So, you're using a rubric to evaluate websites...but are you looking carefully??? Or are you easily fooled?
Check out this website about Albert Einstein using Access Key: 2770816. Find clues that this may not be the best site for information about the man. Press the Leave your feedback here button to share your thoughts and identify clues. Try to find clues no one else has found. You can sign your name or use your initials. If you email me to tell me you've done this, I'll award 10 bonus points...assuming your clues are correct! (There's a deadline on this one of March 7 at noon!)
The website scrolls at the bottom of the backboard page or you can view it a little larger here and then make comments on the Backboard page.
We're using a tool called BackBoard to do this. It's a tool that might have come in handy during your scavenger hunt activity. You post a document or a URL and invite people to leave feedback, comments, suggestions, praise, etc. Free and paid versions available. We're using the free version, of course!
Can you think of other times when a tool like this would be helpful to you as a student? As a teacher?
Website Evaluation Rubric
FCAT Explorer
I found this image today. Since checking out FCAT Explorer is one of your assignments for next week, it seemed appropriate to share this poster.
Remember, you are taking these FCAT courses as if you were a student, not the smart adult you are.
Be sure to get some wrong to see what happens. These will take some time so don't wait until the last minute. And whatever you do, "Don't Freak Out!"
Podcasting and Wiki Assignments
This caught my eye this morning:
Although the research was conducted with university students, the finding are interesting to K-12 teachers, too. From the article: "...when students can pause, rewind, and rewatch a lecture they learn the material better. Podcasting lecture material has the added benefit of changing what can be accomplished during class time."
Since this week's assignment is on podcasting, I wanted to share that with you.
There was a second article, too. In two weeks, Project 3 is due. You'll be creating a Teacher Wiki, the beginning of a way you can connect with students and their parents. The author, Tony Vincent, says,"Many teachers have a class homepage because it is a place where they can share information, assignments, and web links." That's what you'll be doing in the Teacher Wiki. This blog article takes it a step beyond--to an ipod touch!
You can take your Teacher Wiki a couple steps beyond, too, by adding your Powerpoint (or a Powerpoint you design for your page) and/or your podcast (or a podcast you design for your page).
If you uploaded your Powerpoint assignment to Slideshare you're on your way. If not, you can do it or create a new one and upload it. See the directions here.
If you created a podcast using gCast for your assignment, you can use that. If not, you can create one using the directions in the podcast assignment.
Once you have your wiki page created, you can find directions for adding (embedding) your presentation and/or podcast using the directions I created for you. You might also be able to create and embed some media for your final project, so keep these in mind!
Learning Technology? Teach Yourself!
I know it can be difficult to learn about technology, especially when there are new software programs and web tools every day and each of those have many features. I've found a few more sites that help make learning easier for all of us.
The first is TIP (Technology Integration Project). It has has some handouts (TIP Sheets) that walk you through using a tool for the first time. For those of you podcasting this week, there's one on Gcast...and it even tells you how to embed it in your upcoming wiki! And one of the TIP sheets is a guide to PBWiki, one of your wiki creating and hosting alternatives.
Another excellent resource is the Educational Origami's Starter Sheets. For your upcoming wiki project, it offers a handout on Wikispaces.
I've recently mentioned Nortel's resources for you.
Have you found any resources that have helped you learn more about technology for teaching and learning? Share them with the class here in the comments.
Love It! Love It! Love It!
Teacher Kelly Tenkely and her first grade students made this video and posted it on YouTube for the world to see. Love it! Love it! Love it!
Based on an idea from the book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie."
Kelly is the author of the iLearnTechnology blog--full of great practical ideas for using technology in the classroom.
Look Who's Podcasting!
Did you know that NASA offers both audio and video podcasts for you and your students? They call them NASACASTS!
And now they are offering Do-It-Yourself Podcasts for students K-20! They "provide a set of audio and video clips along with photos and information about a space-related topic. You and your students may choose as many items as you want to include in your project and download them to your computer. Students may use the information we provide or conduct their own research to write a script for an audio or video production.
"Using a camcorder, digital audio recorder or computer, you and your students can record your narration and any other scenes or interviews that you want to include. Mix and mash your recording with the NASA clips you download, and edit your production."
Here's a video clip for grades 3-5. What happens if astronauts get sick?
Here's what they say about "digital kids:" "Today’s digital environments give students the tools to actively create and share content, not just passively consume it. Researchers say students who create and evaluate media are deriving a sense of competence, autonomy, self-determination and connectedness. A Pew Internet & American Life Project study finds the majority of American youth using the Internet are involved in some kind of content-creating activity, such as blogging, making profiles, sharing photos and videos, creating Web sites and remixing content. NASA Education’s DIY Podcast activity is designed to actively engage students in science, technology, engineering and math."
