Category: Character Education

Gullah Net

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What it is:  Gullah Net is a site that was designed to introduce students to the Gullah culture and language.”Located on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia are communities of people who are the descendants of enslaved Africans. They have a unique culture that is directly linked to West Africa. In South Carolina, this group of African-Americans and the language they speak are referred to as Gullah (Gul-luh). In Georgia, they are called Geechee (Gee-chee). Native Islanders is another term that refers to the Gullah and Geechee people.  Many historians believe that the word “Gullah” comes from Angola, a West African country from which many of the slaves came. Another idea is that “Gullah” is from the Gola, a tribe found near the border of Liberia and Sierra Leone, West Africa. Although the exact origin of the word is not known, most historians agree that the Gullah people and their language have African roots.”

In addition to a history of Gullah, students can listen to and read along folktale stories read by Auntie Pearlie Sue.  These are fun little stories with a great message. Gullah music introduces students to the evolution of African music in America.  The site is set to have a Gullah cooking section soon.

How to integrate Gullah Net into the classroom:  Gullah Net is an excellent place for students to learn about other cultures within the United States.  The read along folktales are excellent and would be a good place for students to practice reading skills.  Gullah music would be a nice tie in for Black History month (in fact the entire site would be great for this).  Gullah Net has some great teacher resources and lessons to use in your classroom.  My favorite section on Gullah Net is Gullah Tales, these are colorful, fun stories that will keep your students engaged in reading!

 

Tips:  Gullah Net has field trip resources for those of you in South Carolina.

 

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

My Award Maker

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What it is:   It is that time of year again, time for end of the year award ceremonies where we remind our students of how far they have come this year and celebrate their achievements.  My Award Maker is a site I learned about from Kevin Jarrett’s blog NCS Tech.  He found this site just in time for it to be useful for me so I thought I would pass it on so you could benefit as well!  My Award Maker is a free, very easy to use award/certificate creator.  Choose from one of hundreds of great awards, fill in the information that best fits your needs, and print.  It couldn’t be easier and the results are fantastic!  This is going to save me from going to Lakeshore or US Toy to hunt for awards for this year, they are as good if not better quality than those you can purchase.

How to integrate My Award Maker into the classroom:   At my school, we have a formal end of the year award assembly where students are recogized and celebrated for their hard work throughout the year.  This is the perfect place to find an award or certificate for any occasion.  Don’t wait for a formal award ceremony, tell your students how proud you are of their achievements and effort year long with class awards and certificates.  

 

Tips: My Award Maker has a special section of Tips and Tricks for making special occasions memorable.  Check it out!

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using My Award Maker  in your classroom.

The Greens

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What it is:  Earth Day is tomorrow!  The Greens is a great site to get your students thinking about the earth and going green.  The Greens is a collection of 10 short flash movies that teach students important concepts for taking care of our planet.  Episodes touch on topics such as: paper use, recycling, composting, conservation, consumption, pollution, and energy.  The goal of The Greens is to instill environmental ethic in students.  Teachers can download a Greens activity guide (pdf form).  Students can use the carbon calculator to calculate their carbon footprint.

How to integrate The Greens into the classroom:   This is an awesome site to generate conversation on Earth Day (or any day!).  The Greens episodes are short enough to use several in class and can be used as discussion and idea starters for students.  Watch the videos in class and discuss ways that students can be greener at school and home.  Download the activity guide for some great extension activities.  Set up a “green” center in your classroom where students can watch an episode and write down ideas of implementation in their own lives.  Share these ideas at the end of the day.

 

Tips: The video episodes require a Flash Player (this is a free download if you don’t already have one). 

 

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

Emerald Island

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What it is: Emerald Island is a great place for kids to play and learn more about the earth and ways that they can help the earth, perfect for Earth Day!  Emerald Island is a virtual world created specifically for kids (6-12).  Students can pioneer, prevail over, and protect the Island.  Emerald Island is more than just a game, it is a story that students take part in.  The students job is to help Tamino (the hero) to save Emerald Island (a green island) from Pirats (pirate rats).  Each player plants seeds and cultivates gardens to replenish Emerald Island.  Emerald Island helps students to learn about and experience important contributions that are part of an interconnected world.  It provides young students with a sense of community and a beginning understanding of a global society.  Students begin to build knowledge, empathy, and appreciation for an environment that emulates earth.  While playing, students are empowered to make a difference and become true eco-heroes as they take on challenges to save the world.  Along the way students meet other citizens of Emerald Island, many of whom give students tips about how they can save energy and be more responsible citizens.

