Progressive Phonics

What it is: Progressive Phonics is a fantastic, free all-in-one reading program that I learned about from @rmbyrne on his blog Free Tech for Teachers (honestly, some days I wonder why I bother with a resource sharing blog…he is amazing!)  This site is totally FREE, as in every single download is available for $0, all that is required is registration.  Progressive Phonics provides books that can be read on-screen or printed out.  Books include alphabet books, beginner phonics, intermediate phonics, advanced phonics, and handwriting.  In addition to phonics rules, Progressive Phonics teaches essential sight-words (phonics rule-breakers).  Each book includes a PDF version of the book, and accompanying activity sheets such as handwriting worksheets, a word search puzzle, flash cards, and a five-minute memory game.  If you have access to iPads or iPod’s for your classroom, these FREE phonics books can be downloaded and put into the iBook bookshelf for reading.

How to integrate Progressive Phonics into your curriculum: Phonics is one of those things that a reading program either excels at, or falls flat with.  Using the Treasures reading curriculum, I was always disappointed by the lack of real phonics work and often supplemented with sites like Starfall.  Progressive Phonics is another resource that would make a fantastic supplement.  If you use a standard reading curriculum, take a look at the Progressive Phonics books and align them with your current curriculum.  For example if your current curriculum has students practicing short vowel “a”, find the corresponding phonics rule in Progressive Phonics.  Because these books are free to download, they are excellent for printing out and sending home with students for extra reading practice.  The accompanying printable games, flashcards, and puzzles will keep your students practicing that skill in and out of the classroom.  Books can be printed out and assembled as a traditional book, read on the classroom or lab computers, or transferred onto a mobile device such as the iPad or iPod Touch.  This collection of phonics resources is a must see!

Tips: One thing I really appreciate about this site is that each book comes with a page count and an approximate time to print.  I remember spending hours printing Starfall books on an old school printer, wondering if I would ever finish.  The approximate printing time lets you know what you are in for before you hit print.  Each book is offered in two formats, one is a print friendly version that has been designed to use as little ink as possible.  So smart!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Progressive Phonics in your classroom!

Join Me

What it is: Join Me is an incredibly simple way to share your computer screen with others.  It works on both Windows and Mac allowing you to share your screen (and whatever is on it instantly).  The simplicity of this site is brilliant.  If you have even a sparkle of being a “techie” among family, colleagues, or friends, you most likely get regular phone calls asking for your help with something.  The problem: those asking the question don’t usually know enough to accurately articulate what their hang up is.  Join Me is a simple solution, it lets you share screens so that you can see what the problem is and walk them step by step through the solution.  Join Me is also great for the classroom, it lets students and teachers quickly share their screens for instant collaboration, feedback, or virtual meetings.

How to integrate Join Me into your curriculum: In my computer lab, I often wanted to share my screen with a student so that I could share a process with them, or provide them with feedback.  I usually used Apple’s Remote Desktop for this, the only problem was that students couldn’t initiate the shared screen.  Another problem I ran into was Remote Desktop dropping connections or crashing.  Join Me would have made an excellent backup!  With the increased use of technology, Join Me would be a great tool to help students collaborate on homework projects, enabling them to easily share screens and work as if they were in the same room.  Join Me provides a unique URL for the screen share, enables a conference call phone number, an on-screen chat, and the ability to choose a presenter and switch control of the mouse.  Join Me would be an easy way to extend the learning day for your students, or allow a student who is absent to be included in a live lesson (this could be students who are sick, students with a long-term illness, students who are traveling, or students who know they will be attending your classroom after a move).

Tips: When you use Join me, a package is downloaded to your computer to allow it to run.  If you want to use this tool with students, make sure that they have privileges to download and run packages.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Join Me in your classroom!

