Photo Writing Prompt Tumblr from @JohnTSpencer
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Integrating technology in the classroom
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How to integrate Admongo into the classroom: Advertising is all around us, Admongo helps students identify the ads that they are surrounded by every day and prompts them to think deeply about the purpose and aim of advertising. Students at Anastasis are currently completing an inquiry block all about advertising. A look at advertising can introduce students to persuasive writing, the effect of different music, colors and mediums, critical thinking and problem solving.
I like to have students to consider both sides of advertising. First, what does it mean to be a consumer and how does advertising play into that? Second, how would you create an advertisement that reaches a target audience? Advertising asks students to carefully consider their audience, the objective, and the tools that they use to spread a message. You can also tie advertising to history by asking students to look at World War II posters. Students can analyze the purpose of the poster, the call to action, the colors used, the intended audience and the message being “sold”. Students will need to do some digging to find out why the posters were successful and what events were occurring that made the posters necessary. After students explore actual World War II posters, they can plan and create their own.
There are so many places to go with an advertising unit and Admongo is a great starting point. Students can go through the game independently on computers or use an interactive whiteboard/projector-connected computer to take turns navigating through the game. Stop and discuss each question that pops up as a class.
Tips: Be sure to check out the “Teacher” section for lesson plans, print materials and videos.
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My Twitter friend Ewan McIntosh recently shared an incredible opportunity for involving students in solving real world problems. I love putting kids creative minds to problems that keep us all wondering. I’m always so impressed with the unique approach that children take to problems. Kids don’t have the same life filters that we do. Some assumptions we make about the way things have to be done don’t exist for kids. They are free of those.
Ewan explains how your students can be involved wonderfully so I won’t reinvent the wheel:
“At TEDxLondon, BLC, Naace and a few other events this summer I asked if people wanted to join me in trying to encourage more curricula that were based less on students solving the irrelevant, contrived pseudo problems given to them in textbooks, and based more on finding great, real world problems that need solved.
A superb opportunity for action has come along.
Ever wondered what 10,000 young people could do to solve some of the world’s greatest problems? We want to know for the world’s most important ICT event, ITU Telecom World 11, by gathering young people’s vision for the future on world2011.us.
The October 24-27 event is the flagship meeting of the world’s telecoms industries, brought together by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialised United Nations agency responsible for information and communication technologies. In the run up to the event, and during it, we’ll be showcasing the ideas of young people, aged 8-18, alongside the debates, panels and corridor discussions of these influential delegates.
I’ve been at so many events recently that have either totally lacked the student voice, or made third party reference to it through second-hand reportag from their teachers. This is a real chance for your students to make a global impact on problems that matter, wherever they are.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime real world project-based learning opportunity, that ties into most teachers’ curriculum at any given point in the year.
We’re providing some brief points of inspiration to get you started, over the seven key themes, and will open up a wiki space today where teachers can collaborate and add to each other’s resources on the areas.
By October 24, we hope to have videos, photos, blogs and examples or prototypes of what young people believe might help solve challenges on their own doorstep. Sign up your class, school or district to begin sharing the ideas of your students. We want you to tell us how technology could be harnessed to:
To take part, you just have to sign up your interest, and from there you’re able to submit posts to the project.” -via http://edu.blogs.com
Way cool! Thanks for sharing Ewan!
What it is: Children’s Books Forever is a simple site that packs a powerful punch for instilling a love of reading at an early age. These are free children’s books that have become classics and children’s favorite books from around the world. The books can be used on an interactive whiteboard, power point, overhead projector, on iPads (or other iDevices), or classroom computers. Did I mention they are free? These fun picture books are downloadable in pdf format and are wonderful for expanding your classroom library. New books are being added regularly to Children’s Books Forever so be sure to check back often!
How to integrate Children’s Books Forever into the classroom: I love sites that spread a love for reading while simultaneously beefing up the classroom library (and student’s home libraries). The site is simple to use, just choose a book, download as a PDF and read. Couldn’t be any simpler! The books can be read in multiple languages making it a wonderful place for students who are learning a second language or speaking English as a second language. Be sure to click on the links in the left side bar, they will lead you to additional books. Find books for toddlers, Waldo humor books, inspirational books and more information on author Hans Wihelm in addition to the books featured on the home page.
The stories featured on Children’s Books Forever are beautifully written and illustrated. Do your students have a pen pal or buddy in another country who speaks a different language? Why not find a book that is featured in both languages to read and discuss together? This is a great connecting point for students!
Bookmark Children’s Books Forever on classroom computers so that students can easily access the books during reading time. The books can also be printed and added to the class library. Be sure to remind your students they can access these stories from any Internet connected computer, they can keep reading at home too.
Many of the stories on Children’s Books Forever can be used for character education discussions in the primary classroom. Project these stories on an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer for a class read along.
Tips: Be sure to sign up to be notified when new books are added to Children’s Books Forever via email!
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Children’s Books Forever in your classroom!
Today was the first day of school. Ever. It was pretty epic. Since the students didn’t know where things were located in the building yet, I thought we would have some fun locating them with a QR code scavenger hunt. It was SO easy to do, I thought I would share the process here.
1. First I made a new website where each page of the website contained a clue. I made my site with Weebly.com because it is SO easy to use. I made the entire site in under 10 minutes.
