State Assessment Resources

This is a great video for state assessment prep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY04CTYuVao&feature=related 

Some tips for getting students prepared for the Kansas State Assessment:

·         Recommend starting by reviewing the KCA tutorial with students

·         Use the test builders to create tests covering the content being studied in class

·         Test prep strategies:

o   Scanning Practice  http://www.tv411.org/lessons/cfm/reading.cfm?str=reading&num=9&act=2&que=1

o   Critical Reader
http://www.tv411.org/lessons/cfm/reading.cfm?str=reading&num=11&act=2&que=1

·         Reading Activities:

o   http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/kids/magazine/wr/0,28413,091009,00.html and highlighter tool in Word

o   Review questions from stories in TFK http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/pdfs/2009f/091009_wr_quiz.pdf

o   Labette County Resources by Grade level  then subject http://www.506.k12.ks.us/vnews/display.v/ART/47221964e16c2

o   Reading Comprehension activities http://www.readingcomprehensionconnection.com/lesson.php

o   http://www.readingmatrix.com/directory/pages/Reading_Comprehension_Beginner/

o   http://www.readingmatrix.com/directory/pages/Reading_Comprehension_Intermediate/

o   http://www.readingmatrix.com/directory/pages/Reading_Comprehension_Advanced/

o   Reading online text

§   Story with Questions
http://www.english-zone.com/reading/dolphins1.html

§  Reading text online http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/english/story_telling/index.htm

§  http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/online/2003/grade5/read.htm

o   Reading Lessons
http://www.tv411.org/reading 

o   Fact/Opinion
http://www.teachingandlearningresources.co.uk/factoropinion.shtml

o   Drawing Conclusions
http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/h/inferencesp.cfm

o   Main Idea http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/book_buddy/rosie/skill_pre.html
http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/h/mainideap2.cfm

o   Author’s Purpose

§  matching game  http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/match/term/matchgeneric2.asp?filename=kderitteauth

§  http://unx1.shsu.edu/~txcae/Powerpoints/prepostest/authorpovpostest.html

o   Practice Assessment
4^th grade http://www.bpl.org/teens/mcas/R04Menu.htm

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/book_buddy/test/coyote/test_coyote.html

·         Math Activities:

o   Great Site to practice reading math problems online http://www.mathplayground.com/wpdatabase/wpindex.html 

o   Basic Calculator practice site http://www.math.com/students/calculators/source/basic.htm

o   Labette County Resources by Grade level then subject http://www.506.k12.ks.us/vnews/display.v/ART/47221964e16c2

o   Math Operations

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/operation_snowman/?password=luckie&school=Royal+Oaks+Elementary&state=Minnesota&where=both&cookie=1&from=loginForm&back=/menus/harcourt_math/harcourt_math.html&vi

o   Practice Assessment
   4^th grade http://www.bpl.org/teens/mcas/M04Menu.htm http://www.mathslice.com/mathmocktest.php

o   Brain Teasers
    3^rd grade http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mhm/brain/gr3/index.html

     4th grade http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mhm/brain/gr4/index.html
    5^th grade http://www.eduplace.com/kids/mhm/brain/gr5/index.html

o   Online tools

http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activities.aspx?grade=2

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/graphing/classic/

3^rd grade http://www.kidport.com/Grade3/Math/MathIndex.htm

4th grade http://www.kidport.com/Grade4/Math/MathIndex.htm

5^th grade http://www.kidport.com/Grade5/Math/MathIndex.htm

o   Math games based on Kansas standards
      http://www.ixl.com/math/standards/kansas
Math Lessons

http://www.tv411.org/math/

Christmas Wiki-Countdown to Christmas

Christmas is my favorite time of year, I love it...I mean it I absolutely LOVE IT!!! This year I wanted to share a wiki created by a friend of mine. Mary Frazier is a Technology Specialist from Buhler, KS and she is awesome! This season she has created a wiki that is basically an electronic advent calendar (to bad you can't email a piece of chocolate, lol but the tools she shares are almost as yummy).

