Educational Technology Weblog

As the new year begins we are very happy to announce that netTrekker is offering FREE Training Webinars!

We would recommend one or more of these 30 minute sessions to any SDPBC educator interested in learning more about the latest features available in netTrekker

Visit the netTrekker support page for details and a full schedule for January and February

I think that we’d all agree that sometimes it’s time to get back to the basics.  When your students are challenged to learn a set of facts,  repetition and simplicity can do the trick.  Whether it is learning State Capitals, mathmatical properties, or the scientific names of insects,  I have found nothing more practical than a great set of flash cards….THAT’S RIGHT… FLASH CARDS!!!

Here’s a resource www.flashcardsdb.com that you might find benficial to use to find or create just the right set for your students, AND SHARE THEM ON EDLINE!!

Simply supply your students with the link to your favorite set of flashcards, or build a page that will allow for embedded online practice right in Edline!

I hope that you’ll find some value in  this tool, and agree that this simple way to provide some quick interactive practice and reinforcement for your students is something you can all do!  Good Luck!

 Bio Final flashcards from bluechick676 on FlashcardDB.

GIVE THEM WHAT THEY NEED!!
 

John Shoemaker set up a Shelfari book club with all the books from one of my previous blogposts.

I know it took a lot of time to set up (so, a BIG thank you to John) but it won’t take a lot of time for YOU to join and participate in the discussions. If you’re interested, just join Shelfari (free), and join our group. It will be a great activity to do for the summer that can carry well into the school year.

You’ll see that Shelfari allows you to add books to your own shelf, and track whether you’ve read them, are reading them currently or plan to read them. You can rate them, mark them as favorites, comment and recommend for others. You can also add friends and send messages to each other as well as view the most popular books being read and recommendations for you.

I’ve already started my first book, Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire, by Rafe Esquith fwhich will be followed by  The Herb Kohl Reader by Herbert Kohl. For those of you who are interested in joining us on Shelfari, but aren’t quite sure what it’s all about, here are two recent segments from PalmBreezeCAFE where I show Kim Cavanaugh how to use Shelfari.

Shelfari Part I

Shelfari Part II

The nice thing about the Shelfari group is that there is a discussion set up for each book on the original list, so you can not only jump in on any discussion on any book, but you can throw in your own book and add your own discussions!

Why would you want to reinvent the wheel when you can access resources already created by teachers like you? With Discovery MediaShare, you can find all types of resources (lesson plans, videos, spreadsheets, tutorials, podcasts, images, and more) by searching by keywords, file type, subject, grade level, even standards! Best of all you can share your resources too! Teachers in our district already have accounts. Watch this 10 minute segment to learn all you need to know about sharing resources on DE MediaShare.

3rd grader, Jordan D. attended work with her father on Take Your Child to Work Day. Since part of Dad’s job is blogging on behalf of our team, we asked Jordan and her sister to write their own blogposts. This is Jordan’s first blogpost ever. We hope to see many more from here on.

Today I went to work with my father. Today we fixed a computer. My sister came with us. We had so much fun. We went to lunch with my mother. We came back. My father had to help Mark and friends put boxes in a truck. Me and Kaleigh got stuck in an elevator. We came back up and we found our father looking for us. The End.

Today is take your kid work day and I am at work with my dad.  He works at the School District Office in the Educational Technology Department.

So while I am here I am going to blog about Brainpop. Brainpop is an informational website.

This website has two characters–one is a guy named Tim the other is a robot named Moby. They are the ones that teach you the information.

Brainpop can help you to study for a test.  Brainpop has all kinds of ways to study.  They have videos, games with information in them.  It has quizzes that help a lot too.

I think Tim and Moby make things easy to understand.  But some times Moby’s beeps are hard to make out.  You can learn about Science, Math, Art, Music, Social Studies, English, Health, and Technology.  You can basically type in anything you want to search for and it will give you a list of videos and resources about your topic.

Brainpop is good for grades 4th and up.  There is another website called Brainpop Jr.  That website is for grades 1st and up to 3rd grade.

I wish all my classes had me go on Brainpop all the time.  When a big test comes around now you know where to go.

I’m a serious softball player so I liked this picture of Moby talking about baseball. But they really should have a movie about girls playing softball, don’t you think? After all, girls rule!

Be a part of something huge! Unite with students and schools from around the world to set a new world record! The challenge is to correctly answer more than 182,445,169 questions in 48 hours. Students play against each other in mental arithmetic games. Students are captivated by the fact that they are playing in real time. Each game lasts for 60 seconds, and students can play as many games as they wish. The questions are appropriately leveled for different ages and abilities.

Watch Jamie explain how it all works on this segment from PalmBreezeCAFE:

A great way to help students understand character analysis is to have them create a family tree. This can be done with historical characters (King Henry VIII) or fictional characters (Harry Potter). Family-Mingle is an app for creating family trees. It’s a great (free, of course) app, and the educational value is when you bring it into the classroom and have students contribute and build the same tree. In this segment from PalmBreezeCAFE, I show you how I would use it to teach Romeo and Juliet where each student would contribute to the family tree as a different character.

What do you think?

Click here to subscribe to all the PalmBreezeCAFE segments in iTunes.

If you’re looking for some great ideas for celebrating Lincoln’s 200th, look no further! Check out the great ideas here:

To access Jennifer Wagner’s site (referred to in this video), go to www.lincoln200.notlong.com

As many of you may remember, Lee Kolbert wrote an entry on September 2nd about a very rousing and motivational speech given by Dalto Sheman, an amazing student in Texas.   At the time the post provided a link to the video that was not viewable within our district’s network.  Someone recently reminded me of this young man so I thought I would re-post with a version than can be viewed from school!  Well worth sharing with your students!

ENJOY