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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Tracy Watanabe

Tracy Watanabe

Teach the Hour of Code | Code.org - 0 views

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    "The Hour of Code is an opportunity for every student to try computer science for one hour. During Computer Science Education Week (Dec. 9-15), we're making history and recruiting 10 million to join in and do the Hour of Code. Sign up"
Tracy Watanabe

blogggin-7th.jpg (487×630) - 0 views

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    A framework for blogging in the classroom (7th grade)  Has what teachers should be doing, what students should be doing, ideas for student portfolios, examples of learning artifacts (categories); and ideas for reflections
Tracy Watanabe

10 Internet Safety Tips for Students | Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom - 0 views

  • Here are some key messages around internet safety that I believe all students should be aware of. Most of these are tips I share with my students with some ideas from Susan McLean. Always ask an adult if you’re unsure of anything when you are online. Don’t sign up for sites that are 13+ if you are not old enough (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram etc). Remember YAPPY (the personal information you should not share online) – Your full name, address, phone number, passwords, your plans.  Don’t add people as online friends unless you know them in real life or have parent permission. Never arrange to meet an online friend without talking to a parent. Remember that you cannot believe everything you read on the internet and you can’t trust everything online friends tell you. Choose sensible names for usernames, email addresses etc.  Talk to your parents about what you’re doing online and let them know when you’re going on the internet. Know what cyber bullying is and tell someone if you think it’s happening to you. Cyber bullying is when someone picks on you, annoys, embarrasses, or threatens you over and over again using technology, such as the internet or a phone. Protect your digital footprint: don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t want all your friends, family, teachers and future employers to see. Treat others online the way you’d like to be treated.
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    Great tips!
Tracy Watanabe

AJUSDccjh - PBL and Common Core - 1 views

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    This is the PD wiki that I place our links on. =)
Tracy Watanabe

The Digital Curriculum Part 2… Nine Amazing Free Digital Curriculum Resources... - 0 views

  • First… lets take a look at the free  (or almost free) resources provided below
  • 1. Khan Academy As the site states… watch, practice… learn almost anything. There are over 3,100 videos in multiple STEM areas
  • You also may wish to look for videos or activities using the Common Core at any level of math by exploring Khan’s Common Core Page.
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  • 2. MIT Blossoms BLOSSOMS video lessons are enriching students’ learning experiences in high school classrooms for students across the globe. This amazing video library contains over 50 math and science lessons, all freely available to teachers as streaming video and Internet downloads and as DVDs and videotapes
  • The lessons intersperse video instruction with planned exercises that engage students in problem solving and critical thinking, helping students build the kind of gut knowledge that comes from hands-on experience. By guiding students through activities from beginning to end, BLOSSOMS lessons give students a sense of accomplishment and excitement. You can even check these lessons out by standards.
  • 3. Curriki  This is the community of K12 open resources. Currently Curriki has 6.5 million users and contains over 40,000 K12 free learning resources
  • 4. NROCK The National Repository of Online Courses (NROC) is a growing library of high-quality online course content for students and faculty in higher education, high school and Advanced Placement
  • 5. HippoCampus This amazing resource claims to be teaching with the power of media. HippoCampus is a project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE)
  • 6. WikiBooks Welcome to a collection of open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit. The Wikibooks collection currently contains 2,443 books with 40,980 pages.
  • 7. CK12 Interactive Book I bring this amazing resource up because it is a a relatively new initiative. The community at CK12 Flexbooks and Wolfram Alpha have combined efforts to bring you this awesome Interactive Algebra Book. 
  • 8. Flexbooks I did include this in the last post but wanted to make sure it was added to the list. So… what is a FlexBook?  They may be best described as customizable, standards-aligned, free digital textbooks for K-12 education. FlexBooks are customizable textbooks that teachers can use online,via  flash drives, CD’s, or as printed books.
  • Wikijunior books are produced by a worldwide community of writers, teachers, students, and young people all working together
  • You may also wish to explore Wikijunior, a project  to produce age-appropriate non-fiction books for children from birth to age 12
  •  Wikibooks is for textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals
  • As a general rule only instructional books are suitable for inclusion
Tracy Watanabe