2. Next I used goo.gl URL shortener to shorten the URL of each webpage and generate a QR code. Just copy and paste the long Weebly URL into the goo.gl shortener and voila. A short Googlefied (that is a technical term) URL. Click on “Details” next to the shortened URL to view your QR code. I just dragged and dropped these QR codes into a Pages document so that they were all in one place for easy printing/copying.
3. Print out QR code sheet and make enough copies for each classroom. Because we have a 10-1 student-teacher ratio, I made up 10 clues to find. Each student was in charge of one clue. I cut up the QR code sheet so that each student had a little QR code clue card.
4. Set students out on their mission. Each student takes a turn using the Scan app to uncover the clue. They read the clue out loud to their group and brainstorm what the answer could be. When they thought they had the answer, they went to that place and took a picture of it using the camera app. For example, one of our clues was: “The Grub Hub”, students went down to the kitchen and took a picture.
5. When all pictures have been collected, students gather and add up the points they won.
*Below is my example of the QR code and website they were connected to.
This was a really easy activity to prepare for from a teacher perspective. The impact was huge with the students. They had a great time with this!
We used this hunt as a way for students to familiarize themselves with the layout of the new school but it would also be a great activity for a math scavenger hunt “Find an item that represents three times four”, or colors in art “This is the color you get when you mix yellow and blue”, or literature “find an object that represents this character in our novel”. The list could go on and on if you use your imagination! The QR codes are so easy to generate, students could use these for almost anything!
What it is: Me On the Web is a new tool from Google. Announced just today, Me On the Web is part of the Google Dashboard that allows you to set up custom Google Alerts for your name in news articles. This was always possible with Google Alerts but now those alerts are coupled with tips and resources for helping students manage their online identities. Now everything can be tracked from one central location instead of scattered around in different places. Me On the Web is easy to set up, just visit your Google Dashboard to get started.
How to integrate Me on the Web into the classroom: There was a day when you could get away with not knowing and following your digital identity, that day is no more. We all carry digital footprints, and now more than ever it is vital for us (and our students) to know how to manage those digital footprints. Teaching students about their digital identity is the first step, Google’s Me on the Web takes that a step further by helping students manage their online identities through Google Alerts and helpful tips. Students must have an account with Google to fully utilize the Me on the Web features. After students have their account set up, they can create a set of Google Alerts related to them. This could be their name, email address, a sports team that they play on, the name of the school they attend, etc. Students will quickly see just how big a memory the Internet has and get a first hand look at their digital footprint and learn some strategies to take care of it.
If you are working with younger students without Google accounts (and most likely with a smaller digital footprint) you can share the School’s digital footprint or if you are brave (and after you know what will come up), your own. This gives even young students a good idea that their digital lives are not private and that what is shared their needs to be managed.
Me On the Web is a great way to begin discussions about social media, character education and respecting yourself and others.
Tips: Google even shares a section about how to remove content from a Google Search. Here is a hint, it is not as easy as just managing your identity PRIOR to needing to remove it. Good choices my friends, good choices. Anthony Weiner could learn a thing or two- just sayin’.
**By the way, if you haven’t seen the Google logo in honor of the lunar eclipse, it is definitely worth checking out- today only! 🙂
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Me On the Web in your classroom!
What it is: Current.im is a site I learned about from @MZimmer557 on his excellent blog, The Weekly Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness. Current.im let’s students keep a private online journal 140 characters each day. The journal couldn’t be easier to use, students login with a username and password that they create, and type their 140 characters for the day. Current.im keeps a daily record of these bits of writing along with a time stamp. The Current.im is truly private, this isn’t a social sharing site where students (or teachers) are writing for an audience. It is a wonderfully simple tool created for one thing: recording daily thoughts.
How to integrate Current.im into the classroom: Current.im is an easy way to record writing daily. The limit is 140 characters making it easy to keep up with and add to everyday without being overwhelmed by the blank sheet of paper. Current.im can be used as a journal where students reflect on daily learning, a year-long creative writing project that students add to 140 characters at a time each day or a personal journal. Because students are only responsible for 140 characters a day, this is a fast activity that could be completed as a center on classroom computers. If your students don’t have access to computers where they can keep their own Current.im accounts, keep a class journal/story/reflection by compiling thoughts together using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer.
One of my favorite year-long projects in the computer lab was having students take a picture of themselves using PhotoBooth every computer class. At the end of the year, students took all of their pictures and created a stop-motion type video combining all of the pictures into a movie. The result was a short movie where they could see themselves grow up that school year. Current.im would be a fantastic addition to this project. Students could start each class period with a picture of themselves and a quick 140 character update to go with the picture. At the end of the year not only will they be able to see their growth, they will be able to read reflections and thoughts they had throughout the year. This is great for one school year but can you imagine doing this EVERY year of school from k-12 as part of a digital portfolio? How neat would that be?! This is truly a 2 min. time commitment each day. Easy.
As a teacher, Current.im can be used to reflect on teaching practice, to record daily classroom (or student) observations or to record daily success (we all need to record those!). I always joked that I should write a book about funny student antics. Of course I never wrote all of these funny stories down so alas, I have no book. Had I known about Current.im, I could have recorded these stories everyday and had the book written for me by the end of the year!
Tips: Current.im doesn’t include any terms of service so I assume it is okay for all students to use. Registration for an account does require an email address. The email address doesn’t need to be confirmed so if you have students without email addresses, they can use an @tempinbox or @mailinator account (just add tempinbox or mailiator to the end of any word to instantly create an account).
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Current.im in your classroom!