Her Count Down to Christmas wiki provides you with wonderful Web 2.0 tools that you can apply to your classroom daily from now until Christmas, how cool is that? You can also join the wiki and add to the discussion as well as adding content  to the wiki if you want. On the left is the navigation for the site, these pages have links to Web 2.0 tools and great ideas to use them in your classroom.

So, what are you waiting for...go check it out and enjoy!

If...Then statement

Today I want to share this If, Then statement with you:

So after reading it, my response was AMEN! I don't know about you but I know I have been guilty of some of uttering some of these statements and I know that some of these involve the issue of time but if we want to be the best educators for whomever we teach we need to get these phrases out of our minds, you know? I located this image here, it was shared in my PLN (Personal Learning Network) of choice plurk by one of my friends. It stuck with me and I've been thinking about what I can do to help improve myself and continue to grow professional and personally. My question this week to you is, what do you do to be a better teacher than you were the day, week or year before?

TRC Classroom: Animal PSA Project

 Principal, Judy Wright, several students from Mrs. Carter's Class
picture taken by Mrs. Carter

This week I would like to share a project that one of my TRC teachers did with her fifth grade students over several weeks in October. Mrs. Carter is in her first year of this grant and while her students were reading about helping animals in their Treasures book they asked how they might be able to help animals in their community.  Mrs. Carter opened it up for discussion and an authentic project-based unit was born!  She then had the students brainstorm ways that they could help animals within their table groups, share out their ideas to the class and then began working on how they were going to implement their plans.

One of the groups decided they wanted to help the Kansas Humane Society by having a school-wide adopt-a-pet day. Another group wanted to help sharks after seeing a show on the Discovery Channel about them.  Another group thought they could help by creating a PowerPoint sharing tips on how to properly care for pets, while the last group wanted to help abused animals and were led to contact the ASPCA organization to see what they could do to help with that situation.

The students then set off to work on how they were going to get the information they researched out to others. The students decided to share their information in a variety of ways. Some students made posters to display around the building (the humane society group), others asked teachers if they could present the PowerPoint to classrooms and one group even presented at a whole school assembly to get the word out.
If you would like to replicate this project in your classroom see my TRC grant resources page for helpful resources.

This blog post is cross posted to the Whirl Blog

TGIF Tip- Wordle

Ok, so I have been posting for a while and I can't believe I haven't shared this website. It's an excellent resource to have in any classroom. It's called Wordle and it's a cloud word generator, it was created by Jonathan Feinberg. He didn't really create it with educators in mind but I think (as do many others) that it is perfect for the classroom.

To use it you need a list of words or phrases to create your cloud, I suggest typing this list in Word before typing it in Wordle so that you can make sure the words are spelled correctly and so you can easily recreate your list if you want to change it after it's created (this great advice will make sense after you've created a Wordle or two). So, to create your first Wordle you will need a topic to create your word cloud about...maybe you want to create one about Blogging, like this one?

Or maybe you want to create one about the different story elements of narrative text like one of my TRC (Technology Rich Classroom) teachers did with his students. The lesson plan for that activity will be posted soon on my TRC site. My advice is to have your students create their first Wordle about themselves, I mean that's a topic they know plenty about and usually don't mind sharing.

To do this, start off by having the students get into Microsoft Word and typing a list of character traits about themselves along with their first name. If their list involves descriptors that are more than 1 world long, say a phrase maybe, they will need to use the tilde ~ located above the Tab key on most keyboards between the words in their list. If they don't the words will be separated throughout the word cloud.  After they are done with their list of descriptors, let them know that they are going to want their names to stand out in the word cloud since it's the topic. To make one word larger than another all you have to do is type that word in several times more than any other word. Students could then decided which words describe them better than others and put that word in their list multiple times in comparison to other words that might not describe them as well. Here is a sample:

Next, have the students highlight their list in Word and copy it by holding down Ctrl + C then opening up the internet and going to http://wordle.net/create and pasting the list into the form. Next, hit Go and you now have created your first Wordle. Students can adjust the look of the Wordle in several ways. Click the Randomize button and the web tool will choose the background color, font, font color and arrangement of the text for them. Or they can continue to click Randomize until a combination they are happy with is found. The student can also use the menu bar and select those items themselves.

