Looking for Interactive Whiteboard activities aligned to the Common Core? Take a look at TES iboard’s Activity Finder. You have access to quite a variety of activities and games for KK-Grade 5 even without registering for an account. Of course, there are more features with the paid version (TES iboard+), but the free activities are well worth the visit to the site.
Filed under: Common Core | | No Comments »
Richard Byrne’s blog, iPad Apps for School, is a great source of information about using iPads in the K12 classroom; I learn something new on every visit. His post on MasteryConnect’s Common Core App caught my attention recently, as I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading in that area. It’s nice to have the CC information at your fingertips, and the app is free. Here’s the iTunes preview:
View the Common Core State Standards in one convenient FREE app! A great reference for students, parents, and teachers to easily read and understand the core standards. Quickly find standards by subject, grade, and subject category (domain/cluster). This app includes Math standards K-12 and Language Arts standards K-12. Math standards include both traditional and integrated pathways (as outlined in Appendix A of the common core) and synthesizes Language Arts standards with the Corresponding College and Career Readiness Standards (CCR’s).
Three other sites of critical importance to teachers are the Common Core State Standards Initiative website, TN Core (for Tennessee educators), and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) site.
Filed under: Common Core, iPad | | No Comments »
Wow! I just finished my second year as an adjunct instructor for a graduate program here in Memphis. Some of my students took both EDT 620 (Instructional Applications of Technology) and EDT 621 (Advanced Instructional Applications of Technology), so we spent quite a bit of time together. The classes were face-to-face and completely project-based. I loved seeing the students’ excitement as they gained expertise on various technology tools that they could begin using right away in their own classrooms. Topics covered are included in the word cloud above.
We also used Edmodo for posting & submitting assignments, posting grades, participation in discussions, etc. One thing I emphasized heavily was the importance of developing one’s own Personal Learning Network (PLN). Students signed up for Netvibes accounts and subscribed to various RSS Feeds to help them keep abreast of educational trends, particularly in the area of technology integration. We all learned so much from each other, and each class meeting was truly a pleasure. Best wishes to these students / teachers!
Filed under: Announcements | | No Comments »
I ran across the following article, entitled Creating a Paperless Classroom with Edmodo Quizzes and Assignments, in my RSS Feed Reader yesterday and found it quite interesting, considering the number of schools implementing 1-on-1 technology. The author, Kelley Taylor, states:
I teach sixth grade language arts and religion at a Catholic school in Lexington, Kentucky. In the 2011-2012 school year, I piloted a 1:1 classroom using netbooks. The program was so successful that it led to the implementation of a 1:1 iPad program across the entire middle school for 2012-2013.
Within the first month, I found that my classes were completely paperless. This was not really my intent when I began the 1:1 endeavor, but a wonderful bonus. As astonishing as it is to have a “paperless” classroom (especially language arts), being in a 1:1 environment has provided me with so many more benefits
Interesting read!
Filed under: Tips | | 1 Comment »
Filed under: Blogging, Screen Capture, Web Pages | | No Comments »
Thanks so much to Tim Childers for a great Google Hangout with my EDT621 students this past Monday evening! He is a long-time user of Evernote and was able to help all of us understand (through video and screensharing) how it could be used with both colleagues and students. I especially like the idea of using Evernote at conferences when you are attending lots of great sessions and wish to share real-time notes and photos with colleagues. Very cool, Tim! Thank you!
Tim Childers is the Assistant Principal at L & N STEM Academy in Knox County (TN), STAR Discovery Educator Network member, and blog coordinator for the Tennessee DEN Leadership Council.
Image credit: SC Midlands Summit
Filed under: Conferences | | No Comments »
Last evening, we had a wonderful guest instructor in our Instructional Applications of Technology (EDT 621) class: Kimberly Sanderson, Librarian at Lucie E. Campbell Elementary School, presented on the topic of LiveBinders, sharing her personal and professional LiveBinders with our group and teaching us how to create our own. We loved seeing her electronic portfolio and the units she is making for her elementary students. She is an enthusiastic, knowledgeable instructor who helped all of us understand how we could use LiveBinders in various contexts. Thanks for a great presentation, Kim!
Filed under: General | | No Comments »
Like it or not, sometimes facts just have to be memorized by rote. Multiplication tables, prepositions, historical dates & events, formulas, and more. The old school way involved a trip to the local variety store to purchase 4 x 6 index cards. An easier way is to create online flash cards. A couple of my favorite sites for creating digital flashcards are StudyStack and FauxFlash.
StudyStack creates a variety of practice activities based on the flashcard information. Click on the image below for a sample from StudyStack:
Another digital flashcard site is FauxFlash. I like this one because the creator can incorporate images. Here’s an example:
Filed under: Flashcards | | No Comments »
Mentimeter is fast, simple, and allows one question per poll for free accounts. Sometimes that’s all you need. Click here to participate in a 1-question poll. Results will appear below:
Survey Monkey allows for more options. With a free account, you can created an unlimited number of surveys with up to 10 questions per survey and with up to 100 respondents per survey. More details here. Here’s a survey to test your knowledge of famous novels’ opening lines (just for fun).*
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
The third polling tool I particularly like is Poll Everywhere, although it is limited to 40 responses per poll. Here’s a demo video showing how it works.
*This particular survey was made by Survey Monkey and simply copied here.
Image credit: Cook County College Teachers Union
Filed under: Polling | | No Comments »
It was a sad day for me when I realized I was going to have to give up iGoogle. This friendly, familiar RSS Feed Reader that I’ve used for years will be going away for good later this year (2013) unless there is some miraculous reprieve from Google. I began to experiment with replacements, but nothing quite satisfied me. That is, until I met Netvibes. Why did it catch my attention? Because I could make it look almost exactly like my old iGoogle page(!). Yes, it’s true. I’m not big on change. When something works for me, I don’t strain myself to find the new and improved. As it turns out, I’m loving Netvibes. Just cannot do without my RSS Feeds!
Filed under: RSS | | No Comments »
