A Distraction or A Catalyst?

"As we provide our students with models of how to use their digital containers for learning, the role of the teacher will be more crucial than ever. The fact remains: These tools can be a major distraction from learning or they can be a major catalyst to it. It will be the courageous educator who works with students to explore the power of these tools and in turn empowers students to be lifelong learners and active shapers of a world we cannot yet imagine."

from "Banning Student Containers" by Alan November

There are a few things in this statement that really jump out at me. With the increasing amount of technology used for teaching and learning, the role of the teacher will not become less important but even more important. It is not the tool that shapes the instruction and thinking but it is how the teacher uses the technology and tools to guide discovery, understanding, and thinking.

As educators, it is our responsibility to create learning experiences. Hopefully in those experiences we can make technology tools be catalysts for learning instead of distractions to learning. Looking back on the ways I have used technology for instruction, I realize that the "flashy" technology stuff may be attractive at first, but if the "flashy" parts are not helping with the instruction, and possibly even distracting from the instruction. If distracting, then I have no need for the "flashy" stuff.

Everything I use for instruction should work toward the goal of student learning.

What are ways we can make the tools catalysts of learning?
What are ways we can be courageous educators to assist students in the exploration of the tools for learning?
What are ways we can empower students to become lifelong learners?
What are ways we can encourage students to actively shape a world we can't imagine?

I think we need to be developing students who are critical and creative thinkers.

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/21847073@N05/5148011933/

Awesome Resources

Our department was tasked with creating a lesson plan using a specific goal or objective from the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. I knew of several resources that I had that could reinforce the objective, but I needed to understand what students needed to learn.

Learning Village to the rescue! I logged into Learning Village (remember you can access it from the front page of the WSFCS web page). Then I clicked on the Elementary tab under the Curriculum tab. From there I chose the grade, subject, 1st Quarter, week 1-5, and my specific objective. From there I had a wealth of resources. The indicators and strategies were linked so that I could read about the objective, look at sample problems, and get general ideas of what I needed to cover.

There were web site resources, video resources, all sorts of resources for me to use to create my planning guide and lesson plan. 

Please make sure you go to Learning Village. There are some wonderful resources that you can find to enhance your lessons. They are aligned directly with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

Free BrainPop Videos for Educators

While teaching a workshop this week, BrainPOP came up in conversation. Several teachers expressed their interest and appreciation for the videos and content BrainPOP was offering teachers and students. One teacher liked how BrainPOP engaged his students from the very beginning by making complex concepts, easier to understand. Although BrainPOP subscriptions are available for purchase, they do offer free resources, lessons, and videos to educators. By creating a free BrainPOP Educator account, teachers have access to a variety of BrainPOP videos about various topics. Some of their BrainPOP Espanol videos are available as well!

Video content is broken down by subject area (see image). However, I like that regardless of what subject area you teach these videos can be integrated across content areas. For example, identifying the main idea is a literacy skill that is used across content areas. Being able to identify the difference between a main idea and a topic is a valuable skill all readers need.

If you are interested in a BrainPOP Educator account you can register here. Once you create an account you'll have access to over 850 free resources!

Teachable Moment-Hurricane Irene

With school starting back teachers are always looking for something fun and interesting to do to hook kids right from the start. With Hurricane Irene baring down on the NC coast there is a great teachable moment for kids and a simple activity that anyone can do this week.

Google Earth is always good about mapping events all over the world. Open it up and you can turn on any number of layers and learn loads of great information. Hurricane Irene is no different. If you turn on the Places layer and fly on down to the Caribbean Sea you can see the current location of the storm. Even better, if you turn on the weather layer you can see the cloud formations and the current radar.

When you click the hurricane icon you get tons more information from the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather service like forecasted tracks, the historical track, discussions about impact predictions and so much more.

So break out Google Earth and have some conversations about Hurricane Irene, and hey, you might just find much, much more to talk and teach about.

