Category: For Teachers

Qlubb

Kelly Tenkely4 Comments on Qlubb14531 views

What it is: Qlubb will change the way you communicate and interact with parents and families. Qlubb includes features perfect for the classroom such as: event calendaring, sign-up sheets, to-do lists, automatic event and task reminders, photo sharing, member rosters, and bulletin boards. Everything on Qlubb is intuitive and extremely simple. Parents and teachers will have no problem jumping in and using Qlubb to enhance home/school communication. This is social networking at its finest for schools!

How to integrate Qlubb into your curriculum: Start off the 2008/2009 year off right by creating a Qlubb network for your classroom. There is plenty of time for you to try it out before then, I have to say that it is truly so intuitive that you won’t need that much time to get it up and going. Use Qlubb as a place to post class pictures, class information, daily homework, and as a place where parents can sign up to help in the classroom or for field trips. This is a great solution for parent/school communication. Qlubb would also be great for after school clubs or sports organization.

Tips: Sign up today and familiarize yourself with Qlubb…you and your parents are going to love it!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Qlubb in your classroom.

CurrClick

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What it is: CurrClick is a website that contains thousands of instantly downloadable education resources from some amazing publishers. CurrClick provides educators with access to full previews, a place to create wish lists, instant delivery, great customer service, prices that are about 30% below retail and very best of all…a new FREE book each week with no strings attached. I really did just say a FREE new book every week! Does it get any better than that?! I am so excited about this find, so worth exploring!

How to integrate CurrClick into your curriculum: The free books each week will help to keep your classroom library fresh and current for your students. But CurrClick also has really great curriculum resources like the Connect the Thoughts Spelling program (one of the freebies). It also has great audio books that can be loaded onto your class iPod reading buddies (if you are so lucky!) or just downloaded to iTunes for a computer reading/listening center. I downloaded the free Little is Big audio book about a fish who teaches students character education values. The book is so cute! CurrClick makes it simple to find what you are looking for by subject, age, publisher, or price.

Tips: To find all of the free titles available sort by price and then click on the Free option. Create a wish list at the beginning of the year and send to parents…they can fulfill you wish list whenever they are looking for a gift to give you.

Another huge thank you to my friend Jill from www.theapple.com for telling me about CurrClick!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using CurrClick in your classroom.

Picturing America

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What it is: Picturing America takes hold of the notion that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ and applies it to teaching American history. The National Endowment for the Humanities is providing American art masterpieces into classrooms and libraries. The idea behind Picturing America is that bringing our nation’s artistic heritage into the classroom gives students unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country. The Picturing America program is completely free for schools and libraries and provides them with 40 high-quality masterpieces, a teacher resources book, and the program website.

How to integrate Picturing America into your curriculum: What better way to teach your students American history than actually bringing history into the classroom and providing students with real ties to the past? I wish that I had the opportunity to learn history this way! Picturing America is going to bring authentic conversation into your classroom about American history. It would be the perfect use of web 2.0 collaborative tools where students can discuss the history and the art in Picturing America. Picturing America masterpieces would also be easily integrated into the art classroom or in literacy as writing inspiration. The teacher resource book is going to provide you with wonderful tie ins to your current curriculum. This is an amazing program, I encourage you to take part in it!

Tips: Apply for the Picturing America program today.

A big thank you to my friend Jill who shared this site with me!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Picturing America in your classroom.


Planbook Software

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What it is: Planbook Software is a Mac only software created for teachers (sorry PC users, yet another reason that you should be on a Mac!) You no longer have to do the old school paper and pencil lesson plan book. Now you can keep your lessons in digital form easily with Planbook. Planbook makes it simple to enter information about your lessons, attach files directly to the lesson, print great looking reports, publish lessons to the web, and search your lessons easily.

How to integrate Planbook Software into your curriculum: Make your life easier with Planbook Software…this will save you so much time and makes planning simple! The interface is very easy to use and intuitive. Planbook Software also allows you to easily keep other teachers, administrators, students and parents aware of your teaching. You can choose which parts, if any, of your Planbook are viewable to others.

Tips: Check out the fun themes that you can use to make your Planbook personal!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Planbook in your classroom.

Virtual Author Series

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What it is: Simon and Schuster Publishing is offering a new unique experience to schools, a virtual author series. The electronic author visit brings bestselling and award-winning authors and makes them easily accessible to students and teachers. S&S creates a website specifically for each author visit that provides teachers with background information that will help prepare students for the author visit and provides interactive material that relates to the subject discussed in the author’s book. The program also includes a series of classroom activities and curriculum binders. The live web broadcast is the culmination of the virtual author experience. The 45 minute segment will include a presentation from the author, a reading from the book, and a question and answer session in which the author answers questions from the students.

