Create your own virtual classroom: Edu 2.0 and Vyew

October 18, 2010Kelly Tenkely15 Comments13951 views

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What it is: Tomorrow I launch my virtual classroom and honestly, I am a little nervous! It is like the first day of school; everything is carefully planned, all the resources are ready to go, and the students are enrolled and have received their welcome packet. But, there is still that anticipation and sense of dread that all that careful planning won’t be enough…that something unexpected will happen that will force me to think on my feet. Really, isn’t that what teaching (and learning) ends up being every day? 🙂 I am using two tools to host my virtual classroom that I wanted to share here. Even if you teach in a traditional classroom, these tools offer the ability to expand your school day and provide your students more of a hybrid learning model.

Edu 2.0 is the first tool. I first wrote about and started using Edu 2.0 in 2007. The tool has only gotten better with time! Edu 2.0 is an outstanding alternative to Moodle or Blackboard as an online Learning Management System (LMS). It is completely free to use, multilingual (it auto translates messages!), allows you to teach public or private classes, gives each student an online portfolio, includes a full gradebook, allows you to create curricula and track proficiencies, transcripts of all student grades, tracks attendance, includes forums and wikis, online quizzes, create and track to-do lists, completely web-based, mobile with a free iPhone app, tracks analytics, teach multiple sessions of the same class, upload and access over 15,000+ online resources, parent involvement, define and measure proficiencies, integration with popular web widgets, real-time chat, custom RSS feeds for your class, Calendars, private (designed with students in mind), create and share lessons, provide conditional pathways in lessons (you have to pass one assignment or class before moving onto the next), rubrics, groups, debates, messaging, public and private blogs, surveys, multimedia, and pdf integration. That is a long list but it really doesn’t even scratch the surface of what Edu 2.0 can do. This is your one stop shop for a LMS whether you are in need of one for a district, a school, or for your individual classroom. It is relatively easy to learn and has fantastic tutorials, guides, and support. The biggest challenge that I have with Edu 2.0 is navigation, not because it is difficult, but because it is so comprehensive!

Vyew is the second tool I am using for my virtual classroom. Vyew is an online meeting room that is simple to use. The free version is the one I am using, premium versions are well priced and offer increased options and capacity. Vyew allows up to 10 students to participate in a room at a time. Teachers can create and upload course content for real-time and anytime collaborative learning. Vyew is a lot like Elluminate but doesn’t require any downloads, it runs completely inside the web browser. This makes it a really easy virtual meeting option for students as they aren’t required to do a lot of extra prep. The authoring area of Vyew is easy to use, it is a lot like creating a PowerPoint presentation with slides. Vyew allows for external publishing which means that you can embed the finished presentation on your Edu 2.0 site for those who couldn’t attend the live Vyew session. Vyew supports a HUGE amount of files including video, pdf, PowerPoint, swf, and many more. It also allows for real-time desktop sharing which means that all of your students can see what you are doing on your computer as if you were sitting side by side! There is a built-in screen capture tool for making step by step tutorials. Both students and teacher have whiteboard drawing tools for on-screen collaboration. Embedded comments let you include information on the page to be expanded. Vyew lets you communicate with VOIP (voice over IP), webcam (all 10 can use the webcam!), free tele-conferencing with a unique phone number provided, and voice notes (voice recording embedded in on-screen sticky notes). This is such a simple to use virtual meeting room and it’s features are among the best.

I am using both edu 2.0 and Vyew together for my virtual classroom. I felt I needed an online meeting room where I could create meetings on the fly because this class is being held completely online. I am working with students in third through eighth grade and teaching a 5 week digital storytelling class. We will be working together to discover the power of story, and how to use different digital mediums to tell a great story. I am offering this class to everyone but advertised specifically to the students I used to teach for the first virtual classroom. I did this for a few reasons: parent requests, as a way to stay connected to my students, and I knew what technology skills they had already learned.