Need Resources But Don't Have Time to Search Lots of Places?

I often talk about how netTrekker is a collection of resources that have been teacher-reviewed, so teachers can feel comfortable sending students to netTrekker to do research.



Over the last several weeks, I have been working on gathering instructional resources to go along with a new curriculum. I was trying to work quickly to finish up the project this morning. I have a list of sites that I could go check for the needed resources, but I decided to go to netTrekker instead. In netTrekker, I can put in my search terms one time and search through all of the content partners and resources in netTrekker.



Since I was searching for resources an elementary school teacher could use, I made sure I logged in with my teacher account (different resources are available based on whether you are a teacher or a student). I made sure that I was on the Elementary Tab (there is also a Middle School, High School, and a Standards Tab as well). In the search box at the top, I typed in key words related to what I needed.



As soon as I hit enter after typing in my search terms, there were results at the bottom of the page. Depending on my needs as a teacher, I could use the options in the sidebar to limit my search results. I could choose to limit by readability levels, learning aid, multimedia, language, collection, and even subject.



I was searching for Science resources this morning, so when I searched for "water" I was very please to have various results from:

• Promethean
• SMART
• National Geographic
• NSTA Learning Center
• Teachology
• ClassBrain
• Discovery Education
• American Museum of Natural History
• Teachers Domain
• US Environmental Protection Agency
• ScienceBug
• BrainPop
• TeachEngineering
• CrickWeb
• Channel4Learning
• as well as many other government, state, and university sites ....

Think about how much time I saved being able to search all those resources from one place rather than having to go to each one of those site individually .... I did not even know many of the sites existed or had possible resources.



Now as a teacher, I did have to review the materials to make sure they met the needs for my class and instruction ... so that may take some time but look at all the time I saved pulling together possible resources using a netTrekker search!



I can even save the searches that I do and/or save certain results by simply clicking the box and putting the resources in my portfolio. When you are a registered user with netTrekker, you automatically have your own portfolio (or folder) to keep track of the resources you want to use.



I have written about netTrekker before on this blog but today I realized how much of a timesaver it is.



Other post on netTrekker:

• Things I Found on the netTrekker Blog
• Looking for Science?
• What Are You Doing This Month?
• netTrekker eBook series

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/25704219@N04/3821120232/

When was the last time you learned a new word?

Part of writing well involves using vocabulary correctly.

What are some ways you develop vocabulary skills for yourself?

What are some ways you develop vocabulary skills in students?

What are some ways you demonstrate vocabulary skills?

What are some ways you assess vocabulary skills?

What can you do today to learn and use a new word?

Here are some LiveBinders full of resources and activities for word work and vocabulary:

• Word Party Word Games
• Vocabulary Teaching Tools
• Tools for Learning Vocabulary
• Vocabulary Activities

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/91485322@N00/1800380489/

Completing The Quest Atlantis Student Consent Forms Online

You no longer have to print out the student consent forms and have the students and parents sign them. Students and parents can now complete their consent forms online. However, teachers will still need to complete their forms on paper. Here is the procedure for completing the student online forms.


1. Go to your teacher toolkit -> My Questers -> Registration and Class Lists.

2. Expand your current class to see mail envelopes in the Consent – Teacher column. Click on the mail envelope to generate an email to parents.

3. The mail envelope will generate an email for one student at a time. You will see a screen reminding you that your account will be documented as sending out consent emails. Click “proceed”. Feel free to edit the letter as you see fit, but make sure you keep the hyperlinks and access codes as they are. Enter the parent’s email address for the child. When you send the email, a copy of the email will be saved in this same location.

4. Parents will receive the email. When they click on the "complete the consent process" link, they will open a window prompting them to enter the child’s last name. QA does not have a way to find "close matches" so please make sure all students’ names are spelled correctly.


5. Parents complete their information at the top. As they scroll down, they will see the IRB-approved consent form. There are different language options available.

