playing, but most will be concentrating on typing to beat their opponents!

Classtools
Classtools.net is an awesome site that allows you to create FREE interactive Flash diagrams for learning and revising material. Templates are easy to customize and include Venn, fishbone, and jigsaw diagrams, post-its, lights out, a count-down timer, and more. The templates can be embedded into wikis, blogs, and websites for easy access by teachers and students.

Click here for full screen version

image used in this tool originated from http://www.indiana.edu/~oso/animations/An12.html

Cool Google Tools

2008-11-09T14:16:00.006-06:00

Today I attended a college class on Google Tools. Google is my encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, phone book, atlas, cookbook, calculator, photo album, travel agent and more all rolled into one. I have Google set as my home page and have it customized with iGoogle (see video below). I frequently use Google as a verb rather than a noun....oh probably 25 times a day!

As I tweeted this morning before going to class, "there is always more to learn". So, I signed up for the class to see what I cool things I could learn. And learn, I did! Many thanks to my instructor, Cammy, for being a part of my PLN and helping me learn about some great Google features! Below are some highlights:

Google Searching
Google can be used as a calculator. Simply type in the equation and click search. The equation and answer will be displayed. This works for many types of equations. For a list of types, click here.
Google can be searched for a certain file type so that the results only display those matching a particular file extension. To do this, type in your search terms then type filetype: (file ext. here)
ex. water cycle filetype: .ppt will return results of PowerPoint presentations about or relating to the water cycle.
Google can search for synonyms of search terms that you enter. I am often searching for tutorials or guides for software that teachers use. Sometimes I spend lots of time just changing the search term to include words like "guide, tutorial, or directions". Using the synonym search, I can tell google to look for all of the above by only doing one search. To do this, in the search field, type: keyword ~tutorial (or whichever word you want it to search synonyms for).

Picasa
I downloaded Picasa a couple years ago and found it completely annoying, so I uninstalled it. It is much improved since I last looked at it. One of the features that I looked at and seems pretty cool is the picture collage. It is very easy to create one of four different styles of collages. Here are a bunch of tutorials (guides? directions?) from Learning Electric. I have decided that the improvements in Picasa make it worth another try.

Google Earth
Google Earth is another program I once had installed, but got rid of because of slowness of my network. Since then, my network has improved, and so has Google Earth! The feature I like most is the layers feature. This allows you to find information about a place as provided by many partners with Google. Layers can show tourist attractions, video clips, GPS tracks, National Geographic images, articles and movies, and more.

Is That "i before e?"

2008-11-07T14:10:00.003-06:00

When I was teaching in the classroom, I would have been thrilled to have access to a site that would allow me to plug in spelling words and then have the kids do practice activities online. Back then, I could never seem to find a site that would let me upload my own spelling words.
My principal ran across such a site and sent it to me. I think it is great and am definitely sharing with the language arts teachers in the building.

Spelling City
Spelling City is a wonderful website for children to practice spelling. The site is designed for school or home practice. Teachers, parents, or students can upload unique spelling lists, or use one of the many lists on the site. There are fun ways to practice spelling skills, including hearing the word pronounced in a real human voice, playing many different games, or even taking a spelling test online. Teachers can store spelling lists by completing a free registration. Check out the short tutorial by Tammy Worcester here, or just go straight to the site to get started.

Physics from a Mom's Perspective

2008-11-05T08:55:00.005-06:00

First Law of Physics: A ball that is thrown in my living room will continue through the air until it hits my favorite (insert your favorite photo, vase, television screen, etc. here) and smashes it into 347 tiny pieces.

Second Law of Physics: When one child in the living room tackles another child in front of (insert your favorite photo, vase, television screen, etc. here) the second child will be propelled into the object and smash it into 347 tiny pieces.

Third Law of Physics: For every time a sister pushes her brother in the living room, he will push back knocking his sister into (insert your favorite photo, vase, television screen, etc. here) and therefore smashing it into 347 tiny pieces.

Fantastic Contraptions
This website has several games related to physics. A fun and educational way for students to gain a better understanding of the concepts of physics.

Crayon Physics
Crayon Physics is a fun little game that helps students employ their knowledge about physics to win. This is a free download that can be quite addictive!

Yo, Banana Boy!

2008-11-04T22:21:00.005-06:00

Happy birthday to me! Today I am 44 years old. Like the title of this post, this year I am a palindrome. For 365 days, I get to experience the special feeling that I can share with 11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, and 101-year olds! Don't be a "party boobytrap", have fun with the palindrome sites below, they are "too hot to hoot!

Bob - by Weird Al Yankovic

Palindromes
Check out the palindrome riddles and lists of palindromes at this site.
Once Upon a Palindrome
This site has a cute story divided into chapters. Readers are to fill in the blanks with a palindrome.
Palindrome Puzzle
The Palindrome Puzzle is a grid puzzle in which the player needs to move pieces to the grid to complete the palindromes.
Radar Bills
Check out this Figure This! challenge from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

It's No Mystery

2008-10-30T08:52:00.005-05:00

Good teaching takes time. If a teacher wants to have a lesson go well, he/she has to do homework. If using a prepared lesson plan, the teacher must read through it to determine what pieces of the lesson she wants to emphasize, and what can be left out. She must also prepare materials in advance. To meet the needs of all learners, the teacher might need find a variety of resources, utilize various strategies, or plan several activities. All of this takes time.
It's no mystery. The real puzzle is, "where do they find the time?" My hats off all the teachers out there who have solved the time conundrum.

FFFBI
Fin, Fur, and Feather Bureau of Investigation is brought to you by National Geographic and WBGH. It offers mysteries to solve while teaching kids about world cultures. This humorous site integrates math, science, music and history.

ReadWriteThink
This popular sites has a couple of activities for students. The first one is called Make a Mystery Puzzle. This activity, which can be used for book clubs, has children and teens explore this popular type of writing in more detail by making a puzzle. It also encourages them to invent and write their own mysteries.
The second activity, Mystery Cube, is an interactive that helps students identify the elements of this genre.

Mystery! The Disappearance of Polleyanne Fishenchips
This fun interactive comes from PBS. Students follow the clues and use careful reading and inferences to solve the crime.

