Interested in Science Resources?

One of my many favorite web sites is Science NetLinks. They have just renovated their web site. Let's take a look at their front page.Across the very top is the "Go In Depth". One that I thought was very interesting is "A Matter of Pattern". This one is listed for the K-2 classroom. The purpose is to predict patterns using snowflakes. This looks like a very interesting lesson. Lots of hands-on activities. With the holiday season fast approaching,...

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Why Diigo Rocks!

Recently, I was asked why do I use Diigo for my social bookmarking tool. The more I thought about it the more I needed to write about all the great features Diigo is not just for regular ol' users but has some great features for educators too. First, what the heck is Social Bookmarking? Most people are familar with favorites or bookmarks in their browser. Basically, when you come across a website you want to make sure you come back to later or want...

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Fun with Learning

This week while I was researching some resources for one of my schools I came across a neat little game to help young students learn the Alphabet without having to sing it.Promethean Planet has an interactive resource to aid students in learning the Alphabet.  It is an interactive puzzle where the students are able to come up to the board and interact by moving the puzzle pieces around so that they fit into their desired location.  When...

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How do you teach problem solving strategies?

How do you solve problems? What strategies do you use?After doing a search in Thinkfinity, I found some interesting online games in CalculationNation  created by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics for developing and practicing problem solving strategies: SlamBall and Fraction Fued. So here are a few of my ideas about how these could be used with students: In Fraction Feud, students rely on number sense to create fractions greater...

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Edmodo Quiz Tips

Some of you may have already heard by now, but Edmodo launched their quiz feature recently. I started exploring it this past weekend and I'm really excited about what it has to offer teachers.Teachers now have the ability to create quizzes and assign them to a single student, a group, or a combination of both. Teachers have the choice of four question formats that include, multiple choice, fill in the blank, true/false, and short answer. Also,...

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Re-Opening my Eyes to Instruction

This week I had a great opportunity to be in Alpharetta and Atlanta Georgia.  While in Atlanta I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the Ron Clark Academy and sit in on a class.  This was the first time that I have ever been there and in my normal fashion was late getting to the school.  As we came into the classroom I found a seat on the far side of the room and had walk through the room to sit.  I quickly moved across the...

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What We Wish We Had Known Before Starting Twitter

If you have read any of my leadership pieces before, you know I am big on reflection. As educators, looking back on our practice is one of the most important things we can do. I try to set aside time each day to just think about how I did a workshop or something I said or a resource I looked at.I think reflecting is pretty easy. We can look at where we are and how we got there and think about the ways we would have done things differently. What is working and what do we need to change...So is the case with learning about something. Take...

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Adding a PowerPoint File In a CPS Test

A lot of teachers use PowerPoint. For those PowerPoint users that also use CPS, I just wanted to let you know that you can create a test in CPS (CPS calls them lessons). It’s very simple. Click on the “prepare” tab and the “lessons & assessments” sub-tab. Click the new button and choose “lesson”. Name the test and click “ok”. Click on the name of the test and choose “PowerPoint File” from the “add file(s)” drop down. Navigate to and open the...

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Special Characters in IWB software

  This morning I was at a school and watching some very talented teachers working on their IWB's. One of the teachers had a math problem on the screen and the problem was talking about the temperature of water. She didn't have a degree symbol, and I started to think about how to get one into her software. So, I sat down to investigate. I am not sure if everyone knows about the character map tool that is in Windows. If you click on...

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How do You Celebrate Writing?

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is celebrating the National Day on Writing on October 20th. According to their site, the first National Day of Writing was first on held October 20, 2009 and since then more than 30,000 pieces of writing, including poems, videos, essays, letters, audio recordings, blog entries, artwork, email and text messages, and short stories, have been submitted.Why celebrate writing?People in every walk...