6. Parents are then given a check box certifying that they agree to allow their child to participate.

7. Students will need to check the final box labeled (Student’s name) consent.

8. After the process is complete, students will be automatically entered into the system and their accounts will be activated. You will not need to collect and/or submit any forms to us. The forms will be saved electronically.

9. Parents have the option to retrieve this email at a later date to remove consent if they no longer want their child to participate. You will also have the ability to remove consent should a parent indicate that they do not want their child to participate any longer.

Once a parent completes the form, the student is automatically activated in the Quest Atlantis system. In addition, you can see this file in your Teacher Toolkit and you can confirm the date of the submission at any time. Also, parents can easily see the consent form in other languages if needed. You can still have the option to send in the paper consent forms. Just remember that the same rules still apply. By checking the Consent – Teacher box you are providing your legal, electronic signature that you have the completed consent form. We still need a signature from both the parent and the child on each form, and they must be returned within 60 days.

Keep the Collaboration Going with Edmodo

I admit, the more I've been exploring and using Edmodo, the more I've grown to love it. Last week I spoke with a Science teacher who really wanted to find new ways to get her students to collaborate with each other. She already uses Google Docs on a regular basis so students can collaborate and co-create various projects together. However, she had a difficult time keeping up with all the documents in her Gmail account.

Together we decided by adding Edmodo to the mix, organizing and keeping up with her students' documents would become easier. How so? By sharing a Google Doc with a specific group of students, she would only need to click on the group to see their document. Plus, when students ask for help they can post questions to the whole class or ask for the teacher's input while they are writing.

After my discussion last week I wanted to continue my post on ways to use Edmodo, with this week focusing more on collaboration. Here are a few ways you can use Edmodo as a collaborative tool:

Create a cross-classroom shared group: Teachers have the ability to create groups and share the group code with students from another classroom. Students can work together outside of the classroom and keep the creative process flowing.

Share a link to a Google Document: Teachers can share a public Google Doc URL with students in Edmodo. Students can open the file, share their responses, add images and comments in real-time.

Create a group request form: To generate more collaboration and communication amongst students, teachers can have students make suggestions for forming groups. You may consider asking your students...

What do you want to call your group?
What are we going to talk about and do in this space?
Who is your group for?

For more ideas and ways to use Edmodo, check out their blog.

Image from renjith krishnan

Taking Care Of Your Digital Self

One of the areas of focus for me in the district this year is teaching teachers and students how to take control of their digital identity and turn it into something positive and something they can be proud of. Too often each year students find themselves in situations that could be easily avoided if they understood what a positive digital footprint is and how to manage it. The same thing with teachers. Many times I hear of teachers who flat out avoid any (or make a very strong attempt) to leave no trace on the web. While they might believe this strategy works, in essence it does not. School directories, webpages and others are online. Even kids use Rate My Teachers as a place to vent/praise about educators all over. (Meredith Stewart said it best: Astounds me when teachers/professors only digital presence is Rate My Teachers/Profs page. If you aren't controlling your footprint, others are. From Twitter) 

What she says there is so very important. If you aren't controlling who you are online, some else is or will. And taking control of your digital footprint is something that is so easy to do. Who wants something like this to happen?

So, where do you start?

Google Yourself- Take a few moments and Google yourself. You might have a common name so use different variations. Add your middle name, location or something else that might provide some hits. I had the honor of speaking to a great group of educators this week at the New Literacy Institute at NC State University. One of the activities they were involved in was looking at their digital self and the first thing they did was Google themselves. It was fascinating to watch the reactions across the room as they found information about themselves they didn't know was online or information they they thought was private on Facebook or other social networks. You don't know if you don't Google. And this isn't a one shot deal. Google yourself often to make sure the information that is out there represents you in the way you want. 