10 Steps to Managing Cooperative, Project-Based Learning Groups | 1 to 1 Schools - 0 views

  • Even with these tools, scaf­fold­ing is nec­es­sary.
  • 1. Con­tent Comes First Be clear about how stu­dent projects will be eval­u­ated
  • 2: Choose and Defend A Par­tic­u­lar Pre­sen­ta­tion For­mat Once stu­dents know what they want to com­mu­ni­cate, they can begin dis­cussing the clear­est means for com­mu­ni­cat­ing their ideas.
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  • 3. Stu­dents “Divide and Con­quer” the Work­load
  • Divi­sion of labor should be explicit
  • Crit­i­cal ques­tions are: What needs to be writ­ten? Can that be divided into chunks? What needs to be pur­chased? Who wants to go where? When? What needs to be researched/read? Can that be divided? Can the project be divided into sec­tions so that each stu­dent is respon­si­ble for one of those sec­tions? Posters can be divided into sec­tions — Who will be respon­si­ble for which sec­tions? Pre­sen­ta­tions are divided into slides — Who will be respon­si­ble for which slides? iMovie sec­tions can be pro­duced on sep­a­rate com­put­ers and assem­bled in the end — Who will be respon­si­ble for which sec­tion? Prezis work like Pre­sen­ta­tions - Who will be respon­si­ble for each part?
  • 4. Stu­dents Plan a Time­line Time man­age­ment is one of those crit­i­cal skills that is miss­ing from the writ­ten cur­ricu­lum. The key is back­ward planning.
  • 5. Group mem­bers work as Indi­vid­u­als After stu­dents have decided on con­tent, defended a for­mat for pre­sen­ta­tion, and “divided-to-conquer” the work, they can be mean­ing­fully engaged in their own mini-projects. Each work ses­sions should have a work goal. M
  • 6. Indi­vid­u­als Com­ment on Part­ners’ Pieces Dur­ing the revi­sion and assem­bly stages, some trouble-shooting may be necessary.
  • 7. Groups Reflect on Their Work Finally, the group needs to come together and com­ment on the “fit” of all the parts.
  • 8. Allow Groups to see other Groups’ Work Some stu­dents are risk-averse. They want to work on project for­mats they know. But when they see oth­ers’ work, they have a frame­work they can use when con­sid­er­ing for­mats for other projects.
  • 9. Use Projects to Inform Report Card Com­ments Those who chose to make Prezis don’t know this, but I jot­ted down a quick report card com­ment about self-motivated learn­ing.
  • 10. Cel­e­brate! Stu­dents should cel­e­brate work well done.
Tracy Watanabe

Experts & NewBIEs | Bloggers on Project Based Learning: How can I design an interdiscip... - 2 views

  • One of the best ways to share the responsibility for Common Core is for teachers to design interdisciplinary Project Based Learning units. In addition to serving as an authentic purpose for the math and ELA skills in the Common Core, PBL, no matter what content area is the focus, promotes the acquisition of critical thinking skills needed by students
  • No matter what subject area you teach, determine how you can integrate both math and writing into your project.
    • Tracy Watanabe
       
      I love this idea for getting collaboration amongst colleagues.
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    @Lydia -- Love it! How can I help?
Tracy Watanabe

Adobe Youth Voices Essentials - Curriculum - 0 views

  • Print media gives youth simple and tangible means to communicate ideas, grab our attention, and ignite our emotions.
  • A video camera provides creative opportunities for youth to collaborate, express their views and opinions, and foster clarity of vision.
  • The practice of taking a picture is familiar to most young people, but here we explore the potential for expression, communication, and visual thinking.
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  • Animation provides a hands-on approach for youth to creatively share stories by exploring their imagination and drawing from their own unique perspective. 
  • Sample curricula have also been created to illustrate the Adobe Youth Voices Essentials philosophy in practice. Provided in print, video, photography, and animation, the work is grounded in real-world examples that embody the vision of Adobe Youth Voices—“create with purpose.”
Tracy Watanabe

