For Teachers – Page 35 – iLearn Technology

Virtual book club: Readicide

April 22, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments4115 views

What: The Michigan Reading Association is hosting an interactive virtual book club for anyone to join via Facebook. This is an opportunity to network with educators around the world and take charge of your own professional development. The first book is Readicide by Kelly Gallagher (who will be hosting the book club with the Michigan Reading Association). If you aren’t familiar with this book, you can read a post I wrote when the book was first released here. The idea behind the virtual book club is to give educators a place to connect with others, share ideas, reflect and improve your classroom.

Where: It is easy to join just click to view the Facebook invitation and select “I’m Attending.”

When: The book club will meet during the month of May. Login whenever you are available to browse posts and conversations and add your own thoughts. Each week there will be a post that outlines a general road map that chunks chapters so we are reading and reflecting at a similar pace.

How: Purchase Readicide, view Kelly’s website and follow him on Twitter, “attend” the facebook invitation, let the fun begin!

I really enjoyed reading Readicide and look forward to reading it again-this time with friends to reflect with! Who else will be joining us?

Thank you to Erin for inviting me!

Solar System Scope: See the solar system in 3D

April 20, 2011April 20, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments6072 views

What it is: Well, yesterday set me off on a space kick. Today I spent time with the Solar System Scope site, talk about a COOL way to view the solar system! Solar System Scope (SSS) is a 3D real-time look at celestial positions with planets and constellations in the night sky. Students can adjust planet and moon settings, star and constellation settings, earth observatory settings and time settings. View the solar system from a heliocentric, geocentric or panoramic view.

How to integrate Solar System Scope into the classroom: Who would have guessed the day would come when we could take our students on a realistic field trip through space? That is exactly what the Solar System Scope makes possible. For young students, it would be fun to plan a class space mission. Prepare your students as astronauts, load into your classroom spaceship (which may just be chairs and desks specially configured for the day) and prepare for launch. “Fly” through the universe and solar system using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer. This is almost like having a planetarium right in your classroom. Pretty cool!

Of course after traveling through space as a class, students will want to explore more on their own. They can do this at a classroom computer center or individually in a computer lab setting.

Older students can get more in-depth using the built-in distance meter to measure the distance between planets. Each star reveals information about how many light years away it is from earth. Students can adjust the settings to learn more about constellations. Time and date can be adjusted to view the solar system on a given day. When students click the play button, they will see a 3D animation of the solar system based on the view they chose. Very neat!

In addition to using Solar System Scope for science, use it as a launching point for a creative writing activity. Students can write a fictional story about their travels through space, or even pretend to colonize a planet using factual information about the struggles they would have to overcome.

This site is a great one to use in connection with the NASA 50th Anniversary site I shared yesterday!

Tips: Solar System Scope isn’t finished yet, they are still working on some cool features. Be sure to watch for a planetary journey for kids complete with an animated talking guide named Zyx, desktop clocks that show all planet positions at the moment, a space-flight simulator screen saver (perfect for the interactive whiteboard!) and a space forum.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Solar System Scope in your classroom!

NASA’s 50th Anniversary Flash Feature-best website ever!

April 19, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments5473 views

Have I mentioned lately that I have the most AWESOME readers? No? Well it is true, you all are awesome and you keep me going even when I am running on low. Thank you for that! I’m currently working on starting a school (actually 3) in the next 2 years. This is proving to be an exciting and, oh yeah, exhausting task. Then I get encouraging emails and site suggestions from you all and it puts some major pep back in my step. Thank you! This website is one such recommendation. You know you are a true geek when getting a cool website in your inbox revives you 🙂 Thank you Ryan!