Read Me

What it is: Do you want your students to become deep thinkers?  Read Me is an incredible set of engaging resources that will have your students thinking deeply about who they are and how learning and thinking is vital to their life.  The resources have been designed to reach 11 to 14-year-old boys, to excite them about reading in and out of the classroom.  I can tell you that as a girl, I am enjoying these resources just as much,  I think that would be true of girls in the 11 to 14 age range as well.  Read Me (by the National Schools Partnership) has created six modules that connect with students at their interest level and teach them how to be reflective, deep thinkers and learners.

This is me- covers an understanding of autobiographical texts in traditional (diary) and modern (blog) contexts.  This is me includes teachers notes and presentations that will help students to explore autobiographical texts and self-expression through blogging.

Sport & me- asks students to explore sports websites and media texts by analyzing their structure and presentation.  Students take on the role of a persuasive sports person and ultimately create their own report or website.

Love 4 me- helps students explore different types of love by using texts from a variety of time periods and genres (including images, short extracts, music, lyrics) as well as in Romeo and Juliet.  Students engage with a range of texts that are thematically linked by love.  The culminating activity here is for students to create their own chat show and to create a collage based on love.  (I’m not sure if 11-14 year old boys would be into this topic…but this one will hook the girls for sure!)

Film + me- students use film trailers and titles to develop an understanding of how meaning is created through a combination of words, images, and sounds.  After students have analyzed film trailers and titles, they are asked to present a novel as a trailer.

Graphics 4 me- this one is my favorite because it comes with an awesome graphic novel tool (learn about it here) Here students explore how graphic novels work and become familiar with the medium and its complexity.  Students can create their own graphic novel online using this tool.

Music in me- students explore songs, their lyrics, and the impact they have on their audience.  As a result, students understand how society is presented through music and the media and stereotypes and attitudes it can help to perpetuate.

How to integrate Read Me into your curriculum: There is so much learning that will happen as a result of these six modules, but at the heart of Read Me is a goal to excite kids about reading.  Read Me has incredible ideas and resources for the language arts/literature/literacy classroom.  Use these resources to connect your students with story, passion, and understanding of how language is used.  There is something for every kid to connect with here.  Each module contains teachers notes, resources, links, and tips.  This is a truly incredible resource and collection for this age group.  Read Me encourages students to understand, analyze, evaluate, apply, and create.

Tips: This site includes a graphic novel creator.  I am writing about it separately because it deserves its own post.  You can find it here.

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

MathMovesU

What it is: MathMovesU is an interactive virtual world where middle school students can interact with algebra, geometry, decimals, fractions, and word problems through topics they are passionate about like sports, music, and fashion.  As students navigate through MathMovesU they will encounter math problems delivered through games, polls, and fun facts.  The site is a great supplement to curriculum and will help students practice and improve their math skills in a fun, engaging manner.

How to integrate MathMovesU into the classroom: MathMovesU is an innovative approach to math practice that shows kids how math is used in real life.  As students explore the MathMovesU virtual world they will collect points by discovering math and tracking solutions.  This site truly encourages students to discover more, dig deeper and think critically about math.  Start your own MathMovesU class competition for the school year where students work to earn the most points.  MathMovesU is a great alternative to worksheet practice.  It is best to use MathMovesU in a one to one scenario where each student has their own computer to work on.  If a one to one experience isn’t possible, use classroom computers as a center.  Throughout the year students can rotate through the center to earn points and practice.

Tips: MathMovesU needs a robust network, the site is highly interactive but can crawl if you have a lab full of students accessing it at once.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using MathMovesU  in your classroom.

Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloomin’ Tree

Okay, here is my LAST Bloom’s re-imagine (although I’m not promising it is the last that I will come up with, it is just the last I created for my classroom).