After your Wordle is perfect you can save it by hitting the Print Screen button on the keyboard or using a screen capture tool (I recommend MW Snap). Then putting the Wordle into PowerPoint or Word to use in a variety of ways. Speaking of using Wordle in a variety of ways, check out my delicious account for TONS of ways to use Wordle in your classroom.

So the question is, how will you use Wordle with your students or teachers?

Cool Web Tool: Wall Wisher

 photo provided by dkuropatwa's Flickr account

Today I wanted to share a cool web tool that several of my TRC (Technology Rich Classroom) teachers have been using and loving. It's called Wall Wisher. Wall Wisher is a site that allows the user to basically post information (limited to 160 characters) virtually. It's awesome because it's easy to use and so many ways you can use it. You have several options to choose from when you create a wall. You need to decide on an address or URL for the site, an image to display, a title and any information that the end user would need to know as well as the wall's color of course. You will also need to decided who can view and post on your wall, this depends on how you are going to use it.

You don't have to register to create a wall nor do you have to register to use the wall, which is great for students under 13. You do have to give the site your name and an email address but that is only because they create a temporary account so you can come back and edit the wall you created if needed. I say just register for an account because you will be back and use it again. If you have a Google account you can just use that, if you don't join the 21st century and get one DUH. LOL!!! I mean that in the sweetest way possible.

Moving on...to create a wall you need to click on the Build a wall link on the top right. From there you will need to fill out your name and an email address, the URL to your wall, as well as all the other options we discussed above. Pretty cool, huh?

So, lets get to the good stuff...how you can use it with students or teachers you work with:

• Use it as a reflective tool or students or staff
• Use it was a way for students to share questions while doing a picture walk
• Use it to identify different elements of a story (characters, setting, plot, problem/solution)
• Use it when collaborating with another classroom
• Use it as a "parking lot" for questions during a training
• Use it as a "to do" list for yourself
• Use it when working with an expert in your classroom so they don't have to come in to the classroom (when it's not possible)
• Use it for your blog to gather feedback (embedded)
  
• Use it as a way to survey people to gather data
• Use it with parents during conference or any time of year
• Use it as a "back channel" during a presentation to get a feel for what your audience is thinking

There is a draw back to having the site public, anyone can post on it. That means that you could possibly end up with content that isn't appropriate for students. So be on your toes with it and teach your students what to do when they run across stuff like that. Please share on my wall ways you think you might use it in your classroom or with teachers. To do that click on the Post a Sticky link below.

State Testing Online

Image provided by Colemama

 Ok, so as many of you know Kansas is asking that all students take the state assessments online which is a great step in my mind. With that, many people in my district are nervous to say the least about students being "forced" to assess online when they are being taught this way! I am hearing some people say that their students aren't going to do well on this assessment because it's online and they don't know how to read text online. I ask the teachers why their students can't read comfortably online? The response is honestly because they haven't been given the opportunity, and then I wait before I respond. I wait and then the teachers usually do one of two things; they blush and say "I know, I should be teaching them those skills" or "So, anyway...they aren't going to do well and we are in trouble." I am writing about this to share with the first group of teachers, I wanted to share some ideas for how to prepare students to take the online assessment.