How to integrate Edu 2.0 and Vyew Virtual Classrooms into your classroom: Creating a hybrid classroom is an incredible gift to your students. It offers them the ability to connect with you outside the hours of the school day, and on their own terms. It gives students time to review content, interact with other students, and learn at their own pace. Virtual options provide a whole new dimension to learning. Use a virtual classroom to: extend your classroom and teaching, tutor students individually, offer courses to home school families, connect your students with other classrooms, record in-class learning for students who are absent or have a long-term illness. There are hundreds of ways that taking your classroom online can benefit your students. Taking your classroom online gives parents an additional way to be involved in their child’s education and goes one step better, allows them to learn along side their child. Have a tough new math curriculum that parents are lamenting? Offer a virtual parent university where parents can learn more about how to help their child with the new learning. Have teachers that need professional development but can’t find the time? Use Edu 2.0 for learning on demand. Edu 2.0 can be utilized as a classroom online learning solution, or as a school or district wide learning management system. Use Vyew for live meetings with your students. Make yourself available in a Vyew room at the same time every day for additional academic help.

Tips: You can offer your virtual classes for free or charge depending on their purpose. I wouldn’t charge for a virtual classroom that was an extension to my regular classroom, but you might charge for tutoring or specialized classes. I am charging for my class and treating it as an after school club. Edu 2.0 allows you to charge for a class with checkout support using Paypal or credit cards.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Edu 2.0 and Vyew Virtual Classrooms in your classroom!

10 Steps to Better Lesson Plans

October 14, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments3523 views

Recently, an article that I wrote for The Apple was published: 10 Steps to Better Lesson Plans. I thought I would share it here and encourage you to check out The Apple for great lesson plans, education news, resources, and even job postings.

This is a repost of the article:

Kelly Tenkely | TheApple.com

Master teachers are also master lesson planners. They can look at a learning goal and piece together key components that will ensure that their students meet the goal. Not all lessons need to be a reinvention of the wheel, but there are several hallmarks of well-crafted lesson plans. Whether you are building your own lessons, or searching through databases of lessons, be sure to include these 10 key components:

1. Learning Goal-

Every lesson plan should have a clearly defined learning goal, after all, that is the reason for teaching! I have seen some very inventive lesson plans that lack this important ingredient. No matter how entertaining a lesson may be, if it is lacking a learning goal, it has missed its mark.
There is a day celebrated annually by students all over the country affectionately referred to as Mole Day. Celebrated every year on October 23 (10-23), Mole Day honors Avogardro’s Number (6.02 × 10^23), which is a basic unit of measure in chemistry. There are some fun lesson plans out there for Mole day (and in fact entire websites dedicated to the celebration). Mole day is uniquely celebrated by creating moles (the animal) and creating a diorama that represents a play on the word ‘mole’. For example “guaca-mole” or “Remember the Ala-mole”. Students spend weeks creating their moles and mole puns. But in all the entertainment, does the lesson completely lose its meaning?
What does the mole (the animal) have to do with Avogardro’s Number aside from sharing a name? When the learning goal is lost, so is the learning. When writing and searching lesson plans, make sure you always have a clear learning objective in mind: everything hinges on this.

2. Resources-

List the resources needed for a lesson. Nothing is worse than having the perfect lesson planned only to find that you are missing an important material. Jotting down a list of resources needed for the lesson will ensure that you have all the paper, glue, copies, etc. when the time comes to use them.
Don’t forget to list digital resources as well. Make sure if you are using technology that the websites you intend to use with students aren’t blocked at school. A great lesson you created at home could come to a screeching halt if you can’t access the video you found the night before. Also, be sure to note any of the plug-ins that may be required for a website (Silverlight, Flash, Shockwave, etc.). Often, if you can plan ahead, your tech department can confirm that you have everything in place for your lesson.

3. Standards-

It is important to note any standards being met by the lesson. Most schools are requiring a standard tie in for every lesson. Even if your school doesn’t require that you note which standards you are meeting, it is good practice to be familiar with your state and national standards. You will be surprised how many standards you are meeting in any given lesson. You may also choose to note how a lesson falls into the scope and sequence for yearlong learning.

4. Anticipatory Set-

After the learning goal, the anticipatory set is one of the most important ingredients in a quality lesson plan. The anticipatory set engages your students in the learning that is about to happen. It sets the tone for the lesson and makes students hungry to learn more. Think of the anticipatory set as a movie trailer. The trailer doesn’t tell everything about the movie but provides enough glimpses to leave you wanting more.

When I was in first grade, my teacher planted a UFO made out of cardboard boxes and yogurt containers spray painted silver in the middle of our classroom. All around the UFO were purple play dough “space rocks”. We were immediately engaged and excited about the lesson. We had no idea what we would be learning, but she already had us thinking and questioning. As it turned out, the UFO was introducing a new leveled reader we were going to read together called “My Pet Space Rock”. All these years later I still remember that lesson.