What it is: NASA’s 50th Anniversary Flash feature is a website that is absolutely not to be missed. Seriously, it won’t even hurt my feelings if you skip reading my post and just head right on over to dig in and check it out yourselves! This interactive timeline highlights each decade in our space program from 1950 to 2000. Until we get time travel sorted out, this is a pretty good substitute! The site encourages exploration and discovery as students move decade by decade through the site. I love that this site goes so far beyond just space exploration. While students explore, they will hear music representing each decade, see animations, listen to virtual radio broadcasts of actual news headlines (including NASA news and other news from the decade), original video, listen to speeches of the decade and even launch rockets. I can’t tell you how happy it made me to hear Johnny Cash mixed in as I was playing on this site (in the upper left corner of the site you will be able to change songs on the jukebox, record, tape, CD or mp3 player). First thing I heard when I clicked on the 80’s “Tonight on Dallas find out who shot J.R.”. *LOVE THIS SITE!* This blog post took me about 2 hours because I got sucked right into exploring and playing. The site reminds me of Epcot’s Tomorrow Land, complete with robot guide. This is what online learning should look like, when I close my eyes and dream, this is the experience I imagine for kids. Can you imagine if there was a site like this for history? How cool would that be?!

How to integrate NASA’s 50th Anniversary Flash Feature into the classroom: This is one of those sites that you could let kids loose on just for exploration. Without any guidance from you they will learn plenty! Ideally kids would explore this site in partners or on their own in a one to one computer lab setting. If each student has a computer, headphones will be a necessity. If individual exploration just isn’t in the cards, visit the site as a class with an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computers. Invite students up to the computer (whiteboard) to take turns guiding the class. The site has plenty of interactive content to give each student a chance at the computer (whiteboard). Unless you have a good chunk of time dedicated to the site, this is one that I would stretch out over a week. Each day students can explore a new decade.

The space exploration component of this site is amazing and could keep everyone plenty busy with learning. With older students, discuss what the music of the decade reveals about that time in history. What does the music tell them about people, community, values, events of the day? Take it one step further and ask students to dig into other historical events in each decade, discussing their impact on space exploration, culture and where we are today. One thing that I missed out on in history was all of the stories that make it so rich. For me, history was reduced to names, dates and places. Give your students the opportunity to put themselves into history and learn about how the events influenced each other.

NASA’s 50th Anniversary Flash Feature would be a great one to use in connection with We Choose the Moon. If your students are like mine, they can’t get enough of this stuff! Obviously I can’t get enough of it either. Full disclosure, I have always loved space exploration. When I was a kid I spent many summers at Black Rock Desert at LDRS (Large Dangerous Rockets) with my dad. My dad built wooden model rockets- first wooden rocket on record to break sound barrier! In answer to your next question: yes, I have always been a complete and total nerd. 😛

Tips: What? Your still here? Go on, visit the site! (channeling my inner Ferris Bueller today).

Please leave a comment and share how you are using NASA’s 50th Anniversary Flash Feature thesauruses in your classroom!

Twitter Tools

April 19, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3999 views

This morning I am meeting with a school that I am helping with a social media campaign. They want to use Twitter and Facebook as a way to reach the community, create bonds between classrooms and give parents a peak into the school day. I started with a Paper Tweetup, you can read more about that here. Today I am meeting with the school communication manager. She runs the school Twitter account. This account is used to share school news and to retweet (RT) things that the classrooms are tweeting about.

Here are the tools I am sharing:

Group Tweet– This turns a standard Twitter account into a group communication hub where members can post updates to everyone in the group using direct messages. When the group receives a direct message from a group member, Group tweet converts it to a tweet everyone in the group can see. This is a great way for classrooms within a school to communicate and share. It is also a nice way to organize classrooms from other districts, teacher teams, or parents.
http://paper.li Turns Twitter and Facebook into a daily newspaper. The Newspaper can pull from a Twitter account, a hash tag (#), or from a list.
Twibs– This helps you find local businesses on Twitter. This is a helpful way for schools to connect with the local business community.
Twuffer– is a service that lets you schedule future tweets. This is great when you are using Twitter to promote school events, remind students of assignments or to send out messages during the summer or holiday months.
Social Oomph– Another service that lets you schedule tweets. You can also create auto direct messages, auto follow and track keywords.
Tweet Beep– This service is like a Google Alert, get Twitter alerts when people mention you (or a keyword).
Mr Tweet– This is a way to begin networking on Twitter by finding others who share similar interests.
Tweet Stats– This is a service that lets you graph your tweets, it is useful at-a-glance information to check out your Twitter use.
Just Tweet It– is a service to help you find people on Twitter.

