Category: Character Education

The Greens

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on The Greens8499 views

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

Emerald Island

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Emerald Island1997 views

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

Auto Motivator

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Auto Motivator2626 views

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower

Kelly Tenkely3 Comments on The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter Follower1349 views

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

Lost Generation

Kelly Tenkely5 Comments on Lost Generation2193 views

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

Password Bird

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

2009 Presidential Inauguration Lap book

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What it is:  Curriclick is a site that I have mentioned before that provides free and low cost curriculum for download and use in your classroom.  Today they released a 2009 Presidential Inauguration Lap book for download.  After the speech today it would be great to download and use some of the reading and activities in your classroom.   

 

How to integrate 2009 Presidential Inauguration Lap book into the classroom:  I don’t know about you but I found that many of my students still didn’t “get” president Obama’s Inauguration speech even after viewing it.  Use this free lap book download to help your students understand the history behind the Inauguration speech.  Watch the speech again as a class or read the transcript of the speech.  Help your students understand this historic occasion with the help of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration Lap book.  I wish that they had released this one sooner!

 

Tips: This is a 40+ page guide.  Download the pdf version and only print out the pages you are going to use in your classroom.  NOTE!  I tried to access this site just a few min. ago and could not get to it, probably because of the flood of traffic.  Try back later today if the links in this post don’t seem to be working.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how your students responded to the speech.

Secret Builders

Kelly Tenkely6 Comments on Secret Builders3037 views

 

What it is:  You have undoubtedly heard of virtual world Second Life and its growing popularity in the education realm.  Second life has some amazing educational opportunities for older students (students must be 13 years or older to have an account) but nothing for the elementary age student.  Enter Secret Builders, an enchanting virtual world designed specifically for elementary age children.  Virtual worlds like this are highly engaging for all ages and allow students to interact with each other in new ways.  Secret Builders can be used to supplement different topics including literature, arts, science, and humanities.  One of my favorite features, is the ability for students to interact with historical figures like Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, Galileo, and more!  Students can visit these historical figures homes and ask them questions.  There is a magazine in Secret Builders called The Crooked Pencil where students can submit writing to be published.  There are learning games to play that, like Free Rice, donate to a charitable cause for correct answers.  Students build up points by completing quests and can use the points to purchase things in Secret Builders.  

 

How to integrate Secret Builders into the classroom:   Secret Builders is a really neat site, students will love the online world and ability to connect with other students online.  Secret Builders is more than just a ‘game’ sort of site though, there is a lot of learning to be done here!  Students can build netiquette skills, computer skills, and learn about humanities, arts and literature all in Secret Builders.  Students can write stories in Writers Block, go on a quest which requires logic skills and weaves in arts and humanities, perform a play in the Theater, solve puzzles, and interact with others.   This is a really neat alternative to worksheets and traditional story writing.  I think that the opportunity for students to interact with historical figures and tour their virtual home is fantastic!  I hope that they continue to add historical figures, I would have loved this sort of history environment! The ability for students to play games and earn real money for charities is a wonderful motivator for students and great for building character education.

 

Tips:   Secret Builders encourages student and teacher suggestions, if you have an idea, let them know…you may just add the next cool feature to the Secret Builders world!  Take a look at the Teacher page for some great classroom tie-ins and features.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Secret Builders in your classroom.