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Prezi is a way of working on a presentation online and then when you go to your class you can log on to your account and pull the presentation up that you have been working on, instead of using USB drives, etc.

I think Prezi is a great Web 2.0 Tool. Powerpoints are very beneficial and fun to create, however Prezi takes that to a whole new level. It is a great interactive tool that keeps learners engaged! Prezi is great for anyone to use, whether you are a student or an educator. I think all students should learn and hear about Prezi, so they can make interactive presentations!

This is the best presentation tool out there. Whenever I see a Power point I kind of laugh to myself. Prezi is just so much more pretty. With the types of transitions and effects you can make it just makes the experience so much better. As some of the others were saying it keeps the learners engaged. Power points came often become very repetitive and boring but with Prezi this is rarely the fact. Prezi is catered to many different levels of education, teachers, students, and even business. Anyone can use it, and they should. To my knowledge there aren't any different types of presentation tools out there.

This is a great website for some interactive whiteboard activities related to literacy.

gives examples of how students can tie a map in to a story. Good for history classes, maybe for showing where different battles took place?

article discussing different ways in which twitter can be used in the classroom

Sarah, Thank you for sharing this article. Twitter exploded last year in my district, especially at the high school, as a form of communication for everyone. The middle school, where I am primilary at, is slowly catching on. However, I LOVE Twitter as a professional resource. I think it is like a social bookmarker. I can share the websites, and then go back when I have time to explore them more. I agree this can be used in my library to be an effective communication tool for both students and staff. I believe this resource can be used for both students and staff, but they have different purposes. As a professional, using hashtags can be very benefical to find information. It can also be a great way to network, using the Twitter Chats that go on all around the United States and the world. Students can use this to communicate. For example, the students wanted to have a blue out in honor of a student who has cancer at the football game last night. They asked the opposing team to join them in wearing blue to honor a young man who is fighting for his life. They did, and they donated an additional $425 because they found that information on Twitter! I am not aware of other resources that do that same thing. I believe Twitter is unique with their limit of 140 characters and the strong hashtag movement they begun all throughout the internet world.

Emma, are you in Clinton? I heard about the "blue out"! I like to use Twitter for mainly professional use, but that varies from anywhere between retweeting professional articles to reminding the study body to buy their yearbooks. I try to throw in some personal stuff every now and again just to show that their teacher is an actual human, too. :)

interesting article about "problem-based learning" and why it is important for kids to struggle when learning

Sarah I think this article is well written, and a lot of parents need to read this, long with teachers. I am not sure when our society switched over to make everyone a winner. Making everyone a winner is not reality, and as a teacher that is so frustrating. I think about the scientiests who have made dramatic breakthroughs in their careers, and I would love to know how many times they failed? I am sure it was more times than they have found success, but that makes the success that much better! I do agree that this article is going to be benefical for future classrooms. I take it into this: Students might not find the "right book" on the very first try, and that is ok. If they can't read it because it is too challaning, that is ok. They can try again. I think this is an article that both teachers and students need to read because teachers need to let students fail more and students need to know that it is OK to fail! Life is full of failures...but the failure does not define you, how you handle the failure does! As far as the last question, am I aware of any other resources similar, this question does not really apply. The article focuses on the concept of failure and challanging projects and that is ok so that students know how to respond the next time.

great point about "When did everyone become winners?" Students need to struggle sometimes in order to fully understand the assignment, the concept, etc. It drives me crazy when a kid doesn't get something so they just want me to spoonfeed it to them.

good ideas for high-interest, engaging lesson activities

These strategies are great suggestions. I especially like the idea of four corners. I feel like I could use it when I have students do current technology articles. I also like tea party, that would be a great way to introduce a careers research assignment, giving each student a basic definition of a career in the field and having the "tea party" before they choose their topic. I feel that this is geared towards teachers looking to improve their classroom and shift more toward a learner-centered room. As the blog states, it is also a great resource for teachers who have especially active students.

I was pleasantly surprised by this article! When I first clicked on it I expected it to be elementary based like so many engagement articles are. But then I realized it was for secondary so good for me! The main thing I pulled out of this article was the idea for crowd sourcing. It seems like a simple concept but I had never thought of it before. I think this is a great resource for teachers and I plan on using the crowd sourcing technique on Tuesday!

I will share this information with teachers at my building since it deals with integrating scratch (coding) across every subject. Specifically in my language arts and literature classes, this article provides a link to an interview with a English teacher who uses Scratch in his classroom. I want to do coding with my students and would like to try having my students do storytelling projects using Scratch.

The image with this selection immediately caught my attention and I would hope that it would do the same with my teachers. I would use this resources with teachers to help them see how scratch coding can relate to all content areas. I will also be using this article to check out the additional resources posted with each content group.

This blog entry has great suggestions for ways to have students do STEM in language arts. I plan to use some of these activities as options for my 6th graders independent reading projects. My favorite STEM idea provided was designing a tiny house for any character or author.

I plan to discuss with my 6th grade language arts students how social media has changed our language. I can use this as part of the digital literacy lessons that I plan to do this year and am currently working on creating.

Hi Trina, This article really peaked my interest as I've seen similar behaviors with my students. I think it is especially prevalent with secondary students as they are probably the most invested in social media platforms. I think that this could transition into a great digital literacy lesson talking about the difference between "internet speak" and proper grammar. I would love to see what you come up with based on this topic!

I found this article extremely relevant and something to definitely be shared with students and teachers. It could definitely cause issues in the classroom, but language is always changing so the classroom language will evolve with it. Something to keep in mind with my future classroom!