You and your students are encouraged to share anything produced on blogs, wikis, social networks, emails, webpages....!! There are a lot of possibilities here for any grade level or subject area--reading, writing, speaking, research techniques, information skills, science, social_studies, math, art, music, and technology skills. Collaboration, cooperation, publishing, and more!
They also have a teacher tips blog just for you! Check out their search engine to help you find teaching materials. Great stuff!
First Grade VoiceThread
Check out this presentation by first graders who are retelling the story of Wangari's Trees of Peace by Winter. I am SO impressed with their drawings, their voices, and their use of technology! You will be, too!
Think what they are learning: reading, writing, speaking, illustrating, presenting, sequencing, summarizing, AND technology!
See more examples of VoiceThread for every grade level at the VoiceThread in Education wiki.
There's a New Kid in Town (for Kids and Teachers, Too!)
You'll want to visit and bookmark SchoolRooms, a new learning portal for K-12 students, teachers, and parents. Designed by teachers and librarians, SchoolRooms features:
- 71 virtual rooms of content for elementary, middle, and high school levels (Check out the full listing of virtual rooms here)
- Nearly 2,000 unique page views for students to visit 23,000+ links to high-quality Web sites
- More than 5 million Web pages crawled and indexed for Best of Web
The information provided is curriculum-oriented and based on state standards in Florida and other states. There are videos, photographs, and audio recordings, too. SchoolRooms says: "Exploration, discovery, and learning don't have to be boring." They are setting out to prove it!
I've added to the "More Links for You" section of this blog in the column on the right. Check it out!
Free Technology Resources! FREE! FREE!
These two resources are new to me, but they are perfect for you in this class--and after! Both are sponsored by Nortel, a communications company.
The first is LearnIt.org. It has lesson plans by subject, grade or technology; technology tutorials, links to resources and best practices, and a help section to get you started with the site. Next week's assignment is on podcasting, so I checked out the audio tutorials. Fabulous!
The second is the Everyday Technology Toolkit that not only includes some Tech 'Splained videos but also explains step-by-stop how to make your own (or get students to make their own!) complete with planning documents and video and printed directions. From the site: "These short videos (about 4 minutes each) offer a quick way to successfully get up to speed in specific technology concepts. The videos:
- provide the basic "getting started" steps
- provide concrete examples
- work for individual learning or in a classroom setting
- are always available to return to for review"
This series of technology topics can be incorporated into all curricula and offer alternative methods of teaching and learning!
There's a nice video about Animoto, one of my favorite (and free) online alternatives to Powerpoint (and one we won't get to this semester.) You can make a music video in minutes from your own images! Oh, and there's a list of free software applications and tools.If you don't think you'll know ALL about technology when you finish this course, you're right! But sites like this can help you learn and grow!
Did I mention I love free things? Most teachers do, especially when they help them teach and help student learn!
Teacher Personality Quiz
Office Depot is offering a Teacher Personality Quiz. What kind of teacher are you? It's only 5 questions long....and I've got to say, they were spot on with me!
Together with Expo (the marker and dry erase board people), Office Depot is also sponsoring a classroom makeover contest. View the finalists, read what the teacher-finalists and their students think would make for a great classroom, and vote for your choice. You can vote through March 8. Who knows? Someday it may be YOUR turn for a classroom makeover!
Holy Powerpoint!
I've never seen a Powerpoint presentation quite like this! It was created by an artist in Australia and shared by Kathy Schrock (of Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators, a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum and professional growth.)
You'll have to download it to see the whole thing....It's worth it!
Pretty creative!
Reminder: Wiki Webinar Coming Up! (Teacher Wiki Coming Up, Too!)
Project #3 is a teacher wiki. You'll also be using a wiki for your final project. The course contains some links to tutorials, but there is an opportunity coming up that you might want to take advantage of:
You are cordially invited to a live online presentation (a webinar) called "PBwiki 101: Your Guide to Wiki Basics." This webinar takes place on Wednesday, March 4th at 1pm EST / 10am PST. Sign up for the free webinar here.
For your projects you can use PBwiki, Wikispaces, or WetPaint. Your choice. Sometimes seeing and hearing someone demonstrate the features can be helpful and can extend your online learning!
Image from WebGuild.org http://www.webguild.org/images/1211573010wiki.gif
Searching the Invisible Web
About.com has a great article on how to find and seach the invisible web....and why you might want to do so!
