Learn for life.

People choose their professions for many different reasons.  It could be a passion, a skill, monetary, a calling, or for a humanitarian cause. But for teachers, it is a safe assumption that they choose it for the intrinsic reasons of truly valuing the human mind and the ability to make a difference in a child’s life.

The motive behind teaching varies, but stays basically in the same category of giving back to society.   Students receive a formal and informal education that a price cannot be placed upon.  It’s a gift given that a tangible show of appreciate could not hold value to the intrinsic gift that is received. A teacher passes down knowledge of the past that will help make sense of the present guides a young mind to making logical choices for their future. That gift of knowledge received by the student is an irreplaceable present that is build upon through a persons’ lifetime.   

DEVS

DiscoveryEducation.com provides a vast amount of educational content that can be applied to any subject in any grade level.  As a subscription based site, it allows the subscriber to do much more than share videos with the classroom: it has assignment builders, quiz centers, writing prompts, and also helps the educator to customize and personalize lesson plans.   Streaming about 9,000 full length videos and 71,000 content specific clips that tie directly to state and national standards. With this many videos and clips, there must be a more exciting resource to help students remember (more importantly learn) for the SOL's.  The website is "designed to encourage exploration, stimulate critical thinking and deepen understanding (of science)"  by the "real life situations, through a variety of media, full length videos and segmented clips, virtual labs, integrated simulations, explorations, and reading passages." With the input of about 150 publishers, such as PBS and Scholastic, there is no question why they have been recognized by the Bessie Award for the Best Educational Software.

www.discoveryeducation.com

SmartBoard Activities

SmartBoard is widely used for interactive enrichment activities that alleviates the stress of time consuming lesson plans. There are endless resources in the teaching profession and with technology such as SmartBoard, the options can become overwhelming! It takes just a few minutes to create whole group and individualized enrichment activities like matching for work recognition.  The navigation tool bar is basically self explanatory and easy to choose from a pre-made template, edit to your preference with color, text, pictures provided by SmartBoard or insert from another source, animations, ect.  Quick, simple and educational, SmartBoard provides essential learning tools for teachers to present information in an engaging  and motivating way for students to want to continue to explore the world around them. 

TeacherTube

TeacherTube is an educational resource for students and teachers that can be applied in the classroom. It has the same concept as YouTube but without the fear of stumbling upon unrelated information. An account member is able to  search for videos, search teaching related classified ads, photos, channels, videos, and documents, all which YouTube does not provide.  All of these can be implemented in a planned lesson, assist in lesson planning, used for “educational” transition time between, and as part of the class’s reward system.  It is a great resource to heighten students awareness of the world they currently live in, spark interest and motivation to learn new topics, and provide enrichment or in-depth material included in a specific topic.  With the vast amount of information TeacherTube provides, the whole classroom is guaranteed to reap the benefits.

11th Grade VA SOL - 

CONSTITUTION RAP

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Bill_of_Rights_Rap&video_id=50123

11th Grade VA SOL 

George Washington- "I'm on a boat remix"

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=166968

~* I would provide extra credit and make sure any of my students got the recognition for creating a parody like this! *~ 

SmartBoard in the classroom

A teacher has multiple responsibilities that can easily become overwhelming. Lesson plans, grading, enrichment activities are all time consuming that potentially can take away from student's learning opportunity.  Fortunately, the Smartboard program allows a teacher to cut time consuming planning in half.  It organizes programs such as matching games, erase and reveal, and many others that can teach or provide enrichment for any area of study.

With the advantage of Smartboard technology, lesson planning can be completed in less amount of time and possibly more organized.  With the variety of programs such as matching games, pull tab quizzes, and diagrams, different presentations can be taught at different angles all learning styles.  

To ensure students are actually learning the material, measuring their comprehension is quick and simple.  Quizzes, surveys, or enrichment activities can be graded with Responders given to each student and scored under each child's account.  This alleviates the time consuming process of grading and recording individual papers. Smartboard does the dirty work so the more time can be spent on lesson planning. 

Overall, Smartboard can make the teachers workload much lighter and more convenient.  Less time spent on a better education.  ;) 

Google Custom Search Engine

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Google Custom Search

Google Custom Search is a feature provided by Google to allow anyone to create their own search engine.  It prioritizes and reflects the hosts expertise and interests by allowing them to include websites that pertain to the subject(s) their GCS has been created for. It is very user friendly and anyone is able to create their own custom search.  Educators, parents, employers are able to restrict information that is either unproductive, inappropriate, or to keep students "on track" when researching particular topics. Educators are able to use a GCS when assigning a research project and easier to track information sources and plagiarism,  employers can restrict employees from surfing facebook or myspace while on the clock, and parents can sensor inappropriate sites and create a GCS that is age appropriate.  Although some of these options may sound negative, it is actually a very useful as you can create a search engine that pertains to all of your own specific interests that others can search within as well.  


To learn more about the different learning needs of students, this search engine may be of some help as it provides definitions and ideas for lessons. 
Learning Needs Search Engine

Flickr.com

Monday, September 27, 2010

Flickr.com

Flickr.com, a safe and easily controlled website for and by the users to share pictures among others. Used in the classroom, it can be a wonderful learning tool as a class can post their own photos, learn from others, and teachers can plan activities/research from the website.  (For example, have students create a wordless slide show of the seasons). 
Autumn Chiltern 

Sept 20

Delicious.com is a user friendly and useful website to operate.  After searching a few different topics with hundreds if not thousands of sites to choose from, I was very impressed with amount and content of search related topics

Searching for my own benefit for my grammar class, I found the same website I already use along with a new one, Quick and Easy Tips.  Although it seems like an online magazine, it does provide practical information that can be applied to daily life situations having such a broad range of articles.  As a die hard Google fan, Delicious has opened a whole new world of searching for me. 

Journal 1 - Responders in the classroom

The use of responders can be beneficial in the classroom setting for many reasons:  It brings a sense of a very low pressure-learning atmosphere which is believed to change attitudes of students toward learned subject; and is immediate feedback for both teacher and students that allows extra time for reinforcement instead of wasted time grading papers.

The low-pressure atmosphere created by responders change students desire to participate.  When used anonymously for practice tests, reinforcement games, and general instruction, students will begin to feel a level of comfort to participate. For example, when the answers are posted immediately, students are able to check which group they fall into. (right or wrong answer). This effects their confidence in a positive way by knowing they might not be the only one who answered incorrectly.

Using a Smart Board and Responders also creates a level of excitement and motivation to learn a new subject, but students also need to know the boundaries with the fun and games. Testing is the perfect way to reinforce this level.  Testing from their desk allows them to take the test just as seriously as if it were traditionally given (paper and pencil).

Immediate results from either the practice or graded activities allows the teacher to know exactly what material needs more emphasis.  This is without a doubt beneficial to both teacher and student due to less time grading papers and more time spent on actual reinforcement.