Featured Post

Picturing America Bookshelf

  What it is:  I have written a few posts about Picturing America but I have to do another one!  Picturing America is now offering a free Bookshelf to k-12 libraries.  The Picturing America Bookshelf is a set of classic books for readers in kindergarten through twelfth grade.  Applications for the Picturing America Bookshelf are being accepted online now through Jan. 30, 2009.  All that is required of your school is that you would encourage young readers to explore the Picturing America books.  The great literature included in the Bookshelf can provide students with a window into our nation’s character, ideals, and goals.  The books will give students the chance to experience some of the most iconic times, people, places, and stories in American history.  The Bookshelf comes with the following titles:   Kindergarten to Grade 3: Walt Whitman: Words for America by Barbara Kerley; Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull; Cosechando esperenza: La historia de César Chávaz by Kathleen Krull (translated by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy); The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Sweet Music in Harlem by Debbie Taylor. Grades 4 to 6: The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich; American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne; On the Wings of Heroes by Richard Peck; Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet; The Captain’s Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe by Roland Smith. Grades 7 to 8: The Life and Death of Crazy Horse by Russell Freedman; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving; La leyanda de Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (translated by Manual Broncano); Across America on an Emigrant Train by Jim Murphy; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. Grades 9 to 12: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis; Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange by Elizabeth Partridge; Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck; Viajes Con Charley – En Busca de América by John Steinbeck (translated by José Manuel Alvarez Flórez); Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Bonus: Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out by The National Children’s Book and Literary Alliance; 1776: The Illustrated Edition by David McCullough.   These books would be excellent companions to the Picturing America art and curriculum!  Be sure to apply today, if the Picturing America art is any indication of the quality of the bookshelf, it will be amazing!     Tips:   Be sure to visit National Endowment for the Humanities site EDSITEment for sample lesson plans and resources to enhance the use of the  Bookshelf in your classroom or library.   Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Picturing America Bookshelf in your school.

Read More

Answer Garden

Posted by admin | Posted in Analyze, Character Education, Evaluate, Geography, History, Interactive Whiteboard, Language Arts, Middle/High School, Phonics, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Social Studies, Understand (describe, explain), Web2.0, Websites, collaboration, web tools | Posted on 26-07-2010

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

5

What it is: I learned about Answer Garden from an interactive post on Suzanne Whitlow’s excellent blog, Suzanne’s BlogAnswer Garden is a “new minimalistic feedback tool.”  It can be used as an online answer collection tool or embedded on a website or blog.  An Answer Garden is created as easily as entering a question and clicking create, no registration needed.  Embed the Answer Garden on any blog, website, or social network page using the embed code provided.  You can also give students a direct link to the Answer Garden. Students can post answers to your questions by entering their own answers or by clicking on and submitting existing answers.  All of the answers are represented in the form of a word cloud.   25 answers are visible per garden but as students submit the same answer, that word will grow bigger.  Creating an Answer Garden is SO simple.  Just type in your question or brainstorm statement and click create.

How to integrate Answer Garden into the classroom: Answer Garden is a fun way for students to brainstorm, plan, and work together.  Pose open-ended thinking questions on your classroom blog or website for students to answers.  Use Answer Garden to host a classroom poll.  Create a geography Answer Garden that gives students a place that they can describe a state or country they are learning about.  Use Answer Garden during reading as a place for students to reflect on different characters, plots, settings, and themes.  In history, give students a date range, event, or historical figure and let them add words to the Answer Garden that describe.  In the primary classroom, type in a phoneme combination and have students submit words that fit the phoneme rule.   Create an answer garden to recognize VIP students in your classroom where each child can answer with a character quality that they appreciate about that student.  The possibilities are endless!  This tool is SO easy to use, try it out in the Answer Garden below.

Where will use Answer Garden?… at AnswerGarden.ch.

Tips: The default settings on Answer Garden only allows students to submit one answer.  You can check the optional “Unlimited Answering” to give students multiple opportunities to submit answers.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Answer Garden  in your classroom.

Comments (5)

WOW there are a lot of uses for this embed-able tool… WAY beyond just the class room… However this would be an awesome way to encourage feedback in real time. I hope college professors grab on to this concept… it could add a lot of value.

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Shelly S Terrell, ktenkely, Gina Hartman, Kristen Swanson, Tracy Mercier and others. Tracy Mercier said: RT @ShellTerrell: Answer Garden is a cool poll/answer collection tool turns answers into word clouds http://bit.ly/bmiYXs #edtech via @k … [...]

[...] 1. Answer Garden. I stumbled across this one in a new blog that I just started subscribing to called iLearn Technology. [...]

Immediate feedback is vital for learning, so this is a terrific tool.

Yes, lots of applications beyond the classroom but I love the collaboration it provides for the classroom!

Write a comment