From the article about the invisible web: "In a word, it's humungous. Bright Planet estimates the invisible, or deep, web as being 500 times bigger than the searchable, or surface, Web. Considering that Google alone covers around 8 billion pages, that's just mind boggling."
Image: 'Web 2.0'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29931767@N00/146865077
Word Hearts
I happened upon this generator tonight. Just in time for Valentines!
You enter words separated by commas and it will generate a heart for you.
You can change the color, the font, the background...Have fun!
Free Online Jeopardy Game Template
Here's another tool for you to use with students to help them review information: JeopardyLabs.
"JeopardyLabs allows you to create a customized jeopardy template. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world. Building your own jeopardy template is a piece of cake. Just use the simple editor to get your game up and running. Not interested in building your own jeopardy templates? Well that’s cool too. You can browse other jeopardy templates created by other people."
I created a jeopardy-like game just for you based on Chapters 1-4 in your text. In fact, I created a second one to be sure you know your stuff! I thought it might be helpful to review before teh quiz. Play alone, or get together with a classmate or two. You know how to play Jeopardy. You see the answer. What is the question?
If you get the answer right, click on the plus (+) sign at the bottom of the page. If you get it wrong, well...you know!
Happy Valentine's Day
Create your own special images with Image Chef!
Here are two I designed for Valentine's Day--just for you!
Google Challenge
A Twitter message (technically, I guess, a "tweet") led me to a class in S. E. Asia that is learning more about technology in the classroom. The instructor, Jeff Utecht, offers students a Google Quiz. How are your searching skills now that you've completed the searching assignment for eme2040? Take the quiz to find out!
Here are some other search challenges:
- Beat the Clock: Internet Search Challenges (1)
- Beat the Clock: Internet Search Challenges (2)
- Beat the Clock: Internet Search Challenges (3)
- PlentySmart
- Harry Potter Scavenger Hunt
- Google Guide Quiz
Beyond Google:VIrtual Cupcakes for Cancer Re$earch
There are a lot of fun sites on the Internet, and many that can raise awareness and cash for good causes. For example, Electrolux (yep, the vacuum cleaner and appliance people) has a special site where you can build a cupcake and send it to a friend.
You choose the flavor, decorate it, and add a personal message. Then email it to anyone who deserves a little treat, or save it to your desktop to brighten your day.
When you send a virtual cupcake to a friend or loved one this February, Electrolux will donate a $1 to The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (with a minimum of $25,000 and a maximum of $30,000) as part of its $500,000 commitment to help fight ovarian cancer.
Calorie-free, too! I made this one just for you!
Electronic Communications
This week you are considering how you might use some electronic tools with parents, students, administrators and colleagues. Well, here's an interesting twist. Dr. Scott McLeod writes:
Parents are using online tools to push on schools
The Washington Post recently published a really interesting article on the ability of well-connected parents to influence the decisions of their local school districts (hat tip to The Science Goddess). The term ‘well-connected’ refers to parents’ abilities to use online tools to communicate and mobilize (rather than to their connections to people with power).
Below are a few examples of parents pushing back on their local school systems. Parent tools include blogs, online petitions, and even administration countdown timers! I’ve linked to individual posts but you can click on the headers to see the blogs in their entirety.- Has MCPS dropped American History from its curriculum?
- Change mayoral control? Beware the mushroom cloud!
- Media pig
- Wanted: a full-day kindergarten slot - do you feel lucky?
Be sure to also read about the New York City Department of Education ‘truth squad,’ whose job it is to ‘scour a group of 24 education Web logs, e-mail Listservs and Web sites in a hunt for factual errors and misinformation.’
Online communication technologies have greatly amplified the abilities of parents to voice their opinions and mobilize for desired change. Activist parents now have a bevy of new tools and strategies to help facilitate their agendas and they are not afraid to use them. School organizations are going to have to get used to this new state of affairs in which parent activism and criticism are more public, permanent, and far-reaching. I’m pretty sure that most school leaders haven’t really thought about this…
Quiz Alert
You'll soon be quizzed on Chapters 1-4 of your textbook. 
There are several review options available to you as described on the course pages. Here's another one created in Quizlet, a free "flashcard" creation program.
No matter the subject or the age of the student, giving them a chance to practice and review content is important. The importance of vocabulary in mastering any content cannot be overestimated.
Other flashcard creation programs include:
I've done the same vocabulary for you in Study Stack where you can practice using flash cards, matching, hangman, crossword puzzles, scrambled words and more. I found a how-to video on YouTube that shows you how to use PowerPoint to create flashcards. Not quite the same, but a good idea!
Check them out. You may be able to use one of them in your final project or in another course.
Oh! And you will be more prepared for the first quiz!!