Establish A Brand- This sounds complicated but really it is easy as figuring out what name you use across all that you do on the web. My brand is my name (Steven W. Anderson) and my Twitter (@web20classroom). I use the middle initial in my name because my full name is pretty common (doctors, laywers, even an actor, and some not so nice folks). So in searches done on those 2 brands the information comes back to me. The point here is to start using the same identity across multiple services so solidify yourself. And try to use your actual name or a simple variation. 

Get You A Space Of Your Own- You are going to need a place of your own to let people know who you are. I chose to use Twitter and a blog. These are places where you can further establish who you are, what you are about what what you want to say. Those are just two ways. It could be something simple like an About.me page. Again, your are further solidifying yourself on the web. What's great is you can control how much information you put out there and what information you put out there; all in an effort to control your identity. 

Stay On Top Of Things- Google Alerts might just be the best way to keep track of things easily. You set up some keywords to search (so you would do the name you have been using to Google, your brand, blog, Twitter, etc), fill out how often you want to get the alerts, an email address and boom! any page on the web that mentions any of the data you submitted lands in your inbox so you can know who is saying what about you or your brand. 

Those are just a few steps. What would you add? What has worked for you? Add some comments below. 

Learning About Government Can Be Fun!

At a workshop this summer, a teacher was creating a lesson for her students talking about the different areas of government. A couple of days later, EDSITEment posted a lesson plan with the title of "Balancing Three Branches at Once: Our System of Checks and Balances. This gave me an idea for a blog post. I decided to find some other lessons about Civics and Government and put them into a Glog. I have written about Glogster EDU quite a few times before, but find it a great way to "posterize" lesson plans to share with others. Below is my Glog on the Three Branches of Government.



Some more websites are listed below:

Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids (K-12) You choose the grade level.
SAS Curriculum Pathways (6-12)
My Social Studies Diigo Links


Hope you enjoy these lesson ideas and web sites!

ActivInspire and Jigsaw Puzzles

I have been running down my feed lists and social media outlets today and came across a neat little tool that I had to share out.



When I saw the blurb about it I followed the link and found out that it came out of the Community and Blog Section of Promethean Planet's International site. It was a blog post from last year by Nigel Pearce on a neat little program called Jigflip that allows you to create a jigsaw puzzle from any standard image. I have used it with jpegs, png, gif and bitmap files so far and the program works fine to create them as jigsaw puzzles. So you may be asking how this little program works, well here is the quick down and dirty.



The first thing that you do is to download and run the program and a window will appear where you have three steps to follow. Step one is to drag the image you want to break apart into the box. Step two is to select to either have a 12 or 48 piece puzzle created from the image. Step three is your options like shading, background color etc. That's it, all you have to do now is to click the Make button to create the puzzle.





Oh and I almost forgot the most important feature of the JigFlip program after you click the Make button it automatically creates an ActivInspire Flipchart page of your new jigsaw puzzle.



Download it, give it a try and see if you like it. I think it could be a great fun starter activity for your Elementary students at the beginning of the day.

image taken using:

Promethean Camera tool

Tech Toolkit for UDL in All Classrooms

I really like the Featured Sites of the Week from TeachersFirst. This week I noticed a link to a site with technology resources to go along with UDL (Universal Design for Learning): Free Technology Toolkit for UDL in All Classrooms.

Here are some of the categories of resources available from this site:

• Graphic Organizers
• Literacy tools
• Writing Tools
• Multimedia & Digital Storytelling Tools
• Study Skill Tools
• Research Tools
• AudioBooks
• Math Tools
• Collaborative Tools

You can also find information about Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Some interesting things I found on that information page include that UDL involves multiple methods of representation, engagement, and expression to promote learning for ALL students.

This collection of resources was assembled with the idea that every classroom computer can be used to promote learning for all students based on the principles of UDL. These tools provide improved access and accomodate for learner differences. Additionally they are fun and engaging!

Our goal is student learning, so here are some more free tools to help us reach that goal in as many ways as we can.