Trick or Treat

2008-10-29T08:52:00.003-05:00

I love Halloween! Besides Christmas, it is my favorite holiday. When my kids were young, I would always make their costumes. I wasn't going to have them go through the embarrassment of wearing a cheaply made store-bought costume like those I always had to wear as a kid. The best costume I made was for my daughter when she was about 4 years old. It was a jack-o-lantern made from a big orange sweatshirt and some black and green felt. I will always remember how cute she looked in it!
I think I used to get just as excited as my kids about going trick-or-treating. Our Halloween tradition has always been that I cook chili for the first time of the season for supper. Then, back in the day, I would take the kids out in search of the best treats while Dave, my husband, stayed home and passed out candy. Once home, all the candy went into a big bowl for all to share. I loved walking around with the kids and a few neighbors. I miss those days now that my kids are big.

History of Halloween
Check out everything Halloween at http://www.history.com/. This site has the history of the holiday, videos to watch, games to play, information about Halloween around the world, and more. The site also highlights other holidays as well.

Hands-on Halloween Science
Check out Steve Spangler's site for some fun Halloween related science activities.

Countess Blood's Spooky Midis, Wavs and Mp3's
Cool site for students to visit to jazz up a spooky podcast or movie. Audio files in midi, wav, and mp3 format.

I Font to Hold Your Hand

2008-10-22T13:56:00.006-05:00

As a teacher, I like creating visuals to aid in teaching. Things like presentations, handouts, posters, worksheets, etc. As a teacher with an elementary background, I sometimes like to "cutesy" them up. That's why I love perusing free font sites. Way back in the day, Comic Sans Serif, Kristen, and Jokerman had it goin' on!!!! If I handed out a worksheet to my class that was printed with Jokerman font, the lesson turned into a fiesta, complete with a Mariachi band. Oh, the good times.

These days, I am no longer creating worksheets, but am still having a love-affair with fonts. There are some great sites out there for those of us with the need to have juvenile fonts for elementary, and those of us with more grownup tastes.

Dafont
Dafont has lots of cool fonts

UrbanFonts
UrbanFonts is another site for perusing a large number of fonts.

FontStruct
FontStruct is a fun little site for those with a creative side. At the site, you can follow the "fontstructions" to build your own font using the "fontstuctor" Keep the font for your own use, or choose to share it with others. There is a gallery of fonts to download or edit too. Fun project for art class, web design class, or anyone! Thanks to edorigami.edublogs.org for sharing this site.

What the Font
What the Font is a service that allows you to upload an image of a specific font, and they search for possible matches for that font. Cool.

Facebook - Connecting Near and Far

2008-10-21T21:28:00.006-05:00

My daughter created a profile for me on Facebook last year when she was preparing to leave for a study abroad in Costa Rica. She wanted me to use Facebook so I would have a means to look at all the pictures she posted of her beautiful temporary home. She hooked me up with some of my nieces and nephews so that I would have some friends right away. Immediately, one of the teen aged nieces became suspicious of my reasons for wanting to be her friend. She was afraid that I was going to tell her mom (my sister) things I read on her wall, etc. Little does she know that my sister and I learned a long time ago to not tell on anyone. This goes way back to when we were kids. If we would have started telling our parents on each other, we would still be grounded today.

Soon my list of friends grew from 4 to 7, then 15 and now, as of five minutes ago, 23! Some of my friends work down the hall from me. Some used to be my students, and some my former classmates. My newest friend is my most long-distance friend, Gao Fan, from China. Fan was a visiting teacher in our district for three semesters. Even with all the communication tools we have today, it is not too easy to keep in touch with the time difference. I love that I can now peek into my friend's life from so far away whenever I want to! (Well, except when I am at work. My district blocks Facebook : ( )

Doodle
Doodle is a polling site that is very easy to use. You can quickly create an event-scheduling poll, or an options poll. When you create the poll, a URL is issued so you can notify pollees of the poll. If you sign up for a free account, you can have the poll results sent to your email, and save polls. My favorite part is that there is now an iGoogle widget!
Try my poll now
http://www.doodle.com/9edeudwp66i353td

Oldies...with a Twist!

2008-10-20T12:49:00.004-05:00

When I really started getting into technology about 12 years ago, I learned about a program that I thought was the coolest thing going! It was a presentation software that would really help me illustrate important points in my lectures. Yep, I am talking about PowerPoint. Wow, I was in love with creating presentations with bulleted lists, varied transitions, and even that cool typewriter text animation. My students were awed and amazed.
Time passed and I found out that my 5th graders were coming to school knowing more about PowerPoint than I did. Then came the point that students would groan if I showed a .ppt or asked them to create one. I thought that the program had finally run it's course. Seemed a shame, especially since I had a gazillion presentations already created.
I think there is still a chance for PowerPoint. With the integration capabilities with other software like Promethean and eInstruction, just to name a couple, (and don't forget Google Docs!) teachers can dust off those old presentations and breathe new life into them.

Pete's PowerPoint Station
This site has hundreds of presentations organized by subject area for grades 2-8. Many of the presentations can be downloaded, but some are view-only. Why start at square one?

School District PowerPoint Archives
I am sharing two district sites that have a good listing of education PowerPoints. First is NEBO school district in Springville, Utah. Check out their archives here.
(The other site is not responding. I will edit post when the site is working.)

PowerPoint Palooza
Over 200 presentations related to American History, World History, Global Studies and others.

Blog Action Day: Poverty - I Don't Know You

2008-10-15T20:03:00.003-05:00

Today I am participating in Blog Action Day 08 - Poverty. I feel at a loss at what to write, though I feel compelled to write. I chose my title because I have never known poverty. I don't know many people who have. Last spring, I had surgery and couldn't eat for a day. I was starving! Starvation - I don't know you.
When my husband and I were first married, I was still in college and we had a baby. We ate lots of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese because we were so poor. Poverty - I don't know you.
When I was 10 years old, my parents were divorced. I lived with my mom and brother and sister in rent-controlled housing and qualified for reduced lunches at my elementary school. Desperation - I don't know you.
I have taught the poor, desperate and hungry. Their lives are not easy, yet they don't give up. They come to school, watch out for their siblings while their parents look for work, handouts or drugs. They find room in their hearts to give their teacher a smile, a hug, a dirty stuffed animal for Christmas.
Poverty - I don't know you, but I want to help. Please go to Blog Action Day 08 and see what you can do too.