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing some of my Boom’s Taxonomy re-imagines.  I created these for my classroom so that I could share Bloom’s with my kids in different ways that would make our classroom fun, but also give them a different way of viewing the information.   Today I am sharing my Bloomin’ Tree.  As I started making my Bloom’s re-imagines, students started coming to me with ideas of how to display the information.  The tree was a student idea and the boy underneath is Lance, who made the suggestion.  (Lance was my personal Dennis the Menace, loved him to pieces!)  Some of you have asked what program I used to create my pictures.  I use Apple’s Pages for almost everything, the Bloom’s Taxonomy was no exception.  I use the free hand drawing tool, the shapes, fill tool, text box, and inspector to make my version of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Below you will find my original Bloomin’ Tree, along with my digital version.  Many of you have asked for a printable version of these Bloom’s Taxonomy re-imagines, you can now find a bundle of 4 (Bloomin’ Peacock, Um-bloom-ra, Bloomin’ Pinwheel, and Bloomin’ Tree) in my store.  You will get 8 8.5″x11″ posters, this includes the digital version of each.

Digital Bloomin’ Tree

Here are links to the digital resources in my digital Bloomin’ Tree:

Remember:

BBC Skillwise- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

Spelling City- http://spellingcity.com

Starfall- http://starfall.com

Discovery Streaming- http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Lexipedia- http://lexipedia.com

YouTube- http://youtube.com

Gamegoo- http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

PBS Kids- http://pbskids.org

Understand:

Into the Book- http://reading.ecb.org

Skype- http://skype.com

Treasures- http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Book Adventure- http://bookadventure.org

Twitter- http://twitter.com

Apply:

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

PhotoBooth- Software

Scholastic- http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp

Fotobabble- http://fotobabble.com

Google Earth- http://google.com/earth

Analyze:

Read Write Think- http://readwritethink.org

Cool Iris- http://cooliris.com

Wordle- http://wordle.net

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Mindomo- http://mindomo.com

Evaluate:

Shelfari- http://shelfari.com

Wikipedia- http://wikipedia.com

Think.com- http://think.com

Nota- http://notaland.com

Create:

Pic-Lits- http://piclits.com

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

ZimmerTwins- http://zimmertwins.com

Wiki Spaces- http://wikispaces.com

DomoNation- http://domonation.com

Glogster- http://edu.glogster.com

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Voicethread- http://voicethread.com

Kidblog- http://kidblog.org

Wetpaint- http://www.wetpaint.com

edublogs- http://edublogs.org

Stage’d- http://stagedproject.com/

Garageband- Software

iMovie- Software

 

Bloom’s Taxonomy Bloomin’ Pinwheel

Over the past few weeks I have been sharing some of my Boom’s Taxonomy re-imagines.  I created these for my classroom so that I could share Bloom’s with my kids in different ways that would make our classroom fun, but also give them a different way of viewing the information.   Today I am sharing my Bloomin’ Pinwheel.  As I started making my Bloom’s re-imagines, students started coming to me with ideas of how to display the information.  The pinwheel was a student recommendation.  I think it turned out pretty cute!  Some of you have asked what program I used to create my pictures.  I use Apple’s Pages for almost everything, the Bloom’s Taxonomy was no exception.  I use the free hand drawing tool, the shapes, fill tool, text box, and inspector to make my version of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Below you will find my original Bloomin’ Pinwheel, along with my digital version.  Many of you have asked for a printable version of these Bloom’s Taxonomy re-imagines, you can now find a bundle of 4 (Bloomin’ Peacock, Um-bloom-ra, Bloomin’ Pinwheel, and Bloomin’ Tree) in my store.  You will get 8 8.5″x11″ posters, this includes the digital version of each.