The easiest way to get students comfortable with any state assessment online is to go through the tutorial first. In Kansas, here is the link for the KCA tutoral, I would begin there and set the purpose for your students so when they are doing different activities they will understand why they are practicing these skills for math and reading. It is also beneficial to model when you use those different tools as you are learning content, it's just those things that good readers do. You can also use this site KCA testbuilder. Sorry any out-of-state readers, I don't know your state specific site....ask around :). There are several tools that you can use in other applications to help students to become more comfortable with the tools available during the KCA.

Here are some of the reading activities that teachers can do to help students to become more literate with reading online text and using tools available to them on the assessment:

• Use Microsoft Word and any Time For Kids article to teach students how to use the highlight tool to identify the main idea and details of the article as well as the comprehension questions provided by the site or make up your own. You could even have the students make up comprehension questions as they become familiar with this strategy. You can also use the strike through option when in Word.
  
  
• Students can better understand how to retell a story by creating one "best" retelling and 3 "close but not correct" retelling options using their favorite picture book. Here is a student sample created by students in Mrs. Martinez's class at Pleasant Valley Elementary in Wichita, KS as well as the lesson plan (scroll down to Retelling) to follow if you are interested in using it with your students.

Here are some of the math activities that teachers can do to help students to become more literate with reading online text, and using tools available to them on the assessment:

•  Most students have had little practice on a calculator so getting them to use it is the first step. A calculator is only as good as the operator, it can't think for you it only process what you tell it. Here is a basic calculator online to help the students practice.
  
  
• If possible give the students practice with reading word problems online. One site many teachers in our district use is the Everyday Math SMART Board Lessons  . I suggest using the math message activity while the students use it at their computer in groups of two to work the problem out with you. That way they would be able to practice reading online and working out the problem instead of on paper only.
  
  
• Another site that would help students practice reading math problems online is Math Playground. It is an excellent site to get students familiar with reading text online without the repetition of practice assessment. 

I hope that you have found some of these ideas helpful, I will continue to post helpful math and reading sites and activities to help students prepare to take the assessment online in my delicious account. To access it go to www.delicious.com/jgridley .

Mobile Learning Institute-Ideas about 21st-century education

 Alan November

While reading eSchool News, Oct. 09 I ran across an article about a film series that profiles visionaries in 21st-century education. Nokia and the Pearson Foundation have put together a series of videos that explore how technology is transforming educational experiences, how school leaders are testing project-based and student-centered models of learning and how student-centered learning impacts poor and disadvantaged students.

So, I went to the link provided where the videos are showcased and clicked on a familiar name to me Alan November.  In this video Alan discusses the Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom. This video isn't like most educational videos, you know where it feels stale and a little boring. This video is more like a documentary, where you feel like your being spoken to instead of at...know what I mean?

Anyway, while watching this film I began to think about what he was really saying. For example, he brings up that teaching someone how to use a piece of technology is fairly easy to do in a day workshop or even an afternoon; but what can't be done "in an afternoon is teaching people to be comfortable shifting control to the students, that can take years." I paused the video and thought about that for a moment letting it sink in. My role as a grant facilitator and instructional technology specialist is to help teachers expand on what they are currently doing in their classrooms. It's to help them see that technology does not only provide information but opportunity. Opportunity to teach their students how to be life long learners is my hope for them.

Alan goes on to discuss some myths about technology. He brought up that many people believe that technology is helping to create a better society but he thinks it provides people with their "version of the truth".  I can see his point, anyone can create a website to profess their beliefs, passions, etc. Another myth he brings up is that technology "makes kids smarter". He points that students are copying and pasting or plagiarizing more because it's easier to just copy and paste from the web than it is to think critically.

Then Alan goes into roles that every classroom should have, they are:

• Researcher
• Reflector 
• Scribe 

 He goes into a little detail about each of the roles but the main theme of each is that students have control over what and how they learn the content in that classroom and that the teacher just guides them through that learning. It reminded me of a post from last week about being a tour guide, it's a total shift in teaching for some teachers.

I hope that you will check out this video and all the other videos in the set. I also hope that it helps you to make a change in your current delivery of content in your classroom, I know it has impacted mine!