Integration

2008-10-09T11:04:00.003-05:00

We often refer to "technology integration" as if it is a task in itself. My job title even has the phrase in it. However, the quest shouldn't be to integrate technology into the curriculum, but to use technology to integrate the curriculum.
If schools were to take this approach, it might not seem so daunting to teachers. Maybe it would even free up some time for teachers to learn new technology skills and search for resources if they were integrating subjects. Just how to integrate is the tough part though. In an elementary setting, teachers are concerned about teaching students the basics; as well they should be. In the middle and high school settings, teachers are concerned about teaching the standards for their specific curricular area so that the schools make AYP. When does one have time to integrate, and why should a teacher do another teacher's job for them?
Teaching the whole child should be the job of every teacher. Just like doing crunches alone won't get rid of that spare tire, doing math facts alone won't make an accountant. Letting go of the fear of falling test scores if you take time to teach about careers in your math class is tough for teachers. However, doesn't it make more sense to take a class period to talk about a career in math so that students see the connections between what they are doing today and where it can take them in the future, than to have the counselor come in at any random time to talk about many different careers in a 30 minute lesson? Doesn't seem like rocket science to me. But then hey, I teach P.E. so I don't have to worry about it!

Math Mastery
Math Mastery is an online math curriculum that utilizes videos to teach students in grades 2-8 math skills. The videos are engaging and interactive. The curriculum does have a cost. The cool thing I found at this site is the Daily Brains Library which is free. The library has hundreds of word problems that are categorized by subject area. The problems are relatively short and make for an easy way for math teachers to integrate science, history, geography, health, and language arts into their lessons.

Google Lit Trips
This site utilizes Google Earth to combine literature, geography, and history for a wonderful cross curricular experience for students.

Like an Email Joke, Only Better

2008-10-07T14:25:00.003-05:00

I am teaching a graduate class called Collaborative Tools for Enrichment. The class is really about web 2.0 tools. Last night after our first class, one of the participants, and fellow Twitterer pmcanulty, sent me the video below. I followed the link and found it took me to Jeff Utecht's blog, The Thinking Stick. I watched the exceptional video and immediately wanted to post about it. Unfortunately, I didn't right away, but later discovered that two other people had emailed it to me AND I noticed a fellow Twitterer, ddraper, posted it just a little bit ago.
While I was watching the video, I noticed a cool app running that allows viewers' comments to be posted throughout the video. I decided to explore it, and before I could write this post, another fellow Twitterer, AngelaMaiers, posted about the app (see below)!
So, how many of you have gotten the email about "Pumpkins Who Drink Too Much" this week, and how many times? At least the video clip and the app are worthwhile.

Schools We Need
This video clip should be watched by EVERYONE. By Chris Lehmann, it covers 21st Century Skills, school reform, and what is truly best for kids.

Viddler
Turns out the app I was referring to is actually a video hosting service. With Viddler's free service, you can Upload as many videos as you want—you get nearly unlimited space. You can also record videos directly to the site using your webcam, post comments and tags at specific points in the video, and share your videos with RSS and iTunes. Best part: FREE!

Links to Learning

2008-10-05T19:54:00.008-05:00

Yesterday I learned many new things in a way I never thought I would. I learned by clicking links. I started out by reading a post in my BeTwittered window that caught my eye. The post was by smhamilton who wrote about looking for sites for a web 2.0 class she is teaching. I am also teaching a web 2.0 class beginning today. smhamilton had two links in her post, so I checked them out. The first one was for http://www.sitemark.com/, where I learned about organizing and sharing my bookmarks(see below), and the second was for http://gettingtrickywithwikis.wikispaces.com/. This wiki, by Levna Shearing, has many ideas for ways to spice up your wiki.
I was intrigued by a link for another post by the author called Cogs for Blogs. I clicked that link and learned, among other things, how to add an "Email Me" link to my blog. Check it out to the right! I also clicked another link and found out how to make cool new videos. Read all about it below.
Thanks to a Twitter friend and a few link-clicks, I have learned some cool new things. Oh, and by the way, thanks to many Twitter friends, I learn stuff this way all the time! Now, click the links below to learn something too!

Sitemark
http://www.sitemark.com/ is a social bookmarking website that allows you to save, organize and share your bookmarks. Cool to me because bookmarks are in a thumbnail format. Great for visual people such as myself.

Viddix
http://www.viddix.com/ is a new video platform that allows users to add all kinds of webcontent to their video timeline. Check out the tour for more information.

Research and the Web

2008-10-01T13:21:00.003-05:00

I could write an incredibly long post on using the Internet to do research. I am just too busy to do so today! I have run across a couple of tools that can help students capture specific information on the Web along with the link and organize that information in a neat and concise way.

Google Notebook
Google Notebook is a free service offered by Google that provides a simple way to save and organize clips of information when conducting research online. This personal browser tool permits a user to write notes, and to clip text, images, and links from pages during browsing. These are saved to an online "notebook" with sharing and collaboration features. Notes can be added to each clip for ease of organization. If you have the Google toolbar version 5, it allows for a mini window to place your notes in.

Clipmarks
Clipmarks is similar to Google Notebook in that you can save specific information from a web page. The Clipmarks plugin lets you clip specific pieces of web pages, then share what you clip with your friends on Facebook, MySpace or anywhere else. Unlike bookmarks that let you share a link to an entire page, our free clip button lets you capture and share the highlights from the page. Clips can also be saved privately, emailed or printed.

So I Don't Know Everything

2008-09-29T20:02:00.010-05:00

It's true! I should feel happy that my bosses (yes, I have more than one of 'em) mostly feel like I do know everything, but I don't. Take today for example. Our district offers free college credits for graduate classes that we offer in our district through a college. This is a wonderful form of staff development for our staff because we get to push topics that we want them to learn by offering them as courses, and our teachers get a free college credit while learning right along with their colleagues.
The problem? I am not in the least prepared to teach a class that I am supposed to teach beginning this Thursday! The class is on utilizing a Promethean board in the classroom. I was planning on teaching it with another tech consultant, but the enrollment isn't high enough to warrant two instructors. I was relying heavily on his expertise. Yikes!
Therefore, I am cramming tonight, and will be for the next two nights on Promethean skills!
Calling all readers: I will HAPPILY accept any and all links to resources for ActivStudio!
Note: This post contains an unusually large number of exclamation points! I thought about editing some out, but then you wouldn't feel my desperation!

Promethean Planet Widget
I found this nifty widget to post on my iGoogle page that shows the latest flipcharts posted on Promethean Planet.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

2008-09-25T22:35:00.003-05:00

We completed our fall parent/teacher conferences this evening. I heard a few teachers say that there seemed to be a decrease in attendance. They were speculating that the web access to grades was probably the reason. Could it be that conferences will one day a thing of the past? This school year, we plan to email report cards. Seems sad to me that the student doesn't get the opportunity to rip open that envelope to see those grades. And what about all the community activities tied to bringing in a report card to get free video rentals, ice cream cones, etc? Times, they are a changin'!