I hope that is helpful! What Twitter tools can you not live without?

Better Late… Friday Recap

April 15, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments1769 views

Hi all, I hope you have had a wonderful week! This is a late night Friday recap- better late than never 🙂 This has been a fantastic and exhausting week as I finish the website for the new school I am starting. For those who are interested, you can take a look at it here: Anastasis Academy (if you are interested in learning more about employment, send me a comment through the contact form on the admissions page).

A few weeks ago I ran a Survey2Go Contest and promised I would announce the winners today. Congratulations to those who won! You will be hearing from Survey2Go with instructions for redeeming your 100 Survey2Go credits.

Yvonne Lenard
Rebecca Woodcock
Tania Schutz
Lisa M
Christy Dugger
Ann Taylor

Congratulations to the winners and happy weekend to all of you!

The Bookshelf Muse: Emotion, Setting, Color/Shape/Texture, Symbolism Thesaurus

April 15, 2011Kelly Tenkely3 Comments3904 views

What it is: The Bookshelf Muse is a must add blog to any writing classroom toolbox. On The Bookshelf Muse, students will find several thesauruses: emotion, setting, color/shape/texture, weather, and symbolism. The emotion thesaurus offers alternatives for showing character emotion through physical action. The Setting Thesaurus offers sensory descriptions that can help paint the picture of a setting. The color/shape/texture thesaurus helps students include sensory information that helps convey images in specific ways. They symbolism thesaurus helps students utilize symbolism to leave a lasting impression on their readers. To use a thesaurus, scroll down and choose an emotion, setting, color/shape/texture, weather, or symbolism topic from the right side bar. Suggestions will appear as a blog post. Each thesaurus is regularly added to, there is something new each week!

How to integrate The Bookshelf Muse thesauruses into the classroom: The Bookshelf Muse thesauruses are a must add to a writer’s toolbox. All writers experience periods of writers block. The Bookshelf Muse thesauruses can help students break through that block. Bookmark the thesaurus on classroom computers for quick access during writing as a writing/publishing center. Students can access the center as needed to help fire up the creative writing process. This blog will have your students thinking carefully about word choice and how different parts of speech color writing.

Before students begin using the emotion or setting thesaurus, visit the blog as a class using an interactive whiteboard. Using the annotation feature, invite students to the board to highlight words based on the parts of speech. This will help students identify vivid verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that add life to writing.

Consider creating a writer’s toolbox for your students using a tool like symbaloo or weblist.me. Add writing tools like rhyming dictionaries, The Bookshelf Muse Thesauruses, writing prompt generators, a Flickr picture dictionary , Color in Motion, Tag Galaxy, Lightning Bug, What if Questions for Stories, The Story Starter Jr., PinBall-bounce ideas around, Poetry Idea Machine and other writing resources. Create another Symbaloo page or weblist.me for web tools that students can use for writing (Little Bird Tales, Kerpoof, Figment, Picture a Story, pic lits, Story Bird, Zooburst, Myths and Legends, Glogster, Graphic Novel Creator, My Story Maker and Picture Book Maker).

Use the Bookshelf Muse thesauruses as a launching point to create a class thesaurus. This can be done for setting, emotion, senses, weather, etc. Make the thesaurus easily accessible by creating it as a blog or wiki.

Tips: The Bookshelf Muse has just started adding to a weather thesaurus, so far the only entry is blizzard but it should get your students thinking about how they can describe weather.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using The Bookshelf Muse Emotion thesauruses in your classroom!

Story Time for Me: Digital Children’s Books

April 11, 2011April 11, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments4933 views

What it is: Story Time for Me is a beautiful collection of digital children’s books for primary students in kindergarten through second grade. Each story includes charming illustrations, animation and professional narration with music and sound effects. Activities accompany every story that encourage imagination and creativity (these are coming soon!). The stories have been developed to teach important values through positive moral themes. Story Time for Me currently has a library of over 30 books and growing. Next Friday (April 22, 2011) Story Time for Me will be launching free personalized activity books where students can become the star of a book.