TGIF Blogging about a Blogger

 Today I want to share a great find with you. I ran across this blog and fell in love with this post. It reiterates what I should be doing in my job every day as well as what all teachers should do. We as educators of all types should be Guides. The post by Doug Johnson on his blog, The Blue Skunk Blog is about how his trip to the Grand Canyon was enhanced by guides. He discusses 5 things good guides do, they are as follows:

1. A good guide pushes you to do things you might not have done alone.
   
2. A good guide models things to do that you might not have done.
3. A good guide shows you things you might not have found.
4. A good guide demonstrates"best practices".
5. A good guide smooths the way.

As I reflected on what I was reading, I tried to think about myself in both situations...as the guided and the guide. I think we have all been in both of these roles at one time or another. I began to think about each item and how I felt when I was "being pushed" as well as "pushing", how I model as well as what I learned when someone modeled things in my classroom and on down the line. I guess the reason I wanted to share this blog post is two fold; to be reflective about how you are guiding your "students" as well as a great resource for "guidance" on your path in education.

So, my question for you to think about is...how do you guide your "students" whether their 10 or 110 in their learning hike?

Limeades for Learning & Donors Choose

Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE Sonic drinks, especially their ice. It's just so crunchy...don't tell my dentist though. :) Anyway, the reason I am talking about Sonic is to make sure you are aware of their latest crusade, Limeades for Learning. Each time you go to Sonic and purchase a drink, you receive a code that allows you to go to Limeades for Learning and vote for a classroom in need. The teacher submitted a project where supplies were needed on the Donors Choose site with a description of the project that they want to do with the class as well as the equipment needed. The projects range from a classroom set of a certain novel to playground equipment to projectors and document cameras.

What I love about it is that Limeades for Learning and Donors Choose put the power in the hands of the giver and the receiver. Both groups win here, as do the people who love Sonic (like me). My mom always told me if you don't ask you'll never know, and this site proves that...so I am challenging you to think of a need in your classroom, maybe you just need glue sticks for each student or maybe you would love a listening center with iPod Shuffles and then get out there and ask for it! What's the worst that could happen?

Skype in the Classroom

Photo from Will Lion

I want to start this post by saying, I love Skype! It helps me to stay in contact with friends and family for free and it's super easy. I have also found tons of great resources for using this tool in the classroom. I want to share several of those sites today, but first lets discuss what Skype is and how to get it on your computer.

Skype is basically a phone service that allows for computer to computer phone calls as well as computer to landlines. You will want to purchase a headset with noise canceling microphone and a webcam. The software is quick and easy to download. Once it's on your machine, launch the program for the first time and you will be prompted to setup your account.  There is basic information to fill out as well as deciding on your Skype name. Whatever you decided to use just remember that you will be using this username with your students and other professionals so hotmama might not be the best choice.

Next, you will want to find other Skype users, to do this click on the magnifying glass at the top of the Skype screen. You can then type in the information of the person you are searching for and click search. Once you've found the person, click "add" to add that user to your buddy list. The user will get a message asking them to approve you and add you to their list.

Finding a classroom to Skype with can be difficult but I suggest using ePals, it's a great site to make connections with other schools in an easy and safe way. Or this Skype in Schools wiki, where you can add yourself to the directory, find other teachers all around the world.
50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in your classroom is a great blog site that has just that, 50 ways to use Skype.

Some of the things the author suggests in this post might not work for you but many of them are awesome just as the title states. They are broken down into the following areas: 

• Promoting Education
• Promoting Community
• Skype Ideas for Teachers & Parents
• Resources for Getting Started
• Finding Others Using Skype

I really liked that they all break down the four walls of your classroom and allow your students authentic learning experiences. These activities give your students purpose behind what they are learning in your classroom!So, how do you plan to use Skype in  your classroom?