Keeping Students Engaged in a 1:1 Project-Based Classroom [guest post] | 1 to 1 Schools - 0 views

  • The fol­low­ing are sug­ges­tions for keep­ing stu­dents engaged in a project and account­able for their time with computers:
  • ask What are you try­ing to learn? or What are you try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate? or What are you work­ing on as a writer? Those ques­tions get answers like I want to know more about the horses that Civil War gen­er­als rode or I want to con­vince peo­ple that Justin Bieber is the best singer ever or I’m try­ing to describe the character’s actions. When you ask about learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, you are sig­nal­ing that the con­tent is more impor­tant than the tech­nol­ogy.
  • Stu­dents set time-bound goals. Once stu­dents have a plan, they break the project into smaller tasks that can be fin­ished in 10– to 15-minute chunks of time. Have stu­dents write the spe­cific tasks on Post-it notes. Post-its are set beside the com­puter. On their Post-its, stu­dents fin­ish the sen­tence, “In the next [x-amount of] min­utes, I plan to…”
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  • Tasks should be spe­cific. I’m gonna work on my project is not spe­cific enough. At the end of class, Post-its become “exit slips”.
  • Lap­top screens are “fisted” or “put at half mast”. 
  • Fin­gers indi­cate the amount of time stu­dents need to com­plete a shorter task.
  • Cir­cu­late the room, con­fer­enc­ing with students.
  • Rather than ban­ning chat, teach stu­dents how to use it for collaboration.
  • Don’t be afraid to have tough con­ver­sa­tions with indi­vid­ual students.
  • Many of the sug­ges­tions above apply to project-based learn­ing envi­ron­ments both with and with­out com­put­ers. The trick in a 1:1 envi­ron­ment is to main­tain focus on learn­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Then let tech­nol­ogy nat­u­rally enhance those outcomes.
Tracy Watanabe

#50 Educational Tech Tools List | Teach Gen Now - 0 views

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    Fabulous tutorials and resources!
Tracy Watanabe

The Innovative Educator: The Ten No Nos of Teaching with a Projector or Interactive Whi... - 0 views

  • Here are ten no nos to avoid as you teach with technology.No no: Don't have your back to your participants
  • No no: Do not make a shadow on the whiteboard or screen with your hand or body.
  • No no: Don't project a small and/or crooked image
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  • No no: Don't leave your audience in the dark.
  • No no: Don't point with your finger.
  • No no: Don't waste instructional time fumbling with projector set up
  • No no: Don't assume your audience can see what you can see
  • No no: Don't be a sage on the stage
  • No no: Don't use your projector as a blackboard or replacement
  • No no: Don't waste money on an interactive whiteboard without some smart reasons
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    Great tips!
Tracy Watanabe

Em's Canvas: Pretty Purple - 2 views

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    Learn how to get images with Creative Commons License on FlickrCC so no copyrights are broken from a 5 year old!
Tracy Watanabe

Digital Dossier | Mrs. Bliss' Dragon's Den - 4 views

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    Awesome post by Karen Bliss' 5th grade students at PTES on Digital Footprints. This is so well written that I encourage teachers and students to read.
Tracy Watanabe

The One Facebook Feature You Must Activate Right Now - 0 views

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    This is good info for anyone who has Facebook. Do your students know how to set their Facebook account privacy settings? Do you know how? Read this for a how-to.
Tracy Watanabe

#44 Google Custom Search Engine | Teach Gen Now - 0 views

  • How to set up your Google Custom Search
  • Uses for CSE in the Curriculum:
Tracy Watanabe

Digiteen Project: Global Digital Citizenship Collaboration and Education - Home - 0 views

  • The Digiteen™ Project is a global hands-on project for middle and early high school students, (typically Grade 6-9, 11-15 year old)
  • This project studies digital citizenship with students researching current topics, writing a collaborative report on a wiki, and performing and documenting offline action educational projects to promote effective digital citizenship at their local schools. The purpose of the project is to educate on and promote effective Digital Citizenship and responsible online choices as well as immersing students into an educational community for learning and collaborating.
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    I'm not sure if there are any fees, but I am sure that this is a great PBL.
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