To become a better reader, you have to read ...

Interesting and though-provoking ideas taken from Warlick's 2cents worth blog (older post): Can Literacy be Taught? "Students who become fluent in reading, do so because they read, not because they were taught the basic reading skills. Of course, it wouldn’t have happened without having been taught the basic reading skills. But they become fluent because they are required to read for the rest of their formal education and beyond.If we expect students...

Read More

Thinkfinity from Verizon

Thinkfinity is a website that contains lesson plans, interactive student materials, educational resources, and professional development; all for free. These resources have been created or reviewed by Content Partners. Content Partners are: Xpeditions, Science NetLinks, EconEdLink, readwritethink, ArtsEdge, Smithsonian's History Explorer, Illuminations, and EdSitement. The front page of Thinkfinity is where you can view resources just added, a calendar "Today in History", lesson plans, intereactives, blogs, etc. At the bottom of the page is...

Read More

Learning Village additions coming soon ... (hopefully)

If you are a WSFCS teacher, and you have not looked at the Learning Village Curriculum Warehouse in a while (or ever), well ... you should! :-) There is even a link to Learning Village off the district homepage (it is the 2nd one in the list of Quick Links). If you go look at a department webpage for one of the curriculum areas (English/Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science), there are links to the WSFCS Learning Village Curriculum Warehouse there too. If you can log into a computer at school, then you should be able to log into Learning...

Read More

Cropping Student Photos for class activities with ActivInspire

The start of school is fast approaching. Are you ready? Do you have something planned for the first day of school? Why not use your ActivInspire software and a simple digital camera(or document camera or web cam), to take pictures of your students and crop out their heads so that you can create fun interactive flipchart pages with them.So how do you do this you might ask, well after you have taken the pictures and uploaded them to your flip chart...

Read More

"AwesomeHighlighter" is...well, awesome

We live in an exciting time for web-based tools. There is no shortage of great free options that can be used in the classroom. The challenge often exists when wading through all of them on the Internet and finding the right ones for your class. My latest recommendation for an addition to your "teacher toolbox" is "the awesome highlighter."The awesomehighlighter can be used to highlight text on web pages and create a link to the highlighted page.It's...

Read More

Timeline = Understanding?

I was looking through some NC History information that involved lots of dates and events. I am also reading a novel that gives lots of dates, events, and information about Soviet Union history (that is another story that I am not really sure why I keep reading it, but I do). When I read information from either of these sources (or any type of information like that), I try to organize it in my mind, but don't do a very good job. Since I am a visual...

Read More

Transforming Education

Technology enabled classrooms should have self-directed learners and teachers who can manage their classrooms. Every child learns differently and children should be allowed to learn at their own pace. If we expect students to learn how to solve problems, collaborate and communicate then we need a new way for them to learn through the use of technology. To prepare for the 21st century learning must take place inside and outside the classroom using technology to improve the learning outcomes for all students.Students need to be self-directed learners...

Read More

Can you read me a story?

A few weeks ago, my 4 year old came home from daycare telling me about If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I told her that I would try to find that book for us to read at home. Even though she kept asking about it, I kept forgetting to look for that book. (I think it may be in my boxes of "teacher stuff" in the basement) Over the last few weeks, I have been working to correct some (lots and lots) broken Learn360 links in WSFCS Learning Village (our county's...

Read More

Robot Technology

In Los Angeles a young boy with autism is learning to mimic the moves of a robot. Around the world computer scientists are developing robots that can engage people, teaching simple skills, household tasks, vocabulary words and imitation. Researchers are also looking at robotics as instructors for foreign language or for developmental problems such as autism. South Korea is using hundreds of robots as teacher aides in the classroom. According to Patricia...

Read More

Students Design World Fixing Solutions

Have you heard about Imagine Cup, the student technology competition? The competition was developed by Microsoft to encourage young people to use their imaginations, their passion and creativity to design technology innovations that can make a difference in the world today. Each team is challenged to come up with solutions that improve health, reduce poverty or boost literacy based on the UN Millennium Goals. To learn more about the United Nations Millennium Development Goals - http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/The competition hopes to inspire...

Read More

Instructional Resources in Learning Village

Where is the first place you go to look for ideas for a lesson on a certain topic?We all have our favorite places to go. Some of your commonly used resources may be listed in the image above. Did you (as a WSFCS teacher) know that you can go to one place and be able to access all of the sites listed?These Instructional Resource for you to search in are all linked to the front page of the WSFCS Learning Village Curriculum Warehouse. I was impressed...

Read More

ArcGIS Explorer Online Can Be Used as an Option to Google Earth

ArcGIS Explorer online http://explorer.arcgis.com/ is a free web application that allows users to look at existing maps or add content to their own maps.The first thing you will need to do is install Microsoft Silverlight (a 5.96 mb file) on your computer. Once this is done, the program will load when you open the website. The default base map is a topographic base map, however, there are 12 other base maps available by clicking on the base map button....

Read More

A Virtual Day Makes A Difference

A regular school day. A beautiful summer day. A virtual day. What!? What do all three of these have in common? More than you think. As the District Distance Learning Coordinator - I see all three of these descriptions rolled into one. We are off to a great start for the North Carolina Virtual Public School 2010 summer session. Many of the students in our district have chosen to enroll in virtual courses over their summer break. Believe it or not... for many, reasons - but surprisingly - the students are not complaining about using their summer...

Read More

Big Universe

"Instill the love of reading, writing, and learning." I think that statement pretty much sums up what I think education should do for students. Those were my goals as a classroom teacher, and finding that statement as the heading on a website made me like the site before really even looking at it!Big Universe is a place to "read, share, and create books online" that uses the above statement on its homepage. I have enjoyed reading and sharing some...

Read More

Twitter & Foursquare-A Game Worth Playing?

My blog posts, for the most part, follow a predictable pattern. I blog about experiences in ed tech or maybe a new tool I've found that I feel deserves attention. I generally avoid topics that I think will create a stir, in part because I cross-post on my department's blog, but also because I don't like to publicly rain on parades. However, sometimes a lot can be learned from a discourse on a subject and maybe a good comment to a blog post will help...

Read More

Project-Based Learning

I recently came across two articles and three videos dealing with project learning from Edutopia. We all know that students need to be engaged learners and project-based learning is not a new concept for teachers but many teachers may not fully understand how to create a meaningful project that includes all content areas. The video examples showcased a learning expedition where students and teachers spent up to a semester working on a learning project.The first article “Six Steps for Planning a Successful Project” provides the steps and examples...

Read More