A good anticipatory set activates prior knowledge or encourages students to ask questions. Students learn, by making connections and exploring. Build anticipation for your lesson through props, secret notes from historians or scientists written to your class, a video clip, a song, a short story, or role play. Students love pretend play, so think about how you can get them to use their imagination and pretend as they are learning.

For example, if your students are studying dinosaurs, tell them they are paleontologists going on a dig. Outfit them with field journals and a ‘special’ paleontologist pencils that they can use to take notes. In my classroom, I like to use Wordles to begin my lessons. These are word clouds that you can create at www.wordle.net. I include several “clue” words about what we will be learning and project the Wordle on the whiteboard. As students come into the classroom, they guess what we will be doing based on the Wordle.

This gets students thinking about what they will be learning, activating prior knowledge, and asking questions. It takes 2-3 minutes of guessing before we begin the lesson and it readies students for the learning that will follow. It seems to me that the anticipatory set is the piece most often left out of lesson plans, and it is a shame because it’s what excites students about learning.

5. Introduction-

The introduction of your lesson is a great place to give your students a 30,000 foot view of the lesson. Tell your students what they will be learning (the learning goal) and give them an overview of what will be expected of them during the lesson. During the introduction, you can also begin to activate prior knowledge about the subject. Do this through class discussion, a KWL chart, or through small group or buddy discussion.

6. Direct Instruction-

Direct instruction is the meat of your lesson. This is where you are actually teaching or coaching your students. This can be done in a variety of ways. Sometimes direct instruction is simply giving students directions and guidelines for the self guided, discovery learning they will be completing independently or with a friend. During direct instruction, make sure that you are incorporating different learning styles. I have found that one of the best ways to teach something is through a story. Students may not recall a list of facts about the Civil War, but if you can tell an engaging story about an event from the Civil War that includes pictures and role-playing for students, they will be able to recall significantly more later on.

Humans learn and relate to the world through stories and pictures. When someone mentions September 11th, you likely don’t think about a definition type answer of what happened on that day. What comes to mind are the stories people told, the video, and pictures that you saw. This is how we construct and frame knowledge. As often as you can, teach through stories. This is a difficult task at first, because it requires each of us to become storytellers. The rewards are great and as you compose lesson plans; you too will begin to think in story.

7. Guided Instruction-

Guided instruction is the instruction that happens in small groups or one on one with students. This is the point where students have actually begun a project or assignment. As students work, you can encourage and guide students in their learning. Guided instruction gives you the opportunity to find out what your students know and can do through anecdotal assessment. You are observing and helping or redirecting as needed. Students can pair up in partners or work in small groups to guide each other in new learning or review. During this time, if you notice students who aren’t quite getting it, you can pull them into smaller groups to re-teach.

8. Assessment-

Every lesson should have some form of assessment. This can be formal, informal, or anecdotal in nature.Formal assessment is usually in the form of a test, quiz, worksheet, or project that is turned in and graded. Informal assessment can be done during direct instruction. Asking students to write down their answer on a small whiteboard and hold it up, using clickers with an interactive whiteboard, or a simple “thumbs up if you agree, thumbs down if you disagree”. These are all great informal ways to gauge understanding. Anecdotal assessment is usually done during guided instruction as you are walking around and observing your students understanding. Not every lesson needs to be graded but every lesson does need to be assessed. As the teacher, you need to know if your students understood the learning and what re-teaching or follow-up teaching may be required. Every lesson should include informal and anecdotal assessment throughout the lesson.

9. Closure-

Every lesson should have some type of closure where students can summarize or wrap up their learning.

This could be done in several ways:

Through informal class assessment with clickers or thumbs up/down

Students could each list something they learned as a ticket to line up for lunch

Students could write a sentence in their journal summarizing a lesson

Students could whisper the answer to a question to their elbow buddy

The class could complete the KWL chart

Students could blog about their experience or learning

Students can add a piece of learning to a Wall Wisher wall www.wallwisher.comOften times a completed project is adequate closure for students, but don’t let them just turn the project in, let students show off their work to others and discuss.
10. Differentiated Instruction-
Students all learn in different ways and at different rates. Make sure that you account for adjustments that may need to be made for students. For example, if you have a student who struggles with reading, and the history lesson for the day requires extensive reading, plan to pair them up with a buddy, make an audio recording, etc. Think about those who will struggle with the learning and make a plan for them.

