Category: Middle/High School

Virtual Author Series

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Virtual Author Series2081 views

What it is: Simon and Schuster Publishing is offering a new unique experience to schools, a virtual author series. The electronic author visit brings bestselling and award-winning authors and makes them easily accessible to students and teachers. S&S creates a website specifically for each author visit that provides teachers with background information that will help prepare students for the author visit and provides interactive material that relates to the subject discussed in the author’s book. The program also includes a series of classroom activities and curriculum binders. The live web broadcast is the culmination of the virtual author experience. The 45 minute segment will include a presentation from the author, a reading from the book, and a question and answer session in which the author answers questions from the students.

How to integrate Virtual Author Series into the classroom: Bring popular author Andrew Clements (Frindle) into your classroom by signing up at the My Visit website http://www.bsu.edu/myvisit/ You need to sign up your class ASAP if you would like to participate in the first in the Virtual Author Series which takes place on March 18th. This is an outstanding opportunity for classrooms, libraries, and schools. Bring reading to life for your students with a virtual author visit. If you, like me, are on spring break during the first author in the Virtual Author Series be sure to check back for future Virtual Author events.

Tips: Check back for future Virtual Authors. The next Virtual Author will be D.J. MacHale (PENDRAGON) on April 29, 2008. This is an awesome way to bridge literacy and technology!

Please leave a comment and tell us how the Virtual Author Series went in your class. Specifically, I want to hear all about it since I won’t be able to participate!

Cyber Smart

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What it is: Cyber Smart is free technology curriculum for use in a technology classroom or as part of the regular classroom curriculum. The SMART in Cyber Smart stands for Safety and security, Manners bullying and ethics, Advertising and policy, Research and information fluency, and Technology. The curriculum is very complete and easy to follow. Best of all it is completely FREE! In addition to the comprehensive curriculum, Cyber Smart also offers a free tool bar (seriously handy) as well as professional development.

How to integrate Cyber Smart into your curriculum: The Cyber Smart curriculum is perfect for the technology classroom, media center, and even your regular classroom as part of other subjects such as character education or when teaching research.

Tips: Make sure the sites recommended by the Cyber Smart curriculum work in your classroom before working it into your day…some of the sites get blocked by filters.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Cyber Smart in your classroom.

Colorado Podcast Summit Revisted

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Colorado Podcast Summit Revisted2311 views

As promised the Colorado Podcast Summit that I participated in is now online. Be sure to listen to the Keynote speakers podcasts for truly inspiring ways to use podcasting in your classroom. If you are looking for my poster session, you can find it under the Poster Session section. Make sure to check out the Resources page where you can find downloads for podcating story boards, rubrics, research, copy right information, and more. You can get to the Colorado Podcast Summit online here: http://www2.bvsd.org/ipodsummit/Pages/default.aspx

PalBee

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on PalBee2474 views

 

What it is: PalBee is a free online video conferencing/recording tool. When you become a registered member of PalBee you have the ability to create an unlimited number of video conferencing sessions, each can be an hour long, with up to 5 attendees. PalBee also allows for visual collaboration on the online whiteboard. The Whiteboard allows you to upload images and write or draw on top of it.

How to integrate PalBee into your curriculum: PalBee could be useful in the classroom in several different ways. The first is for its intended purpose, video conferencing. If you have a pen pal or buddy classroom, set up times throughout the year for your students to video conference. All that you need is a web cam and Internet connection. Your students will really enjoy conferencing with students in another state or across the world. After you have conferenced with your buddy classroom, consider collaborating on a project together. PalBee provides a great workspace for students to share ideas. PalBee can also be used as a place to record tutorials for your students. You can individualize instruction and record several lessons that can be saved by PalBee and used from year to year. If you have students who are having trouble reading, extend their learning day and “go home” with them using PalBee. A struggle in many schools is getting parents to read with or help their child study at home. If a parent isn’t available or doesn’t make it a priority, students can get onto your saved PalBee recordings and learn with you at their own pace. This may have the added benefit of modeling reading and studying to parents. Have a parent who can’t make a parent teacher conference? Set up a PalBee meeting with them that better fits into the schedule.

Tips: Set up a classroom account for PalBee where all of your recordings can be saved for quick access.

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


World Math Day

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What it is: March 5, 2008 (yes that is this Wed.) is World Math Day. Don’t feel bad if you missed this important date, I did to until my e-friend Kim Johnson tipped me off to it. (Thank you Kim!) World Math Day even has a dedicated site. The site is preparing for a celebration of numbers as children from around the world unite to set a world record in answering mental arithmetic questions. It is appropriate for all age and ability levels. More than 20,000 schools from around the world will be participating…make sure that yours is one of them! Register your school now for free.

How to integrate World Math Day into your curriculum: If you have access to a computer lab this is the day to take advantage! If not, set up your classroom computers to World Math Day so that students can participate throughout the day. Students will take part in a real time battle of speed and skill using the live Mathematics game engine. Students can participate from school or home. This would make for some fun math homework 🙂

Tips: Register now and be sure to participate on March 5th.

Please leave a comment and share how World Math Day worked in your classroom!