Here are links to the digital tools in my Boomin’ Pinwheel:

Remember:

BBC Skillwise- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/

Spelling City- http://spellingcity.com

Starfall- http://starfall.com

Discovery Streaming- http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Lexipedia- http://lexipedia.com

YouTube- http://youtube.com

Gamegoo- http://www.earobics.com/gamegoo/gooey.html

PBS Kids- http://pbskids.org

Understand:

Into the Book- http://reading.ecb.org

Skype- http://skype.com

Treasures- http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Book Adventure- http://bookadventure.org

Twitter- http://twitter.com

Apply:

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

PhotoBooth- Software

Scholastic- http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/learn.jsp

Fotobabble- http://fotobabble.com

Google Earth- http://google.com/earth

Analyze:

Read Write Think- http://readwritethink.org

Cool Iris- http://cooliris.com

Wordle- http://wordle.net

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Mindomo- http://mindomo.com

Evaluate:

Shelfari- http://shelfari.com

Wikipedia- http://wikipedia.com

Think.com- http://think.com

Nota- http://notaland.com

Create:

Pic-Lits- http://piclits.com

Kerpoof- http://kerpoof.com

ZimmerTwins- http://zimmertwins.com

Wiki Spaces- http://wikispaces.com

DomoNation- http://domonation.com

Glogster- http://edu.glogster.com

Creaza- http://creaza.com

Voicethread- http://voicethread.com

Kidblog- http://kidblog.org

Wetpaint- http://www.wetpaint.com

edublogs- http://edublogs.org

Stage’d- http://stagedproject.com/

Garageband- Software

iMovie- Software

 

The Write-n-ator

What it is: New Hampshire Public Television has created a great site based on the PBS Word Girl show. I learned about the site from a blog that I look forward to in my Google Reader every day, The Book Chook. The Write-n-ator site features video clips about words and vocabulary for students to watch; after completing the clip, students are offered a related writing challenge.  The clips and challenges are all related to writing, word recognition, and vocabulary development.

How to integrate The Write-n-ator into your curriculum: The Write-n-ator highlights words and vocabulary through fun videos and writing challenges starring the PBS character Word Girl.  Offer these challenges to your students as a class using a projector or interactive whiteboard.  Watch the video clip and create a class response to add to the challenge.  Alternately, each student can take the challenge in a writing journal.  These videos and challenges make for a fun introductory activity to use as a writing warm up.  They have the added benefit of introducing new words and vocabulary.  There are 20 videos and challenges total, so these could be a regular feature in your class.  If you have access to a computer for every student, students can complete the writing challenges online and view other students responses to the challenge.

Tips: Click on the “For Teacher” tab next to each mission for the correlated standards that each challenge meets.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the The Write-n-ator in your classroom!

President Obama’s 2010 Back to School Speech

President Obama is giving his 2010 Back to School Speech today at 1PM ET.  This is an opportunity for the President to speak to students about the importance of education and encourage them as they start back to school.  Last year the President petitioned students to remember that “Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.”

The speech will be offered with live streaming from CNN and WhiteHouse.gov.  I am also offering live streaming below:

Life Is from BBC Earth

What it is: Life is is an incredible site from BBC Earth.  The beautifully interactive site is full of images, video, and stories from BBC Earth’s most captivating documentaries.  Each month features a different theme with September’s theme, Life is…Colorful.  The astonishing images and video capture life’s most colorful displays in nature.  The search page is equally stunning, offering an on-screen widget that lets students adjust the pictures in the grid by filtering by hot/cold, slow/fast, sea/sky, or color.

How to integrate Life Is from BBC Earth into your curriculum: Life is would make for an incredible discussion starter or creative writing prompt.  This month’s theme is Life is Colorful.  Ask students to come up with descriptive words for the pictures and images they are seeing.   Students can use the descriptive words they came up with to write a Life is… poem.  The poem could start with the line Life is… include descriptions of what they observed in the video and end with …Colorful.

Students can make their own Life is… type videos with a theme of their choosing using a tool like the National Geographic Wildlife  Filmmaker.

This site can be used on classroom computers or in a lab setting, but I think it would be absolutely stunning on an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer!

Tips: The left and right arrows on the site let you view each picture in the theme series separately. Each picture has an overlay with additional information about the image.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Life Is in your classroom!

