I have a dream that one day education will look completely different, that passions would be realized and our obsession would be learning. I started a new blog to record my Dreams of Education. Join me, won’t you?
Blog
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Dreams of Education
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National Geographic Young Explorer
What it is: National Geographic has fantastic resources for the classroom. Their Young Explorer online content is not to be missed in the primary classroom. This is an online magazine specifically for kindergarten and first grade student (I think second grade students would also benefit). The site lets students listen and read the latest stories from National Geographic Young Explorer. The photographs are breath taking and the reading is very accessible to beginning readers and English language learners. Each portion of the text has a speaker next to it that allows students to listen to the text. Click on the “More Issues” button to access past issues. In the “For Teachers” section, you will find print versions of the teacher’s guides complete with lesson plans, discussion questions, accompanying worksheets, and more. There is a very helpful story planner that gives you upcoming themes. These may be helpful when planning upcoming lessons.
How to integrate National Geographic Young Explorer into the classroom: It can be hard to find quality, accessible informational reading for primary students. National Geographic has solved this problem with Young Explorer. I am amazed that National Geographic is offering these online for free! Struggling readers can listen to the text read to them and read along. English language learners receive support for their reading of the text. The photographs and images are nothing less than excellent. The teacher materials that are included will help you to utilize the magazines and stories effectively.
Read and discuss Young Explorer stories as a class using a projector or interactive whiteboard. Teach your students how to read informational text, and the comprehension strategies that will help them to understand what they are reading. Set up Young Explorer on the classroom computers as a reading center for students to visit during reading time. Take a look at the Young Explorer archives to see if any of the past issues will support the learning you are doing in the classroom.
Tips: In the “For Teachers” section, you will find a link to interactive whiteboard content. This is a link to National Geographic’s premium content that can be found on Promethean Planet. These flipcharts are fantastic and include a teachers guide, printable blackline masters, teaching notes, and offline materials.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using National Geographic Young Explorer in your classroom.
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Google Street View Gallery
What it is: Google Street Gallery is a must add bookmark for any classroom. This is a collection of Google Street views of famous landmarks, buildings, and art, sport, and entertainment venues from around the world. Landmarks includes places such as Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Space Needle, Gateway Arch, CN Tower, Tokyo Tower, Plaza de Cibeles, Eiffel Tower, Arthur’s Seat, The Colosseum, Arc de Triomphe, and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. In Famous Buildings students can see the street view of Westminster Abbey, City Hall, St. George’s Hall, Coventry Cathedral, Sydney Opera House, Sagrada Familia, Chateau de Chillon, Belem Tower, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Taipei 101. In Art, sport and entertainment students can tour Angel of the North, Coronation Street, Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth, Tate Britain, Wales Millennium Centre, Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, and The Louvre Museum. Not only can students explore the street view of all these places, they can also see users pictures embedded right in the street view. Each place can be viewed on Google Maps with the click of a button. Students can also quickly find more information about any of the landmarks by clicking “more information”. Students are taken to a Google Search that shows the location on a Google map, gives details, photos, videos, reviews, tells about nearby places, and gives more information about the place.
How to integrate Google Street View Gallery into the classroom: Google Street View Gallery makes it easy to whisk your students away on virtual adventures around the world. Bring your geography, history, and social studies lessons to life by letting students take a virtual field trip with Google Street Views. Using an interactive whiteboard or projector, your students will feel like they have visited landmarks around the world during class. Allow students to be the “tour guides” and navigate the street view and pictures associated. Make sure to view the Google Maps so that students can get a sense of where each landmark is located and practice their map skills. Google Street views can be used during math to study architecture shapes, angles, etc. in real world settings.
Display a Google Street View on your projector or interactive whiteboard and ask students to imagine they have just visited this landmark or building and write a story about what happened there. The street views make excellent writing prompts.
Tips: I love using Google Street Views with an interactive whiteboard. Students really get the sense of what it is like to stand on the street in the middle of Prague or London and take a look around. It is fun to imagine the stories that take place every day on those streets.
Google Street View Gallery is not a comprehensive collection of available Google Street Views, it is a great collection of famous landmarks and buildings, grouped together for easy access.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Street View Gallery in your classroom.