A Storytelling site- Storybird

Today I want to share a really cool storytelling site with you called Storybird. Thanks to Mel Bacon for sharing this with me. This site is awesome. You do have to have an account to create stories with this site but to read the stories that have already been created, it's free. In our district students aren't allowed to have user names and accounts that aren't controlled by the teacher so for us I would suggest using this as a way to help students brainstorm ideas for stories, use it as a discussion for author's purpose or as a whole class create a story together under the teachers account.

Below is a tour of storybird:


Storybird Quick Tour from Storybird on Vimeo.

How do you see using it in your classroom?

TGIF Tip-Blogging Guidlines

It's Friday!!! Today's tip is about blogging with students. The magazine Tech & Learning featured one of my FAVORITE bloggers, Kim Cofino. Kim is a 21st Century Literacy Specialist at the International School Bangkok in Thailand. She is an excellent resources for all types of technology integration.

On the Advisory Blog, Christine Weiser shared a cross-post, Student Blogging Guidelines by Kim Cofino. In this post, Kim discusses how she came up with this list of student guidelines with help from students in her building. This post is an excellent way to introduce blogging in your classroom or school while reminding students about internet safety and creating buy in. I believe that students will be much more willing to follow rules that they helped created rather that rules solely created by their teachers.

I don't know your situation but in our district we aren't allowed to give students access to creating their own blogs like Kim can do, but we are allowed to blog with our students. We do suggest that teachers inform parents about this activity and also create a contract for students to sign agreeing to behave appropriately while blogging.

How do you plan or currently use blogs in your classroom?

Word Magnet

I want to share an awesome site that someone on my PLN (Personal Learning Network) shared with me the other day. It's called Word Magnet, and it's awesome! Word Magnet is a site that allows you to type or paste words into a text box and then manipulate them around on several different types of graphic organizers. Several graphic organizers are a Venn Diagram, a stair step, a bull's eye, numbers, the alphabet, and many more.

Once you have chosen a graphic organizer, if needed, you select Done and all your text comes in underneath the organizer. The magnets can now be color coded, deleted and manipulated around the page. You can also make the whole group of magnets larger or smaller and add new magnets as needed.

There are many uses for this site, here are a couple:

• Introduce new vocabulary words
• Review vocabulary words
• Identify nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc via color coding
• Compare & Contrast characters from a story
• Identifying relationships between addition & subtraction or multiplication & division
• Identifying relationships between animal classifications or scientific classifications
• Comparing themes in a book

What are your thoughts? How would you use this site?

Book Wink

Today I would like to share the resource Book Wink. It's a great site that showcases many different types of books for students from 3rd through 8th grade. The host and book reviewer, Sonja Cole has a warm and inviting voice that makes you want to run to the book shelf and pick up the book she just reviewed.

You can search the site in several ways, by subject, grade level, author or title. I would suggest showing your students this site before they head to the library or share it with your librarian and have him or her share it periodically. I also think this site could be an interesting way for your students to create book reports using a FlipVideo to record their 2 minute book review. Who knows Sonja might even use it on the site one day!

There is also an option to subscribe to their podcast as well, that way the book reviews can come to you instead of you going to them.

How would you use this site?

TGIF tip Going Green

This week's tip is a green one, I was catching up on some reading and in the magazine Converge, there was an article about a classroom that collaborated with the Lutron Electronics Company. This classroom paired up with Lutron to help them gather data about their energy efficient light bulbs. The students monitored the light bulbs and compared data between their classroom and the one next door. This sparked the class to continue to try and find ways to be more energy efficient.

This partnership helped create a site dedicated to the greening of America's Schools through innovation, education and awareness. The Greenovation site helps to provide teachers with curriculum that is correlated to state standards as well as a social network. This network is a resources where teachers can share how their classrooms are changing our planet for the better.

Mahatma Gandhi's famous quote says "You must be the change you want to see in the world." so go out, be that change and help to inspire your students to be that change as well.