Read to Feed

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What it is: Read to Feed is a worthy reading program to get your students involved in. Heifer International sponsors the reading project for kids. Students read book and in turn help other children around the world to be fed, proud, and learn to be self-reliant. The Read to Feed website provides students with the opportunity to take virtual journeys to other countries, play trivia games, learn about farm animals, select an animal gift that they want to earn through reading, read real stories about children around the world, do “cow-culations” with the cow calculator, and send e-postcards to family and friends. The teacher tools that Read to Feed provides are amazing. The goal of Read to Feed is global education, awareness, and action. The more books your students read, the more they help impoverished children around the world. Read to Feed provides teachers with the tools to teach about important issues like poverty and environmental degredation in a real life hands on way, challenge students to learn more about the world and its people, inspire students, promote team spirit and service learning, empower kids to be global citizens and make a real difference, and improve reading skills. The curriculum is extremely flexible and best of all, free! Resources for teachers include the Read to Feed website, leaders guide, DVD, poster, storybook, brochures, bookmarks, student rewards, and standards based curriculum based on the age group you teach.

How to integrate Read to Feed into your curriculum: Read to Feed is an absolutely amazing way to teach your students about being global citizens and helping them to become globally aware. It also makes an outstanding motivational reading program because students want to read to earn animals for other children around the world. Read to Feed curriculum is all you need to integrate Read to Feed into your reading, social studies, and even math curriculum. This is hands on learning that will make a difference in your students life as well as the lives of other children around the world.

Tips: Sign up to receive your free Read to Feed teacher resources today! You will be amazed with the quality of all of the Read to Feed materials…this makes a great tie into the Free Rice project!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Read to Feed in your classroom!

Google Posters

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Google Posters2796 views

What it is: Google Posters are printable posters offered by Google for educators. The posters can be printed in different sizes and teach students how to perform better searches.

How to integrate Google Posters into the classroom: I am realizing lately just how clueless students are about performing a quality search. Teachers are not exempt from this, I have had many educators tell me that it took them 3 hours to perform a search to find a state flower. What this tells me is that they don’t know how to search. Google Posters can be handed out as an individual handout, hung around the classroom, or both. The posters are found in Google’s Educator section. The posters teach students (and teachers) how to use modifiers to refine searches for the best results, the anatomy of a search, how to find a book using books.google.com, and examples of how to go about a search. Use these posters to teach your students how to do a quality search and then pick a topic for them to search and have a Google scavenger hunt. Students will learn how to use search engines and increase productivity.

Tips: Make sure that you have tested your scavenger hunt before you let your students loose, sometimes you will get results that aren’t appropriate for your students.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Posters in your classroom.

Wildlife Filmmaker

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Wildlife Filmmaker2946 views

What it is: National Geographics Wildlife Filmmaker lets students make custom nature films complete with animal video clips, sounds, music, and text captions. The site is easy to use and films can be saved on the site or shared through email.

How to integrate Wildlife Filmmaker into the classroom: Wildlife Filmmaker is an excellent place for students to display knowledge after researching wildlife. Research on different animals can be completed right from the National Geographic website or collected from several sources. Students put a lot of thought into their wildlife videos since they are shared with other students. Students can send their videos to you via email for grading and sharing with the rest of the class. Plan a film festival where you can use a projector to show students finished products. Wildlife Filmmaker can also be used as a creative writing activity. Students can select video clips and use the caption tool to write a story about what is happening in the film (these get very creative!) Additionally the site would make a nice basic introduction to movie editing because of its use of timelines. It would be a great activity to lead into using iMovie HD where timelines are used to separate sound tracks and video.

Tips: The National Geographic site does contain advertisement banners. I use the advertisements as a mini lesson to teach students how to recognize the difference between ads and site content. We also discuss what the purpose of website ads.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Wildlife Filmmaker in your classroom.

Links Galore!

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Links Galore!2406 views

Normally I don’t like to just list links…I would much rather give you a snapshot of a website, give you ideas for implementing it into your classroom, and tips on what has worked for me. Today is different. If you are like me, you read a new idea and immediately want to implement it in your classroom but don’t always have the right resources to make it happen. I have so many links for podcasting that I am going to give them all to you in one shot and then break them down in another post. If you have the podcast itch, get podcasting and browse the links below for some hosting ideas.

The following links are FREE podcast hosting sites (a place to store your teacher or student created podcasts where listeners can access and/or subscribe to your podcasts).

Global Classroom http://globalclassroomusa.org- Expect to see a post dedicated to this one, it is so much more than just a podcast hosting site.

My Podcast http://www.mypodcast.com

Podango http://podango.com

Switchpod http://www.switchpod.com

Podbean http://www.podbean.com

ClickCaster

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on ClickCaster3853 views

What it is: ClickCaster allows you and your students to create a podcasting channel that can be subscribed to via RSS feed as well as publish and embed your podcast for integration with classroom blogs or wikis. The ClickCaster platform is extremely easy to use with professional results. ClickCaster offers different levels of service the most basic is free but only includes 125MB of storage. The other levels are very affordable and ClickCaster gives teachers $3 off of their standard package.

How to integrate Click Caster into the classroom: ClickCaster is a great way to publish your classroom podcasts. Other classrooms and parents can subscribe to the podcast through RSS feed or visit your channel for a complete list of your podcasts. Publish a weekly radio show where your students give a synopsis of what they have learned throughout the week. Or, create podcasts where your students get to be the “expert” on a subject. No matter what the subject, ClickCaster will make publishing your podcasts for others simple.

Tips: Sign up for the basic limited account (free) to find out just how simple ClickCaster is to use…you will be hooked in no time!

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