The Augmented Reality Library

What it is: Okay, so the augmented reality library doesn’t exactly exist, but I ran across a few items today that had me dreaming about what augmented reality could do for a library.  First a definition for those of you unfamiliar with augmented reality.  Wikipedia has this definition for augmented reality (AR): “a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery.”  If that is a little cumbersome for you, let me give you my definition.  Augmented Reality generally uses a camera to let you overlay virtual data on top of the physical world you are seeing through your camera lens.  The virtual data could be a map, information, multimedia, or even look like a holograph that you can manipulate.  For a really simple explanation you can check out this AR Common Craft Video.  Augmented reality apps are available for many devices, the iPhone, Android and now the iPod Touch.  Layar is a cross-platform app that is a reality browser that contains a large catalog of data layers.  The AR apps use geolocation data from the GPS to layer data over the physical view.  Junaio is another app that uses markers to help the device determine it’s location.  When GPS isn’t available, AR markers can be used.  These are square black and white barcodes that store data.  You may have seen the AR markers begin to pop-up on advertising, grocery items, and books.  The markers allow a device to gather data about the product and overlay that data on top of your physical view.

How to integrate Augmented Reality into your library: You may be wondering how augmented reality could be used in a library.  I recently read an article in the School Library Journal that got my wheels spinning about the ways augmented reality could transform the library experience.  In the article they suggest putting AR markers on a book cover so that when a device is used, a librarian could walk across the book jacket and deliver a quick review of the title.  Markers inside books could cause 2D diagrams or images to come alive as 3D interactive simulations.  Another idea I loved was to create a literary tour using an AR program, which would describe locations that appear in a book.  When you actually travel to that place, the text that took place there could pop up along with additional information or content.  Each of these ideas is amazing in itself but thinking of transforming a school library, here are the ideas I came up with:

  • Connecting your card catalog with augmented reality so that students could search for a book or topic from their mobile device and instantly get a layer that directs them to books that may be of interest.
  • Connecting a tool like Shelfari, where students keep a virtual bookshelf and rate the books they have read ,with augmented reality.  Students could instantly ask for books that are recommended based on their ratings of other books and recommendations could pop up in a layer directing students to those recommendations.
  • Turning booktrailers (professionally created or student created) into an augmented reality layer.  Students could use an AR marker on the book cover and instantly watch a booktrailer about the book.
  • A this day in history layer where a fact pops up each day describing an event in history, the layer could then direct students to additional information, include a video or challenge of some kind.
  • Connect AR to a search engine so that when students are researching a topic, book recommendations pop up in a layer with directions on where to find them.
  • Our library is often a showcase of student work, what if each diorama, piece of artwork, or project had an AR marker on it?  Students could record themselves (either audio or video) describing their work.  This could be attached to an AR marker so that as students viewed other’s work, they could get an introduction to it by the creator. (This would be awesome for parent teacher conference time as well!)
  • AR Markers next to the computers could remind students of important Internet safety rules, the school acceptable use policy, and what to do if they have been bullied.
  • The school librarian could have a special selection of books each month that contain an AR marker linked to the librarian reading the story.
  • Does your school have author visits or use the Skype an Author network?  If so record the author (audio or video) and connect it to AR markers on their books.
  • Label the areas of the library using AR so that ESL and ELL students can get a vocabulary lesson as they walk through the library.

AR could bring libraries to life in new and exciting ways.   What ideas do you have for the use of AR in the library?

Tips: Currently this technology isn’t as easy as download and go for the library.  Content needs to be created, and background building has to be done.  For now you can download Layar to get a feel for how augmented reality works.   You can also visit the “Create” section to create your own layers of AR (this is how you could make some of these ideas happen).   Junaio also allows you to create a channel that offers information.  Junaio makes it very easy to add information by tagging directly within the application.  You can tag your library with comments, pictures, audio, or 3D objects.  If you are using AR in your library please let us know more about it!

Want to see more AR tools? Here are some that I’ve reviewed.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Augmented Reality in your library.