Blooms On My Mind

OK, so I have been planning for some professional development with my TRC (Technology Rich Classroom) grant teachers and one of the first things we are going to talk about is Bloom's and higher order questioning strategies. I have been racking my brain trying to find a cool way to review the Old Bloom's and introduce the New Bloom's and then there's Visual Bloom's, which brings in different Web2.0 tools to teach the different levels. I love how the creator took the tools that many of us are using and broke them into the levels, he prefaces that this visual is just a conversation starter and will probably change and morph as time goes on. I like that, it will be interesting to see how my TRC teachers react to it.

I think my plan of attack for this task will be to create a TrackStar (this is a tool provided by ALTEC that creates a very visual hotlist for the participants) for the teachers to go through and have them fill out their own mind map using whatever site they feel most comfortable with and just go from there. I hope they find it useful and walk away with several ideas for how to integrate Bloom's into their curriculum. I also hope that you've found some good resources for yourself and that you've had a chance to get reacquainted with a great way to teach.

Which resource do you find most helpful? Why?

TGIF Tip- Change the World

photo provided by Will Lion's Flickr site

Today's TGIF Tip is similar to last Friday, guess I am feeling green. So at Siemens, We Can Change the World you can with your students do just that. The site challenges you and your students to create solutions to environmental problems in the area and share the results nationwide.

There is also an opportunity to win awesome prices and the possibility of being on TV, oh and changing the world. Go and check it out, register your class and change the world!

The Flip Video

One piece of equipment that I couldn't live without is the Flip Video by Pure Digital Technologies, Inc. The Flip Video is a hand held camera that fits in the palm of your hand and connects to your computer via USB port. The best part is that the USB cable is attached on the side. Totally easy, right? It comes in many different varieties but for classroom use I would suggest purchasing the Flip Ultra, it's $149.00. Can't be that price and if you hunt around you can even find it for $100. Click here to see the specs.

Here is a helpful video



I think this piece of equipment is excellent for the beginning of the school year. There are tons of activities you can do with this device, I wanted to share a couple of resource that will help you use this tool in your classroom. I will continue to update this list as I find more resources.

Enjoy!

http://delicious.com/jgridley/flipvideo

TGIF Tip: Changing the World, do you have 5 minutes?

For today I kind of have a tip, well it's probably more of a challenge. I watched a video today on YouTube about Changing the World in 5 Minutes created by students in Australia. This is a cute video about a class that decides to take the first 5 minutes of each day for a week to do something to change the world. I won't ruin it for you but their ideas were excellent and very manageable. I tried to go to the link in the more information section but it was down so I wonder if they kept it up or if it spread to be a building wide activity. It made me wish I had a class to show this video to and see where they would take it. So instead I will throw it out to you all, how does this inspire you? How might it inspire your classroom? Please share your thoughts with us!!
Oh and happy Friday!

First Days of School Part 2

For me and my students the first days of school were about procedure; how to come into the classroom, how to communicate your needs, how to line up, how to walk in the hall, how to get along with your classmates, how to turn in assignment all those things that make a classroom run smoothly. This week I wanted to share the I Love That Teaching Idea site with you. This site isn't high tech or anything, in fact I would love to share some website design ideas with them, but I digress. I like this site because it is full of ideas for you from Learning Centers and Art to Classroom Management. I know that many of you will take these ideas and use them with the technology you work with daily. I hope you use this site to engage and interact with your students as the image (photo provided by Will Lion's Flickr site) above suggests. I hope you build relationships with your students or teachers that you come in contact with this year.

TGIF Tip-Social Networking Tips

photo provided by Will Lion's Flickr site

This TGIF tip comes from How Stuff Works. I read the article Top Ten Things you Shouldn't Share On Social Networks by Charles W. Bryant http://bit.ly/rpk94 and it got me thinking about how I interact with the web. I use Twitter, Plurk, Facebook and LinkedIn quite a bit but I try to keep the "two worlds", professional and personal separate. I mainly use Twitter, Plurk and LinkedIn for professional stuff and Facebook mainly for personal stuff.