How to integrate Emerald Island into the classroom:   Emerald Island is a great game for students to play throughout the month of April as they learn about Earth Day and how to become more earth-conscious citizens.  I love how Emerald Island involves students in a story and a quest to save a planet.  On the way they learn about how they can be better citizens of our planet with helpful tips from the Emerald Island citizens.  The games and activities help students to develop problem solving, reasoning, social, and computer skills.   Emerald Island can be played as a whole class exploring and reading clues together with an interactive whiteboard or individually in a computer lab setting. You can expand on what students are learning in Emerald Island by keeping a class notebook of green tips that students learn in Emerald Island.

 

Tips:  Emerald Island provides an outstanding introduction to registering for a website, it is easy enough to use with young students and reinforces Internet safety rules before the game begins.

 

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

Auto Motivator

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What it is:  Auto Motivator is a site where you can create custom motivational posters for your classroom.  You can choose a picture from the Auto Motivator site, upload a picture from your computer, or use a picture from the web.  After you create your poster (in two easy steps) you can save it as the desktop for your computer, save it as a picture file that you can print out, or purchase a poster size print from the Auto Motivator website through Zazzle.com.

How to integrate Auto Motivator into the classroom:  Motivational posters are perfect for the classroom setting but sometimes it is hard to find one that captures the motivation that you want to offer your students.  Maybe you have a class saying, or a specific motivational need, Auto Motivator is a wonderful place for you to create a poster that fits your classroom needs.  I love that you can use the motivational words as the desktop image on computers, these would make a fabulous background for classroom computers or computer lab computers.  Because you can save the image to your computer, you could create motivational postcards to hand to your students when they are struggling as encouragement.  The ability to get your custom poster printed by Auto Motivator through Zazzle.com is a nice option for those motivational posters you want to use year after year.  Encourage students to make their own motivational posters, these would be nice to print out and create a wall of motivation out of.  Students could also exchange motivational posters with peers as encouragement.

 

Tips:  If you are using this site with students, please note that there are Google Adwords on the Auto Motivator website.  Use this as an opportunity to teach your students to spot advertisements and discuss their purpose.

 

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

The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower2246 views

 

What it is: Twitter is an amazing networking tool.  If you aren’t currently using Twitter, today is the day my friend!  If you aren’t familiar with Twitter take a look at my prior posts here or watch the Common Craft video above.  The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter follower is an “ethical bribe” to get people to follow Tim Ferris on Twitter.  Here’s how it works: for every new Twitter follower Tim gets before March 23, 2009, he will donate $1 to Donorschoose.org.  An anonymous supporter will then donate $2 for every dollar that Tim donates.  This means that for every follower of Tim, $3 are donated.  What is the donation going toward?  US Public School classrooms!  The goal is to directly help 25,000 US public school students in low income and high need areas in two weeks time.  I LOVE this idea!  After seeing what is happening with our stimulus money (going to AIG for bonuses and cutting back on education), I think creative ideas like The Tweet to Beat are going to be the catalyst for change in this world!

How to integrate The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower into the classroom: This is such a simple idea and yet the impact could be significant.  You can integrate Tweet to Beat into your classroom in a few ways.  First, if you are on Twitter, follow Tim today (go ahead you can do it right now, I’ll wait).  Second, if your students are on Twitter, encourage them to follow Tim.  Third, use Tweet to Beat as a real world math problem.  Ask questions such as how many followers does Tim need to raise $50,000?  $150,000.  Last, give older students (who have Facebook accounts) a homework assignment to post this story on their Facebook page to get others involved.  

 

Tips:  Twitter is a great way to communicate with families, build a personal learning network (PLN), communicate with other students around the world, and network.  You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here. 

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using The Tweet to Beat  in your classroom.

Lost Generation

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I came across this video recently on YouTube.  As I understand it, a 15 year old wrote this poem as part of a school assignment.  Amazing!  This video would be wonderful to use as inspiration for a teaching staff or with students.  It would be a great opener for a creative writing class! The video speaks for itself, I’m sure you’ll come up with great ideas for using this video with your students (share those great ideas with the rest of us). 🙂

Password Bird

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What it is: Password Bird is an extremelly simple website, but one that I love to use with my elementary students.  Password Bird helps students create a password using a few easy to answer questions.  Students enter a name that is special to them, a word that is special to them, and date that is special to them.  Password Bird takes these and turns it into a randomly generated password.  The ideas is that the password generated will be something easy for students to remember but hard for others to guess.

 

How to integrate Password Bird into the classroom:  In my computer classroom I hear the words “I don’t know what my password should be” a lot.  Password Bird is the perfect place to send these kids.  It helps them create a password quickly that should be fairly easy for them to remember.   Sometimes Password Bird generates great passwords, and sometimes the passwords are not as strong.  I have used Password Bird to generate passwords that we then dissect and decide if it is a strong password or not.  

 

Tips:  Not every password generated on Password Bird will be a strong password, usually this is due to the words that the students chose that make it a weak password.  Use the opportunity to discuss what makes it a particularly strong or weak password. 

 

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