Students can choose to read each story with or without narration, with or without animation and choose to highlight the words as they are read.

I can’t tell you how impressed I am with this free digital story site. It expands your classroom library, encourages a focus on character development and invigorates children to read more.

How to integrate Story Time for Me into the classroom: Story Time for Me expands your classroom library with winsome digital stories that your students will love. Story Time for Me makes a great reading center on classroom computers. Because students have the option to read with narration or independently, it meets the needs of both strong and developing. Each story reinforces positive character education values often dealing with friendship. These stories are a wonderful way to begin class discussions about friendship and empathy with students. If you have an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computer, the stories can be used as a whole-class “big book”.

When the personalized versions are available, give your students the opportunity to star in their own story. These personalized stories would make a fun beginning of the year activity as a way to welcome students to a new grade, or end the school year with a personalized story they can enjoy all summer.

Tips: I learned about Story Time for Me from @2sparkley’s blog, Bits and Pieces Place. If it isn’t a blog you subscribe to, it should be!

Story Time for Me is completely free, the more visitors they can attract the more stories they will be able to add to the library. You can help them by spreading the word to family and friends on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Story Time for Me in your classroom!

Zen.do: Efficient Learning

April 7, 2011Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3111 views

What it is: Zen.do is a site created by students with a mission to help make learning more efficient. Zen.do seeks to provide a solution for managing the overwhelming amount of information that students are asked to learn. It does so by helping students study what they need, when they need to. Students begin using Zen.do by taking notes. As they are taking notes, they add a hyphen between terms (concepts, names, important dates, etc.) and definition. Students can then study their notes as flashcards, indicating what they know and how important it the information is to them. Zen.do does the rest, it helps students spend less time studying by reviewing only what matters and what is likely to be forgotten. In the long-term, Zen.do helps students keep important information at the ready. The best part of Zen.do: students don’t really have to do anything differently than they are already doing it. They create notes as they always do and Zen.do takes care of the rest.

How to integrate the Zen.do into the classroom: If you are like me, you remember spending HOURS reading through class notes, creating flash cards, re-reading notes to make sure you hadn’t missed anything important, and then cramming as much as you could prior to a test. I like that Zen.do takes the focus off the cramming for the test bit and focuses on really learning the material. Zen.do helps students think about their learning process by making them call out what is important and how likely they are to forget it.

Zen.do is a great solution for students who struggle with studying and finding a way to manage the barrage of information they face. It breaks down notes into manageable, digestible pieces and keeps them moving forward in their learning.

Zen.do is ideal in a 1 to 1 classroom setting where each student has access to a computer. If you don’t have access to a computer for each student, consider using a classroom computer for note taking. Make record keeping a rotating classroom “job”. As the class recorder, a student would take notes for the class in a word processor (Google Docs would be ideal). These notes can be accessed by students at home and copy/pasted into each student’s Zen.do account for studying.

Tips: Students can sign in to Zen.do using an email address, Google connect, or Facebook.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Zen.do in your classroom!

And the winner is…

March 31, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments3463 views

I’m getting ready to head to wine country for a little vacation but before I go, wanted to wrap up some contests, announce a winner, and announce another iLearn Technology give away.

Thank you to all who entered the iLearn Technology Starrmatica classroom giveaway. I was overwhelmed with comments, tweets, Facebook comments on my fan page and people filling out this survey. I can’t thank you enough! I put all of the entries into a spread sheet and then used Random Number Generator to choose the winner. The winner is…

Congratulations Deb!

For those of you who entered the Grade Trac contest, thank you so much! I will announce those winners when I am back from vacation.

In the mean time I have another stupendous give away (I am full of them lately…lucky you guys!). I have ten 100 survey2go credits to give away!

First a little about Survey2Go. As I mentioned in the Grade Trac post, although we would all LOVE to be paperless, that just isn’t the case for most of us yet. Survey2Go bridges the gap by offering the convenience of the paper we are already using, and the online automation of organizing the data.