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Math Live
What it is: In honor of World Math Day (which takes place tomorrow 3/3/10) I decided to pass on a fantastic math website that I learned about from The Techie Classroom Blog (one of the amazing blogs taking part in the edublogger alliance). Math Live has a collection of animated cartoons that teach students math concepts. 3rd through 6th grade students can learn about numbers, patterns and relations, shape and space, and statistics and probability. These cartoons are extremely high quality and teach key math concepts through story. Students can watch videos on place value, multiples, factors, primes, proper fractions, equivalent fractions, comparing and ordering fractions, comparing and ordering decimals, addition and subtraction of decimals, multiplication of whole numbers, division of whole numbers, multiplication and division of decimals, patterns, area and perimeter, volume, time, triangles, polygons, sides, tessellations, ordered pairs, displaying data, probability and estimating. The videos show students real-world applications of math concepts. The videos are chunked really well and stop periodically so that students can think about and discuss their thoughts on the math concept. The videos have outstanding visuals that explain the concepts succinctly. Each video is accompanied by an Activity Sheet (read worksheet), an assessment, and Teacher/Parent Notes. The Teacher Notes include a great section with “Common mistakes students make” to help teachers avoid common pitfalls when teaching. They also include great ideas for additional practice of the concepts. Math Live gives students an excellent animated, interactive math glossary. As students are viewing a video lesson, they can access either the master glossary (with all of the sites vocabulary) or visit the lesson glossary (with only the vocabulary from the lesson). I am really impressed with the glossary.
How to integrate Math Live into the classroom: Math is a hard subject for many students. It can be difficult for students to understand how math relates to real life. Math Live videos are a great way to help students break down math into manageable pieces. It illustrates each concept very well. Students who struggle with math are going to LOVE this site. It allows them to pause, rewind, and revisit concepts as many times as they need to so that they can master a concept. These videos would be an excellent way to introduce new math concepts to the whole class using a projector or interactive whiteboard. They can also be used as a math center on classroom computers or individually in the computer lab. Keep Math Live handy for students struggling with these concepts or to quickly access math vocabulary in the glossary.
The list of concepts covered is limited, as an extension activity, have students create their own math movie using a tool like Xtranormal or Kerpoof Movie.
Tips: Send Math Live home to parents, these videos could be a tremendous help for homework time. Often parents struggle with explaining math to their children, this could be a big help!
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Math Live in your classroom.
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Neo K12
What it is: Neo K12 is an outstanding online collection of educational videos, lessons and games for students in grades k-12. Neo K12 believes that “kids learn best by ‘seeing’ the real world.” They have created this site with that belief in mind. Neo K12 has cataloged the best free online educational videos from the Internet in one place. Each video is watched and reviewed by k-12 educators to ensure their accuracy and appropriateness for students. Subjects include physical science, life science, human body, earth and space, social studies, math, English (including phonics, stories, and grammar), and fun videos such as time lapse, slow motion, arts and crafts, learn magic, music lessons, and sports lessons. In addition to videos, Neo K12 has Web 2.0 tools. The School Presentation tool is a mashup of Flickr and Wikipedia, and allows users to create and share presentations online. To create a presentation, students choose pictures for their presentation from Flickr, read and article about the subject from Wikipedia, and then add text to their presentation. When the presentation is finished, it can be printed or viewed online as a slideshow. Quizzes, games, and puzzles on Neo K12 are an interactive way to improve learning. Teachers can create and share videos playlists complete with notes and instructions for their students.
How to integrate Neo K12 into the classroom: Videos provide excellent opportunities for learning, they make it possible for kids to visualize and build a model in their minds. This helps them to better understand key concepts and can stimulate curiosity in a subject. When students or teachers search a subject, they are given a list of related videos, quizzes, games, and puzzles. When a teacher creates an account, they can create a complete assignment within Neo K12 that includes instructions and notes for the students. Students can complete the assignment by watching videos, playing related games and creating a School Presentation that shows understanding. The presentations are easy enough for even young students to create. Primary students can skip reading the Wikipedia article and just choose pictures and add some captions about facts they learned from a video they viewed. These videos are a great way to introduce new learning, expand on previous learning, or to spark curiosity in a topic.
Many of the educational games and puzzles would be great for an interactive whiteboard as whole class activities. They could, of course, also be used as classroom center activities, or completed individually in the computer lab. The jigsaw puzzles can be used as teasers to introduce a new topic. The jigsaw puzzles use incredible images from Flickr. Have students take turns coming up to the interactive whiteboard to put puzzle pieces together. Students waiting at their seats can take guesses about what new learning you will be doing in class.
Tips: Create a free Neo K12 account, you will receive a dashboard where you can store videos, games, presentations, quizzes, and add notes and instructions. You get a unique URL for your dashboard to share.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Neo K12 in your classroom.
