A New Way to Study Geography

I was looking through Promethean Planet recently and discovered that they have now joined forces with a new Partner resource called The Royal Geographical Society(RGS).  "This group was established in the early 1800's to help support education, research and fieldwork in the study of world geography." 

The Royal Geographical Society offers a wide range of resources to help students in the classroom to learn about the different aspects of world geography through online resources and fieldwork studies for Elementary through Post-Secondary education.  A recent fieldwork study was their work on the production of resources for the study the Continent of Antarctica.  As you read more about the Partner Resources on Promethean Planet from the RGS  you will have access to their documents and resource packs on the geography of Antarctica.Plus they have a really nice flipchart that you can download and use in your classroom.

You can also visit their parent site rgs.org to see even more research and resources available for the classroom.  They have separated their site into resources for Teachers, Students and even Parents so that the information is available to all participants who are using their site.  There are many more resources available on their website to mention here.  Take a look for yourself to see how RGS can help your students gain a better understanding of World Geography.

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Watch, Know, Learn

A few weeks ago You Tube announced their commitment to education by moving a lot of their educational content to a separate domain, http://youtube.com/education. This allows schools and districts to, depending on their filtering, unblock the videos found there for use in the classroom. Here it has been open for a while and reaction has been positive.

However, one of the complaints is the variety of the content found there. Much of it is for secondary and higher ed, leaving the elementary folks with out a solution.

Until now.

I have known about WatchKnowLearn for a while now. While it looks like your typical video site, it isn't. It's a powerful tool for you to use in your classroom.

When you first visit the site you will see several things:

• The Featured Videos Section-This is an ever changing list of the best content found on the site
• The Most Recently Posted Section
• The Highest Rated Section
• The Most Viewed Section

While all of those are great places to start, most folks are going to want to drill down to their subject area. There is a place to do that on the left. 

You can see that in many of the content areas there are over 1000 videos and in the major core areas the numbers top 4000. And just look at the variety of content there! When you go into and area you get topics and sub topics and in some cases sub sub subtopics. 

Sure, you can drill down. Sure you can search. But maybe you just want to search by the age of your students. You can do that too. 

Take the slider from either side until you have the desired age range. Put in your topic and off you go. Wanna search more than just WatchKnowLearn? Use the drop down to search School Tube or Teacher Tube also. 

All of the videos are reviewed by teachers and the folks at the site for their quality and applicability to the content area and age level. The comments are also a great place to learn how other educators are using the videos in the classroom. 

WatchKnowLearn is a wonderful addition to your arsenal of video sites. You can get lost in all the great content. So head over there and definitely check it out!

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Take a Stand in Preparation

As the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day approaches, I thought I would look through some of my favorite resources to see what I could find to help students learn about this great man and his beliefs.

Wonderopolis:

• #241 What does it mean to stand for something?
• #106 Who was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?

Thinkfinity:

• A Virtual Tour of Dr. King's Childhood Home
• Martin Luther King Jr. Resources
• Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site
• Martin Luther King Jr. and Me: Identifying with a Hero

TeachersFirst:

• Martin Luther King - An Integrated Lesson Unit for Primary Classrooms
• The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change
• Time Magazine Topic: Martin Luther King Jr.
• Dr. King Illustrated Timeline from Pocantico Hills School
• Dr. King's Nobel Lecture (includes short audio recording)

WatchKnowLearn (a new favorite):

• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Remembered from National Geographic Video
• Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights in Hip Hop Style by Flocabulary
• Martin Luther King Jr from the History Channel
• Martin Luther King, Jr - New Clips from Have Fun With History

image source

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Animals, Animals, Animals

At one of my schools, they are getting ready to do a big animal unit study and asked for some resources. I thought I would share some of my favorite ones here in the blog.

National Geographic is a really good web site.  On the right hand side of the web page you see animals and they are in alphabetical order. You can also search for an animal in the search box. When you click on an animal (I clicked on the Bengal Tiger), there is a picture of the animal, information about that animal, you can hear how the animal sounds, there is a map of their range, and quick facts on the animal. Very useful for a students to learn about the different animals.

I like National Geographic for Kids for younger kids. It seems more kid-friendly. You can view videos or pictures of animals. I clicked on Mammals in the left hand side of the screen, and then clicked on Gray Wolves. Here you can read about the wolves, view pictures and hear them howling. There is also a map that shows where they live.

While I was searching for animal web sites, I came across one that I had never seen before. It has become one of my favorites. This site is called ARKive. They have information on endangered species, you can search animals, plants, etc. If you click on Explore ARKive, a drop down menu appears and you can click on any of the Species Groups, Eco-Regions, etc. There are some great videos of the animals that you can show to students. Check out one of these videos about Giant Pandas. If you are studying marine animals, I encourage you to click on Google Earth (in the drop down menu) to view endangered marine species and where they live.