Wiki Webinar
Project 3 and your final project ask you to create wikis and add content to them.
There is a webinar coming up that may help you with PBwiki, and I also found an archived webinar, Your Guide to PBwiki Basics, that I think will be very helpful if you've never created a wiki. This webinar was designed for businesses, but it really explains PBwiki and demonstrates the basics.
Here's the next one coming up: Wednesday, March 4th (10:00 Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 18:00 GMT): PBwiki Basics for Everyone. You can sign up for this free webinar at the site.
You can use another wiki tool, of course. There's Wikispaces and WetPaint, two of the most popular with educators. Both have instructional tutorials and help pages, too:
Don't worry. There are how-tos, tips and tricks in the course pages. You'll see them soon!
Two eme2040 Students Meet
I read about a new online animation tool that I wanted to play with. It said, "If you can type, you can make a movie." You know what? They were right! Xtranormal is xtraspecial! Want to see it?
I had a dream that went like this....
Inspired Dr. Seuss
March 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday and Read Across America Day! By that time, you'll have downladed the trial version of Kidspiration or Inspiration, completed the tutorial and submitted your assignment (Project 2, due February 17.). Now you can use Kidspiration activities to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss and provide students a fun workspace to group word families and match antonyms. Watch this demonstration to see how:
See lots more videos with ideas for using these programs with students from K-12 here and here and here.
Get It Together!
I found a great article online, "100 Powerful Web Tools to Organize Your Ideas and Thoughts." One of the pages in your reading this week talks about browsers and bookmarks.
I use Del.icio.us and Diigo (which isn't mentioned in the bookmarking section but farther down in another section of the list. It has a teacher console that would allow us all to share our bookmarks for this class--and in a future class, I'm definitely going to use that. Also, as you read on the web, instead of just bookmarking, you can highlight portions of web pages that are of particular interest to you. You can also attach sticky notes to specific parts of web pages.)
Whether you are doing online research or like to keep your Internet hobbies organized, these bookmarking tools will help you keep everything in order and easy to find.
- Del.icio.us. This popular bookmarking site allows you to save favorite sites, add notes to yourself that you can also share with others, and browse other peoples’ bookmarks to find similar content.
- Reddit. Not only can you bookmark your favorite sites here, but users can vote on sites and watch whether they are going up or down in popularity.
- Digg. Users can vote and comment on their favorite (or not so favorite) sites here, or you can just easily bookmark your favorites.
- StumbleUpon. Part bookmarking site and part highly-customizable search engine, StumbleUpon offers sites that meet your selected criteria that you can choose to bookmark or not.
- PurpleBunny. Bookmark, comment on sites, share with others, read what other users have to say, and even discuss web sites.
- Fleck. Keep all your bookmarks in one place and share with friends. Choose between Original or Lite–which provides shortened urls for sharing on Twitter.
- Snip!t. Snip sections of webpages you want to remember and add them to your bookmarks. You can even make notes on them.
- Digital Notes. Download this open source software to access social bookmarking where you and your friends can discuss websites on a shared note.
- Clipmarks. With this bookmarking tool you can select a portion of a webpage–including text, video, or image–and save it.
- iFaves. Get your bookmarks organized by the ones you most visited or tags you assign so that you never lose track of those important bookmarks again.
- Tip’d Financial News. Like Digg, but for personal finance and investing topics.
Two others not mentioned at all that I like because they are so visual are:
- Only2Cicks (I recommend for elementary) Creates thumbnails of frequently-used, bookmarked sites; sort by category, drag and drop; share.
- MiddleSpot (for upper elementary and secondary) Search, zoom and pan on screenshots of your results, collect and store your results on a personal "workpad," share your workpad.
- Tizmos (for secondary and teachers) A personalized homepage that allows you to see thumbnails of your favorite sites (tizmos) all in one place. You can add, edit, and delete Tizmos on your page
Password Generator
From the Free Technology for Teachers blog:
"I recently came across a simple, but effective password creation tool. Password Bird is a simple website that asks you three questions then generates a password for you based on your responses. Every password it generated for me included numbers and letters. If you don't like the password it generates for you, simply click the link for a new password.
"Password Bird is a great tool to have students try when they can't think of their own computer passwords. This is a particularly handy tool when students have to create passwords that include numbers."
Works for me, too!
What do you think?
Here's a chance to try VoiceThread and earn some extra credit. I think VoiceThread is a good alternative to Powerpoint and allows for collaboration. From the website:
VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or phone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.
Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities and pick which comments are shown through moderation. VoiceThreads can even be embedded on web sites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs as archival movies.
With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. All with no software to install. See: What's a VoiceThread?
Browse more VoiceThreads here.
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