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"Wonder" What's Happening

A few weeks ago in my blog post on "What I Learned This Week ... " I mentioned a teacher at one of our elementary schools had her students create "Wonder" books and how I introduced her to Wonderopolis. This week as I was talking to teachers in their grade level planning times, I was talking about resources. I was showing some science resources my coworker, Melissa Edwards, had found and one of them was on Wonderopolis (Does Matter Really Matter). After...

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Edmodo Promethean Users Group

In our department we have steadily grown a following through Edmodo among our school Tech Facilitators, Staff and Faculty.But what you may not have known is that if you are a teacher that has an ActivBoard in your classroom we have a District wide Edmodo group that you can be a part of. The Promethean group will help you to learn more about the board and software you are using in the classroom with your students as well as it being a location where you can ask questions of our Instructional Technology team. Not only that you can use this as a...

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Create a Comic Strip or a Comic Book

Comic strips are a good activity for students. They allow teachers to see if students understand the concepts taught in class. They also allow the students to show their creative side while having fun at the same time. The sites allow you to drag and drop characters, backgrounds, dialog boxes and add your text. They are very easy to manipulate. Here are 4 comic strip sites that are free and school friendly.http://superherosquad.marvel.com/create_your_own_comichttp://www.pikikids.com/http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/http://www.pixton.com/Superherosquad.marvel.com...

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Why Diigo Rocks!

Recently, I was asked why do I use Diigo for my social bookmarking tool. The more I thought about it the more I needed to write about all the great features Diigo is not just for regular ol' users but has some great features for educators too. First, what the heck is Social Bookmarking? Most people are familar with favorites or bookmarks in their browser. Basically, when you come across a website you want to make sure you come back to later or want...

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Exploring New Territory

While working in a school this week with different grade levels a Tech Facilitator told me about one of their Kindergarten teachers who was going to make their first Skype call with another school. Now I was thinking that they were going to make a Skype call here locally within the school district or maybe at the most here in North Carolina. I was surprised, and a bit excited, to hear that they would be talking with a classroom in Hawaii. When I talked with the teacher involved she said that they were going to be talking with the school and...

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Shodor.org\Interactivate is a Great Resource for Math and Science

http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/ is a great resource for Math and Science. It is a java based Math & Science courseware that includes lessons, discussions and standards for the teachers and activities, tools and a dictionary for the students. Shodor contains over 70 lessons based on the activities for grades 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12. The discussions will help the students understand math and science concepts. There are over 100 interactive...

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Quick Tips with ActivInspire

You have found all these great resources in Learning Village and you want to write on them using your ActivBoard; or you want to copy them and put them into your flipchart. What do you do?Once you have pulled up your file from Learning Village that you want to write on, open ActivInspire. On the toolbar is a button with a picture of a blue screen and black scribbles on it. This is called "Desktop Annotation". By clicking on Desktop Annotation, you...

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Meeting the Teacher Evaluation Standards

I recently attended an Edmodo webinar that spotlighted Brunswick County Schools and their district wide initiative to launch Edmodo. The initiative started with an email campaign to teachers and usage spread immediately. As they began training teachers, they focused on using Edmodo for the teacher evaluation instrument and as a communication tool for PLCs. They wanted their teachers to have true conversation about student learning and decided Edmodo...

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Puzzle Pieces?

Last week I was fortunate to attend Thinkfinity training. Thinkfinity is a free collection of lessons and resources for in the classroom, afterschool, home, and even professional development. This great site is sponsored by the Verizon foundation. They offer general things and specific resources for states based on their guidelines. When searching by standards, I noticed lots of resources for Common Core and 21st Century Skills.In my opinion, one...

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Super Secret Twitter Tips

This is the last in my series on everything Twitter. You can read this first on How I do Twitter PD and the second on What People Wish They Had Known Before They Started. Today lets look at all my tips, tricks and resources for getting more out of Twitter. I get asked all the time one of three questions:1) Where do you find all those links you post?2) How do you make sure you don't miss everything without staying on Twitter 24/7?3) How do you organize everything you find from Twitter?Well I am so glad you asked. There really...

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