Please make sure to view the terms of use to see if students/teachers can print anything from these sites.

Image: 'Eyes of the tiger' http://www.flickr.com/photos/25182307@N00/1380828408

Image: 'The Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center' http://www.flickr.com/photos/36244273@N00/221043235

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I wonder about the beginning ...

When you walk into a technology training session, what do you expect to see?
Do you want to want to see a preview of what the training is about?
Do you want to have something interesting to look at until the training starts?

As someone who leads professional development sessions, I am normally focused on what participants are going to see and hear during the session not before it starts. Recently I have been thinking more about the time between when someone comes to a session and when the training starts.

When I was a classroom teacher, I liked to have a calming atmosphere for students when they entered to class to try to set the stage for learning. There was generally instructions or a journal topic on the board/screen to get students engaged and focused. I liked to get everyone on the same page to prepare for the learning.

I have been in sessions where there is music playing when you come in. I have been in sessions where there are a list of questions or quotes for you to think about, and I have been in sessions where there is nothing to do. I am not thinking about requiring journal writing at the beginning of my training sessions, but I do think it might be a good idea to do or have something at the beginning of a session to get participants focused, thinking, and in the mindset for learning.

I think Wonderopolis does a good job or asking a big picture question accompanied with an image/video to encourage thinking. So I am thinking about creating something using screenshots of some of the Wonders of the Day to run on a continuous loop before certain training sessions start. That would expose participants to questions to promote thinking and possibly even encourage creativity.

I have some favorite Wonders that I might use:

• #129 Why are School Buses Yellow?
• #21 What Fairy Tale Ending Would You Change?
• #181 Who Invented the Knock Knock Joke?
• #381 What is Your Favorite Way to Exercise?
• #13 What Would Your Perfect Candy Bar Taste Like?
• #82 Do Reindeer Live Outside the North Pole?

I enjoy looking in the Wonderopolis archives to see what WONDERful Wonders from the Past I can highlight and share. I especially like to look at the Wonder of the Day from one year ago on that particular day.

I challenge you to go look at the Wonderopolis archives (and even at the current ones). Tell me about some of your favorites so I can add them to my collection to show at the beginning of sessions and lessons.

photo source

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Our Top Posts Of 2011

What a wonderful year its been! While we are looking forward to continued learning we also take time to reflect back and look at a sampling of our top posts and content for the year.

Five Simple Ways To Use Edmodo Everyday-We rolled out Edmodo district wide this year and its been just plain awesome. Teachers all over are making global connections and carrying learning conversations outside of the classroom. This post give 5 really simple ways to start using Edmodo today.

Technology Advice For Administrators- There are some easy technology-related tools that school leaders can do to make the job easier, and more effective.

A Window To The World With Webcams- No reason a IWB or monitor has to sit idle in the classroom. Why not use it as a window to a new or exotic place? 

Interactive Social Studies, PreK-5- There are some great interactive sites, games and activities to use on the IWB in a Pre-K-5 Classroom.

Google Earth Timeline- Did you know you can go back in time in Google Earth? This post will show you how.

So there they are. There are loads more great posts. Check out the tags on the side and if there is a topic we haven't covered let us know by leaving a comment here.

Happy New Year!

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Express Poll in ActivInspire

Let's talk about Ad Hoc questions in ActivInspire using ActivExpressions. First of all, Ad Hoc is more like asking a question spontaneously. In order to do this, there is a button on the toolbar in ActivInspire. this button has a question mark in the middle of it and the tag is Express Poll. Once it has been clicked, a button will be placed into the flipchart. Hover over that button to see the different types of questions that can be asked. Some of the question types are: likert scale, multiple choice, text, number, sort in order, yes/no, and true/false.

If a teacher is using the text response, both letters and numbers can be used to answer a question. If they use the number response, only the numbers are used to answer a question.


With an Ad Hoc question, the correct answer is not shown until after all the voting has stopped. The teacher can then go into the upper right corner where there is an image of AB and a check mark and choose the correct answer. This changes the correct answer to green (bar chart or pie chart) so that the teacher can quickly see if they need to re-teach that goal, or did the students really understand it. 


Another tip that I learned is that once you start an Express Poll, if a student is putting in incorrect answers or silly answers, you can turn that voting device off at the board. That way the teacher doesn't waste time by talking to that particular student. I thought that was a very clever idea.

Image: 'Questions' http://www.flickr.com/photos/42788859@N00/318947873

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