How to integrate Virtual Author Series into the classroom: Bring popular author Andrew Clements (Frindle) into your classroom by signing up at the My Visit website http://www.bsu.edu/myvisit/ You need to sign up your class ASAP if you would like to participate in the first in the Virtual Author Series which takes place on March 18th. This is an outstanding opportunity for classrooms, libraries, and schools. Bring reading to life for your students with a virtual author visit. If you, like me, are on spring break during the first author in the Virtual Author Series be sure to check back for future Virtual Author events.

Tips: Check back for future Virtual Authors. The next Virtual Author will be D.J. MacHale (PENDRAGON) on April 29, 2008. This is an awesome way to bridge literacy and technology!

Please leave a comment and tell us how the Virtual Author Series went in your class. Specifically, I want to hear all about it since I won’t be able to participate!

Hooray!

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If you tried iLearn Technology earlier you found that I was not here…after some minor technical difficulty I am back! I was going into blog withdrawal. Glad to be back, will be posting a new idea later this afternoon when I can grab a few minutes. Thank you to all of those who emailed to let me know how much you missed me 🙂 I am feeling very loved today!

Cyber Smart

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What it is: Cyber Smart is free technology curriculum for use in a technology classroom or as part of the regular classroom curriculum. The SMART in Cyber Smart stands for Safety and security, Manners bullying and ethics, Advertising and policy, Research and information fluency, and Technology. The curriculum is very complete and easy to follow. Best of all it is completely FREE! In addition to the comprehensive curriculum, Cyber Smart also offers a free tool bar (seriously handy) as well as professional development.

How to integrate Cyber Smart into your curriculum: The Cyber Smart curriculum is perfect for the technology classroom, media center, and even your regular classroom as part of other subjects such as character education or when teaching research.

Tips: Make sure the sites recommended by the Cyber Smart curriculum work in your classroom before working it into your day…some of the sites get blocked by filters.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Cyber Smart in your classroom.

Panwapa

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What it is: Panwapa was created by the educational experts also involved in Sesame Street to help children in kindergarten through second grade to be responsible global citizens. Panwapa works around some basic goals 1. To create awareness of the wider world, 2. Appreciating similarities and valuing differences among people of the world, 3. Taking responsibility for one’s behaviors, and 4. Community participating and willingness to take action both locally and globally. On the Panwapa website students can play hide and go seek in four languages, watch videos about other kids around the world, join the Panwapa world and learn about different countries create there own Panwapa kids and Panwapa home, and watch or download videos.

How to integrate Panwapa into your curriculum: Panwapa is a fun interactive resource for the k-2 classroom. Use it to introduce your students to the world through the videos following kids around the world. The Panwapa site is also ideal for the foreign language classroom. Students can play hide and go seek in Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, or Arabic. Use this site as an extension of your social studies curriculum, it will make it a much richer experience for your students.

Tips: Panwapa has lesson plans coming soon to the website. Be sure to check the caregiver section often for these free lesson plans!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Panwapa in your classroom.

Adrian Bruce

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What it is: Adrian Bruce is an educator in Australia who has provided educators around the world with absolutely amazing FREE resources. I am floored that Adrian offers these downloads for free, they are truly incredible! On Adrian’s website you can find reading and phonics games to print and play, math games to print and play, printable puzzles to play, posters, art, science, readers theater scripts, writing ideas, and so much more. You will happily spend hours exploring this site. Put your checkbook away and get your printer fired up and ready for a workout!

How to integrate Adrian Bruce into your curriculum: Use Adrian Bruce games every day to make learning fun! Use these print out games as a center activity, as an activity that can be done when students finish work early, and for learning extensions or practice every day. Choose a game day where students can play games that reinforce skills learned throughout the week. I cannot sing the praises of this site enough! All games come complete with instructions and can be printed out from Word or Adobe Acrobat.

Tips: Send Adrian a big THANK YOU for this resource. Feel free to show Adrian your appreciation by buying him a beer 🙂 or donate a book through Amazon. 

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Adrian Bruce Games in your classroom.


Colorado Podcast Summit Revisted

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As promised the Colorado Podcast Summit that I participated in is now online. Be sure to listen to the Keynote speakers podcasts for truly inspiring ways to use podcasting in your classroom. If you are looking for my poster session, you can find it under the Poster Session section. Make sure to check out the Resources page where you can find downloads for podcating story boards, rubrics, research, copy right information, and more. You can get to the Colorado Podcast Summit online here: http://www2.bvsd.org/ipodsummit/Pages/default.aspx