Five Simple Ways to Use Edmodo Everyday

I recently watched an Edmodo webinar about 20 ways teachers can use Edmodo everyday in their classroom. I was impressed with the ideas and suggestions that were shared so I decided to post five of my favorite ways teachers can use Edmodo everyday with their students. In the future I plan on sharing more ways to use Edmodo, but thought these five would be a great place to start.



Create a group: Teachers have the ability to create groups and invite their students to become part of the group. Groups can be created for specific classes, book discussions, clubs, and more! Invite others to your group by distributing the 6 digit code (located in the upper right hand corner of the page).



Check for understanding: With Edmodo's polling feature, teachers can do a quick check to see where students are in their understanding. Polls are also great for gathering feedback on topics, assignments, and ideas.



Post student audio to spark a discussion: Edmodo allows users to embed mp3 files. You can publish a podcast about a lesson or share a student created podcast from a project. Edmodo makes its simple to do, plus students won't have to download it in order to listen to it. Simply press play and listen. Students and teachers can leave immediate feedback or post comments about the audio to spark a discussion. Not sure how to create an audio file? Check out these tools...

Ask students for links or an embed code to share their projects: Students can be granted permission to post their projects to the group by copying a URL or embed code in the note section at the top of the class page. All student projects can now be embedded into one place, offering a higher level of engagement than "file based" projects. Students can share their work and comment back and forth with their teacher and classmates. Class discussions are no longer limited to the four walls of the classroom.

Post a "Ticket Out" for students: Throughout my years of teaching I'd like to wrap up a lesson with a "Ticket Out." In order for my students to be dismissed they'd have to answer the question on the ticket out slip. If their responses met my expectations, their slip would be their "ticket out" the door that day. With an Edmodo account, teachers can post those "ticket out" questions and keep the conversation going about the day's lesson. No longer will teacher have to rush before the bell rings to ask students to share their thoughts, questions, comments, etc. Plus, it'll save teachers time by freeing them from the copy machine.



We've posted some great information in the past about Edmodo and look forward to sharing more ideas, tips, and resources on the ways it can be used. To check out our previous blog posts on Edmodo, click here.

Can Learning Cancel Out Distractions?

Imagine yourself in an elementary classroom surrounded by about 40 other adults trying to work on projects on laptops. Since there are not enough tables/desks/chairs, people are sitting on the floor and every available surface. Most of the laptops being used don't hold a charge for very long and need to stay close to an outlet .... there are not many electrical outlets in the room ... but there are a few surge protectors stretched every-which-way. It is in July, so the air at the elementary school is not really working that well ... but it is trying.

Would you want to stay in this room?

If someone offered to let you go into the room down the hall where there were not as many people, would you go?

A couple of weeks ago, we held a Promethean training for teachers in our school system called CampInspire. On Day 1, teachers had choices for different sessions to attend based on their interests and needs. On Day 2, we gave the teacher time to share some of the things they had learned and then a chance to play (or work) using the things they had learned about.

On Day 2 of CampInspire, I was in a room very much like the one described at the beginning of this blog post. There was space in the room down the hall, but no one wanted to leave ... these teachers were learning from each other and discovering new things together.

I think the learning that was happening far outweighed the inconveniences presented by the setting ...

That should be our goal ... for the LEARNING that is taking place to cancel out all the distractions.

Too many times, teachers don't get the chance to play and use the new things they learn about in staff development.

Teachers at CampInspire had that opportunity ... and they had support if there were questions. I know that I am much more likely to try out something I have just learned about if I know there is someone I can contact if I need help.

As an Instructional Technology Department, we are here to help and support teachers. On the About Me tab at the top of this blog, you can find Glogster Creations that provide our names and contact information. There are many ways to contact any of us ... email, twitter, skype, leave a comment/question here on the blog, phone call, etc ...

If you are not sure who to contact, then contact me and I will gladly help or direct you to someone who can help!

~Melissa Edwards
email: mwedwards@wsfcs.k12.nc.us
twitter: @mwedwards