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A Lifetime of Color
What it is: A Lifetime of Color is a fun interactive environment where students can learn about, and study, art and artists. in these “Art Edventures”, students will discover how great artists made their famous works and learn tips and techniques for create their own masterpieces. A Lifetime of Color is split into activities for primary and intermediate students. In the primary section, students will learn about line and shape, landscapes, color, architecture, industrial design, and portraits. In the intermediate section, students will learn about the history of art, the art of crime detection, Leonardo, color theory, architecture, design and portraits. In the study section of the Lifetime of Color site, students can explore a timeline, artists, and access a glossary. The activities section includes technique demos, projects, and featured artists. The lesson plans are cross curricular, combining art with science, social studies, math, and reading.
How to integrate A Lifetime of Color into the classroom: One of the saddest developments to come out of the budget crisis is the cutting of the arts from education. The arts are so important to learning and development. Art asks students to think differently, creatively, innovatively. Art is a necessary focus in education. A Lifetime of Color is an excellent site to integrate art into a variety of subjects. With ideas for the science, social studies, math, and reading classroom, there are no excuses for not infusing your classroom with art. The activities lead and guide students to look at the world in new ways, to consider detail, and to interpret what they are viewing. This is an excellent site for the art classroom but has activities that will easily extend and enrich any classroom. Use the activities with the whole class using an interactive whiteboard or projector or set up A Lifetime of Color as a center on your classroom computers for students to visit.
Tips: Make sure to take a look at the lesson plans for your grade level, there are some fantastic ideas for introducing art to your curriculum.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using A Lifetime of Color in your classroom.
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Online Audio Stories
What it is: Online Audio Stories is an impressive collection of free audio stories online. The audio books are all free and downloadable. The online version of the story includes accompanying text for students to follow along with. The short stories will transport students on a fun adventure of listening to fairy tales and classics. The extensive collection includes stories by Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Brothers Grimm, Tales of Time, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Bronte, Aesop, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Joseph Jacobs, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, William Shakespeare, and many more. The stories are read with excellent voice, inflection, and timing, making them a joy to listen to.
How to integrate Online Audio Stories into the classroom: These Online Audio Stories will transport your students to new magical worlds and adventures, they will allow struggling readers to enjoy stories that may be just out of reach otherwise. Online Audio Stories will help increase student vocabulary and improve listening comprehension skills. Students may not choose to pick up these classics in the library, but they will enjoy listening to the stories online. This is great exposure to the classics! If you have computers in your classroom, set them up as a reading/listening center that students can visit during silent reading time. Because the Online Audio Stories are free to download, these are also perfect for downloading to an iPod or MP3 player.
Tips: Let parents know about these free online stories, they make great bedtime stories, listening enjoyment for long car rides, or for a fun listening experience any time.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Online Audio Stories in your classroom.
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Internet Safety with Professor Garfield
What it is: Professor Garfield has offered an array of interactive games and activities for kids. I learned from blog Educadores Digitales that he has now teamed up with the Virginia Department of Education and the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia to help students protect themselves online. Internet Safety with Professor Garfield is offering lessons on online safety, cyberbullying, and coming soon: fact or opinion and forms of media. Each lesson is composed of three parts, watch, try, and apply. In the “watch” section, students watch a video starring Garfield and his friends. The video teaches an important Internet safety lesson. In the “try it” section, students are given a chance to play a game that checks for understanding and redirects thinking if students missed a concept. In the “apply it” section, students help a character from the video to make wise Internet safety decisions.
How to integrate Internet Safety with Professor Garfield into the classroom: This is an excellent place for elementary students to begin learning about how to keep themselves safe online. I make it a point to visit Internet safety throughout the school year. I always start out my year with a few weeks that are focused on and dedicated to Internet safety. I make a big deal of the activities that take place during those weeks. At the end of the Internet safety unit, my students take an interactive quiz (usually using our ActivVote system) so that I can gauge their understanding. Each student must pass this quiz in order to receive their Internet drivers license for the year. Professor Garfield’s Internet Safety is the perfect addition to the Internet safety week. The videos and activities are fabulous! Revisit the site throughout the year so that students are reminded of the safety rules they agreed to follow at the beginning of the year. I find that mid-year students start to get critical of each other. The name calling and bullying seems to start up every February. This is a great time to reintroduce Cyberbullying, and the lesson on Professor Garfield is a great way to do this.
