ASP Faculty

Google's core search technology has been widely proven and accepted to be the finest in the industry with Google now handling 70+% of all web searches. Utilizing the same exact underlying search technology and code base as used on Google.com, the Search Appliance "crawler" not only has proven to discover a greater percentage of content than any competing product, but Google's patented search algorithms deliver end users unrivalled ranking and relevancy of the search results

A blog post about the Shadow Puppet Edu iTunes app. It is free and you can create videos with up to 100 images and up to 30 minutes long.

This site gives valuable tips on how to react to the students and what not to do. It can also pertain to other specials.

Although I open Twitter in the classroom once in a while using my appletv, I am learning there are so many more ways to utilize this tool. In any case, twitter has replaced my newspaper and many other sources of reading about the news and what is going on in the world.

Reports are in. This article by McGraw Hill answers questions that our parents may have so I am going to attach it to a hyperlink on my teacher page.

This is a great site to refer to for details about the Pope's visit to the US in September.

The benefits of gripping and moving a pen or pencil reach beyond communication. Emerging research shows that handwriting increases brain activity, hones fine motor skills, and can predict a child's academic success in ways that keyboarding can't.

or better yet, have students use it to make one for their friends!

My students have been using Spelling City for 3 years. I highly recommend an account to help them study on their own.

This is a cute Claude Monet art project for 4th or 5th grade but would probably use watercolors instead of fingerpaint! Good for any 4th, th or 6th grade teacher.

This was a very interesting read as if it was written for me! It would probably pertain to other special subjects also.

Scholastic has a summer reading program which would reward both students and teachers.

Sometimes we take social skills for granted. Here is a good resource which provides for simple class discussion and role-playing.

Carol, Some of the attached activity sheets that can be printed from this article are great. They can truly be used by students through the middle grades.

We're always looking to improve recess. This document contains some links that might be of use.

Food for Thought

Sign up to be chosen as one of 1000 schools across the globe to participate in the Oracle Raspberry Pi Weather Station for schools with topics covering comping and weather - for ages 11 and up. Free!

Further to my last post, please see another more recent article of June 2, 2014 printed in the Science Section of The New York Times asking the question, "Does handwriting matter?" Please note the interesting points raised here as well as the further coverage of psychologist Karin Harmin-James's 2012 Study on children's brain scans and their handwriting...

Although this article was printed on April 12, 2012, it raises some amazingly valid research points in favor of the necessity of Cursive Handwriting Instruction in schools in spite of the increase in key-boarding. I feel the most impressive points are Indiana Univ. Karin Harmin-James's MRI brain-scans of children and Neuroscientist Norman Doidge's book which discusses how the brain changes and develops neuropathways in relation to habit changes and repeated actions. Further, Doidge's research describes how handwriting and keyboarding require different actions and affect the brain in different ways.