Scriblink
I had fun this evening playing with Scriblink in between visiting with parents about that online grade access. Scriblink is an online whiteboard that allows many to interact. There is a built in equation editor, a chat feature, and the ability to print, save, or send files. Very straight forward and easy to use. Excellent for online or IDL classes.

I Have to Blog Today

2008-09-23T11:14:00.010-05:00

I have to blog today! It was my goal at the beginning of the year to blog five days a week. I have missed two days in a row! I don't like it when I don't meet self-imposed goals. I need to get a better system so that I can blog even when the waves of work come crashing down on me as soon as I enter the school building!

Today's sites are online photo editors. Some fun, free stuff!

Dumpr

Upload a photo, choose cool effects at dumpr, including rubik's cube, photo-to-sketch, photos-inside-a-photo, or reflection, then save, print, email, blog or add to your social media account. A few of the effects are available for only for pro accounts.

FlauntR
Create photo frames, borders, digital scrapbooks, ecards, greeting cards, or invitations using photo filters, lighting, overlays and textures. FlauntR also has web storage for your photos. Upload all of your photos at once using Picasa, or one at a time. Options for photo printing available. Integrates with Facebook and others.

LunaPic

My son and I had tons of fun the other night with LunaPic. LunaPic lets you spice up your photos with their online photo editing tools in the form of a toolbar. Add cool animations like color change, reflections, or transitions to your images. The best thing is you can add an unlimited number of animations. Sign up for an account and get to share your artwork with friends or save it on your computer and start a collection.

What I Have Learned So Far

2008-09-18T19:29:00.005-05:00

Wow! I didn't think that my wallflower post would get ANY comments, and I got five. Who'da thunk? I didn't write it for the responses, but I am so grateful for them. I got valuable advice from each one, and such encouragement that validates what I am doing. Now I am just craving more advice and tidbits!
Two years ago I attended the Laptop Institute held at Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis. The keynote speaker was David Warlick. It was so awesome to hear him speak in his keynote address, and even more thrilling that he led a couple of smaller sessions. That summer was really my induction to the blogging world...the world of web 2.0, really.
From that conference, I have gained confidence in trying out new tools and sharing them with others. It took a couple years, but I finally figured out that I could use the tools to share them! Since that first experience at the Laptop Institute, I have sought out great bloggers. I learn new things every day from the many posts I read. Thank you all for helping me learn!

More blogs I read:
WNY Education Associates Blog
I have been following Angela Stockman for a few months on Twitter. She is the director of WNY Education Associates, a group that specializes in literacy coaching, writer's studios, and professional development.

ITLC
Integrating Technology in Teaching and Learning is a blog by Skip Zalneraitis, an English teacher from New Hampshire. He found me or I found him on Twitter a few months ago. I love his wake up tweet every morning, but love more the practical ideas and resources he shares in his blog.

The Connected Classroom
This blog is intended to capture the thoughts of an emerging edu-blogger committed to creating constructivist learning experiences for students. Authored by Kristin Hokanson, a "Teachnology" teacher and Classrooms for the Future Coach in PA.

Can You Ever Go Back?

2008-09-17T08:01:00.004-05:00

Or do you even want to? I am on the planning committee for my 25-year class reunion. It is coming up in 5 weeks. It will be fun to see old (emphasis on the OLD) friends and hear about what is going on in their lives. I attended Wichita High School South in Wichita, KS. While many classmates still live in Wichita, in a class of 500+ students, lots have moved elsewhere to more exotic places. Well, that is how I perceive it.
Still, I am looking forward to visiting with these friends who live in far-away places. I will enjoy every minute of my weekend of catching-up and reminiscing. I loved high school! However, I doubt I would really like to relive those days. I wish I didn't have to say that it has been 25 years already, (where did the time go?) but I am glad that I am at the place I am now, and not facing college all over again!

Taking You Back
What a great little resource, and sometimes a life-saver! The Internet Archive is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. It provides free access to everyone, just as a public library does. My favorite resource on this site is the Wayback Machine. This cool tool allows you to retrieve a web page that no longer exists. As long as you know the URL, you can go wayback to find that page that you thought was lost forever! I typed in our district's site URL and it is funny to see how lame our district page was several years ago! Try it today and bookmark it for future reference.

Are you a blog wallflower?

2008-09-15T13:21:00.008-05:00

I am a blog wallflower. There, I've said it! It is hard to admit that nobody out there loves you. I have been blogging for a few weeks now, and I have had one...ONE!...comment back. I am just a raving lunaTIC looking for link love. How does a girl find it?

Well, it might be easier if I would actually tell people about my blog. However, I am a timid soul. That seems like an oxymoron coming from a person whose job it is to teach. However, I have been taking my blogging cues from such greats as CoolCatTeacher and Angela Maiers. I feel like I need YEARS of practice before stepping away from the bleachers and into the bright lights of the streamer and balloon decorated gym so that others can actually see that I am here.

I am going to start by taking the plunge and sending my blog link to the teachers in my school. Hey, might as well start out by having everyone laugh at you as you walk down the hall, right? If I can survive that, or if at least one person says that they read something worthwhile, then I will trudge forward, continue linking and hope for the dreamy guy to finally ask me to dance so I will no longer feel dangerously irrelevant.

Color in Motion

Color in Motion is an animated and interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism. Set as a casting stage, the colors of the color wheel are introduced and each color's personality is described. Great for an introduction to color!

Light in Color

Light in Color is an interactive lesson that teaches about mixing colors, colors and shadows, and the color spectrum. Brought to you by The Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project

Cats and Dogs

2008-09-12T10:27:00.003-05:00

This is the worst rain I have seen in years! The meteorologis on our local news station called it a "curtain" of rain. It has been one mighty curtain for sure! They have already cancelled afternoon kindergarten in my district. We are all hoping they will dismiss school early as well. Since our district is in a small suburb of Wichita, KS, most of our children are bused in from Wichita. Many road closings due to flooding will probably force the district to let out early to get all students home in a timely manner.

I dread driving home because I have my daughter's little Tercel today. I am not sure I would make it through a bit of high water. In honor of the rain, today's sites deal with the water cycle.
Note: It took me eight hours to write today's entry. Got interrupted at 10:30 by a call from the nurse at my son's school that he was sick. Went to get him, and on the way home, my hubby called and told me to pick up a sump pump! After scooping water for a couple hours, got the new sump pump installed. School did let out early; I would rather have been there!

Thirstin's Water Cycle
Thirstin's water cycle is a nice flash animation showing the water cycle.

NSTA Interactive
Water Cycle Pathways is an interactive that allows the user to explore the various paths a single water molecule can take as it travels through the water cycle.