In the lab setting, each student can go through these lessons at their own pace. Students will receive immediate feedback from the activities if they have any misunderstandings.
If you are a classroom teacher without a regular computer lab time, use an interactive whiteboard or projector to watch the videos as a class. During the try and apply, turn the questions into a class discussion and choose the answers together.
Tips: Internet Safety with Professor Garfield has lesson plans and unit quizzes, an Internet safety certificate that can be printed at the end of the unit, and a printable poster for your classroom to remind students how to stay safe online.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Internet Safety with Professor Garfield in your classroom.
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NASA’s Be a Martian
What it is: I have always been intrigued by space exploration. NASA’s Be a Martian feeds this intrigue by giving an up close view of Mars exploration. Here students can virtually explore and learn about the human-robotic partnership that makes virtual exploration possible. Students can become citizens (this requires them to create an account) or explore with an “Anonymous Tourist Visa”, which is how I explored. Students can send virtual postcard messages to the Spirit Rover in her new home. After composing their own message, students are taken to a virtual Mars where postcards with messages rain down. Students can click on a postcard to read what others around the world have written. In the map room, students can watch a video detailing the history of mapping and learn how NASA scientists map today. Students can become virtual map makers by matching up map image fragments, and counting craters. In Two Moons Theater, students can watch videos starring NASA scientists, explorers, and Mars. Students can ask and vote on questions that they would like to see answered in the Polling Place. In Tourist Mars Atlas, students can explore the surface of Mars and learn that there is more to Mars than a giant expanse of tan.
How to integrate NASA’s Be a Martian into the classroom: Feed your students curiosity about space exploration and Mars with this great interactive environment. Students have the opportunity to learn about the work that NASA scientists do, practice their observation skills in map making, and learn some great history about space exploration, and map making. I really like that NASA has included a place for students to ask and vote on questions that they would like answered. What a neat way to help students understand that we don’t have all the answers and that scientists ask questions, explore, and experiment to learn more. I think that younger students (primary elementary) would really enjoy the crater counting activity. Do this activity as a class using an interactive whiteboard/projector or individually as a center. This will help students to look for detail and practice counting together. Older students will enjoy trying their hand at mapping Mars and learning more about the history. Have students learn about the Spirit Rover and her job on Mars before sending a message. Some of the postcards include location information, it might be fun to track the locations of the postcards in Google Earth with placemarkers. Then, explore Mars using Google Earth or Google Space. The Google tools complement this site nicely.
Tips: There is an impressive contest section on NASA’s Be a Martian site, the deadline for entries is April 16, 2010. The contest challenges us to come up with videos about Mars, interactive software or games, or write an efficient image processing application. NASA is including us all in the exploration of Mars. These challenges would be outstanding for older students to take part in…talk about authentic learning!
Please leave a comment and share how you are using NASA’s Be a Martian in your classroom.
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Reading Street Supplement
http://web.me.com/jtenkely/Reading/Home.html What it is: Over the summer I worked with a teacher at Marquette Elementary school in Gary, Indiana to supplement their reading curriculum. They used Pearson’s Scott Foresman Reading Street, but were struggling with the program. Students weren’t understanding concepts and were really struggling with even the basics. Marquette held a summer remedial reading program where they aimed to supplement the curriculum and help students to become more successful in their reading. I took a look at the Reading Street curriculum for third grade and noticed right away that a huge number of concepts are presented, but there is no depth or opportunity for students to really learn and understand the concepts. My goal was to take the curriculum (in this case Unit 6 for third grade) and supplement it with technology. My goal was to add some richness to what was presented. I aimed to give students the chance to learn, practice, and create with the material presented. Because we were working in a summer program, we were able to spend more time with the material and work with fewer students. Below you will find my curriculum guide for 3rd Grade Reading Street Unit 6. Even if you don’t use Reading Street, or teach at a different grade level, I encourage you to take a look at what I did with the curriculum. I hope that you will find some ideas that you could use to supplement the curriculum you are using in your classroom. I created a website for Unit 6, called Reaching for Our Goals, so that students had one place to access all of the websites and resource they needed. (If you study suffixes, parts of speech, commas, compound words, punctuation, MLK, Space, the Wright Brothers, or Jim Thorpe there are some great links.) I also created a wiki (this is an example) where they could collaborate and show off their finished projects. On the wiki, you will find example thinking pages, VoiceThread projects, and Animoto projects.
http://marquette.wetpaint.com/