Survey2Go provides:

Easy Survey Creation

Easy copy/edit features to build new surveys from existing ones.
Visual interface makes it easy to select and modify your custom survey format on a question by question basis.
Upload pictures to include in your questions and answers.

Uses Standard Office Technology

Use your office scanner/copier; no special special scanner required.
No software to install or manage; you just need an Internet browser.

Fast, Accurate Results

In most cases, results are ready for your review the next day or sooner.
Automatic response evaluation for all multiple choice questions.
Easy, fast, consistent process for summarizing write-in questions of any size.
A variety of survey result reports and tools to meet your needs.
Trend reports across same surveys

I can’t tell you how many stories I hear of technology being used for weeks at a time for surveys. This means that while student surveys are being conducted, no one else can use the technology for *ahem* learning. Anyone else see the problem here? Why are we using technology for throw-away tasks like student surveys when authentic learning opportunities could be happening? Silly! Survey2Go is a great solution, the survey still gets completed, the results are automated, and the computer lab stays open for learning. Not only does Survey2Go offer the ability to take a paper survey and automate it, you can have a school survey where half of the students use paper and half of the students access it online. Regardless of how students (or teachers, or parents) take the survey, the results are all automated and organized in the same space. Brilliant!

So, can we all agree not to occupy our technology with surveys when we could be using it for authentic, hands-on learning experiences and creation instead? Survey2Go is a great way to free up technology for meaningful tasks while still collecting necessary data.

If you or your school is interested in Survey2Go, leave me a comment about it below. On April 15th (2011) I will announce 10 winners. Be sure to use an actual email address in the comment form so I can get in touch with you.

Students Rebuild: Paper Cranes for Japan

March 30, 2011Kelly Tenkely7 Comments3377 views

What it is: As news of Japan’s tsunami and earthquake(s) continues to roll in, students may be feeling overwhelmed by the devastation of it all. Following natural disaster current events can give students (and adults) a real sense of helplessness. As adults, we often ease this by donating money or time. What do students do to make an impact? Today I learned of a truly wonderful site called Students Rebuild from a tweet from my friend @MZimmer557. Students Rebuild is a site that helps students around the world connect, learn, and take action on critical global issues. There are a few projects that students can get involved in currently:

1. Haiti- building stronger, permanent schools in Haiti. This is a call to action for middle and high school students to rebuild strong, permanent schools in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Students and educators create a team to raise money. Any money raised is matched dollar-for-dollar up to $2,500 per team.

2. Japan-folding cranes to support rebuilding in Sendai. This is a way for young students to take action. “Through a simple, powerful gesture of making and mailing in a paper crane, students worldwide are promoting hope, healing, and triggering dollars for reconstruction ($2 for each crane received).”

Students Rebuild gives students the opportunity to connect to a global community, learn about the challenges of a natural disaster, and do something real to make a difference.

In addition to the Rebuild challenges, educators can use Student Rebuild to connect students with others around the world. The site helps build that global learning community Interactive video conferencing encourages two-way dialogue and emotional connections. Webcasts between Haiti and multiple schools around the world engage, and inspire. (Learn more on the “Educators” page)

How to integrate Students Rebuild into the classroom: Register your class to take part in one of the Students Rebuild activities. The newest way to take part is through the Paper Cranes for Japan project. Students Rebuild partnered with DoSomething.org to give students worldwide a way to support their Japanese peers. Start by watching the video of how to make paper cranes on the Students Rebuild website. Take a photo and upload it with a message to the Paper Cranes for Japan Facebook Page. Mail the finished paper cranes to Students Rebuild to turn those cranes into dollars for reconstruction and an art installation. This would be a great project to take on as a class. Don’t stop there, encourage your students to make more paper cranes. They can have a paper crane party, or encourage their families to join in on the paper crane creation. Download the one-page flier to send home with students.

Using Students Rebuild projects in your classroom is a great way to teach students about our global community, empathy, current events, and give students a way to make a difference.

Tips: Be sure to check out the comprehensive toolkit on the Students Rebuild site. In the toolkit you will find photos, videos, posters, fact sheets, logos, media coverage, and fundraising tips.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Students Rebuild in your classroom!