H2O University
All things water-related at the H2O University. Information and interactives for grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-12. From the Southern Nevada Water Authority

2008-09-11T08:32:00.004-05:00

I teach evening classes for Maize Recreation Commission. Last night I was teaching a basic MS Word class. I was covering spellcheck, readability statistics and the thesaurus. I told the group of women that were in my class that a fun way to help students increase their vocabulary is to have them type a paragraph or two in Word and then look at the readability statistics to see their grade level as rated by the Flesch-Kincaid Readability scale. Next, students use the thesaurus to try to up their Flesch-Kincaid grade level.

For some reason, this task is irresistible to most people. The group spent a good 15 minutes trying to "graduate" from high school with their paragraphs. In the classroom, it is important to not only have the kids try out the new words in their paragraphs, but to delve deeper into the words they choose to help them understand if the chosen word is the best word for the sentence. Combining a thesaurus and a dictionary often does the trick!

Visuwords

Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus. The words and their meanings are presented in a mind-map fashion so the user can easily see associations between them. The sourcecode can be downloaded for free.

Visual Thesaurus

Thinkmap touts Visual Thesaurus as a "3D interactive reference tool". Another graphical dictionary and thesaurus, but with a lot more meat to the website. With featured word lists, Word of the Day, contests, lesson plans, articles, and much more, this website packs a punch. It comes at a price, but well worth the money. A CD version is also available.

RhymeZone

This site isn't as pretty and certainly less graphical than the above, but I think students would get a kick out of it. At RhymeZone type in a word, and choose to see its definition, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, rhyming words, quotations containing the word, and much more. Very straight forward and easy to use. Bookmark this one today!

Keeping Up

2008-09-09T10:57:00.004-05:00

Some days it is just hard to keep up! I would absolutely die without my Outlook calendar. It keeps me straight, if not on time, for all of my appointments with teachers, meetings, etc. Because we use Microsoft Exchange, I had to find a gadget to view/add appointments to my calendar when not on campus. There are lots out there, but I chose Google Calendar, a gadget to put on my iGoogle page. It syncs with my Outlook calendar whether I am on campus or not. I can also add appointments when I am away from work. And, of course, I can view it from any Internet connection. Now my whole life is straight! I just gotta be on time...

Google Calendar in the Classroom

http://monarchlibrary.wikispaces.com/LibraryCalendar This library media specialist added Google calendar to her wiki. She uses it to keep track of library classes and lesson plans. A teacher could do this and make it the student's homepage. The teacher sets the option to make the calendar read-only or collaborative. Students need not have a gmail account to collaborate. They get to see assignments and upcoming projects or add items themselves. This could also be set up for staff members to collaborate for PLC's, committees, staffings, etc. What a great idea!
More information here and here on how to set up your Google calendar and ways to use it.

Happy Birthday September

2008-09-05T14:00:00.004-05:00

I am posting Monday's contribution early, because I don't want you to miss out on the beginning of the event, which is on Sunday, September 7.

If you are looking for a charity to donate to as part of a class project, check out charity: water http://www.charitywater.org/. In it's second year, this organization raises funds to provide clean water sources to third world countries. Founded by Scott Harris on his 32nd birthday, this charity should prove to become bigger and bigger to help those in desperate need.

Scott's 33rd birthday is this Sunday, September 7. On the same day, charity: water workers will begin drilling at Abenea Elementary School in Northern Ethiopia. They will post daily progress videos so you can watch the progress.

The September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

2008-09-05T12:08:00.003-05:00

It is a rainy Friday. Great for the grass this time of year, but we have had a LOT of rain! The forecast holds more rain for the near future. I am not excited about that because tomorrow night we are supposed to attend a fundraiser at our local zoo, the Sedgwick County Zoo. If it rains, it will be a washout!

Bembo's Zoo
http://www.bemboszoo.com/Bembo.swf is a fascinating alphabet created by artist de Vicq de Cumptich. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by an animal, and each animal is created by the letters in the animal's name. An interesting way to learn the alphabet for younger students, and of interest as artwork for older students.

When the Honeymoon is Over

2008-09-04T08:22:00.003-05:00

Our district is in its 6th or 7th year of doing state testing online. We also utilize the MAPs tests from NWEA in the fall. Our students seem to perform pretty well when completing a test online. Over the past years, I have attributed it to the "honeymoon phase" where the idea of testing using a computer was so new and appealing to students, they performed better. However, going on about 7 years now, I am wondering when the honeymoon will be over. What new device will we have to use to attract students to perform soon...an XBOX 360? Cell phone? How about a Dance Dance Revolution mat?

Quia
http://www.quia.com/ is a website that allows teachers to create or search for activities in game format or tests. It is a subscription site, but many of the games can be accessed for free. If you purchase a subscription, your students' subscription is free. You can create customized tests for students to take online, create or use games that others have created, and build a web page to share your links with your class.

ProProfs
http://www.proprofs.com/ is a website of free tools and knowledge exchange. Tools include a quiz maker, flashcard generator, and blog hosting. The knowledge resources include online training in CISCO, Microsoft Certification, SAT testing practice, to name a few. Tools can be integrated into your website, facebook, and other social sites. Worth a look!

Blogging and Exercise

2008-09-03T08:44:00.003-05:00

I have determined that blogging is like exercise. If you skip a couple days, it's hard to get back into it. My goal is to post M-F when we have school. Last Friday, my computer was in the hospital all day, so I was truly out of sorts. Then yesterday, I was playing catch-up with emails all day, as well as tending to schoolwide testing.
Excuses, excuses! Today, I feel a renewed energy to type and to sweat! I have my websites to share as well as my workout clothes in my car waiting for the bell to ring at the end of the day so I can head to the YMCA!
By the way, my hubby is a city firefighter and is participating in a plane crash disaster drill. Today's websites are disaster-related.

Masters of Disaster
The American Red Cross has put together several lesson plans for grades K-8 that deal with natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. There are lessons for Science, Math, Language Arts, and Social Studies, and all are matched to national standards. Check them out at
http://www.redcross.org/disaster/masters/educatorsmodule/ed-cd-main-menu-1.html

Facing Fear
Also from the Red Cross is a set of downloadable lesson plans covering a range of topics related to disasters or other crises including personal feelings, stress, preparedness and the media's role. http://www.redcross.org/disaster/masters/facingfear/. You have to fill out a form to go to the download page.