Don’t let these rules for lesson planning overwhelm you. After you have written out a few lessons you will be able to start jotting notes down in your lesson planner and still fulfill every one of these key components for a quality lesson plan.

Lesson planning takes practice, but with a little planning, your students will be learning more effectively and you will know exactly where they need review or additional practice.

There are thousands and thousands of free lesson plans online. As you are looking through lessons, make sure that they follow these rules. If there is a component missing, add to the lesson and customize it for your classroom.

For some free lesson plan resources, please check out the article in it’s entirety on The Apple.com, you will find the resources on page 3 of the article.

Picture a Story: Digital Storytelling

October 13, 2010Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3961 views

What it is: As I mentioned a few days ago, I am starting a virtual classroom/club for digital storytelling. I have been on the lookout for great resources, I listed my favorites here, and now I am remembering a lot of tools I left off of my original list (like Toon Doo!). Today as I was going through my Google Reader, I learned about this gem from Richard Byrne’s Free Tech for Teachers. The Delaware Art Museum has provided a great website dedicated to storytelling. The tagline is “bringing visual art to life through stories”. On the site, students can picture a story, experience a story, or tell a story. The Picture a Story was the most intriguing portion for me, as it provides a great tool for telling a digital story. First, students choose a genre of story that they want to tell, next they choose a famous painting background for their story, students add characters (also from famous works of art), props, and then tell the story. In the tell the story section, students type out the story. If a microphone is available, students can even record the story in their own voice. When students have completed their story, it can be shared via email.

How to integrate Picture a Story into your curriculum: Stories are powerful. I love the way that Picture a Story weaves together famous works of art with story. It teaches students to reflect on the art that they encounter and think about the stories that it represents. Picture a Story is a great way to discuss genre, characters, and parts of a story. It is also a fantastic way to bring a little art history into your classroom. It would be a neat class experiment to have students choose all the same genre, background, characters, and props and, without talking to others, write their story. After students are finished they can share their stories with the class. Students will learn about perspective, creativity, and voice as they listen to all the different stories that originated from the same picture. If you don’t have access to a computer lab, this activity could be done with an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer and students writing on paper. Let your students experiment with story and share their finished pieces with each other. Picture a story is ideal in a lab setting where each student has access to their own computer. If that isn’t a possibility, you could also have students visit Picture a Story on classroom computers as a storytelling center. The site is quick to navigate through and students can tell a story in a sentence or a few paragraphs making it a good center. If students don’t have access to email or can’t email the finished product to you, have them take a screenshot of the story to save in a digital portfolio or to print out.

Tips: The teacher section of this site has some great lesson ideas for every grade level.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Picture a Story in your classroom!

31 of My Favorite Digital Storytelling Sites

October 11, 2010Kelly Tenkely33 Comments19679 views

I am working on starting a virtual classroom…actually when it is all said and done, it will look more like a virtual club. I have opened up my virtual classroom to students in 3rd-8th grade. My first offering is going to be digital storytelling. In honor of that, I thought I would share the sites I am going to use with the students, as well as some other favorites for digital storytelling.

1. Google Search Stories Video Creator– This is a YouTube site that lets you create a digital story out of a series of Google Searches, you really have to check it out to get the full effect!

2. PicLits– This is an all time favorite of mine, PicLits lets students choose a picture and then draw from a word bank to create a sentence or story to accompany the picture.

3. Domo Animate- This is my favorite story animation tool. It gives students so much flexibility and freedom in telling their story, the results are amazing!

4. StoryBird- This site lets students create stories based on beautiful illustrations by real artists; better yet, it lets students create stories collaboratively!

5. Animoto– The free version of Animoto lets students create 30 second videos that combine images, songs, and text. It combines them all for an impressive presentation without a lot of fuss.

6. ZooBurst- ZooBurst is one that I haven’t used with students yet but I am excited to. ZooBurst is a new site that lets students create virtual 3D popup books. Even better, it lets students print out a special marker and view their popup book augmented reality style as it comes to life using a webcam!

