Group items tagged

Kidblog.org is designed for elementary and middle school teachers who want to provide each student with their own, unique blog. It is safe and simple, yet powerful enough to allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community. The teacher maintains complete control over student blogs. Teachers can set up their class with no student email.

I have heard good things about this site. I like the fact that the classroom teacher controls the student blogs.

Flickr allows students to take pictures and send them to a private space online. For example: A homework assignment for 4th grade mathematics students requires students to take pictures of different polygons they see in their everyday lives and instantly send them (along with a short text message describing the type of polygon) to a private space online. The next day in class the teacher can open the private space and use it to illustrate polygons and their connection to students' lives, leading to a lesson on how to measure these polygons. Both flickr.com and photobucket.com are sites that would allow this type of sharing. Both have a private mobile address that can be used on any mobile phone; the teacher just needs to set up the mobile account and give the students the address.

"The Graphic Map is designed to assist teachers and students in reading and writing activities. The organizer focuses on charting the high and low points related to a particular item or group of items, such as chapters in a book, amounts of money spent, events during a day, month, year, or life, or scenes in a play. The Graphic Map creates a graphic representation of these high and low points that displays related images and descriptions. The interactive can be used as a prewriting activity, as students map ideas for an autobiography; as a postreading activity, as students map the significance of events in a story; and as a reflection and assessment activity, as students map the high and low points of their inquiry process."

"Below is a run-down of 12 important things every student should be able to do on Google Classroom. These are basic tasks to help students manage their classes and assignments in Classroom. This work is based on guidelines provided by Google Classroom Help. The chart at the end of this post provides links to resources where students can learn more about how to go about doing each of the tasks mentioned in the visual. "

"This lesson uses the four modalities of reading (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) on a math word problem to bridge the gap between reading and math. After a read-aloud from the book Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, students create their own word problems with answers. Students solve each other's problems. As they reread the word problems, fluency and comprehension increase. Finally, students use the skills they've learned creating word problems to complete a crossword puzzle. As students read the math concept words presented in the puzzle and write the correct answers, their reading and writing math vocabulary skills increase."

Thinkfinity resource

"Anyone can use LeveledLibrary without registering for a free account. However, registered users have access to many features that are not availble to the unregistered users. Most notably, registered users can: Everyone Keep an inventories of the books you own and their levels Specify the leveling system in which you want the book levels displayed. Print labels for your leveled books in popular label sizes View book details, such as binding, dewey decimal number, suggested categories, and cover images Keep books in your shopping cart across multiple computers All Educators Search the inventories of colleagues at your school Vote on book levels for books in the system Manage Courses and Track Student Lending Access reports about your classroom library Administrators Purchase and unlock reports: See what books are in your school Analyze how well a teacher's library matches the students in the class Track student reading growth over time See how well your students are picking books on their reading level"

I have often wondered if there was a tool to organize my own library of books and I think th is may be it.

Yodio enables students to create and participate in individual or collaborative digital storybooks using a mobile phone. For example: a class of 1st graders on a trip to the zoo creates a collaborative digital sotrybook with Yodio concerning what they learned about the animals on the trip. Each parent chaperone has a group of four or five students, who take turns calling in to the yodio phone number (on the parent chaperone's phone) and recording their observations about an animal, perhaps even capturing the animal's sound. Students also take a picture of their chosen animal with the cell phone. Back at school, the students log in to Yodio and create a digital sotrybook combining their recorded narrations and photos.

Shape It Up is one of many good educational games and activities on Kinetic City. Shape It Up is an activity that would be good for use in an elementary school Earth Science lesson. The activity presents students with "before" and "after" images of a piece of Earth. Students then have to select the force nature and the span of time it took to create the "after" picture. If students choose incorrectly, Shape It Up will tell the student and they can choose again.

The National Center for Education Statistics hosts a collection of games and tools for students. Dare to Compare is a quiz section of Kids' Zone where students can test their knowledge of civics, economics, history, geography, mathematics, and science. After taking each quiz the students are shown the correct answers. Dare to Compare also allows students to see the national and international average rate of correct answers.

The Purple Teapot is a blog created by retired teacher and technology integrator, Sue Shaffer. Sue provides weekly prompts for students to respond to. This blog is geared toward kids. She loves comments from the students.

I know Sue Shaffer. She is a retired teacher and technology integrator from Central York. Sue has started this blog to encourage students to continue to write. Check it out. Maybe you could have your students respond to some of the prompts that Sue has created. Students can access this from home or school.

What students need to know about copyright. Slide show to present to students.

"This lesson will encourage students to examine the trade-offs involved in our use of energy, a topic they will likely revisit throughout their lives. This lesson is built around an interactive called Power Up! in which students choose how to power a city. They will have to choose between various energy sources, taking into account the trade-offs between cost and the environmental impact of each choice. Discussions before and after the game will examine the various options and what students may want to take into account when making their decisions."

Thinkfinity resource

What is it like to work as a paleontologist? In Activity 1, students listen to or read an interview with paleontologist Paul Sereno, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, to learn about his passion for science and his discovery of SuperCroc in sub-Saharan Africa. In Activity 2, students join a dig with paleontologist Mike Everhart to learn what happens when a scientist in the field suddenly discovers fossil remains. In the Closing Activity, students create a story or conduct an interview and present or record their work for an imaginary radio program.

Thinkfinity resource

DOGONews is a free online newspaper and Web guide for elementary and middle school students, providing short articles about current events with photos, videos, a dictonary for challenging words, and maps for geographical context. Teachers can create a custom online newspaper for their students by choosing articles and Web sites based on content area. Students can post news or discuss articles with other users in a safe, education-focused environment.

Studyblue is a free tool that allows users to create flashcards, quizzes, and lecture notes and share them with others. Teachers can set up a "class" and give students a code, and everyone with the code can create collaborative study materials. There are mobile phone apps that the students can use to take their flashcards and notes anywhere. They can access their files offline. StudyBlue also sends helpful test and study reminders via email and text message.

I learned about this tool from an article in Learning & Leading with Technology, August 2011. An educator shared how her students use it.

PBS Kids Cyberchase website offers forty-five educational games for students in third through fifth grade. The games are intended to help students develop their skills in mathematics, logic, and pattern recognition. Students who have PBS Kids accounts can keep track of the games they've played and rank the games they've played.

This is a really good video that shows how students can use the ipad for collaboration.

Really good video on how the ipad can be used for collaboration. I am going to try some of this with my ipad.

cluemaster, a free subscription service for grades 5-12, offers a collection of hundreds of crossword puzzles, word searches, and othe rword games that can be pirnted from your browser. The 50 quizk crosswords and word searches are suitable for younger students, whereas the more challenging cryptic crosswords are suitable for high school students. Each word puzzle includes a printable answer sheet.

This collection of ready-to-use graphic organizers will help children classify ideas and communicate more effectively. All of our printable graphic organizers are designed to facilitate understanding of key concepts by allowing students to visually identify key points and ideas. By using graphic organizers across all subject areas, you will be empowering your students to master subject-matter faster and more efficiently. We have graphic organizers for reading, science, writing, math, and for general use. You'll also find blank printable templates like graph paper, dot arrays, and other useful tools.

This provided by BBC to improve students touch typing skills through a series of lessons covering four different levels. The difficulty moves up gradually from level one where students are introduced to a lesson on the right placement of their hands on the keyboard to level four where they will learn elaborate keyboarding tips.