Missing: Summer

2008-08-28T12:42:00.005-05:00

I miss summer! You are thinking, "Who doesn't?", I know. I miss summer for all the obvious reasons...sleeping later, lots of time to work out, curling up in a lawn chair with a good book, spur-of-the-moment trips to places like KC on say, oh, a Tuesday. Anyone else miss things like that?
I also miss summer because now that I am back to work, I can't seem to keep up. I don't mean with housework because I can't keep up with that in the summer either. There has to be a direct correlation with disliking something and not keeping up. What I can't keep up with is all of the cool sites and tools my Twitter friends share. During the summer, I could spend hours perusing all of the web 2.0 tools that others twitted about. Now, I have to actually do WORK between the hours of 7:00 and 3:00. Ugh!
Luckily, I have a couple of places I can go to check out new tools.

Pollen count for Wichita from http://www.pollen.com/: 9.5 Med/HI

Go2Web2.0
http://www.go2web20.net/ is a directory of Web 2.0 tools. I like it because the links are logos so I can more easily remember if I have seen the tool before just by looking at the logo. You can search by name, tag, or date.

Listio
http://www.listio.com/ is a community based Web 2.0 directory. It is unique in that you can vote for your favorite apps and services, as well as leave comments for others about the applications and services. Free registration required to comment.

Allergy Forecast

2008-08-27T09:16:00.003-05:00

For those of us that suffer seasonal allergies, the forecast is not good. I am sniffling, sneezing, itching and wheezing, and today's forecast is only medium. How am I going to feel this weekend when the forecast is stratospheric?
This year, I am swearing off prescription allergy medication. I am tired (literally) of taking it. It turns me into an 80 year old, wrinkly insomniac. I have opted to try a homeopathic remedy this year...honey. I have heard that taking as little as a teaspoon a day of locally-harvested honey provides enough pollens to build up an immunity. We will see. It is truly a sweet test!
Because I promised science sites yesterday, and they were more well-rounded, today I am offering up one of the best science sites that I discovered last year.

Teacher's Domain
http://www.teachersdomain.org/ offers public television content in the form of video, audio, interactives and images for the classroom. Free registration required to access the high quality content.

Weird Science

2008-08-26T10:07:00.004-05:00

What a great 80's movie. How funny Gary and Wyatt, those geeky teenagers, were. And the hairstyles of the girls in the movie...I worked hard to get my hair to look just like that! I still have to sit and watch it any time I see it when I am flipping through the channels on my television!
Today's sites are science related sites.

LearnAlberta
LearnAlberta.ca is a not-for-profit learning object repository that is maintained by Learning Technologies Branch of Alberta Education, the Government of Alberta's department of education. It provides access to licensed and unlicensed digital resources designed for the grades K-12. Guest access is available. Videos, interactives, worksheets available for all subject areas. Very comprehensive!

Wisc-Online
http://www.wisc-online.com/ Wisconsin Online Resource Center is a consortium of 19 technical colleges in Wisconsin. The site features learning objects created by college students. Most of the objects are science related; however, other topics are available. Many of the objects are at the college level, but enough of them could be used in middle or high school classrooms that the site is worth a look. Registration is free.

Creature of Habit

2008-08-25T07:39:00.003-05:00

I am a creature of habit. I have a favorite dish at each of the restaurants we frequent, and I always order it. I leave all the ingredients on the counter while I am cooking and don't put them away until after I am finished, even though my husband insists it is more efficient to put away as I go, and I still fold my bath towels the way my mother taught me some 30-odd years ago.
When surfing the Web, I have always used Internet Explorer since it was introduced to me after a short time with Netscape. It is truly out of habit. My daughter installed Firefox on my computer this summer and tried her best to get me to use it. She feels it is highly superior with all of its add-ons, themes and plug-ins. It could be. However, as a creature of habit, I find myself continuing to click my IE icon every time I get on the Web. Just because I use IE all the time, I don't LOVE it. My biggest peeve is that it is text-based. I am such a visual person, that I remember pictures much easier than mere words. I would love to see Microsoft change their Favorites from links to thumbnails. With the number of websites I visit each day, and then bookmark, it is sometimes hard to go back and remember a "name" of a site as it is listed in Favorites. One of these days, I might venture out into the world of Firefox to see how it can make my life easier. For now, there's this

SearchMe
SearchMe http://www.searchme.com/ is a visual search engine that displays search results in a rolodex of images. Search sites, video or images. There is a downloadable toolbar to install, if you desire. The beta version is impressive so far!

The Price of Gas

2008-08-22T08:24:00.003-05:00

I heard on the news this morning that Snickers and m&m's prices are going up. The story cited spiraling costs as the reason, based on the rising cost of gas. It seems as if every day I hear a news report blaming the price of gas for rising prices.
Thank goodness that the Internet doesn't use gas! I would have to take out a second mortgage on my house if it did. It's funny how quickly the Internet became integrated technology, in that in the business world, it is expected, just as telephones are. While there are still many homes that don't have service, there are many places a person can go to get connected for free.

Wordle
Wordle is a fun little Java applet that allows you to make a "word cloud" out of text that you input. The website calls it a toy, but I feel the possibilities for teachers and students make it much more than a toy. I used it to make a design for my class reunion. Its fun...check it out!

Hello, My Name is Marcia

2008-08-21T09:09:00.003-05:00

and I am a Tweetaholic. There! I have finally taken the first step in admitting it! I know exactly when my downfall with Twitter began. It was a sunny day and I was just sitting on a bar stool visiting http://www.twitter.com/. Nevermind that the barstool was at my breakfast bar in my kitchen. One of the tweets mentioned a gadget called BeTwittered that could be added to my homepage. I cannot blame anyone but myself! I should have never gone in search of that gadget, never should have tasted it's sweetness. But I did, and fell HARD!
I am not bitter. I am happily woozy on getting my daily twitter fix in the privacy of my igoogle page. I am not a loud or obnoxious twitterer; most of the time, I am content with sitting back and following the conversations of some of my best tweets!
Speaking of best tweets (a best tweet is like a best friend, twitter-style!) there are two that I adore, even tho they have no idea who I am! I visit their sites regularly to get great ideas to share with staff. The blogs are The Cool Cat Teacher Blog and Angela Maiers. Another best tweet is skipz. He brings interesting sites and articles to BeTwittered, and I enjoy his trademark "Good morning, Twitterati" with the current weather report in VT.
I really appreciate all of my best tweets and all my other Twitter friends for providing me with sites to share with my staff. Twitterers are the best!!
Oh, by the way, my Twitter name is MarciaHersh. Maybe we can become best tweets too!