I couldn’t fit in all of my favorite digital storytelling tools into a 5 week class, here are some more favorites:

7. Myths and Legends

8. Shidonni– One of my students very favorite websites of all time, this one gets requested a lot!

9. Smile Box

10. Kerpoof– another student favorite!

11. Glogster

12. Creaza

13. Voice Thread

14. Graphic Novel Creator- Comic Master

15. Stage’d

16. ePub Bud– publish ebooks for ebook readers like the iPad

17. Virsona– a different kind of digital storytelling but neat none the less!

18. Zimmer Twins– one of my students very favorite ways to tell a story!

19. Fotobabble

20. Picture Book Maker

21. Nota– collaborative workspace

22. My Story Maker

23. Xtranormal

24. Do Ink

25. Piki Kids Comic Creator

26. Bubblr!

Sites to get students writing:

27. Lightening Bug

28. What-if questions for stories

29. The Story Starter Jr. -Created by my friend Joel Heffner!

30. The Story Starter- Also created by Joel!

31. PinBall-bounce ideas around

Pinball: Bounce Ideas Around

October 6, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3994 views

What it is: Pinball is a neat site from the BBC that helps students kick-start new ideas to get thoughts flowing and develop creative talents. There are four tools that will help students brainstorm and bounce ideas around. Dot Dash is for firing out ideas, start with a main idea and branch out with connected ideas in a web. Drop Zone is for making quick decisions, add ideas, name the zones, click “go”. As ideas speed by, quickly make a decision and select a zone; analyze the results. Snap Shot lets kids play with images; here they can upload an image or select a random image or word in “Lucky Dip” and then use the tools to play with the idea. Students can reflect, rotate, scale, bend, erase or cut an image or word to get different effects. Wild Reels is for mixing up ideas. Students can create reels of images and words, then they can label the reels. When the ideas are all in, the ideas can be “spun” to see what combination comes up. In each of the tools, the results can be “flipped” to another Pinball tool. Each tool allows students to think about a subject and explore ideas they may have about the subject.

How to integrate Pinball into your curriculum: Pinball is a fantastic tool to help kids think through their ideas for writing, research, science hypothesis, making connections in their learning, brainstorming, and fleshing out ideas. Each tool is designed to let students think visually in a way that lets their ideas flow freely. The integration of one tool with another is really helpful for transferring loosely related thoughts into a more cohesive thought process. Pinball can be used for whole class thinking with an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer. For example, as students read about a time period in history, and related events, they can use Dot Dash to show how the events and people are related. Students can each add to the class understanding of the time period. Drop Zone would be a great way for students to generate ideas for a creative writing, or journal project. Students can enter the ideas they have and let Drop Zone help them decide which to write about. Bookmark Pinball on classroom computers so that students can use them as an inspiration station center. Any time your students need to bounce ideas around or think through their learning visually they can visit Pinball and work through their ideas. Pinball would also be helpful for structuring thinking prior to a research report, or science experiment. If you have access to a computer lab or 1-to-1 setting, allow your students time to think about their learning and connect new learning to knowledge frameworks they have already built. The possibilities with these tools are endless.

Tips: Pinball offers links to additional thinking tools that are available on the web including Exploratree, Mind Tools, bubbl.us, Aviary, Mind 42, and Wisemapping. Each of these tools is fantastic for mind mapping, creative thinking, brainstorming, and visualizing ideas.

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

Sumdog: Fun Math Practice Games

October 6, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments4787 views

What it is: Sumdog math is a site with an outstanding collection of math games covering over 100 numeracy topics and split into 10 levels. The games are free to play for home and school math practice. Sumdog games can be used as an engaging anticipatory set for mental math, or to reinforce a specific math topic. The games can be played individually or in multi-player mode. Teachers can create school accounts and upload classes to the program. For a low-cost school subscription you can also have detailed class and student reports, set up class competitions, and set a minimum level for a class. The free features of this site are more than enough to get your class having fun interacting with math. With 100 numeracy topics, you are bound to find games to help your students practice exactly the skill they are working on. Topics range from ordering numbers, addition, subtraction, doubling, rounding, multiplication, and division, to positive and negative numbers, advanced number sequences, prime numbers, and adding and subtracting negative numbers. Each game asks targeted questions based on the level chosen, provides immediate feedback to students based on their answers, allows students to review any questions they got wrong and lasts about a minute. Multi-player games let students compete against their class or students online worldwide, and provide an option for playing solo or against the computer. Students can play athletics where they sprint against players worldwide to get the most questions correct; Street Racer where they are head to head in a car race against other players to cross the finish line first, Alien Invaders where students compete against another player to see who can survive the longest against alien invasion; Penalty Shootout where students compete against another player in a soccer penalty shootout of math questions; Tennis Tie-break where students trade volleys with a real opponent; Talent Show where they answer questions correctly to please judges in a talent show (think American Idol); or Canal Clear Up where students clean up trash from a canal by matching questions to answers.