In the article the author references posting things on your Facebook wall:

If it's not something you'd feel comfortable sharing in person with extended family, acquaintances, work colleagues or strangers, then you shouldn't share it on your Facebook wall.

It makes me wonder, who's having this type of conversation with students? Who is sharing this type of advice with them? The answer I come up with is, no one! Who's responsibility is to have this type of conversation? I believe it lies with all of us; parents, teachers and the community as a whole. We also need to lead by example and follow our own advice.

The article goes on through the other 9 tips, including basic things like not sharing passwords, password hints and personal contact information on social networking sites. The theme of the whole article in my mind is be selective; don't allow the whole world to view your profile.

What is your opinion? How do you keep yourself and your family safe on the web?

First Days of School Part 1

I have been thinking about the first days of school, I remember getting excited about getting my room ready for students. Putting new name tags up, getting my room arranged, creating activities to get everyone out of their shell. Well, I found a really neat activity from Tammy Worcester's site and thought I would share it with you all. It is an All About Me Scavenger Hunt. In the activity either K-3 or 3-12 students are asked to use a list of Internet resources to share information about themselves. Students go to /each site to help them find out what happened on the day they were born, how tall they might be one day and many other fun facts. Students could then create a poster or share this information with a partner to introduce one another to the class. Or ask the students how they want to share this information they've gathered about themselves.

So now that I have shared an idea, what ways do you have students get to know one another at the beginning of the school year?

Image provided by Will Lion

TGIF Tip-Tr.im

Need to update this post, sounds like http://tr.im is dead, check out this article

This Friday's TGIF tip is a tool that I think can be useful when working with students or staff.

http://tr.im/ is a site that will "trim" a URL or web address down to a shorter easier bit of information. To use this site just follow the link above and Copy (Ctrl C) and Paste (Ctrl V) the URL you want to shorten into the text field. You can either create a custom URL or have trim create one for you. Many people use this link when they "tweet" about a URL because it will allow you to track the traffic that goes with this URL, which can be a cool feature.

Here is an example:

http://itemnotasdescribed.com/ turns into http://tr.im/uVYM
(this is a hillarious blog about things posted on Craigslist)

Enjoy!

Social Bookmarking Site

For my first post, I would like to discuss using Social Bookmarking sites for personal productivity as well as in your classroom. Wikipedia defines Social Bookmarking as "a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically in the form of tags that collectively and/or collaboratively become a folksonomy." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

There are several different types of online bookmarking sites out there like Diigo or ikeepbookmarks but the one I feel is the most user friendly is Delicious. Here is a video from Common Craft that explains what Social Bookmarking is in Plain English.

Delicious can be used for personal and professional use to make your life easier. It allows you to store all your favorite sites online so that you only have to visit one place for all the useful sites you use. Gone are the days of going back and forth between your school and home computer searching for that one site. Now you can access your favorite bookmarked sites from any computer! YEAH!!

I work with teachers helping them to integrate technology in their classrooms and one way we share resources is through the delicious network. I bookmark sites with a TRC tag and those teachers know they can go to that tag on my site to find tons of resources that I felt would benefit them. They do the same for each other. We also tag resources for each other by using the for: tag option which sends the URL directly into the specified users inbox. A very convenient way to share resources instead of relying on email to share sites.

You can also use it in your classroom as a place to send your students when they need to do research. For example say your students are learning about fairy tales. If you already had sites you wanted them to look at your could just send them to one URL, example: http://delicious.com/jgridley/fairytales instead of creating a hot list or having the students type in each URL which usually leads to a lot of hands raised and a teacher with a HUGE headache after class.

This is just one example of using Delicious in your classroom, how do you use this social bookmarking tool for productivity?