Mathtrain.com with Mr. Marcos
A sixth grade teacher put together a wonderful site of math lessons, called Mathtrain.TV, presented by his 6th grade students. There are links to other teachers' sites, as well as a few games. I have had trouble going straight to Mathtrain.TV, but you can access Mr. Marcos' site at http://www.mathtrain.com/.

Brain's a'Poppin!

2008-08-20T11:11:00.004-05:00

We got a school wide subscription to BrainPop http://www.brainpop.com/ this year. Yesterday was the first chance I have had to deal with it, and found it to be one of the easiest subscriptions that we have to implement. What a pleasant surprise to find out that EVERYONE in the school has the same login. No need for me to upload student and teachers. Sweet!
The teachers here are very excited to use the resources available at BrainPop, as many have signed up for the free trial in the past. Anyone out there have classroom implementation ideas to share with my middle school staff?

School Supplies

2008-08-19T07:38:00.004-05:00

I took my son to Wal-Mart last night to get a few remaining school supplies he needed for his Sophomore year. We bought some tab dividers, a zippered bag to put in a 3-ring binder to hold the graphing calculator that I had to sign a contract stating that I would pay $100 for if it got lost or damaged, and a 2-gig flash drive.
What ever happened to Big Chief tablets and the 8-pack of fat Crayolas? I didn't really mind buying the flash drive because I know it will make my son's life tons easier when dealing with homework; however, I sympathize with many parents out there that also have a child who is disorganized, to say the least. Although my child could also misplace a Big Chief tablet, it would be cheaper to replace, and it would be less likely that an entire semester's worth of school work would be stored on it when lost. Because it's minuscule size, it is almost a certainty that my son will lose his by Labor Day.
Any good ideas out there for helping a mom figure out a way to ensure that a kid keeps hold of his school work, short of duct taping it to his forehead?

Shelfari
Shelfari http://www.shelfari.com/ is a social book site that lets users build a shelf to display the books they've read, want to read or are reading now. The user gets to be the critic by rating and reviewing other user's books so their Shelfari friends can see what they think. Users can also create groups to participate in literature circles. For readers, it is an awesome site to share what they have read or learn about books they might want to read. For reluctant readers, Shelfari can spark new interests and help them find more meaning in what they are reading.

The New Tech Coordinator's Job

2008-08-18T07:45:00.002-05:00

If you are a Tech Integration Consultant, a Tech Specialist, a Tech Coordinator, whatever the job title, and you are in charge of making sure students can use curricular materials related to technology, I would guess your job has changed in the past few years.
Gone are the days of huge student data base software programs. When I started in this position 8 years ago, I would begin each year by loading student information into various software programs. The teachers would be notified when they could begin using the software programs with the students and then, voila! The server would slow down to a snail's pace because everyone in the school started using the software-based programs at what seemed like the exact same moment. Like terrorists in action thrillers, they would synchronize watches so that the school would crash at exactly 0900 hours.
Gone are the days when the tech department would call the secretary a minimum of a dozen times a day to make the announcement over the intercom that, "All students need to log out of (insert program name here) until further notice."
Today's curriculum is delivered via the internet on beefed up, high-speed networks, if your district is lucky enough to be able to afford it. The only difference to students is that they can access the curriculum at home, if they desire. The only difference to the tech coordinator is that they upload the student data to a website instead of the server. The biggest difference is that the secretaries can now get more work done because they no longer have to jump up every 30 minutes to make the dreaded announcements. Hooray for technology!

Technology - Gotta Love It!

2008-08-15T08:37:00.004-05:00

My first classroom presentation of the new school year bombed! I was supposed to show the new sixth graders how to logon to the network. 25 fresh faces watching me expectantly, and eacher to try out the new "responsible" middle school way of getting connected.
Land mine number one: a power strip in the laptop cart was not turned on. Eight of the little babies wouldn't turn on.
Land mine number two: Server glitch just as the students were choosing their new passwords that they would use to login to the network all year long.
It really didn't bother me whatsoever, except that I could see the disappointment in many fresh young faces. Little do they know that by the end of the year, they will be wondering, "What was I thinking when I chose THAT for a password? It is so babyish!"

Talking History
Virsona is a site that I am anxious to share with Social Studies and English teachers. http://www.virsona.com/ Students can create and interact with "virtual personas" of living, historical or fictional characters. The virtual community environment appeals to middle schoolers to help them learn more about the person or character they are studying. There are also lesson plans available.

New Year, New Victims!

2008-08-14T07:59:00.003-05:00

I am posting on the second day of school because the first one was just busy, busy, busy! I am really looking forward to this year because I plan to entangle more staff in my Web...2.0, that is! One of the things I really focus on at the beginning of a school year is the new staff. We have seven new staff members this year. They range in age from 20-something to 4o-something. They represent a cross-section of typical technology users.
In our district, Technology Integration Consultants, TIC's meet once a week with each new teacher, for at least the first nine weeks, to help them learn all of the technologies and resources available to them. I love this facet of my job, because it gives the teacher not only a chance to explore the resources, but a reason to explore them and learn how they can incorporate them into their curriculum.
Just like students in a classroom, some new teachers are raring to go and try out something like podcasting in the first weeks of school. Others need a bit more prodding to even let their students open the laptops. By working with teachers one-on-one, I can take them from where they are and move them forward at just the right pace for them.
Sometimes, I just need to give them the information they need to access the resources, and off they fly! Other times, I get to go in and do model lessons so the teachers are learning with the students. I feel that this is one of the best forms of staff development for teachers because they are getting training right on the battle field, so to speak. When there are 24 or so students learning from me, the teacher gets to see all the little "unexpecteds" that arise. They can watch how a person can handle those minor problems before the teacher has to do it the first time themselves.
Often times, a teacher that is not that strong in using technology has the sense that their lesson failed if the technology fails. Breaking away from that idea brings movement along the continuum. No matter where a teacher begins, in today's schools, they will gain new knowledge in regards to technology. My hope is to be able to help not just the new teachers, but all of the teachers that I work with, to use that knowledge to impact student learning.
Happy 2008-2009 school year!

Back In Business

2007-10-09T08:16:00.000-05:00

Whew! It has been a hectic beginning to the school year. Funny that I say that 8 weeks in. However, we have implemented a new version of Blackboard, and moved to a new student management system and gradebook. All that = lots of questions to be answered. + we lost a tech assistant, so I have been wearing 2 hats!

This year, I am hoping to get my teachers on board with Web 2.0 resources. Since our kiddos are already using many outside of school, it seems logical to use them in school as well. I have just created a page at Classroom 2.0 http://www.classroom20.com/profile/hersheybar11 and am excited to get new ideas, and resources from my new friends there.