How to integrate Sumdog into your curriculum: Sumdog is a fun way for your students to practice mental math. The 60 second time limit of each game makes it a great math center activity. If you have one or two computers in your classroom, students can sign into their account, choose their level and practice mental math for 60 seconds; when they are finished with the game, the next student can rotate into the center. In a computer lab or 1-to-1 classroom setting, students can save and track their progress as they practice with a variety of games. Sumdog is a welcome break from timed worksheet exercises and flash cards. It lets students compete with kids around the world in a safe environment while helping them with faster number recall.

Tips: Don’t forget to tell parents about Sumdog, they are always looking for new ways to help their kids with math fact practice.

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

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EduTecher’s Change the World

September 29, 2010September 29, 2010Kelly Tenkely12 Comments4087 views

What it is: EduTecher’s Change the World is a campaign started by @adambellow at EduTecher to transform the world one penny at a time. Between October 1 and November 25 every new user that enters EduTecher.net will allow @adambellow to donate 1 penny on their behalf to a charity that his audience votes on. The charity that gets the most votes will get a check. The idea is that we can change the world together, one person at a time. Want to make an even bigger impact? If you have a blog, website, or Facebook page you can post the Change the World badge or link and every time one of your readers or friends clicks on it another penny will be donated. I am taking @adambellow’s idea the step further and will offer the same. For each new user that comes to iLearn Technology between October 1 and November 25 (2010), I will donate a penny to a charity that we will vote on here. So, if you would like to double your difference, you can add the EduTecher’s Change the World logo and link along with the iLearn Technology Change the World logo and link. This is a great idea of a little way that we can start making a difference in a bigger way.

You can view the video explanation below:

How to integrate EduTecher’s Change the World into your curriculum: Why not create a similar school wide campaign to change the world one penny at a time? You can collect pennies as a class or if you have a class blog or student blogs, issue a similar Change the World Challenge. As an added bonus, map out where your “pennies” are coming from and have your students write an introductory letter to the charity and include a map of where the money came from! If you aren’t familiar with the EduTecher website, it is definitely worth checking out. EdTecher reviews web 2.0 tools for the classroom, they have a great collection of web 2.0 for students and teachers all in one place.

Tips: Add the EduTecher’s Change the World badge to your website, blog or Facebook page and then double the change by adding the iLearn Technology badge. Together we can (and will) change the world. If you are extending the change please let me know in the comments below, I would love to see how far reaching this is!

iLearn Technology badge:

Code to place badge on your site:

Please leave a comment and share how you are using EduTecher’s Change the World in your classroom!

Progressive Phonics

September 28, 2010Kelly Tenkely6 Comments5308 views

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

September 28, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments2965 views

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!

Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master

September 27, 2010Kelly Tenkely5 Comments6017 views

What it is: The Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master is a portion of the Read Me program (learn about it here). This is a really cool online comic creator, the interface is fun to use and very intuitive. It is obviously geared toward students with a great look and even an embedded music player. I love the details on this site, including the headline “Reading isn’t only in books, it’s everywhere!”. Using the Graphic Novel Creator, students can create their own multi-page graphic novels with interesting backgrounds, characters, props, and customized text. The graphic novels can be saved and printed out.

How to integrate Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master into your curriculum: Graphic novels are becoming increasingly popular reading material, particularly for boys. They have even the most reluctant readers excited to pull out a book. Now those kids who love reading graphic novels, can create their own. A graphic novel is a great way for students to show what they know. They can create a graphic novel re-tell of a story as a book report, describe a science experiment, re-tell a portion of history with a superhero twist, practice another language by telling a story, even define and demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words.

Tips: Be sure to check out the read me site for great teachers notes, ideas, and additional resources for teaching with the Graphic Novel Creator. A special thank you to @thebookchook for introducing me to this tool!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Graphic Novel Creator: Comic Master in your classroom!