I am also planning podcast lessons with some classrooms and am excited to share the free tools at www.ePals.com with my teachers. The key is to start slowly and let the fires spread! Hopefully we will be blogging, podcasting and weilding wikis by Christmas!

Collaborative Tools - Haysville Style!

2007-07-25T19:47:00.000-05:00

Wow! What a fun two days I had working with staff members from Haysville! Thank goodness they were easy going and didn't mind going off on web tangents with me! We explored and created blogs and wikis, and published podcasts too. Because we were minus a very important fire wire, we weren't able to create vodcasts, but we did create slideshow style vodcasts! It was great to create and post to our blogs and wikis.

In addition to all this creative work going on, we explored a couple of fun sites:
www.quizlet.com a great site created by a teen for other kids to collaborate on studying for tests. Our favorite feature was Scatter, a game for study with embeddable html code. It is great that we can include the game right into our blogs, wikis or Bb courses.

We also took a look at www.visuwords.com which is a visual thesaurus. Very handy for students and staff alike. Finally, we looked at a great bunch of resources put together by Lynn Williams at Briarcrest Christian School http://www.briarcrest.com/images/3970/Whats%20the%20scoop%20on%20telecollaboration.doc. I was fortunate enough to attend her session What's the Scoop on Telecollaboration? at the Laptop Institute last week. Great stuff, Lynn!

Lisa provided us with a few treats as well:
http://www.scratch.mit.edu/ a great little tool created by the folks at MIT where students can create their own online games.
E-coach http://my-ecoach.com/project.php?id=9846, offers the coolest web 2.0 tools available.
And, www.senteacher.org which is a resource site for teachers of special needs students, but we found lots of stuff there that would be great for all students.
Thanks Lisa, for alerting us to these super sites!

Podcasting 101

2007-07-25T19:36:00.000-05:00

Podcasting used to be only for the "elite" Mac users. Now us plain old folks can create exciting, enthralling audio files to post to the internet as well. And the best part??? We can do it for FREE! I have listed a bunch of resources you need to look at/download to get you started with Podcasting!
Go here to download the software to create a podcast.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
I like the Audacity 1.3.3 Beta version. After you download and install the software, you will also need to download the LAME encoder, which will allow you to publish your audio files in an .mp3 format. You can find the LAME download at the sourceforge site as well.
Once you have installed the software, you might want to check out some sample podcasts at these sites:
http://www.podcast.net/show/76392
http://www.podcast.net/show/59723
http://www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio/listen.html
http://www.podcast.net/show/57266
http://www.podcast.net/show/77410
http://www.cbsd.org/millcreek/jaffe/podcast/index.html
http://web.splashcast.net/go/so/1/p/SDQC7498LC

To jazz up your podcasts, you can add some music or sound effects. For free audio files to add to your podcasts, check out these sites:http://freekidsmusic.com/music-ab.html
http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/free-music-resources.html
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.shtml
http://www.freeplaymusic.com/http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.shtml
http://www.soundjunction.org
http://www.rainbowplanet.com/downloads.html
http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/noflash.htm
Please remember to teach your kiddos about copyright rules when adding music to Podcasts.

Once you have created your Podcast, in order to add it to your blog, wiki or Blackboard site, you need to upload it to the web. For a free space to to this, create an account at Splash Cast. www.splashcastmedia.com
You can also upload pictures, videos and documents here to. Great place for web storage.

Ok, get started, and happy Podcasting!!!

Check out more examples here

2007-07-24T13:30:00.001-05:00

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wiki_in_a_K-12_classroom

Wikis in Plain English

2007-07-23T21:28:00.000-05:00

Not-so-twiki Wikis

2007-07-23T20:48:00.000-05:00

A wiki is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website.

Why wiki?

There are many ways to incorporate wikis into your curriculum! You can create a wiki for a book study, have students collaborate to create a class study guide, defend a position on a topic, etc.

Here are some sample wikis to check out:

http://g105.pbwiki.com/ Password: g105wiki
http://browniewiki.pbwiki.com/
http://madamekerr.pbwiki.com/
http://findmeinf3.pbwiki.com/ password: mhsgovt
http://mhsstuco.pbwiki.com/ password: maizestuco

http://terrythetennisball.wikispaces.com/

http://usd266charactered.pbwiki.com/ password: character

http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wiki_in_a_K-12_classroom
Ok, now that you have looked at a few, how do you get started?

Start here: http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/wiki/. This is a great tutorial to get you started.

Here are a few places to go to create your wiki:

http://www.pbwiki.com/

http://www.wikispaces.com/

http://www.wetpaint.com/

Blogs- what are they?

2007-07-23T16:50:00.000-05:00

The term blog is short for weblog which is an online journal or diary. There are thousands of blogs on the web, covering all topics imaginable. I have 3 different blogs, 2 of which I use for classes that I teach, and the third was created for the presentation that I gave at the Laptop Institute last week in Memphis, Tennesse.

How do I use a blog in my classroom?

You can use a blog for many purposes. Most educators would probably think of using a blog to to keep students and their parents informed about what is going on in the classroom. But there are many educational purposes outside of basic communication. Check out the example blogs listed to see some of the many ways they are being used.

http://eaglegeo-sci-g-17.blogspot.com/
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=59644

ttp://delzerblog.blogspot.com/

http://sarahplainandtall.blogspot.com/

http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337

http://hetherington0607.learnerblogs.org/

http://msnelson.blogspot.com/

Many blogs are free to create. Below are some to check out.

http://www.blogger.com/
http://wordpress.com/

http://edublogs.org/
http://www.blogeasy.com/

http://www.xanga.com/

http://www.myspace.com/

Once you choose a host, it is easy to sign up. I find the most difficult part is what to call my url. I don't have much creativity there. If you can make it past the url, then simply start posting!

Oh, but wait!!!

What about blogging rules and safety? Check out these links for some ideas to incorporate as you venture into the world of blogging.

EdTech article on blogging rules by David Warlick

Blogging rules by BudtheTeacher

Blogging contract found at Blogmeister.com

Classroom blogging rules worth considering from thinklab blog

Blogging safety by Kathy Schrock

2007-07-23T16:46:00.000-05:00

This week I am in Haysville, KS doing a workshop called Collaborative Tools for Enrichment. I am excited to show the teachers there what I have learned from attending all the fabulous sessions at the Laptop Institute at Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis. My hope is that teaches will become more familiar with Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts. It is an exciting time in education, especially from my perspective, to watch "shift happen"!